The Farce of Nursery Admission Interviews :: The irreverent state of affairs at DPS Greater Noida

"Aapko do bacchon ki fees se dikkat to nahin hogi" (You won't be pained by the fee burden of two students), this was the parting question by the Principal of DPS Greater Noida, Smt. Renu Chaturvedi, while we entered her plush office with our daughter Nikunjeshwary and her application for admission. 

The Principal's first remark as she picked up the form of the potential student was "What a looong name?", as if we had committed some folly in naming our daughter which did not fit well into her framework of comprehension or ordained guidelines of a modern progressive education. 

She seemed disinterested into going through the verbose submissions which we were made to undergo in the form of Parent's Response Sheet, a bulk of the information sought in it was a sheer repetition from yet another form handed to us with the school prospectus. 

Either our answers were not upto the mark befitting the standards of the school or the principal was reciprocating to our objection of not falling in line with a compulsory donation pledge of Cheshta Programme run under the aegis of DPS Greater Noida for the underprivileged which was handed over to us along with this "Parent's Response Sheet". As a matter of choice, I took the option of devoting 2 hours a week for the underprivileged adhering to the coveted motto of the school "Service before Self". But the principal, either instructed from the top echelons or on her own was looking for a giving pledge of Rs 5000 pm which was interestingly made compulsory at the very opportune moment in the cauldron where the entire set of parents aspiring for getting a "DPS" tag for their wards were made to assemble.

Whether this undue and unwarranted influence to seek additional monetary contribution shall fall into the gamut of corruption or not within the existing legal frameworks would be a matter of scrutiny, but certainly on the moral & ethical grounds, this was a stark case of aberration being perpetuated by DPS Greater Noida on the behest of its award winning principal. 

How can educators of such dubious distinctions instill the values of integrity in the young minds which we were going to entrust with so much fanfare and pride? I was just mulling over and over. 

However, this open & blatant coercion took me off of my composure as there is no end to compromise if you give way to the very first instance.        

The news certainly went to the principal who made it a point to retaliate in her very characteristic and suave demeanor. Her constant focus was on the column pertaining to the Annual Income and not on the educational & professional backgrounds which probably belonged to a decent pedigree of me being an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and my wife being from the coveted All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).  

She was more concerned about the place of work rather than the nature of work of the parents. Probably, she was briefed to screen only for the "holy cows" who are not meant to retaliate at any point of time despite all kinds of exigencies.

The principal's contempt for our being on our own as entrepreneurs was starkly visible from her inherent disinterest & apathy as expressed by her questions "Oh, you have your clinic at Jagat Farms", to my wife and to me "where do you go to work" as I had not flashed out some fancy corporate address in my submission, deliberately. 

When principals are reduced to evaluate the other IQ (Income Quotient) than the one which they are actually meant to evaluate, the Intellectual Quotient, such aberrations are but natural.     

We were amply cautioned by the saner practical minds belonging to the play school where our daughter went that you ought to be extremely submissive right from the school gate to the principal's office as questioning the School Authority on any pretext is taken to be a disqualification at once. The School warrants moneybags who are initiated into the pedigree of "obedience without questioning". 

I relented.It was probably one of the very few occasions I convinced myself to hold back my horses and fall in line with the established "conventions" & "protocols" without pondering over their inherent rationale.

I could not be convinced by any point of reasoning as to why should a kid of around 3 years in age subjected to an endurance test in isolation in the vigil of almost 3 strangers, howsoever affectionate they are? Even the grown ups facing the Service Selection Boards get nervous when they meet the probing eyes of a panel. Isn't this therefore a violent exercise which has the greater risk of uprooting a toddler from the deepest recesses of his/her being? Why shouldn't the parents/guardians be allowed to accompany just to give the child the warmth and confidence to be in his/her natural state of being? 

When even the Kitchens at most of the coveted restaurants have opened up for want of probity & transparency; when the questioning of a minor is not allowed by police officials without a legal counsel nearby and when education at higher levels settling down for open book evaluations and adhering to individual selves, why such regressive conventions still persist in evaluating the qualification of a toddler to a nursery?   

When group discussions & activities have become the usual norm for assessing the personality & potential of candidates even at ripe platforms of employment, why not the same pedagogy of evaluation be instituted at a forum where the only possession of the candidates is their emotional quotient. 

The kids can all be put into an activity room to play and express themselves in each others company which can be observed from behind a glass wall or on camera. This shall give ample objectivity to the process of evaluating the candidature & fitness of the kids to get enrolled in a formal schooling process.

Why can't silent observers be left out in the school premises to observe the behavioral patterns of the potential students? The sense of observation & inquisitiveness to learn is probably the two distinctive qualification which are pressed upon by thinkers on education across the board.

   
In their bid to run their assembly lines, the 340 odd faculty members of the school (as per the school brochure) couldn't observe this unfurling class being taken by the potential student beside a tree from her Nani. They also couldn't observe the learning demeanor of the kid which required a serene setting to unfurl herself.     

When the tyranny of Board examinations at the advanced stage of class 10th has been supplanted by that of a Continuous & Comprehensive Evaluation, how come an entirely subjective process of interaction subjecting a kid to an institutionalized form of ragging by three grown up strangers at once, stridden with aforesaid aberrational practices be made to continue?

The last and the most intriguing aspect of this escapade which I encountered was the sheer sense of derision accentuated by the learned principal over the daring of the kid under consideration to pick up a chocolate from her table. The kid who rejected to go into the "evaluation room" all alone and who ran away on seeing those three official evaluators in the corridor, dared to pick up the chocolate from the principal's table was rejected for admission by the learned principal. 

She got visibly offended as to how come a kid of a little less than 3 years of age could dare to abrogate her disciplinarian regime while she chose to exibit her unbridled authority by parking her car right on the school entrance gate obstructing the free view and free passage in an otherwise nice manicured lawns where a Buddha was meditating in a natural splendour reverberating the message of "Aapo Deepo Bhav", Be a light onto yourself. I got amply concerned as to what shall become of the kids nurtured under her stewardship? 

 
Interestingly, the principal couldn't find any merit in the kid whatsoever through these subtle but substantial instances and failed to provide a rightful platform for her to express which is probably expected from an institution of the stature of a DPS. She was either mired with her contemptuous framework of evaluating the IQ (Income Quotient) of the parents who were in tune with their daughter in daring, who chose not to budge beyond a point as they were entrusting their most valuable possession into an educational factory which shall be having a profound influence and impact on the IQ, EQ & SQ of their lovelorn for the next 12 years.     

