The Federal Manifesto
1. Federalism must be a first principle of organising administration, resources, responsibilities, powers, etc. between different levels...
ashwin mahesh
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Carpenters can't fix your leaks
If there's a leak in the water line in your building, you'll call the plumber. You won't call the carpenter and hope that by a...
Swaraj in action
If swaraj is the USP of new politics, then how can we implement it meaningfully, so that individual citizens and communities feel...
Development is urban, formal and industrial.
The contours of development include higher levels of urbanisation, a shift towards more industry, and integration with formal aspects of...
With the government, within the government, and as the government.
Over the last two years I have written extensively about the emerging new idea of governance around the world. Historically in...
A new arthashastra
We need a new arthashastra. The conventional view of this treatise is that it a manifesto for kingship. But equally it is a manifesto for...
Keep it local, keep it accountable
Who should run the government schools in the city - the Education department of the state government, or the BBMP? Who should run the...
A bankable truth
Banks make profits by taking depositors' money and lending it to borrowers. For a very long time, public sector banks' deposit rates were...
The President's turn
Looking back at the struggle to improve governance in Bengaluru, it is painful to see how many opportunities we have missed. Each time,...
The whole state is criminalised
What Vyapam tells us is that the whole state is criminalised. It is true in every state. After all, we are fighting the exact same scam...
Why don't ALL schools do what the BEST ones do?
Why don't ALL schools do what the BEST schools do? It seems quite straightforward. At least, why don't all the public schools do what the...
Promote the principle, not the program
There are two or three ideas which, if the government embraces, we can easily have a great run of economy and society. (1) Promote the...
Is decentralisation the way ahead?
"Can everyone lead?" The question can seem like a contradiction in terms, but increasingly around the world, people are asking whether...
The publicly managed city
Even a cursory look at some of the problems in urban governance will reveal that the current structure of public administration and...
The accumulation of opportunity
For a few months in 2000, I used to live in Hampton, Virginia - original home of the great space missions of NASA. But apart from this,...
Seven 4-letter words you can be proud of
About two years ago, I said to a few young people that 'if you do the following seven things EVERY WEEK without fail for the next FULL...
School's out, life's in.
Of all the things I treasure about my education, I value most what Dr.Anjeneya Swamy taught me in one course at B-school. He is a small...
The promise of a different life
Thirty three years ago, in the spring of 1970, my mother and father took their infant son to the Christian Medical College Hospital in...