In November last year, I blogged about the travails of a few determined people.....
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Every year, I get a chance to interact with officer trainees who have joined the higher bureaucracy and are under training in the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academ.....
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The PAISA for Panchayats research project extends Accountability Initiative’s PAISA methodology to track fund flows and implementations processes at the Panchayat level. This study attempts to bridg.....
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I concluded my last blog by asserting that greater outreach is p.....
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I had ended last week’s blog by saying that in India, we nee.....
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A few weeks back, a contentious issue hit the headlines in Bengaluru. The state government withdrew nearly all its police officers, of the rank of Superintendents an.....
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A dawning realisation from my recent and continuing engagement with the recasting of the National.....
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Over a decade back, when making my first forays into international consultancy, I was lucky to listen to a remarkable idea which was then in its infancy and had just been rolled out. Two motivated ind.....
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Have capacity development programmes for local government elected representatives and officials improved over the years? Before answering that question, three preliminary questions need to be answe.....
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Last week, I tuned into a meeting convened to discuss the preparation of a new National Capability Building Framework (NCBF) for Panchayats. It was a good opportunit.....
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Of late, there is a forward popular on WhatsApp groups. It is the story of a Panchayat where everything is run, on the face of it, ideally. Not only are roads well buil.....
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In my previous blog, I recounted how the Karnataka government had begun the process of.....
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Continuing from my previous blog on how governments might actually foster fisc.....
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In my previous blog, I had rued that even when the government makes changes.....
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Every now and then, across India’s currently dormant urban civil society, there is a buzz that something good is about to happen soon. I was part of one such awakenin.....
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During some of its training programmes, the Accountability Initiative team begins classes by explaining the structure of India’s governments – the executive facet of it – as distinguished from t.....
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I like teaching, though I am not trained for it. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed teaching in diverse classrooms, ranging from bureaucrats, to interns working in the government, and even other teache.....
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‘Why don’t you come over to Kerala House for dinner, Raghunandan?’ I recognised that gravelly voice instantly. Of my many mentors, I fondly remember Mr. V. Ramachandran, the former Chief S.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the ‘PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local b.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the ‘PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local b.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the 'PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local bo.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the 'PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local bo.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the 'PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local bo.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the 'PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local bo.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the ‘PAISA for Municipalities‘ research which analysed urban local.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the ‘PAISA for Municipalities‘ research which analysed urban local.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the 'PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local bod.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the ‘PAISA for Municipalities‘ research which analysed urban local.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the 'PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local bod.....
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This blog is part of a series unpacking the 'PAISA for Municipalities' research which analysed urban local bod.....
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India is fast urbanising; there is no need to use statistics to prove that, they are plentiful and available in granular detail. A Census is due this year, and when the statistics are available, we wi.....
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Once again, more than a fortnight passes; an aeon in the unfolding scenario on how we look at the freedom of expression. I ended .....
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This study aims to understand the nature and compute the size of the local public sector in the Smart City of Tumakuru, in Karnataka State. It makes use of our flagship methodology Planning, Allocatio.....
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I ended my last blog five weeks back with asking whether, sho.....
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The question of controlling fake news and hate speech without disrupting freedom of expression bears repetition, but that does not get us any closer to the answers......
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As we go to press, the Kerala Governor, on the advice of the state government has signed an ordinance withdrawing the controversial amendment of the Kerala Police Act by the introduction of a new sect.....
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In my last blog, I had observed that while the structures for participation in public.....
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Across the country, a curious pattern emerges when one looks at how legal and process reforms have progressed, with respect to institutionalising the participation of urban citizens in governance. The.....
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This blog is part of a series that explores the idea of citizen's participation in urban governance through the Cubbon Park Case Study. Part .....
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‘India lives in its villages,’ said Gandhi. And from that observation, as well as many others where he envisioned a futu.....
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This blog is part of a series that explores the conceptual underpinnings of decentralisation, and citizen participation. The first part can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series that explores the conceptual underpinnings of decentralisation. The first part can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series that explores the conceptual underpinnings of decentralisation. The fir.....
