Monthly Archives: February 2007

Role of youth in governance

The role of youth in governance was first (in
India) initiated by former Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, he introduced a provision whereby people could vote when they were 18, earlier it was 21. But out here we are trying to discuss the actual role that the youth can play in governance. Usually governance is carried out by two organizations; first the civil services and second the political parties. It is in civil services that people are recruited on the basis of merit and in political parties on the basis of elections. Since political leaders and their parties are more aware of the public needs and demands because of regular speeches and meetings, they (political parties and leaders) usually frame policies, and the civil servants do the implementation job.

Now let’s look at it the other way round, how about civil servants frame the policies and the political parties and the leaders do the job of communicating the policy to the general public. And the political parties give feedback on how the policy is being implemented and the general response.

But if Civil servants make policies and political parties implement them, this goes against the whole concept of democracy. Because when people elect their representatives they want them to frame the policies and decide what is good and what is not. But on the other hand the political leaders are not experts in the field of economics, finance, public administration, but civil servants are, so they are in a better position to frame policies.

Framing policies is one area where the youth can play a very influential role.

Should prisoners have rights

This was a debate on a website and i had written this article: ( This article is basically a reply to another participant, if you wish to see the entire debate, let me know i will give the relevant link)

It’s a subjective question in my opinion; it depends on who the prisoner is and what is his crime. Rights are always thought of for citizens of a nation or country like for e.g.: right to vote, right to oppose what is unfair, right to information (RTI). Alexologys point that a prisoner is someone who is isolated from the society is right and therefore what rights can a person who is isolated from the society have?? A prisoner from the jail certainly cannot exercise his rights in the society from which he is deliberately isolated and if he does then the whole purpose of isolating him is defeated. The other argument that prisoners are human beings and must have rights is a very general statement. Prisoners are humans no doubt and the rights that they deserve should be the most basic and essential which cannot be classifies as rights….After committing a crime a person is kept in jail and his rights are taken away for a particular period of time so that he knows the value of those rights which he took for granted. And after he is released he will then certainly VALUE his freedom and the rights that have been given to him by the higher powers. In my country (
India) a famous film star (Sanjay Dutt)) was imprisoned for 18 months. When he got bail and came on an interview on TV he was asked; after being in jail for 18 months how do you feel and what is your message others? He replied that after being in jail i know what freedom really means and how fortunate a person is to live in a free world with rights and duties. Now this is a case where a person has truly been reformed and how?? BY TAKING HIS RIGHTS AWAY FOR A CERTAIN PERIOD OF TIME….

Inflation

There is an interesting debate on what should be the ideal rate of inflation. According to Milton Friedman’s paper on monetary stability published in 1948 the ideal rate should be 2.5%. This is the rate in China and many Western countries but they also have economic growth of more than 10%, whereas in India at the moment the growth is 8.1%. So with regards to India the Chakravarty report of 1986 said that the inflation rate should be 4%.The rate of inflation can vary from country to country. But in today’s context anything more than 5% is alarming. It is important for the government to see that measures to reduce inflation should not affect the growth of the economy; some argue that it is better to have 9% growth and 6% inflation than 6% growth and 5% inflation. Monetary policy is known to play an important role in reducing inflation, but what if one of the causes behind inflation is shortage in supply of certain products. When there is shortage in supply and products have to be imported, the government will try to reduce import duty and customs. So therefore this sector where imports are needed, will not respond to monetary policy. And since in India we also have a lot of black money circulating, the effectiveness of the monetary policy is reduced. The point remains that to tackle inflation the government needs to look into a variety of sectors and policies, along with monetary policy being effective the government should also try to reduce the fiscal deficit.