Educational institutions are meant to be nurseries of talent, rather than factories of programmable robots who have no propensity or capacity to dissent. May be the DPS Greater Noida, which boasts to be one of the 11 Core Institutions of the coveted DPS group has got immensely influenced from the vast industrial establishment of LG Electronics adjacent to its premises. It's imposing superstructure don't exude the vibes of a vibrant educational ecosystem. 

It simply smacks of an arrogant, upnose and upstart concentration camp whereby picking up a chocolate from the principal's table by a toddler is considered to be an offense rather than a joyful act in the process of learning. 

  
The 15 acres of priced institutional land which has been entrusted upon the DPS Society has been certainly misused to erect vertical towers to create an industrial capacity to manufacture 4000 odd robots a year.  
 The School Architecture is meant to be harmonious and non-frightening, the reason they are allotted vast swathes of priced lands at discounted prices to create low height structure. 

When the commercial mall of Ansal Plaza has been instructed by the Authorities to install safety nets at just 2nd and 3rd floors, the skyscrapers of DPS Greater Noida pose a serious threat to the security and safety to the children which their tempting parents go all out to admit braving all odds and facing all humiliations. 

We for that matter reject this hazardous factory of education and by way of this write-up like to bring the attention of all concerned authorities to investigate the other potential risks which it poses to the mental as well as physical well being of the students at large.   

Out of my professional compulsion, I shall be keen to confront the Hon'ble Principle sometime on one of the other forums to know her very views on the entire set of aberrational practices which she has allowed to outgrow around her. 

The senior management of the DPS Family need to take cognizance that it just takes a rightful blow for a brand to get disavowed overnight. The Satyam Saga and the Kingfisher debauchery is all out in the open for us to see. 

Let not the illustrious brand of DPS nurtured by the likes of Padma Vibhusham Dr. Syama Chona and others get meddled by the likes of Madam Renu Chaturvedi. 

I might have gone overboard in exposing what all I found aberrational in a temple of learning and risked the admission of my very own ward in the so-called coveted schools of the region. Nonetheless, I am content that I didn't compromise on the foundational ideals and gave the first and the foremost lesson to my daughter that not to settle down compromising one's own values. My daughter shall somehow found a school of her suiting or else her father would erect one for her. But the father-daughter duo won't settle down for the aberrated innuendos extended to them by the established & accepted conventions. 

From Shah Bano to Shayara Bano :: India's evolution in redressing the plight of Muslim Women

CE 1986 

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 was passed by the Rajiv Gandhi Government relenting to pressure posed by Islamic Orthodoxy, to nullify the Supreme Court's judgment entrusting the lady the right to alimony, divorced at the age of 62.  

CE 2016
The Narendra Modi Government on the instructions of the Supreme Court in a Public Interest Litigation titled ‘Muslim women’s quest for equality’, filed by Shayara Bano, takes a much more humane stand and got the Law Commission activated to circulate a Questionnaire to know the views of the larger cross section of stakeholders on the universal issue of gender equality amidst the Muslim community despite all hue and cry from the Muslim orthodoxy.

India seems to have come a long way from the era of Shah Bano to 

that of Shayara Bano. In these 3 decades, the governance of the country which used to be driven from an extreme sense of dynastic entitlement has been entirely transformed to that of being driven entirely by democratic discourse. The aforesaid comparative case in point is a glaring testimony to the same.

Despite all the noises on the eve of major electoral battles ahead, Narendra Modi who is known for his objectivity & integrity of office, has responded in a manner true to his reputation. 

The Muslim Community of India has been persecuted & deceived since the hey days of India's Independence on one count or the other. First it was the ambition of a dying leader, which later became the formula to stay in perpetual power duly exploiting the electoral mathematics. A perennial sense of insecurity was indoctrinated within the psyche of the Muslim Population which was made to ghettoize and inevitably serve the vested interests of their community leaders and the ones beyond.  

Despite the wide spectrum of appeasement compromising the progressive constitutional framework of the country, advancements on legal & policy frontiers extending innumerable benefits & reprieves and preferential apportioning of national resources, the Muslim community has not been able to progress and catch up with the national mainstream on a large number of development indices. 

The plight of the Muslim Women has had been a horrendous tale of persecution duly protected by the regressive & inhumane conventions beset by the power brokers of the Muslim Society who leave no stone unturned to perpetrate their hegemony. The container of conversations around the fairer sex of the Muslim ilk had to be made impregnable or else reforms & disruptions shall ensue. The Muslim leadership doesn't even allow for a safety valve as it knows quite well the intensity of the pascal scale within which shall blast off if given even the smallest outlet. 

After having conducted the surgical strikes challenging the enterprise of terror gaining legitimacy on aberrated religious interpretations, the Narendra Modi Government advanced its tactical move to contain the fury & flare of the world of Islam emanating out of its regressive ethos & conventions. The standing up for redressing the plight of Muslim Women by advancing a larger discourse is certainly one of the most ingenious moves. Any reform in the state of Muslim Women in the World's second most populous Muslim country would have a natural course correction and response from across the world of Islam. Women, they say are the biggest and most effective agents of change.

The graphic tales of savagery as enunciated by the Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad Basee Taha met at the hands of the ISIS fighters and the debauchery of the monsters of Boko Haram, sends shiver down the spine of even the most resolute soul. This might be an extreme representation of the sordid state of Muslim Women but just gives a glimpse of what's lying beneath the veil and within the impregnable container of Muslim Society. 

The Safety Valve of the Muslim Society is probably on the verge of getting released. Thanks to NaMo that he is not keen to apply the reverse pressure to maintain the inhumane status quo which has been tormenting the Muslim Women for ages as if he is reverberating with these prophetic words of another Narendra a century ago, "Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth.

They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal."

India has surely taken a giant leap forward in taking her rightful place in the comity of nations to wage global peace & end all forms of persecution. The standing up for the cause of Muslim Women and liberalizing them from the yoke of savagery is just but an excellent headstart. 

The RSS Boys Slay the Dashanan of India's Destitution

This Vijayadashmi when the entire nation would be commemorating the victory of good over evil in its conventional ceremonial way - burning down the effigies of the triumvirate of Ravana, Meghnad and Kumbhkarna and re-calibrating the arsenals possessed by the society at large to put them to action as and when the need arises to contain the evil - it would be imperative to review the larger trends shaping up our times in the due spirit of dharma. 

