Roadmap for Reforms_Book review_Bagchi.pdf

2022

This course will familiarize students with some of India's major public institutions, particularly those related to government and public policy, and roles they play. Students will learn about form and function of institutions, how new institutions have been designed, how their public relevance rises and falls, and their de jure and de facto operations. Students will also become familiar with institutional analysis as a methodological approach, as well as elements of public choice theory applied to these institutions and the people who run them. This will help students develop more nuanced understandings of how bureaucracies function, their interactions with citizens, and how the compact between public institutions and citizens has evolved. Assignments in this class will help students develop their own views on what kinds of policies can improve the functioning of public institutions.

Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 2018

Iimb Management Review, 2011

Nyayavimarsha Law Journal, 2024

This paper will bring into focus these contemporary challenges, analyze the ongoing reforms, and finally, propose a comparative analysis of similar practices in global governance. In the process of assessing these elements, the paper is targeted at providing a comprehensive take on how India's governance mechanism is capable of the means of the scenario.

Public Institutions remained at the centre of academic engagement with politics in India during 50s and 60s. However it may be substantially established that the study of public institutions became quite peripheral in the study of politics which came under the domination of an overwhelming presence of the study of political processes, over a period of time. Only of late the discipline of Political Science in India has been witness to the revival of interest in the study of public institutions. Traditionally public institutions were analysed in terms of rules, procedures and constitutional principles and so these studies remained oblivious of the contextual specificity of Indian Politics. Rather than situating institutions, it took to the task of implanting institutions in India. This triggered the subsequent eclipse of the study of institutions in political science. The book under consideration remains embedded in the contemporary moment of the revival of the study of institutions. It critically engages with the Parliament in India giving due consideration not only to the rules, procedures, constitutional principles but also endeavors to establish link between internal characteristics and external environment of the parliament to account for what ails the Indian Parliament. The analysis is quite significant in laying bare the nature, character and functioning of the parliament as an institution of accountability and in attempting to unfold the present relationship between the legislature and executive in India. The specific pattern of relationship between legislature and executive during different moment in the history of parliamentary democracy remains quite crucial in offering an explanation and understanding on strength and weakness of the parliament to ensure an accountable, responsive and responsible government. The book not only deals with parliament as an institution, socially embedded and performing various mandated functions but also looks into the aspect of the credibility and legitimacy facing parliament today.

2022

Public Administration is an activity as old as human civilization. Public Administration as independent Subject of a social science has recent origin. Public administration is the implementation of government policy and also an academic discipline that studies this implementation and prepares civil servants for working in the public service. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal... is to advance management and policies so that government can function." Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are: "the management of public programs"; the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day" and "the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies." Public Administration, an ancient activity of the state, is vital to the efficient running of the government. As a specialized academic field, it deals essentially with the machinery and procedures of government. It is the action part of the government. It is both an institution of public service and a centre of power. As an institution of public service, it provides services to the people and promotes public interest. As a centre of power, public bureaucracy tends to be concerned with its own privileges. In recent years, the discipline has been undergoing rapid changes and has vastly expanded its frontiers. As a discipline, it has evolved and is still evolving to respond to the challenges of the changing times. With the onset of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG), one can see a number of significant changes are in the roles of individuals and institutions and public administration is no exception. It represents a paradigm shift from the traditional model of public administration to New Public Management (NPM), which favours a dominant presence of market forces over the State, for effective governance and efficient delivery of the goods and services. Many new concepts like Competition State, managerial orientation, contracting out, de bureaucratization, downsizing, etc., have started gaining prominence in many countries. The new perspective has emerged as a management tool through which the developmental goals can be achieved. It has brought in reforms, which have attempted to create a new entrepreneurial, useroriented culture in public organizations, with focus on performance measurement and autonomy to the organizations and individuals in contrast to the traditional model. In fact, managerialism is a 'determined effort to implement the "3Es" of economy, efficiency and effectiveness at all levels of government activities. Public administration, in present times, has thus become complex and is slowly moving towards enlightened public governance. We define the term 'administration' and 'public administration'. Subsequently, it discusses the nature, scope and significance of public administration.

This paper analyzes the process of reform of India's federal system, with a focus on fiscal federalism. We first summarize the basic features of, and recent reforms in intergovernmental relations, including the role of political institutions, assignments of expenditure responsibility and revenue authority, the system of intergovernmental transfers, and institutions and mechanisms for government borrowing. We then discuss the institutional specifics of the reform process, to understand the dynamics of India's federal system. JEL codes: P26, P35, H1, H7

2022