The killing of 24 x 7 water

April 22, 2007 on 3:12 pm | In Newspapers, Times of India | 1 Comment

It came as a shock to me that India’s cities have more water than most cities in the world. Delhi has 300 litres per person per day of treated water compared to Paris with 150 or London with 171. Then why do people in Paris and London get water 24 hours a day while Delhi’s residents get it only for four? Gauhati sits on the Brahmaputra River but people get water for only two hours. The poor in our cities have to depend on tankers. When the tanker is late there is a scramble and even a riot. Recently, a tanker driver fearing for his life took off at a high speed, and a child died in the chaos. Continue reading…

Why is India shining?

April 20, 2007 on 2:22 pm | In Newspapers, Wall Street Journal | 1 Comment

It has been called the greatest show on earth, and not without reason, as the world’s largest electorate of 670 million voters goes to the polls. Although Indians have been voting uninterruptedly for more than 50 years, elections are still festive affairs. They may be cynical about their politicians, but they remain addicted to democracy. Between April 20 and May 10 sixty percent of the India’s electorate is expected to vote in 700,000 polling booths via 1.1 million voting machines, supervised by 5.5 million state officials (many of them school teachers). To avoid the Florida fiasco, the Election Commission says that Indian made “high tech voting machines have zero tolerance for failure”. Continue reading…

Bureaucracy, heal thyself

April 8, 2007 on 3:51 pm | In Newspapers, Times of India | No Comments

I come from a family of government servants. So it was not a surprise when an old friend of our family, a senior IAS official, dropped in the other day.   He was almost in tears because he said his college going son was ashamed of him. Father and son had been discussing potential careers the night before, and when the possibility of the IAS came up, the son shot back, ‘Dad, only corrupt, inefficient, and negative people join the IAS.’ Continue reading…

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