Vijayadashmi, which happens to be the foundation day of World's largest voluntary organization, the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh spearheading the dharmic principles imbued with the distinctive Hindu worldview, is also a day of reminiscing the external manifestation of its organizational build up.

The current political disposition controlling the Government of India comprising of the unequivocal adherents of the traditions of Sangh, is slaying the Dashanan of India's Destitution step by step, layer by layer in the most profound and irresistible manner. The rise of the majestic shakti of Mother India is visible on almost every count which is manifesting itself every passing day. 

The day of Dusshera is thereby a day to pay a solemn tribute to the actions and accomplishments of the RSS boys who are working so relentlessly to usher the era of "param vaibhav" on the Indian soil.              

The script of governance unleashed by the team led by Narendra Modi accentuated on the eve of the centenary of the First World War has been able to slay the 10 monstrous heads of the Ravana of India's destitution without much ado.

1. The Monstrous Head of Black Money :: Little did the people realize at large that the RSS boys have been able to contain the monster of ill-gotten money in a very systemic and streamlined manner without taking the bait of fanfare and emotional public outcry. An adequately empowered SIT was constituted to create the requisite atmosphere of punishing the wrongs of the past; a strong legal framework was created to contain the wrong doings in future; and a slew of corrective measures to bring the people sitting on the fence to join the mainstream of compliance with the national narrative. On the international forefront, the mechanism of wide range of treaties & understandings was duly exploited to curb the menace of unaccounted & ill-gotten wealth which is used for all spurious purposes including terrorism. This responsible deck of steps taken by the world's largest & most diverse democracy in the most dispassionate manner attracted global acclaim and paved the way for similar set of actions across.   
2. The Nauseating Head of all pervading Dirt :: They say that Cleanliness is next to Godliness. The outer untidiness do induce the internal inadequacies, which is so very well clustered as Asuri Sampada in the literature. The invoking of a nation wide campaign to Clean India was a masterstroke to put every citizen of this grand nation to contribute to national resurgence. The doctrine of accentuating self-course correction was reinvigorated in the Indian mind by bringing in Mahatma Gandhi into the fray. One of the greatest mass leaders of all times, Bapu had had the distinctive persona known for daring experiments with truth, enrolling millions at once. The multi-faceted and multi-layered campaign having material as well as symbolic aphorisms associated has thereby brought substantial results across the board. Modi's broom has taken over Gandhi's Charkha as the irrefutable tool for social change. The larger implications of the yogic concept of 'shauch' are getting re-impregnated into the Indian soil.  The slaying of the nauseating head of all pervading dirt
3. The Exclusivist Head of Privilege :: For ages privilege has had been denied to the masses at large by several ingenious designs & methodologies of controlling access to the assets of the nation at large. Finance being one of them as it has the capacity to transform by unleashing & unlocking the latent entrepreneurial energies of the people. Getting over with the artificial deck of concerns & lambasting the premonitions of doom, the world's largest financial inclusion programme took off and set out a newer phenomenon of overdrive. The splendid use of technology enabled authentication & outreach platforms probably created some of the finest academic case studies as to what is not possible with a vision of all pervading inclusion, values of dedicating oneself to the service of larger constituents of life sans the selfish personal interests along and the incessant vitality thereto of accomplishing the chosen mark. The Exclusivist head of privilege was thereby decimated to bring the billion plus nation into the mainstream of financial inclusion and thereby to contribute to national resurgence. 
4. The Defeatist Head of Self-Abnegation :: Ever since the Indian people accomplished the right of self-determination from the yoke of imperialist forces, they were subjected to a surreptitious bondage of yet another dimension suiting the interests of a chosen elite who were transferred the reigns of power. This doctrine of self-abnegation which perpetuated right from a delinquent stand on India's territorial integrity by ceding away a major portion of Kashmir on one end of the spectrum to that of alienating a buffer friendly state and allowing the passing on of its controls to that of a enemy competitor. The long list of such tactical misgivings overtly inspired from phoney ideals has been hurting the modern Indian nation state ever since inception. The non-fructuous doctrine of Non-Alignment created further impediments for the rise of India on the global pedestal. All this inaction perpetrated from self-abnegation has now been annulled and a fresh doctrine of multi-lateral global engagement has been accentuated with confidence and requisite assertion, which is being termed as The Modi Doctrine in various quarters. The philosophy of inclusion which works inside the country, can also work outside as well. The amount of pain and effort which goes on in engaging with the 190 odd nations on the Globe is a no mean feat which has been accomplished in record time by the RSS boys. India has certainly created her very own blueprint for future by engaging one and one with all nation states in mutual self-interests ably bypassing the existing denominations & conventions. The defeatist head of self-abnegation has been slained in the most astute and structured fashion. The alienation of the terrorist state of Pakistan from Global support is but one of the most predominant outcome of this. 
5. The Disparaging Head of Governmental Performance :: Inefficiencies & inadequacies had found an interesting epithet in the common Indian parlance. "Sarkari" (of government) became a aphorism for anything or everything which was not upto the expected mark and stridden with extremely low quality. The scope of governance was limited to monolithic myopic minuscule mandates as befallen upon over time. It also got synonymous with irresponsibility, passing on the buck in an infinite loop, bureaucratic deadlocks of indecision & characteristic procrastination, and a perpetual sense of undue and unwarranted entitlement. The RSS boys have made this phenomenon of the bygone past by instilling an unprecedented energy into the system top-down galvanizing the entire machinery into a different order of performance & efficiency. The deadlines for various ambitious national schemes are not only met but beat with substantial time gaps. The quantum of performance is surpassing even the most optimistic of expectations and is being labelled as overdrives. The quality of delivery is disrupting the existing stereotypes and is mesmerizing one and all by the bespoke standards of global excellence. The range of initiatives and interventions is making all observers dumbstruck and filled with awe as the anything and everything which can be thought off under the sun is being attempted at with the same vigor and rigor. The disparaging head of Governmental performance has been severed off completely and has ushered a new era of citizen delight & deeper contentment.
6. The Duplicitous Head of Information Asymmetry :: The corridors of power were traditionally smitten by con-men(women) of variegated allegiances who ran their wild weird wallowed empires riding on access to privileged information. Bereft of the aristocratic or dynastic syndromes of entitlement to power, the RSS boys decimated this entire culture of pelf & privilege creating a level playing ground for one and all to access authentic bonafide information at once for larger public information & education. The intention to communicate with their very evaluators, the citizens of the country on a constant continuous consistent fashion has become a hallmark and insignia of performance sans the tirade of hollow propaganda. Riding on all means facilitated by technological advancements, the RSS boys have lived upto the technological expansion of the term RSS - Real Simple Syndication. Each of their actions and interventions are reported to their boss - the people of India - at once in real time. They have crushed all possible information asymmetries and have established a direct two-way connect with the people at large whose collective power they represent taking a constant feedback from them. The attempt for providing a public evaluation framework on the second anniversary of the government at MyGov is a substantial case in point of this intent which is getting more profound and penetrative every passing day. They have forced the Indian Media to reinvent themselves by ascending to higher octaves of public education than by simply remaining engrossed & engulfed in speculative skullduggery.
7. The Uncertainness Head of Public Policy :: India's public policy spectrum was mired with uncertainties of a wider mix partly infested by the deluge of use cases and complexities presented by this diverse civilization but largely owing to the smart machinations of entrenched interests for whom the government functionaries were but their handmaidens. The RSS boys went to the end of the world to delve deep into the gory details of every minuscule aspect of public policy across sectors and form a deterministic policy directive leaving little space and scope for out of the way interpretations. Also their firm camaraderie and unison of purpose has led to the creation of a synchronous framework of policy across the deck bringing in a stellar state of operations yielding results in record time frames. The official bureaucratic layer has been protected from the abstract dilemma of uncertainness of public policy which used to eat away their talent and opportunity for the nation. The undue and unwarranted layers of decision entangling have also been shed off to empower responsible people to wield their responsibilities in a transparent objective manner as and when called upon to do so. 
8. The Despotic Head of Despondence :: It's an open truth that despots have rendered their people in sheer despondence as it's the only way for perpetual power without performance. The erstwhile power formulations of the country used their legislative & executive powers to create perpetual cobwebs of pauperization so as to ride on the power bandwagon for eons to come. However, the RSS boys disrupted these darker demeanors and used the very tool & techniques for public emancipation & empowerment. The bio-metric based citizen authentication system Aadhar got used to fix the public delivery system infested with middlemen and duplicate beneficiaries. The Rural Employment Guarantee Act got synchronized with other ongoing developmental schemes to create sustainable rural assets catapulting growth & self-reliance. The GST framework got pushed into action to create a unified taxation regime across the nation to fuel inter-state trade. The intent to serve & empower the people of India is getting reflected across the policy spectrum. The earnest striving towards Skill India, Start Up India and Stand Up India is finding enough reverberations and results as the schemes are iteratively being refined suiting the dominant ground realities taking adequate real time feedback into account. The despotic head of despondence has been cut off from the Indian landscape and a new wave of hope and aspiration is guiding every citizen to accomplish his/her fullest potential. An ecosystem of enterprise is slowing & gradually building up whereby everyone is finding relief with the belief that their due would come to them inevitably.
9. The Haughty Head of Alienation from Civilizational Roots :: The transfusion of the aggressors' serum into our nerves for over a millennia rendered the leaders and policy makers of the country ineffective for decades. They got groomed and moulded into a perpetual state of apology, gloom and under-confidence retarding the progress of the national ship. The RSS boys under the stewardship of Prime Minister Modi were of a different blend altogether. The colonial conventions didn't affect or influence them. They had their unique lens of evaluation from the yardsticks of nationalism and spirit of reaching out to the last man. Their deeper and first hand connect with the civilizational realities of India empowered them to tweak and design the policy framework from first principles in consonance with Indian realities. They could deeply anchor the Indian ship with the deepest recesses of her antiquated Civilizational ethos thereby paving the path for a national resurgence in the right earnest, taking every tribe and community along in the well meaning spirit of inclusive nation which India has had been for ages at her worldview recognizes the unity of the human soul with that of the cosmic manifestation.
10. The Dishonest Head of Denial :: The Modern Indian Nation stands on the firm foundations of the self-less sacrifice of a wide range of personalities from various denominations, formulations and affiliations. Their singular allegiance to the nation at large is a qualification good enough for their large scale veneration by the people of India. Nonetheless, due to the unexpected concentration of power by certain families post independence caused a large scale denial of due credit of a significant section of leaders of the freedom struggle which represented the eclectic diversity of the Indian mind. The RSS boys overturned this exclusive monopoly and give way to the entire spectrum of freedom fighters from across the spectrum. They quashed the dishonest head of denial which relegated the integrator of the modern nation state of India Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. They revamped the legendary role of Mahamana Madan Mohan Malviya. They resurrected the romanticism associated with the revolutionaries having a living insignia in Bhagat Singh. They unveiled the official papers concerning India's most romantic hero of freedom struggle Netaji Subhash Bose. Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya and Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee have found their due after a long spell of denial. In a nutshell they have opened up the exclusive confines of the glory and grandeur associated with national service to their worthy stakeholders.                                                

