Solutions to Change

By Rahul V Kumar* Two Questions Prohibition as a public policy is being experimented once again across states in India. Alcohol prohibition (leading to complete ban) is a becoming popular political instruments to woo voters. This is hence the best period to further examine the policy of prohibition itself. There are two questions. What could be the purpose for prohibiting alcohol? Will prohibition serve this purpose? The answer/s to the first question is ambiguous. There is no single purpose but health is often highlighted as a concern. This has been more or less fed into our conscience through scattered bits of information, anecdotes from the lives of others and a lot of data assembled and collected by the state from its own retail outlets. The biggest advantage for the government of Kerala is that no single individual has ever been able to systematically examine the veracity of these numbers and stories. Chronic cases of addiction are often highlighted as anecdo...

By D. Dhanuraj FDI in retail sector has been a pending decision from the Government. That too at a time everyone ditches at the Governance for the lack of direction and the reform drive. Corruption, scam, tainted image of the Government.. all are adding pressure to the Government. It is argued that any such reform like FDI in Retail can push the Government forward and shed the image of stagnation in Governance. In India, organised retail sector is not going to be a threat to kirana shops in the immediate future as India is diverse and the Purchasing power of each family and individual vary a lot. The organised retail is a long way to get accomplished as we lack the supply chain management, ware housing, processing, refrigeration etc. They say  more than 33 million are going to lose their livelihoods as a result of this policy. I wonder how it going to be as it is not Tsunami to strike the small merchants over night. there is a trade off always in any sort of changes happen...

‘A King had been defeated six times at war. Forces scattered, facing death, he fled and hid in a rude shed. He was tired and shattered. As he lay in despair he saw a small spider attempting to weave a web. She tried and failed - six times in a row. The King thought, “She too shall taste bitter failure.” But the spider tried for a seventh time and emerged successful. Inspired, the King too endeavored into the thick forests, for a seventh time, gathered his forces and won himself a commendable victory.’ It’s a time when the self-declared godfather of world nations has allowed itself to be eclipsed by the emerging super powers, and paradoxically, uncomfortable ‘truths’ of the gaping holes in our political, economic and corporate fabric have made their hostile appearance. Nandan Nilekani ‘imagined’ the Indian picture perfectly when he said there is a worrying “ dissonance in opportunities that India has and political chaos.” What is most apparent in the word ‘opportunities’ i...