Terrorism and insurgency in J&K had subsided when India demolished East Pakistan -- for the simple reason that Pakistan understands power. We need to follow Chanakya's dictum of Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed for strategising against Pakistan, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd). The ground truth is that unless we are prepared to acknowledge our shortcomings, including massive intelligence failures, punish those responsible and take corrective actions, we will continue in the same vein, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
M R Venkatesh, chartered accountant turned political commentator tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com that Modi's war is not against the opposition parties or the Congress but against the bureaucracy and the establishment.
Dr Viswapati Trivedi, secretary, Union Ministry of Mines, has been abruptly shunted out without prior intimation.
The Cabinet Secretariat has prepared a status note for the new, incoming government giving five major thrust areas out of the various issues national and international importance that await attention.major thrust areas from issues relating to national and international importance.
What will an NDA government do with the UPA's secretaries?
It is clear Modi wants to establish a direct hotline with the bureaucracy, bypassing the ministers, just like in Gujarat where the bureaucracy ran the show and the babus were given a free hand to take decisions.
The point is that whenever things go wrong, our systems are skilfully structured to instantly protect our bureaucrats.
Madhya Pradesh and Uttaranchal earned the distinction of being the most accessible providing 87 and 76 per cent of the required information, respectively.
"Who will be his men?" a distinguished official close to the prime minister asked. Frankly, nobody has an idea. Hardly seven weeks are left for a regime change, but the idea of Narendra Modi on Raisina Hill looks abnormal, if not unreal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt captures the uncertain mood in the capital's bureaucracy ahead of the largest democratic transfer of power in the world.
'The economy needed 3 or 4 major fixes. The major one was, of course, the direct tax structure, but we ended up complicating the existing convoluted tax structure,' says M R Venkatesh, chartered accountant and lawyer.
'It was like a doctor giving some simple pain killers to a patient in dire requirement of chemotherapy.' 'There was no sense of urgency or desperation in this particular Budget.'
'Harassment' is the objective, not detention.
'When the government wants to sell these assets, even if one set of assets gets caught in any quagmire, the whole process will fail.' 'The entire world is watching us.'
'The government is run for the benefit of politicians, bureaucrats, judiciary and the professional class. The rest be damned,' says former Cabinet secretary T S R Subramaniam.
The PM is keen to fill 40 per cent of joint secretary level openings with outsiders.
Human memory about policy issues is short. That alone can explain why many are deliriously happy with his latest slogans and ignore seven years of poor 'doing business' climate, taxtortion, extortionate oil prices, and high dependence on babus and the big State that has kept the enterprise system stifled, observes Debashis Basu.
Whether it took the corona crisis to bring about the transformation, or otherwise, the change ought to be welcome, notes Virendra Kapoor.
'Part A of the Budget was like it was written by somebody from the 21st century and Part B was written by somebody from the 19th century.'
'When you start distributing wealth, you end up distributing poverty.'
'COVID-19 is just an excuse to pass anti-labour laws.'
The Narendra Modi government on Monday sprang a surprise when it appointed senior IAS officer Rajiv Mehrishi as Union home secretary in place of incumbent L C Goyal, who sought voluntary retirement after taking over the charge seven months ago.
'The standing committee on defence was flagging what the services had said.' 'As a soldier, General Khanduri might have felt that it was his duty to point this out in the greater good of India,' points out Aditi Phadnis.
'This pandemic has given him a new platform to perform,' says a member of the government. 'He should feel lucky that he has got an opportunity now to demonstrate to the world his original talent.' 'He needs a visionary script to perform.' Sheela Bhatt reports on the politics of the pandemic.
This finance minister has come of age. That's not condescension. It is a praise, says Omkar Goswami.
Close friend Tarun Vijay pays tribute to the four-time Goa chief minister and former defence minister who passed into the ages on Sunday.
'Today we see the worrisome phenomenon where honest officers who run afoul of the government being chased, hunted down and dirt being dug up on them.'
Modi sarkar sets the ball rolling on appointment, next cabinet secretary is expected to be in office in September.
'The Naxalite strategy is to periodically attack police forces to provoke a reaction.' 'Once the security forces over-react and cause suffering to innocents by high-handed actions, the people will be alienated and support the revolution.' 'This appears to be the Naxalites' strategy and hence, their recent brutal killings of policemen,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The civil services seem to have gone sour under the NDA government. Ministers exercise executive power in a partisan manner. Consequently, a regime of favouritism holds sway over the corridors of power, feels Ram Ugrah.
Often when I meet a new Indian friend, who is not aware of my background, he exclaims: "So many years in India! but why, why? I can't understand! My dream is to go to the States or Europe and you are living in 'this' country!" Claude Arpi, who was born a Frenchman, looks back on his 40 years in India.
Recent investigations into the telecom spectrum and coal scams have made bureaucrats very wary of taking decisions.
'I have seen in action six prime ministers and ten chief ministers, considered stalwarts in their days, and it is the first time, in all my experience, that a prime minister has gone into such great detail, laying down even the standards of cleanliness that should be maintained in all offices,' says B S Raghavan, former chief secretary, West Bengal.
'There were tears in my eyes when I parted with my medals. I thought was it for this moment did I become a soldier?' In 2008, Captain H Balakrishnan (retd) of the Indian Navy returned all his medals to the President of India to protest the government's failure to implement the One Rank One Pension scheme.
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