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This blog is part of a series that explores the conceptual underpinnings of decentralisation. The first part can be found .....
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In a powerful and elegant paper written in the mid-nineties, titled, bluntly, ‘The Dangers of Decentralisation’, Remy Prud’homme made a strong case to be conserva.....
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Sometimes, the struggle to argue against something that one has stood by for a long time, is a painful one. And so has it been for me, ever since a colleague asked me t.....
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I had written a few weeks back that the lockdowns ordered.....
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Kerala and Karnataka have shown how democratic decentralisation has worked in their favour. .....
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Today, April 24, is celebrated in India as Panchayati Raj Day. It was on this day in 1993 that the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, which mandated rural and urban local governments, came into.....
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Years back, while fighting skeptics in the government (both my former colleagues and ministers) on my agenda of devolution of powers and responsibilities to local governments, I once asked my Minister.....
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This blog is part of a series on crimes against women, and current legal and administrative safeguards. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on crimes against women, and current legal and administrative safeguards. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on crimes against women, and current legal and administrative safeguards. Rape. That one horrendous word has filled our consciousness and blanked.....
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This blog is part of a series. The first blog can be found here. The Shivasamudram p.....
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Local governments remain hamstrung and ineffective — mere agents to do the bidding of higher level governments .....
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Last week, I described the procurement process for the construction of the first hydroe.....
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Years ago, on the eve of the centenary of the first hydroelectric power station built in India, at Shivasamudram in Karnataka, my wife Aditi and I investigated the procedures followed by the g.....
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Apart from the corruption in government transactions with the general public in the delivery of services, corruption in government procurement happens to be the most important form of corruption in th.....
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This blog is part of a series. The first blog can be found here. In this, my final blog on ta.....
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This blog is part of a series. The first blog can be found here. There are both generic and s.....
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This blog is part of a series. The first blog can be found here. In my .....
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As with most other sectors, corruption in the health sector can be classified into two categories, petty corruption and grand corruption. In addition, there could be another category, namely, the wide.....
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In my blog of 14 June, I referred to the phenomenon of private sector corruption and listed four c.....
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This month, the Union Government of India compulsorily retired nearly 30 officers of the Indian Revenue Service, on charges ranging from corruption to sexual harassment. The media termed this as a cra.....
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The suggestions I mentioned in my last blog on how to reduce corruption in the Registration Depar.....
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In my last blog, I wrote about Klitgaard’s formula, C=M+D-A, in which the pathway to eliminate corruption.....
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One of the best known simple remedies for corruption has been provided by Robert Klitgaard, an academic and researcher who familiarised himself with how corruption operates in a variety of environment.....
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The daily experiences of corruption that people suffer in their transactions with the government, is often termed ‘Petty’ corruption. It is anything but that. While each bribe, in relative terms m.....
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Like diseases and pathogens, it is essential that various types of corruption are identified and classified, based on their characteristics. The analogy with medical care goes further, because differe.....
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As voting begins for a fractious and keenly contested election to the next Lok Sabha, the three ‘C’s that dog India’s political and social milieu, Caste, Communalism and Corruption, again take c.....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The first blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The first .....
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This blog is part of a series on policy decisions, the causes and consquences of the Kerala floods. The second blog can be found .....
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In the run-up to every budget season, public debate on social sector schemes inevitably turns to the question of the paltry sums allocated. True to script, the question of allocations and potential bu.....
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This blog is part of a series on the rollout and progress of e-Governance in India. Any d.....
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This blog is part of a series on the rollout and progress of e-Governance in India. If on.....
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This blog is part of a series on the rollout and progress of e-Governance in India. My fo.....
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This blog is part of a series on the rollout and progress of e-Governance in India. I fell in love.....
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This blog is part of a series on the rollout and progress of e-Governance in India. Final.....
