An Indecisive Indian

What exactly is transparency? Transparency, as I understand, for a government organization dealing with public funds, or perhaps even in responsible business enterprises, is a culture of honesty and openness. But transparency sans accountability and delivery is meaningless; there is an equally important flip side and that is, the obligation to deliver. If use of public money must be done in a transparent manner, then it is also necessary that the purpose for which this money is being utilized is served well. It is easy to be transparent as long as it is divorced from delivery. It is also, perhaps, easier to deliver if there was no pressure of transparency. Merit lies in delivering while being transparent. In general, transparency is the quality of being easily seen through. A secondary connotation also refers to complete predictability, i.e., the output is entirely predictable from knowing the input. Since constructive and effective ordering of stores is not a computer game...

As we sit at home, relatively secure, but largely idle, we all have many questions. When will things stabilize so the lockdown is lifted? What is the probability of my contracting the infection, or worse, kicking the bucket at the scaffold of Covid-19? A whole lot of statistics are being thrown at us from TV channels and the faculty, eggheads and scholars of the Whatsapp Open University for the Mentally-Negligible (WOUM). In the mirage of colourful graphs and Covid buzzwords, you can see that the anchor, or the imbecile forwarder, has basically very little understanding of what they parrot. Terms like flattening of the curve, mortality rate, fatality rate, recovery rate, incremental rate and so on. Doctors don’t understand that much. It is not their job. For example the same information, that of number of Covid-19 cases in India going to 20000 in a month, was being put up last month in different manners, mostly without any reference to statistical significance. Near ...

We were nearing the end of the first half of 2018 and, the finer detailing of last minute design modifications, development of sub-assemblies, their endurance testing and manufacturing of shells at ICF were on at maddening speed. In respect of interdependent or interrelated works, each member of the team wanted the other to do his part quickly and the threatening, cajoling and fulmination in the name of Train 18 were the order of the day. One day a Stores officer confided in me that officers used to try to goad him to faster action in name of the GM earlier; now all levels of officers come and express their urgency in the name of Train 18. Mission Train 18 was the CEO of ICF now because its writ ran more than the GM. King Richard in Shakespeare’s Richard III shouts in the battlefield, “ A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!” The bard perhaps meant it to sound halfway valiant as Richard refuses to forsake the fray although his horse has bit the dust. But since this line b...