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Let citizens, not the state, decide the allocation of public money to civil society organizations
What is the best way to help others? Basically there are three options:
- Help myself—directly help others with my time, energy and money
- Help a charity—give my time and/or money to a charity
- Help the State—give my money as taxes for the government to provide help
When I ask which of the three ways is better for helping others, the overwhelming majority selects the options 1 and 2.
What would be the Uniform Civil Code or personal law under gram swarajya or in the village republics that Mahatma Gandhi championed? It would probably resemble the one that prevails in Anna Hazare’s Ralegan Siddhi. If you violate the code, say by consuming liquor, you would be ostracised or even beaten up in public.
India has embarked on a historic mission of formulating a new National Education Policy (NEP), which was left untouched since 1992. The two official documents give a distinct idea of the contours of the NEP; one by the Committee for Evolution of the New Education Policy, headed by TSR Subramanian, and the second by the MHRD, titled 'Some Inputs for Draft National Education Policy 2016.' The MHRD has also invited comments on the document with a deadline of 15 August to be mailed at nep.edu@gov.in.
Karnataka’s state board couldn’t stop the chemistry exam paper from walking out on 21 March. The exam was rescheduled to 31 March and the paper was leaked again! Now it’s scheduled for 12 April. What do you think would happen on the 12th? These paper leaks are routine at state boards and cause serious distress to millions of students in the state.
SNAPSHOT
- There should be a clear demarcation of the boundaries between the personal and the political. A libertarian view of the uniform civil code.
What would be the Uniform Civil Code or personal law under gram swarajya or in the village republics that Mahatma Gandhi championed? It would probably resemble the one that prevails in Anna Hazare's Ralegan Siddhi. If you violate the code, say by consuming liquor, you would be ostracised or even beaten up in public.
Recent research has drawn attention to the massive demand for higher education that will be seen in the next decade in India. This underscores the need for capacity building, the need for private participation, the need for improving quality and forging a closer link between academia and industry, and the need for investing in research etc. However, the regulatory constraints to entering and operating in this sector have not been studied in detail so far.
The monsoon of scandals is upon Delhi. But while the ones involving politicians and sports administrators are hogging the front pages, one with more far-reaching implications is not. This one involves the Delhi school education system.
The Union Budget 2015-16 is long on rhetoric but short on vision. Given the ruling BJP’s campaign promises, it was reasonable to expect this budget would rival the 1991 budget in launching the next phase of momentous reforms. Big bang reforms however, are not in the DNA of NDA. At best, it’s an evolutionary rather than revolutionary, budget.
Once you get past this initial disappointment, the budget has done a reasonable job on the evolution of reforms in areas as varied as inflation fighting, social insurance for the poor, ease of doing business to cooperative federalism.
Narendra Modi’s government has restarted the process of statutory legal reform that had been stalled for a while. The last serious effort at reviewing and systematically eliminating ineffective, outmoded and counter productive legislation was spearheaded by Arun Shourie in 2001 under the Vajpayee government. The prime minister said during his speech at Madison Square Garden in New York that as opposed to other politicians’ lust for new legislation, he will be happier if he can repeal one law every day!
Satya of 'Education in India' discusses the idea of school choice and the prospects for it in India with Parth Shah, President of the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) in this episode of the Education in India podcast.