This Vijayadashmi would see the consolidation of a unique modern mode of Governance which has dawned upon the Indian Nation which is inclusive, involving, innovative, industrious and most importantly imbued in the civilizational roots of India. The slaying of the 10 symbolic heads of the leitmotif of evil - Ravana - by the RSS boys is a feat accomplished much early in the fray which shall continue to establish the ideal of a "param vaibhav" Bharat in decades to come. India's tryst with dharma sustains and continues in all its resplendence having global reverberations.

Celebrating the Institution of Sisterhood :: Reinvigorating the Frontiers of Rakshabandhan

Out of all the possible relationships between men and women, the institution of  sisterhood has had an immaculate importance, specially in the societal traditions of India.The institution of sisterhood is in stark contrast to that of the institution of consorthood. While the former emanates the feelings of motherliness & daughterliness converging into the instinct of protecting & safeguarding, the latter harbors amorous innuendos of exploiting & pleasure seeking.

While being in consorthood, has conventionally been an exclusive and non-transferable privilege with a one-on-one coupling; extending the institution of sisterhood was universal. The classic dichotomy of addressing a woman of similar age-group was answered by simply terming her a sister at once. The corollary stood true whereby women could at once strike a sacred relationship with men of similar age.

This clear-cut acknowledgement has had been the foundations of a wonderful social order whereby women found it safe and secure across the spectrum. The institution of sisterhood worked beyond biological families within the social and community fold creating a safety net of unimaginable dimension. 

Strikingly, this sacred institution of sisterhood is breaking. The rate of splintering is accelerating at a fast pace which in turn is abrogating the intact institutions of motherhood and daughterhood too. The increasing spate of sexual crime against women is a stark testimony to this hypothesis.

