5 factual pts -> 3 BASIC GOALS

["Shashi Shekhar" <yossarin@hotmail.com>]

Dear Friends

Sanjeev has made out a very strong case for a strong strong dose of
medicine for a sick country. He has made some very strong points about
the race for the top slot in the world.  I am putting forth for your
earnest consideration and debate 3 basic goals to start with.

I dont care so much so about the top slot, i dont care about being the
GLOBAL SUPERPOWER, THE GLOBAL SUPER COP and the GLOBAL MOST WANTED
DESTINATION. Its irrelevant to me as an Indian. I care about the
following  3 BASIC PRE-REQUISITES.

- Checks & Balances
   which ensure accountability in every aspect from a public
  official, something which is thoroghly lacking and the root cause of
  all ills. We have PUBLIC OFFICIALS WITH LARGER THAN LIFE EGOS AND
  A SELF ARROGATED STYLE OF FUNCTIONING WITH ACCOUNTABILITY TO NONE.

- Bi-Partisanship
    We dream of a NON-PARTISAN, BENEVOLENT DO GOOD GOVT., I think its
    a myth, humans have vested interests and most of the time they
    are in mutual conflict. Its IMPOSSIBLE to expect political parties
    to forgo their vested interests, BUT WHAT CAN DEFINITELY BE TAUGHT
    is a BI-PARTISAN RULE OF THE GAME, where instead of IF I LOOSE I
    DONT LET YOU WIN to a culture where we at least work to see that
    BOTH WIN. The  present ANTI, EXCLUSIVIST, POLITICAL CULTURE where
    all energy is expended on ANTI Agendas has to go.

- BOTTOMS UP Inner Party Democracy
    where candidates are chosen from the grassroots through Primaries
    and hence most accurately represent the electorate than the
    present system where they are FOISTED BY THE HIGH COMMAND.

The rest of the ills i am sure will be cured with time once the above 3
are in place.

These BASIC THREE REFORMS should form the framework for further system
reform.

So instead of targetting for a all encompassive panacea for all ills and

drafting a monster of a manifesto which goes into every detail I have a
suggestion.

 - Lets have a policy manifesto whose scope expands over time.

 - Let it adopt the ITERATIVE MODEL of system reform, where we

  - identify few basic achievable targets with a time frame
  - go ahead with action on it. Having achieved them come back
  - expand the scope to more targets, achieve them and so on
    iteratively tackle them.

 - This way we would be able to concentrate energies on achievable
   goals, not expend too much of it in digressions which are bound
   to arise with an unlimited scope.

 - We wont have a mammoth manifesto document evaluating or
   understanding which becomes too demanding a task.

 - Its scope and size and increases with time making it possible
   to take small steps towars achievable goals in comparison to a
   giant leap to far too many goals.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the National Debate on System Reform.       debate@indiapolicy.org
Rules, Procedures, Archives:            http://www.indiapolicy.org/debate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------