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This blog is part of a series on the rollout and progress of e-Governance in India. Last week, the Government of Karnataka announced that it would make th.....
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This blog is part of a series on the rollout and progress of e-Governance in India. I had concluded my .....
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This blog is part of a series on leadership in the Indian bureaucracy and is based on the experiences of senior bureaucrats. The previous blog can be found .....
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This blog is part of a series on leadership in the Indian bureaucracy and is based on the experiences of senior bureaucrats. The previous blog can be found .....
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The break in blogging was because I was confused. My last two blogs were about my colleague in the IAS, .....
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This blog is a continuation of 'Why the Bureaucracy Clicks, and Doesn't' posted last week. You can find it .....
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A six week drought on the blogging front was not without its compensations; I wandered and connected with people and friends. One of the interesting conversations that I had was on social media gro.....
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My last three blogs have been a critique of a recent study undertaken in India, which attempted to me.....
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If a mere ranking of States on a scale of corruption doesn’t mean anything, what is the solution to the problem of measuring corruption? A check on some of the approaches adopted worldwide, revea.....
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I ended my last blog by observing that questionnaires on corruption related surveys are often cut and paste jobs from earlier surveys, w.....
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Recently, the newspapers extensively covered the survey undertaken by the Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi on the prevalence of corruption in India. The Study, titled .....
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The Corruption Study 2017 has covered both the perceptions of corruption that citizen.....
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This is the third part of the Raghu Bytes series on 'Avoiding Accountability'. .....
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This is the fourth part of the Raghu Bytes series on 'Avoiding Accountability'. .....
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This is the fifth part of the Raghu Bytes series on 'Avoiding Accountability'. .....
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This is the sixth part of the Raghu Bytes series on 'Avoiding Accountability'. .....
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The essence of what the government does boils down to two things, in a financial sense, it collects taxes and delivers a basket of services. In today’s day and age, these tasks are no longer usur.....
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Public Housing is a government service that garners a lot of attention, for several reasons. It is of course, an essential service and hugely important from the perspective of th.....
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This is the second part of the Raghu Bytes series on 'Avoiding Accountability'. .....
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In my last blog of 2016, I had asked the question whether there could be a middle path between the imperative of maintaining absolute confidentiality and collective decision making. I had used the.....
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In my last blog, I has asked how policies were actually made in the government. The answer is, they are made confidentially. Or at least, all efforts are made to keep matters con.....
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Several research institutions and think tanks in India track expenditure. They tell us that budgets were laid down for this and that, they speak of estimates and revised estimates, they speak of expen.....
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In last week’s blog, I wrote about the challenges of converting information to content that can make people angry, because anger is a great motivator; a call to action. However, there is a flip s.....
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Over the last month, the demonetisation saga has been holding centre stage in India. On 8 November, the Prime Minister announced the decision of the government to declare that from that midnight on.....
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Even as I was reflecting upon the question as to whether data, when put into the hands of people, would actually lead to greater accountability, I got the opportunity to participate in a workshop on o.....
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Even as I write this blog series on government data transparency, a huge battle rages on the utility or otherwise of the Indian union government’s demonetisation exercise. Without going into the mer.....
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Before one sets in place a system of 360 degree appraisal and expects it to work effectively, two pre-requisites have to be in place. First, there must be a shared understanding of what integrity i.....
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I found myself commuting into the city of Bangalore couple of weeks back on a Sunday. It was to join a human chain that would link their hands over a distance of a few kilometres. I had strong feel.....
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I had ended my blog a fortnight back with a reflection on how difficult it is to maintain an ethical position, when the incentive structures within a society militate against ethical behaviour. The.....
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Returning from an annual vacation, I was immediately informed that my blog had to resume forthwith. Apparently, the current blog series on confidential reports had generated much interest, and my a.....
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One of the reasons why I think that peer reviews and 360 degree appraisals won’t work, is nothing more than my cynicism. The performance appraisal system has undergone several changes over the ye.....