The institution of sisterhood used to act as a guardian angel to keep the carnal instincts of society under check which ironically the forces of consumerism have to exploit to the fullest to advance their growth statistics.

The institution of sisterhood used to check the objectification of womanhood in popular arts, cinema and consumerist promotions. There used to be a thin line of self-ordained decency whereby the sacred thread of relationships was not touched upon. If at all aberrations were to be depicted for artistic compulsions, the anti-dote narrative was always supplanted in the said context. 

In a world of free market consumerism, the underlying writ is to evaluate all relationships between men and women from a singular yardstick of sexuality.

You don't have to go far to encounter the same. Mainstream Cinema, Tele-Serials and Product Promotions can establish at once this rabid infestation. 

The central narrative being driven almost across the spectrum is to get the woman encountered laid in bed in the shortest possible time. This might be a crude exposition of the subtle nuances which are presented in variegated artistic manifestations, but the overarching mindgame centers around this narrative of consorthood. 

The advertising campaign of Gaana.Com which started with a shy boy and an advancing girl meeting in a metro, catching up in parks & restaurants and ending up on a beach. The next phase of the campaign was to ameliorate it by showcasing a bikini party, setting it as the goal in the minds of the consumers. The simplistic message being indoctrinated is "even if you are a shy lad, if you spot a gal you can end up at a bikini party if you are a gaana.com consumer".

The "Jindagi na milegi Dobara" flick with all its open and wonderful storyline has its inline depiction of one-night frolic ridden escapade of Farhan Akhtar with a Spanish lass, won over by extending a spree of Casanovaic adventurism. Ingrained within the innocuous artistic settings of the flick, this escapade sets it as a legitimate goal of a foreign trip. 

As far as the confines of cinema & advertising promotion is concerned, they are quite well within their right of artistic expression. Nonetheless, these amorous narratives when executed onto the social spaces do lead to inordinate complications for the serenity & semblance of the social order abrogating the entire web of sacred bonds & relationships.  

You tend to raise a social orgasm by washing your hubby's underwear out in the open; you let go a married woman indulge in a hit-and-run sexual encounter amidst the sound of a passing religious procession just because the protagonist has worn some magic perfume; you make your lady actor consume a delicacy in the most erotic of the settings. This goes on and on.      

Amidst such market driven settings, whereby every woman of the similar age-group has to be transposed as a potential consort, how could the institution of sisterhood survive?

These scripted narratives when consumed in an inebriated state lead to differential states of arousal of the body and mind, which raise their clamor for satiation in one way or the other.

The privileged lots do have their social structures intact to let go their arousals and get back into their saner state of mind, but the ones who are condemned to work under distressed conditions far off from their family bonding, retort to abominable crimes which cast havoc on societal sentiments. 

The modern jurisprudence and intellectual scrutiny limits itself to the direct spokes of relationship in the evidence graph of the crime, but let go the entire envelope of influencers which they don't tend to restrain for the very reason as in their logical framework, these influencers are in the ambit of the unalienable human rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

The doctrine of state being the lone arbiter of citizen's conduct is a very recent one, but has led to immaculate complications in conventional settings of civilizations like India whereby social norms & conventions have had been guiding & goading social behavior with finesse. The intricate web of relationships and the underlying checks & balances championed over ages used to create a fantastic balance and restrained the aberrations at once. The just-in-time bond of responsibility forged by the social institution of sisterhood prevented all the nauseating aberrations of human relationships which we are encountering day-in and day-out without restraint.



Rakshabhandhan - the Indian festival commemorating the institution of sisterhood - need to reinvigorate its efficacy all over again. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's seminal endeavor to send all his Women Minister to have a public display of this institution of sisterhood would somewhere help to sensitize the society at large including its key influencers to impose a self-reflective restraint on their artistic expression in the larger interest of societal semblance.

In a civilization of antiquated customs, traditions & conventions which have shaped and cultured our societal fabric so very well, we should not let the modern constitutional frameworks limit the display and adherence to our finer relationship indices. The cultural nurturing & germination of millenniums can't be supplanted by any constitutional skeleton at once. 

Though we do need the enforcement of modern constitutional constructs, we should look back and evaluate the veracity of our time tested traditions like the ones of the institution of sisterhood and make all out effort to resurrect them in all grandeur. 

Hope this Rakshabandhan, sets in this Social Soul Searching on our part. Enjoying a public holiday on the occasion should add to its re-invigoration in its truest form.

An enumerated tribute to my 24 Gurus

We do come across innumerable people in our lives at different stages who leave indelible mark on your conscience and chalk out the future course. The quantum of association is sometimes not so very relevant, but the depth of the impregnation makes all the difference. The age, the relationship, the educational qualification or the conventional success parameters, just don't matter. What matters is your one-on-one connect and your deeper sense of gratitude towards them at the time of remembrance.

In today's past paced times, writing an autobiography is more of a professional endeavor which only celebrities can afford. For ordinary people like me, a blog on the auspicious day of Guru Purnima 2016 would probably serve the purpose. 

This is my tribute to all of them sans the conventional methodologies of flowers, agarbattis and a formal rendition of stotras. I might be having some serious differences & hurt feelings (which I shall not touch upon even figuratively) with some of these majestic personalities but my innate reverence towards them still reverberates. 

1. My Mother

Not just that a mother has to be the first guru in the shastric sense of the term, but in my little mundane un-illustrious life so far, my mother has had been the anchor of my dharmic compass. She has had been the filter around which my existence revolved since the days I gained conscience and a fierce independent voice of rebel or reason (depends on which part of the ideological spectrum you are). Whatever little goodness, which I have is all due to her long sessions of personal mentoring, which make me say that India is the only country to have a 1:1 teacher-pupil ratio. She instilled that deeper faith in the larger Cosmic Self which a Madalsa, a Kunti, a Jeeja Bai instilled in their respective progenies. His biggest asset to tame an animal like me has had been her astounding capability of affectionate reasoning, something which only one other person has been able to come closer to so far. A whole book can be authored around the anecdotes associated and the long trail of letters which I have preserved in my closet. God knows, whether this mesmerizing piece of conversation would ever come out in the open as a reference material on parenting and mentoring from teenage to adolescence to the dawn of youth. 

