Home Page of Dr. Saumitra Mohan

Protecting the Steel Frame *Saumitra Mohan In a recent survey by 1274 experts working across 12 North and South Asian nations, the Indian bureaucracy has been dubbed as the worst and the least efficient in the whole continent, behind Vietnam, China and Indonesia. While the findings are not very shocking and surprising, one has every reason to worry about. After all, the future development does depend on the strength and efficiency of this institution. There is, therefore, an urgent need to grope deeper into the reasons to fix the problem rather than just keep cursing the once famed Steel Frame of India. Among the various reasons responsible for the present sorry state of affairs of Indian bureaucracy, one principal reason relates to the constant interference with its functioning as well as the power of the political class to transfer or shunt the civil servants to inconvenient or insignificant posts. The transfers are often made for the most absurd of the reasons or sometimes for the a...

Employment Guarantee, Not Employment Subsidy Approach Suits Indian Conditions *Saumitra Mohan A liberal welfare state tries to ensure equitable distribution of the development pie by resorting to myriad ways of redistributive allocation of values among its citizens. One of such measures include employment guarantee schemes for the toiling masses to ensure them work for minimum number of days on pre-decided subsistence wages. It is with this objective that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) was launched in all the districts of this country. This follows on the back of various employment generation and food for work programmes including Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), Community Development Programme (CDP) and Swarnajayanti Jawahar Rojgar Yozna (SJRY). NREGS is actually predicated on the experiences and knowledge gained during implementation of all these previous schemes. Since then, many ...

Indo-Bangladesh Relations: Moving Forward *Saumitra Mohan Indo-Bangladesh bilateral relations have been through many ups and downs in recent times even though one expected the same to be ensconced in better understanding and appreciation of each other’s problems and expectation. The expectations were predicated on the positive and proactive role played by India in Bangladesh’s liberation. Though, it also helped India by reducing the need to fight Pakistan on two fronts because of the latter’s ability to mount a pincer attack on India from two sides. This, however, turned out to be pious wishes merely because of the ensuing political games in Bangladesh. Whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that the present state of Indo-Bangladesh relations actually belies the expectations of the initial euphoria immediately in the aftermath of Bangladesh’s liberation. Now, with a supposedly pro-India liberal government in the saddle, expectations of an improvement in the bi...