The rise and fall of ministries

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When a person who made a name for himself at the World Trade Organisation opts out of Commerce and Industry for the highways portfolio, it says something about the rise and fall of ministries - a churn that has been caused by economic liberalisation. There was talk of the industry portfolio being carved into a separate ministry and Kamal Nath being put in charge with additional responsibility for micro & small enterprises, and heavy industry - a merger of three ministries. Such a change would have been difficult as the Prime Minister would have had fewer offices to distribute. It would also not be weighty despite the additional baggage. At one time, industry was a ministry by itself. With the abolition of licensing, it has greatly lost its mischief value. Kamal Nath used to pretend that the Foreign Trade Policy was to exporters what the Union....

Election contests as an investment in power

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The scramble for Cabinet berths confirms what we knew all along - that election contests are indeed an investment in power. Candidates stake a lot, because the returns can be very high if they win and secure the right ministries. A senior official told me that in the Thirumangalam (Madurai) by-election in January this year, one party spent around Rs 150 crore. One cannot vouch for the veracity of the figure, nor name the party for fear of provoking a vexatious lawsuit, but it just underlines the scale of spending. For the party a win, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, was essential, to counter the impression that its fortunes were in decline. In one of the Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu, a candidate is said to have paid around Rs 15,000 in three installments to its polling agents to ensure people's attendance at election meetings.....

A case for reviving the National Advisory Council

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There is a case for reviving the National Advisory Council (NAC) because it championed legislation and schemes that gave the UPA the edge in the elections. Whether it is Right to Information (RTI), the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) or the Forest Rights Bill - the NAC was an innovation in governance that took up these causes in the face of opposition from the bureaucracy, the fiscal caution of well-meaning economic administrators like P Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and the concerns of urban wildlife conservationists. "The NAC is desirable but not essential," says N C Saxena, a former member. Saxena was rural development secretary and member of the Planning Commission. He is now the Supreme Court's commissioner for Right to Food. That is not a view shared by Shekhar Singh, founder of the National Campaign for Right to Information. "There is need for it, absolutely," he....

P Chidambaram's touch-and-go win

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Last year after he announced the Rs 72,000 crore farm loan waiver as Finance Minister, P Chidambaram had returned to Sivaganga, his constituency, to a hero's welcome. He was disappointed when the government's troubleshooter Pranab Mukherjee told the Congress Party that there would be no early elections. Chidambaram's record as Finance Minister has been commended; as Home Minister he has won applause. But his obvious competence has not charmed voters. He won by a sliver - just 3,354 votes. That is quite a drop from his 163,000 victory margin in 2004. There were 21 rounds of counting in Sivaganga, and Chidambaram was trailing by around 6,000 votes till the 13th round. That was when his AIADMK opponent, Raja Kannappan, a former PWD minister, known for both money and muscle power, burst crackers and distributed sweets, thinking that he had won. This was flashed by news agencies. ....

Will NREGS survive a change in regime?

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This government is on its last legs but a clutch of corporate leaders and economic administrators do not curtains to be drawn on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in case a dispensation of another character takes its place. As soon as polling ended on the 13th of May, former Reserve Bank Governor Bimal Jalan released a study done by economic research house, NCAER, on the rural jobs scheme. The timing was intentional: to avoid charges of influencing voter behaviour. The study was paid for by Public Interest Foundation, which has been set up by Suresh Neotia, Chairman of Ambuja Cement. The study based on an analysis of government data, social audits, scrutiny by the Comptroller & Auditor General, and NCAER's own field surveys lauds the scheme for providing relief to the extremely poor. It admits that there are aspects - like issuance of job cards - where....

Catholic poll advice: communal parties greater evil than criminal candidates

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The month-long communal clashes in Kandhamal in Orissa that left scores of people dead and many thousands displaced, and the attacks on churches in Mangalore last year have politically galvanised the Catholic community like never before. In April, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, a religious body, issued "Ten Commandments," a list of dos and don'ts urging Catholics to get themselves registered, help others get themselves on to the voters list, and blow the whistle on bribery and booth capture. But it did not specify how they should vote, except to suggest that they should shun those who are communal, casteist, criminal or corrupt. But lay leaders of the community have been more specific, though not as specific as the Muslim Mutthida Mahaj, which, ahead of polling in two phases in Karnataka last month, had told the electorate to "vote for the Congress in 23 constituencies and in the....