MyTake

The world has progressed in speed and space, in wealth and health, in knowledge and wisdom and the process is going on. It has also expanded the horizon of our thinking and raised expectation from society, government and individuals. There are more visible democracies, there are larger and taller buildings as ever, age span has increased, there are more schools and hospitals, more people are getting above the poverty line, it gives a feeling as if it has become a better and happier place to live now. This is what has to be studied as to really whether the visible progress has been translated into better human well-being or not. Human Well-Being is a construct evolved from the philosophy of living well – mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually. Individuals tend to perform acts that (they think) provide them satisfaction and lead towards improving their state of ‘living well’. Fulfilment of human needs and having positive living environment around, contributes towards an assur...

[PC: http://www.mpnewsflash.com/anand-activities-to-be-introduced-on-experimental-basis] Around a decade back while interacting with Professor Suresh Tendulkar I suggested that we should have some question to track happiness level of people at national level by having a question or two in the National Sample Survey conducted, as it is done in the US through General Social Survey. My suggestion was driven by the fact that we lack data on happiness from India and the world depends on some unorganized data collected through a very small sample size. He showed concern for the issue and replied that it is not proper time for India to go for this as there are sizable amount of people living below poverty line and not just this, people are dying out of miseries and the size of such population is not small. Around the same time Adrian White of University of Leicester developed World Map of Happiness compiling secondary data of 178 nations in which Bhutan had 8th rank and India ...

Technology is a big disruptor. For not just businesses but for state as well. The governments have learnt lessons from businesses and have started using technology to devise policies and to deliver them efficiently to the end users. Digital disruption is one such initiative and Digital India is one such mission which is targeted to provide seamless services in an open environment assuring transparency, security and speed. Public policy is an area which needs to embrace technology to strategize and develop appropriate policies to improve quality of life of people viz a viz their well-being. For state to visualise better growth and development there are two approaches which are visible. First is to push the policies whereby driving people to learn and develop an attitude of adapting to change. This pushes the people to change without much choice. By some it is viewed as an imposition whereas some consider it to be the need of time. Whatever be the case broadly it is consider...

Government and industry face a dire challenge of responding to the expectations of the citizens. Government responds through public policy and industry through products and services. In independent India our economic policies were driven with a unique model of mixed economy whereby addressing industry and society. Welfare of the people was the primary concern and an intention of following Gandhi’s principles was initially visible. Gandhi who believed in small scale industries and village oriented economic policies had strong view on self-sufficiency concept which questioned western model of economic development. Nehru was all for socialistic pattern of society hiding away his thinking on capitalism. Nehru’s contribution is acknowledged in creating the temples of modern India. Or to say it laid the foundation of India’s economic development. Our grandparents always emphasized on the moral learnt through the story of Rabbit and the Tortoise – slow and steady, wins the race. It ...