About the Book

Soon being completed is a book on poverty, corruption and the crumbling structure of governance. And the reforms necessary to give us a better life.

It is an angry pen that strides across the pages sketching the disappearance of checks on rulers, the inaccessible courts, the dirty elections that keep good Indians away from politics, the unacknowledged but massive corruption (80 %) in the IAS (Indian Administrative Service), the cheating done by the system – in denying malnutrition child deaths, in redefining poverty to camouflage the real figures, in mocking the Right to Information Act, in refusing to introduce physical audit, in keeping institutions (Lok Pal, Commissions for Human Rights etc,) unarmed to check government malfunction etc. (The fate of more than 1000 applications under the Right to Information Act has been analysed.)

The chapters also present:

• an evaluation of some major schemes (Employment Guarantee (EGS and MNREGA), Irrigation, Women’s Savings Groups (Bachat Gats), Resettlement of Urban Slums, Rehabilitation of Project Displaced Families);
• gender issues;
• corruption cases involving the IAS;
• scams like the Mumbai Floor Space Index (FSI) and Urban Land Ceiling (ULC) scams;
• the story of how difficult it was to punish the drug giant, Glaxo;
• the Pune parliamentary election – the dirt, intimidation, absence of secrecy and the irrelevance for the poor;
• the over protected, unaccountable judiciary – failing to deliver freedom and justice, stubbornly and openly refusing to clean itself;
• caste, karma and the undemanding voter;
• the nature and definition of poverty – reducing figures sitting in the office;
• glimpses into the world of the IAS bureaucrat – training, personality, incompetence, corruption, the IAS wife;
• the surrender of the IAS officer to the politician;
• Nehru’s role in the growth of corruption;
• Nehru’s failure in implementing land reform (to pull the small cultivator out of poverty and dependence);
• Gandhi’s advocacy of caste (little known), his absurd view of the ideal state and social harmony.

People ask what it was like to survive in a corrupt environment so, for entertainment, a few pages about myself and the family have been added.

Harassment, simply stated, is punishment for doing the right things. In exposing and countering the lies and corruption in the establishment I was greeted with warnings, “show cause” notices, transfers, bad Annual Confidential Reports (assessment reports) and enquiries.

Some examples