Sujavna 3:20

0645 hrs/Sunday 26May 2013

Terrorism, sadly, continues to disrupt the lives of citizens, who are mostly innocent victims who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. All the preventive security measures that governments provide for, seem to be limited in their effectiveness.

Is there now a real case for a total rethink on the approach to counter-terrorism that calls for an innovative combination of path-breaking regulations that seek to control the manufacture and use of explosives and biological agents, multi-national corps for shared intelligence and frontline personnel, and a massive incentivisation for economic development of all backward regions in the world?

Can we think of innovations to current strategies for countering terrorism world over?

Signing off here......

Sujavna 3:19

0630 hrs/Sunday 19 May 2013

What innovations has the global music industry seen in the recent past? Songwriters and music composers continue to be as creative as they have always been, but has the business of music publishing and distribution and rights protection and monetisation, seen much of innovation?

I kept mulling on these questions for most of the last three days as I participated in a music convention in Brighton (The Great Escape), and I was disappointed. Beyond some excellent business models from Spotify and Youtube (which were not really innovations, but just extensions of the power of social media and digital distribution networks), and some good initiatives in DRM, there is no tangible evidence that the music industry has come up with innovations in any aspect of creation, promotion, publishing, distribution or consumption and monetisation aspects.

The demise of global names such as EMI and HMV, and the continuing struggle of independent artistes to make a modest living out of their creativity, should have naturally created conditions ripe for innovations, but this has apparently not yet happened. So I will continue to watch this space.

Signing off....

Sujavna 3:18

1230 hrs/Sunday 12 May 2013

On Friday last, as I was waiting (along with 100 other invited guests) for the top bureaucrat of my city to grace the Annual Day celebrations of a Chamber of Commerce (who incidentally came almost an hour later than his scheduled time), I started thinking of the numbers of game-changing and innovative public administration projects, initiatives and policy reforms that the top bureaucrats of Indian states should have completed in the 60-plus odd years that Indians began governing themselves.

Think: Assuming that a top bureaucrat stays for 5 years on his job, we have on an average around 12 individuals in each Indian state (during the last 60 years), who were recognised for their excellence in public administration capabilities (that is why they could reach the top job, isn’t it?). Focussing just on 20 of the current 29 states, means we have a group of 240 individuals, whose career excellence in public administration (be it in revenue administration, in law and order administration, in health and nutrition administration, in legal and constitutional understanding and interpretation to support government projects and policies, be it in education or land reforms) was recognised and rewarded with selection to the top Post.

That means we should have a catchment of 240 case studies that illustrate how lateral thinking, innovations in processes and systems, and application of the right sets of data analytics to effect the right interventions for the benefit of the largest segment of the affected citizens, could be achieved.

Where are these case studies? Who is chronicling them? How are the lessons learnt being communicated to other public administrators (including aspiring ones), and to their political masters? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there is a well-documented compilation of a list of current and past projects of innovative public administration, along with the names of key officials who were directly involved?  

And how cynical can one be, if one were to conclude that the 240 top bureaucrats reached their positions not because of their excellence in public administration but because they knew how to play the system and were in the right place at the right time seeming to do the right things for their political masters? Perhaps justified, if one were to look at the preponderance of archaic systems, laws and civil procedures that plague all of our states and the Centre and shackle them from offering good governance transparently!

Any views or suggestions? Signing off here.....

Sujavna 3:17

1230 hrs/Sunday 05 May 2013

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see the last few scenes of a movie titled A Shortcut to Happiness on a TV channel. And why do I think my surprise was pleasant? Because the movie was addressing a highly philosophical theme (of the role -or its absence- of God in the scheme of things that relate to happiness, satisfaction, contentment, greed, avarice, needs, wants) in an innovative way that has a writer and a lawyer-agent-manager (who also plays Satan’s handyperson) who enters into a devilish contract with him that leaves him between (sic) “the devil and the deep sea”!

What caught my attention is the fact that the filmmaker has sought to be innovative in the use of everyday characters and their strengths and weaknesses, ambitions and desires as well as their fears and hopes and suggests to viewers to sum up for themselves on where they stand on these philosophical demigods and “equilibberate” (liberate their own concepts of equilibrium from those of societies!) on value-systems.

Now this movie has set me thinking – has there been any treatise on what innovative approaches have filmmakers used to convey their stories and thoughts to the viewers of their films?

Do you know of any interesting anecdotes in this area?

Signing off here.....