2. My Father 

I lost him quite early in my life and that too soon after college. An irreparable loss for a young man which just cannot be expressed but can only be experienced. A letter to him paying my heartfelt obeisances which I wrote to him in the last days of my college could never reach him. If an element of self-esteem, self-respect, self-drive is in me, it's all because of him. A man who sacrificed his bolstering career as a Chartered Accountant for the sake of his extended family, pinned me the value of sacrificing for family members instead of flying to greener pastures and simply remitting Benjamin Franklins back home as the only contribution. His capacity to work hard mesmerized not just his seniors, peers but his own children. He instilled that ingenious stamina of long hours which became my life long asset. His approach of inquiry, problem solving & courage for experimentation, even in the domains which had never been his area of education or experience, emboldened me to tread the same path. When the National Institute for Transforming India envisages for a national movement on innovation, I just fall in awe and reverence to my father who innovated and innovated for 20 odd years sustaining a microprise against all ecosystem hurdles and challenges. Fighting the system and accentuating course correction was something which got deeply ingrained into me from this man of unprecedented energy & integrity.  

3. My Nani

The highest levels of education are already ingrained into our societal ecosystem. The more I am progressing in my life, the more I am getting convinced about it. Literacy just cannot be the lone parameter of an educated state. Wisdom smeared with devotion has been the hallmark of Indian society for ages, and we should really preserve it for posterity. She got widowed at an early age, still brought her children (my mama and my mother) with so much of affection. Her engagement with the Spiritual Leaders was terrific. The level of her philosophical quest was astounding mesmerizing even the stalwarts. The learning traditions whereby nuggets were transplanted and practiced beyond the domains of intellectual skulduggery. Her incredible affectionate ways to instill good habits and deeper values resonate even to this date. Her fearlessness and temptationlessness defines the characteristic soul of Indian women who have held the flag of dharma of this nation since ages. Her parting words to me when I was coming to join my semester at IIT KGP, when she was passing through her terminal phase of her cancerous tumour, were - never leave the path of dharma; never cause pain to your parents. Have been trying to live upto her last will indeed. 

4. My Amma

The sense of punya & paap; the profound sense of optimal consumption; the astounding sense of sticking to the protocols & conventions of society; the mesmerizing sense of sacred cosmology of India; can it all be expected from a village lady having gone only to a primary school and raised a whopping family, which is well settled and prosperous. Her regularity, punctuality, commitment to the cause taken were all fine traits I learnt and imbibed in my self. Her causeless love and affection used to give the biggest of the social security which no institution of any credence can transcend. 

5. Arun Mathur Uncle

Before the age of computing whereby keying in is the ubiquitous skill to blabber at length, handwriting both in terms of its calligraphic beauty and the speed at which you can race through the nib, used to be the key determinant of your academic supremacy. Thanks of Arun Uncle, an artist known to my father, I got initial lessons and enough practice to gain proficiency. Drawing and sketching was somehow beyond my competence, but writing got deeply instilled. An initial love for hindi literature too got imbibed with Maithili Sharan Gupt's Saket gifted to me by him, which adores my personal library till this date. The greeting cards we used to make by dipping a long thread into an ink bottle and then laying it out on a white paper in random sequence and taking it out at once, still fills in the artistic slot of my personal skill space. 

6. Taal Waale Foofaji

Networking & Socializing is not just an elite skill limited to the metros or big towns. How to respectfully evoke meaningful relationships and help one and all in times of distress through this power of make feel good, remained the core of Taal Waale Foofaji who used to educate we toddlers as well through his never ending repository of jokes and riddles. His association with some of the finest district officials made us privy to deep wisdom at a ripe age when we used to accompany him on some of the local sojourns. 

7. Sood Madam

Like a pilot who has to gain enough flying experience to qualify for a license, linguistic skill do need scribbling and parroting. Sood Madam was a champion of this pedagogy and made us do the same. She imposed something called strictly english speaking hours and imposed a framework of fine to dissuade we young rebels. She chose me as the Fine Monitor applying the doctrine of making the thief as the police. Thanks to her, I was forced to speak in the language of the Queen, starting from a funny famished intonation graduating to that of a fluent one. 

8. Depo Waale Foofaji

How a person can rise oneself by his sheer diligence and perseverance. From a simple official with the Ammunitions Depot in my hometown Bharatpur, he rose to the rockstar status of a English teacher. He developed his own teaching style whereby grammar was not an impediment or an entity of rote learning. An iconoclast in his own right, he was a master original who defied one and all and laid focus only on applied side of learning. For parrots his doors were always closed. He only taught the senior batches as he felt that they alone had the audacity to defy conventions, which were wrongly set out. I was admitted to his august batches having seniors double my height, after a long ordeal of testing and testifying. The one month of foundational english grammar at his behest gave me the courage to fast forward my pen and compete with some of the finest chaps from ivy league schools of the country. On hindsight, he makes me further bolster my belief that there is excellence scattered across the length and breadth of this wonderful nation.  

9. My Mamaji

Someone who saw his alter ego in his young nephew, granted him some of the finest privileges like taking him aboard his wedding horse; getting him type his ACR while just having crossed the primary school; taking him to his office to meet the senior officials; accompanying on official tours to expose the expanse of life quite early and pervasively, would have a special place. The penchant of using a mini-typewriter made me scribble long essays on innumerable contemporary topics at a time when you ought to be sweating in the cricket field along with your peers. 

10. Bhopal Wale Nanaji

If writing postcards can be considered to be a great learning tool, Bhopal Wale Nanaji contributed to this emphatically. He had a record of responding at once and every time with his characteristic green ink pilot pen. For a senior official engrossed in the Government affairs, sticking to the athato brahma jigyasa of a pre-teen, it was something of a cherished feat. He was my early variant of google spanned aside a fortnight. But the discriminating part was that the responses were extremely filtered to my context and had no inline advertising immersed. 

11. Chopra Uncle

Like arts my competency in the domain of music is of the denomination of an illiterate. Nonetheless, Chopra Uncle, my Mom's music teacher was an affectionate mentor. He bade me to learn the sargam, which my over activated senses couldn't take the toll off, but I internalized some of the finest life learnings from him. A humble Post Master in his professional life, he had a different avatar of a coveted musician in the personal life. He sensitized me for the first time about the inter-linkages between the cosmic rhythms and the natural manifestation at large. The three ubiquitous bathroom exercises have got into my daily dosage and the incredible nabhi bathing is a wondrous medication whenever I am in anxiety or have a stomach upset. 

