Month: March 2011

India has a federal structure of government, but that is increasingly getting centralised. Delhi has been deciding what is good for everyone, and creating policies for the states to implement. Is that the best model? What about the third-tier of government – at the corporation / panchayat level? Is that getting marginalised?

For the most part, Indian citizens’ involvement in government seems to begin and end with the ballot box. In urban areas, even that is not happening – as the pathetic voting percentages have shown. Other than the occasional candlelight vigil, there is little involvement that Middle India has in governance. So, is the result any surprise?

Given this, what should the new engagement model be? Can groups of citizens get more involved in local government? Can experts provide inputs to the various Bills being passed in Parliament – or is that best left to our elected representatives? What should the new model for government-citizen partnership be?

Contest Overview.

Given India’s deep and wide poverty, anti-poverty programmes have been the hallmark of most governments in the past 60 years. That they have clearly not worked is evident in the poverty numbers. Be it in urban India or in rural India, even as a small part of India shines, a large fraction of the population still has a hand-to-mouth existence.

The UPA government has focused on creating various Rights – Right to Employment (through NREGA), Right to Education and the soon-to-come Right to Food. All of these involve handouts and entitlements of some sort. The result is that the social sector spend in India has ballooned to $100B of the trillion-dollar economy. With efficiency of spend being estimated at no more than 25 percent, there is clearly significant wastage and leakage.

So, what is the alternative to entitlements? Or, is there?

Contest Overview.

In India, we have a paradoxical situation of maximum government, minimal governance. While it is not possible to simply say that we will have minimal government given the challenges that still lie unaddressed, what should the focus for government in India be?

Linked with this is the question of the objective of the government. As has come to light in the past few months (and what we have suspected all along), many of those in government have chosen to simply do with the British did to the Indian economy – extract and exploit. This is a result of the tremendous control that the government exercises on the economy.

So, what is the way ahead? What should be the objective of government?

Contest Overview.

India needs big ideas if we are to create a rich, developed nation in the next 20-30 years. We are not getting these at the national level. In the political skirmishes between the various parties and their leaders, what has been left behind is an agenda of transformation.

In every sector of India’s economy, there is a need for big, bold and imaginative ideas to fast-track economic growth and development. We cannot have another generation hobbled by illiteracy, malnourishment, poverty and a limited education.

For the most part, we in Middle India have stayed away from the discourse of policy-making, leaving it to the so-called experts, politicians and bureaucrats. It cannot stay that way – for the future that is impacted is ours and that of our children. We need to participate in the process if we are to contribute towards changing the course of India’s future.

Over the course of the next couple weeks or so, we will take 10-odd areas where India needs big ideas, and open it up to contributions by all. Each weekday, I will outline one area and put forth a brief backgrounder on the need for change. You can then put forth your ideas on what needs to be done.

The 10 best ideas overall will receive a free copy of Atanu Dey’s forthcoming book, “Transforming India: The Road to India’s Development.” The judging will be done by me, along with Atanu Dey. To participate, you can simply leave your ideas as a comment on the blog post page or the Facebook page with the question or email me at rajeshjain@netcore.co.in.

I will announce the winners in the last week of April.

All the best! We will start the contest tomorrow with a few questions on the governance model and then move to specific sectors.

PS: These ideas will be valued. So don’t be skeptical. While good ideas are what we want all political parties to make use of, I will ensure that the best ideas are shared within the highest levels of the BJP.

Tomorrow: Question 1

From a post a year ago since cricket is the flavour of the season:

Since this is the season of cricket (IPL), I will use a cricketing analogy to write about an idea that all who are heading businesses or responsible for P&Ls need to think about.

In cricket, one needs a mix of the ones and twos along with the boundaries and sixes to get to a good score. In business too, one needs to get the low-hanging fruit (or call it the bread-and-butter business) going, along with the game-changing ideas. Without the base revenue streams, it becomes hard to keep investing in the big ideas – because one runs the risk of failing (caught out). Keeping the scoreboard ticking is very important. At the same time, one does need to think about how to create a product that can provide a significant competitive advantage and be a differentiator in the marketplace.

Many times, we try and only do one of the two, and that is not good enough if one wants to create a dominant position in the industry segment.

This week’s links:

• Little Bets Are The Ones That Turn Into Billion-Dollar Ideas: by Peter Sims. “Small bets are affordable and achievable ways to learn about problems and opportunities, while big bets are for capitalizing upon them.”
• Whom should a start-up hire? by . “Choose attitude over aptitude.” (via Mahesh)
• Economist special report on the future of the State: “The state almost everywhere is big, inefficient and broke. It needn’t be, says John Micklethwait.”
• India needs new policy makers: by Atanu Dey.”[India] needs policymakers (political leaders and bureaucrats) whose objectives are development oriented. But India has policymakers whose objective is personal enrichment, development be damned.”
• India Today Conclave: Some excellent sessions – the videos are now available.

It has been two years since I have been using the Nokia E71. (My phone previous to that was the first generation of the Apple iPhone.) So, any suggestions on what to buy next? I would actually be keen to try out an Android phone, but am open to smartphone suggestions from across the board.

Just for the record, my previous five phones have been (in reverse chronological order): Nokia E71, Apple iPhone,  Nokia N80, Nokia 6630 and Nokia 6600.

I have written about the need for “Open Data, Open Government” earlier. One example of the impossibility of analysing data is the Economic Survey and Budget data, available here.

The good thing is that the information is available as PDF and in the applicable cases, XLS. But the problem is that the XLS files are all separate. It is hard to see the linkages. So, if I wanted to actually see where the government’s Rs 5 lakh crore in social services is being spent, it is almost impossible.

That is what needs to be changed. The data files that need to be made available should show the linkages between data, rather than showing them basically as tables and columns in XLS, which do not lend themselves to any sort of analysis. How can we dig deep into the government data to understand the specific expenditure heads?

During one of my recent trips to Delhi, I picked up a copy of the Economic Survey 2010-11. While browsing through it, I was struck my one figure: the amount of money we spend on social services. Page 294 of this report has the answer. Between the centre and the states, we spend about 25% of all our money on education, health and other related sectors. That figure is Rs 5,22,492 crore for 2010-11. Which comes to about $115 billion dollars, or about $100 per person per year.

I could not find a detailed break-down other than the fact that education accounts for 45% of this and health for 19%.

Given the quantum of corruption that we know of,  what’s needed are ways that this money can be spent more efficiently. This is an important question because not only is the quantum very large, so is its growth rate. That expenditure has more than doubled in the past 4 years.

India needs a combination of new political leadership and a new set of economic policies. Leadership change will need to come before policy change.

In the past year, instead of thinking big and bold, we have been caught in a whirlwind of successive scams. I cannot even think how those in government would be getting any time to think about the future of the country beyond the next few days since they don’t know where the next scam is going to come from. This is a sad state of affairs.

We should be discussing big ideas for India’s future. We should be discussing how we can transform India in a single generation – from a poor, underdeveloped nation to a rich, developed country. But no one has the time for that. Maybe, that is an opportunity – for some leader to come forth and articulate a vision for India and outline the big ideas that we so need in almost every sector.