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Mohammad Yunus Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus, the Grameen Bank man from Bangladesh, believes that information and communication technology (ICT) is going to “change the world in the immediate future far more rapidly and fundamentally than any other technology so far in human history.” Writing in the article way back in late 1990s, when ICT was not in fashion, “Poverty Free World: How and When”, he says, “Internet … is spreading at an exponential rate. At its present speed, it is doubling its worldwide use every nine months.” An economist of the highest order, he underlines, “The most attractive aspect of this spread of ICT is that it is not in anyone’s control. Neither government, nor big business, nor anyone of any authority can restrict the flow of information through the Internet. The next best aspect of it is that it is becoming cheaper every day.” Further, he says in the article, which is part of his book “Bankers to the Poor”, first published in 1998 and republished by Pengu...

The Gujarat state assembly elections last month brought back chief minister Narendra Modi to power with a resounding victory. A month has gone by, yet I am left wondering what prompted Modi – in his first speech after the victory, delivered at the BJP headquarters in Ahmedabad – to thank the government staff for overwhelmingly voting for his party. Addressing a jubilant gathering of his supporters, which included a top Congress turncoat, Narhari Amin, Modi dished out a figure of the support he believed he got from the karmacharis – 70 per cent!  This was, indeed, quite in contrast to what a few officials in the chief minister’s office (CMO), as also some senior secretaries, had been telling me all along – that the karmacharis had “generally cast their vote against Modi in the postal ballots.” There were even reports that, at some places, the karmacharis, especially cops, were prevented from posting their ballots. They were told to “perform their duty” instead of voting. When I trie...

Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi This is what happened several decades ago, when I was a small school-going child. Every summer, accompanied with my mother, I would come down from Delhi to spend the two-month-long holiday at my maternal uncle’s place in the posh Panchvati area of Ahmedabad. Each weekend, my uncle would take us for a ride in his grand old black car. I think it was Chevrolet. I would wait eagerly for the weekend, as I had virtually nothing to do for the rest of the days. In the evenings, I mostly play in the open ground with the neighbouring children, but for rest of the time, as if, I was under strict, almost loving, control of my grandma, whom all of the children of the family called Baa. Especially after the dinner, which would be pretty early, she would make it a point to entertain us – mainly me and my cousin – by playing bezique. During one such summer, Baa decided to give us a strong injection of nationalism. She took in her hand Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi’s well-kno...

Three years ago, a high-level Gujarat government document made a glaring observation, which I haven’t forgotten even today. Ever since I quoted the observation in a news story in late 2009, I have wondered: If things are really so appalling in urban areas, as the document tried to make out, then why do urban dwellers so strongly favour the ruling BJP in Gujarat? More, the urbanites’ voting share for the ruling party appears to have up after every electoral battle. While it may take some time for keen experts like Prof Ghanshyam Shah to analyze the data and identify a trend, even a cursory glance would show that in the last Gujarat assembly election, the saffron party won with great margins in 60-odd purely urban constituencies out of a total of 182. The victory margin ranged between over 1 lakh in Ghatlodia in Ahmedabad, where a Narendra Modi favourite won, to 17,000 in Porbandar, where a Congress stalwart was defeated. This was in complete contrast to rural Gujarat, where the two part...

It was Friday, December 14, one day before the campaign for the Gujarat state assembly polls was to end. I reached my office in Gandhinagar unusually early, at 8.00 am. As I was about to reach, I noticed some journalist colleagues from the local electronics media getting ready to go to a rally that was to be addressed by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi just about 20 km away, at Kalol town. They were busy prominently pasting “Media” in front of their car, so that the security wouldn’t bother them. One of them made a polite offer: “Come along, you will enjoy. We’ll return by the afternoon”. I refused, saying my intention was to go far from the madding crowd, away to a place where there wasn’t much of political noise.

Bibek Debroy Over the past few weeks, whenever I visited a senior state bureaucrat’s chamber in Gandhinagar Sachivalaya, I would invariably notice a coffee table book prominently displayed – “Gujarat: Governance for Growth and Development”, authored by Prof Bibek Debroy, an economist who shot into prominence after he was forced to move out of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation several years ago. It’s a common knowledge: He had “researched” in a study report that Gujarat was No 1 in economic freedom index. This was his only fault.  One of the bureaucrats proudly gave me a copy of the book, but not before telling me how Debroy had prepared the book after moving around Gujarat – of course, with every possible official help. Based on facts and figures in the book, this bureaucrat, just ahead of his retirement in October-end, made a presentation on Gujarat’s model of development at an evening get-together for state IAS bureaucrats called by chief minister Narendra Modi to mark his own 4,000 da...

In case Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi wins the forthcoming assembly polls – which he is likely to with a comfortable margin, if one goes by pollsters’ predictions – we will witness yet another biennial Modi show, the sixth Vibrant Gujarat global summit. Gujarat’s bureaucrats, sure of Modi victory, haven’t left any stone unturned to make preparations for the show, to take place at Mahatma Mandir, a convention centre not very far from Sachivalaya in Gandhinagar.