12. Pujya Gurudev Sri Narayan Das Bhatkmali ji

In the strictest sense of the term, he was my yugal deeksha guru with whom I had the great opportunity to exchange correspondence at length. The dilemma which an adolescent faces in terms of balancing between "prarthana & purushartha"; the implications of the chaturtha purusharthas "dharma, artha, kaam, moksha" vis-a-vis the concept of prarabhadha; spirituality intertwined with the social obligations and conventions; the larger quest between nationalism and spiritual order...it went on and on. Through the methodology of "pariprashnen sewaya" he implanted into me some of the key learning anchors which do hold the entire knowledge and wisdom repository and aide in encapsulating. 

13. Char Sampradaya Waale Maharaj ji

More than having an expressive intellect which is much needed for setting out the agenda, it's the affectionate relationship which a spiritual social leader evokes to run and organize a spiritual institution. The dogged patience and singular enterprise which Indian Ashrams are run with, is something amply visible in Char Sampradaya Waale Maharaj ji. India's resplendence across ages has been carried forward by these indomitable seers of lesser words but profound action.They simply inspire by their actions. 

14. Aditya Bhaiya

Those 61 days at Gitapress Gorakhpur under the tutelage of Aditya Bhaiya, an IIT M grad, made me resolute about my archaic and non-conventional choices. I chose this spiritual publication house as a destination for undergoing my summer internship as I was quite convinced as to what's the use of IT if it cannot transform our very own enterprises and be of use to our grand repository of knowledge. There was a flutter on the campus, but the belief and faith that others too have taken differentiated paths, comforted me. The foundations of applied Computer Sciences, for which these summer internships are somewhat meant for, got deeply ingrained. The sheer confidence that geography is not a barrier in the creation of software applications has been pervading my conviction buds since then. Aditya Bhaiya made that happen at Gitapress and sowed those valuable seeds into me. 

15. Pramod Bhaiya

If the foundations of faith were impregnated by my family and affectionate seers, my knowledge based grooming into the grand intellectual traditions of India was accentuated by Pramod Bhaiya. An IIT Madras graduate again, deeply initiated into the Ramakrishna Order mentored my initiations into the Indic heritage. He stood as a friend, philosopher and guide in my youthful meanderings and nurtured my transition from a passionate adolescent to a resonating youth. I owe my differentiated career choice largely to his in-depth counseling sessions and affectionate mentoring by various means. 

16. Michel Danino

A doyen of Indic Traditions, who took his learnings of Indian under the light of Sri Aurobindo, his balanced viewpoint appealed to me. I founded the Students' Forum for India's Heritage drawing inspiration from the International Forum for India's Heritage founded by him. A man of soft words but deeper wisdom, he guided me in times of testimony and always motivated to tread on, keep on. 

17. Prof V R Desai, IIT Kharagpur

The martial aspects of Indian Nationalism were introduced to me by this very profound professor of civil engineer with whom I interfaced much more after my passing out from the college, largely in the context of Braj work whereby we were digging large ponds and were in the need of civil engineering expertise. The rigor and regularity of his daily schedules including the agnihotras were a cause of curiosity initially but became the indomitable source of respect and reverence later. 

18. Mitra Sir, IIT Kharagpur 

How love and affection can transformation lives? I had this amply from Mitra Sir and Madam. They not only got me initiated into the practice of Art of Living, but also showered their causeless love and affection for doing good, standing for good and struggling for good. 

19. Renu Masi, Seed the World Inc

Some of our youngsters have to create patriotic enterprises and get onto patriotic passions in order to make a Samartha and Prabuddha Bharat. The SFIH network should be expanded on all campuses throughout India. What more a young impressionable mind looks for. A spark of motivation and bingo. These inspiring words have been carrying me till this date with the vision, which once looked achievable at once, but now daunting due to so much of practical nuances. The vision is of paramount importance to excel in life. At least you remain glued to the aspirational cause.

20. Ramesh Baba, Barsana 

Spirituality glued to the cause of a geography and society, got manifested from this avdhoot residing on the hill top of Barsana. Spirituality doesn't take you out of the world, but makes you the center-stage of the social narrative. The depiction of Krishna as an environmentalist, the stupendous fight against the plunders of the ecological heritage of Braj, the closely knit band of Sadhus whose singular objective in life was service to the holy dham, all this reverberated of the Bhawani Mandir saga so well penned down by Bankim Chandra. A man whose oratory had no match, whose content was always contextual, a man whose rose as an iconoclast, a man who defied convention and charged you up to think objectively and openly. A wanderer who rediscovered the pristine sites of Braj bhoomi connected to the past times of Sri Krishna, a visionary and scholar who gave credence to the myth by geo-spatial mapping. The integrated web of the Indian tradition got magnified by his life and times. 

21. Vineet Narain Ji

A titan impregnates innumerable elements from his persona into your personality, just by the sheer induction effect. The mover and shaker of Indian Headlines for over a decade, due to his series of daring expositions, from Hawala to Supreme Court Judges converging into positive reinforcements across CVC, CBI et al. The relentless striving for the chosen cause 24*7 was the single most important endowment I got. The deeper engagement with the system from Pradhan to Pradhan Mantri was yet another learning. The never say die-spirit to tread on and on, just makes me grateful to this giant persona. 

22. Bharat ji 

This roving modern sanyasi believes in connecting mentors with mentees. He has an uncanny potency to find out a potential and thereby nurture it out of his profound aphorisms. Arjun to bahut hain, par kaam kar rahe hain bheeshm ke liye. Bharatiya Samaj ke char stambha hain jo use abhinav banate hain, shikshak, chikitsak, sanyasi aur naari. Krishna, Vyas, Bhishma aur Vidur mahabharat ke chaar pramukh paatra hain. He was the one who opened up my shyness to confront the conventional authority. The crux of Gita, the love for Bharat from a first principles lifestyle and what not. 

23. Pawan Ji, SIDH 

Raghav, you can't have the cake and eat it too. This just chilled me down when my self became too heavy once. A profound intellectual, activist and practitioner of what he preaches. The anecdotal way of making the transformation in you, is simply superb. Ananto Bharat Jigayasa, can define his childlike curiosity and tale telling. If Michel has captured the material resplendence of India, Pawan ji is a doyen in internalizing the soul of India. 

24. Santosh Sir

The legacy of grandiose doesn't get diluted with an ever charming and the most astounding anti-depressant you would have ever come across. Treading the legacy of Ramnath ji of the Indian Express fame, his penchant for media and the subsequent transformation is nothing but infectious. After my second entrepreneurial debacle, he was the one who instilled the due energy and enthusiasm to come back to the arena within a year.  