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Because there is very little room at the top in the bureaucracy, there has to be a way to select the best for the top job; a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. The most frequently used metho.....
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Once a senior officer endures the tedium of commenting on various aspects of the officer’s performance, space is left for her to give her general opinion of the officer being assessed. Even thoug.....
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Hierarchies are important in the IAS as anywhere else in the government. It is not only important as a positioning tool within the service, but also to peg oneself against other hierarchies. There.....
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It is nearing seven years since I quit the cozy confines of the bureaucracy and became a traveling salesperson of decentralisation and anti-corruption. I would be deluding myself if I did not admit.....
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Jayan, the current vice-President of Manickal Panchayat, is an unusual individual. In Kerala’s politically charged society, he has remained politically independent, though he does get outside sup.....
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‘You must visit our ‘Buds’ school’, she said. A group of us, members from India of the Local Governance Initiative and Network, LoGIN, were in Kerala on a three day visit to share.....
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The last few weeks has been spent yo-yoing from interactions with policy makers and academia, to visiting local governments and interacting with elected representatives. The latter has been infinit.....
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At first sight, this looks like a digression from my continuing tale of the tortuous way in which public expenditure happens in India, but read on. Last week, a good frie.....
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It is common for governments to conceive of new schemes at the drop of a hat and then make grandiose pronouncements of the money allocated to these. It is another matter altogether to actually make th.....
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The Paisa for Panchayats project aimed to track how funds flow into the Panchayats from the State government. We chose the district of Kolar in Karnataka and aimed to find how funds are spent by th.....
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Getting to know how much money is spent in each panchayat by the government, is easier said than done. At first sight, it might sound a simple thing to meet all officials of the departments concern.....
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First and foremost, the IAS needs to consciously work on curbing swollen heads within their tribe. By all means, let there be a genuine celebration of the fact that people have cleared a.....
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While some aspects of dysfunctionality within the government system have been built up through several civil-servant driven decisions that go against fundamentally accepted principles of fed.....
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‘Just letting you know, Raghu’, said my friend, a passionate advocate of participative urban planning. ‘Whatever you do, don’t try to solve the stray dog problem’. .....
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The coming years calls for adopting the new age strategies of bridging leadership and adaptive leadership if civil servants are to make a difference. Training alone cannot make a difference in lead.....
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Over the last four, somewhat intermittent blogs, I had detailed the initiative taken by the Fourteenth Finance Commission in introducing a new factor, namely the extent and conservation value.....
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As detailed in last week’s blog, the report on ‘High Conservation Value Forests: An Instrument for Effective Forest Fiscal Federalism in India’ suggested the devising of a horizontal fo.....
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One good feature of the way India’s Finance Commissions go about their jobs is that once their reports are finalized, they make public the data on which they based their reports, as also the various.....
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My apologies for a break from my weekly blog. After five weeks of skipping my schedule, I resume my series on funding of environmental services. As expected, my blog of five weeks.....
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Working with the Expert Group on Participatory Planning chaired by Mr. V. Ramachandran was an object lesson in how to craft policy. The group had a mercurial composition and arguments flew t.....
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It was at a conference in Kerala, probably in 2003 or so, that I first met him. Vijayanand, my friend and fellow traveller on the road to democratic decentralisation, grabbed me by.....
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‘Let’s meet for lunch’. A decade back, whenever I heard that voice over the phone, it always brought a smile of anticipation. I did enjoy those lunches with my good friend, Yamini A.....
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The PAISA for Panchayats research project extends AI’s PAISA methodology to track fund flows and implementations processes at the Panchayat level. By focusing on understanding the state of fiscal de.....
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The PAISA for Panchayats research project extends Accountability Initiative’s PAISA methodology to track fund flows and implementations processes at the Panchayat level. By focusing on understanding.....
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(In the first blog of a series titled “Raghubytes”, T.R. Raghunandan offers readers a look at the functioning of the Government Machinery through the eyes of a former bureaucrat.) In 2.....
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