The Innovation Niti :: Gaps in Envisioning, Engagement & Eventual Execution

The much celebrated and well meaning Atal Innovation Mission seem to be heading towards a quagmire of bureaucratic shenanigans evading the key outcomes for which a sizeable budgetary allocation has been made. They say पूत  के  पाँव  पालने में ही दिखाई पड़ जाते हैं meaning thereby that it lies all in the inception. The envisioning of a plan or a programme creates all the difference.  

If the scheme guidelines are to be analyzed and scrutinized closely, there is nothing which is differentiated or inspiring to the very least which can make the requisite impact on the innovation horizon of the country which already has a sizeable establishment of similar nature which is pegged at a magic number of 291 as per NITI Aayog statistics itself revealed during a twitter chat.

The 21 pager Guidelines for setting up of Incubation Centres under Atal Innovation Mission has chosen to devote merely 2 paragraphs limited to half a page on the core subject matter of innovation. 

At a time when the country is passing through a major transition, and is attempting to raise its head high in the comity of nations, the bid for a mega national scheme boosting innovations should have had been a serious one. 

By simply jotting down a laundry list of 15 odd areas/sectors for establishing incubation centres, the mandarins at NITI Aayog have left the imagination about the direction of innovation entirely to the applicants as if some new set of wisdom has dawned upon them all of a sudden. 

India has had been having sizeable R&D spending for decades under the aegis of various Ministries/Departments but without a convergence of the research & development programme with the due national priorities.

The biggest concern which emanates out of this otherwise operational guideline of fund disbursement is that it lays more emphasis on a 10,000 square feet built up area than the definitive and desired direction of innovation. 

It nowhere attempts to take advantage of the 35000 feet tactical view which is supposed to be possessed by the top-notch official think tank of the country. 

It nowhere even mentions the existence of the various ongoing national programmes and missions, what to talk of knitting them all into a seamless national drive. 

The scheme document fossilizes the deterministic view that the permanent bureaucratic machinery is averse to jot down even the summary of the past experiences and learnings even in the most abstracted for the form. 

The travesty with the Atal Innovation Mission's Incubators is the fact that it fails to inspire and create the requisite aspiration for the setting up of an incubator.

Some of the key pertinent questions which immediately came rushing to the mind were : 

1. Why couldn't the document draw from the overall success of the existing incubator base, and justify the need for this newer set of incubators explaining in greater detail as to what would be different apart from the disbursement of Rs 10 crores over a period of 5 years. 
2. Why has such a major scheme not chosen to define innovation in the Indian context? Say for example Advance, Applied and Appropriate. If the official think tank would not choose to inspire and guide, who shall in the country then? Who shall set the context of innovation, scale of innovation and impact of the same?
3. Why there is no guideline apriori about the functioning and expected outcome of these newer set of incubators? An open ended grant would simply go down the budgetary funnel without any desirable impact.
4. Why couldn't the Incubator Areas/Focus in Annexure-2 could be mapped to the 25 odd sectors of Make in India? Today's manufacturing is all Science & Technology Driven which is all about innovation. 
5. Why couldn't a reference be made to a central database carrying key national R&D priorities requiring innovation drawn from various line agencies like DRDO, CSIR, DBT, DST, DoS, DAE etc. Can there be an innovation without a proper delineation and detailed determination of a problem statement?

It clearly emerges that the scheme has been pushed through amidst a spate of some internal rush without giving deeper thought to it. In the bureaucratic parlance, Budgeting for a cause is considered to be the start and end of the job as if money has an innate intelligence associated. It might have so happened in the well established domains of infrastructure, but innovation is a different ball game altogether.  

Ironically, it's probably not the money which is lacking for the effulgence of India's innovation spree, but the convergence of its various strands of national life which alone shall lay down the long list of problem statements which this young nation endowed with incredible intelligence would love to solve.


The mere change of the name of an institution, at times doesn't transform its deeply entrenched characteristic soul. What to talk of National Transformation?

Bolstering Bureaucracy :: Sweating on Sundays

If someone has closely observed the development of past several months, one would find a unique pattern of convening mega congregations, big ticket launches as well as internal training and review meetings on Sundays. This can be accorded as a major shift in the outlook and approach of Prime Minister Modi in bolstering the Indian bureaucracy, which eventually has to get charged up to deliver the wide array of projects leading to national transformation.

The national holidays have already been consumed for one or the other cause of national resurrection. The moot motive of galvanizing the heads of bureaucracy is to somewhere set a precedent & preference for public service which by all means in an arduous task.The political fragmentation and absence of a hands-on political leader cum manager had somewhat resulted in immense slack amidst the rank and file of bureaucratic set up, more so amidst the top most echelons representing the power and privilege of sovereign authority.

An unwritten convention got set in that Secretaries to the Government of India were not meant to slog & serve anymore. They are to enjoy the exploits of their long drawn tenure and provide the titular leadership to the Ministry adorned by them. Picking up a pet project or steam up a scheme or plugging in a procedural pitfall at this epitome of experience somewhere got discouraged. The intellectual  ruminations & reverberations got cordoned off amidst a growing ecosystem of entitlements.

Prime Minister Modi has somewhere challenged this and is leading this much needed change through his personal example. He took out time to engage directly with the Secretaries, right after his swearing in. He event went upto the extent of greeting them personally one on one to signify his upcoming engagement with these heads. He made them visit the district of their very first postings, just to induce a strong feeling at heard amidst the growing insensitivity and indifference to the developmental concerns at the grassroots, whose alleviation would need the much refined exposure & insights of these top brains.

He went to disband the concept of Group of Ministers and rather instituted something called Group of Secretaries to catapult the systemic sluggishness, obliterating the bureaucratic hiatus grappled in procedural hiccups and most importantly winning over the fear of opening up the pandoras box  which would have to be eventually handled and rectified.

The rust which had set into the steel frame of India's Governance could have been checked only by a Mo-Di-Oxide, which has bolstered the entire rank and file with an unprecedented energy and is leading them to the bastions of commitment to the cause for which the civil services of a nation state is constituted in the first place. His larger than life image with a persistent softer push is driving this ilk to explore the frontiers of original and fruitful thinking, rather than succumbing to the temptation of falling in line to cosmetic quick fixes and borrowed half-baked interventions.

Forcing the cahoots in the India's Governance & developmental story, on the day of the Sun God is perhaps the Modi way to re-affirm and re-assert the aspirations of this billion plus nation, which has given its deterministic mandate to a mind-boggling workaholic.