In the first case, that is - building up the ecosystems of development, requires expertise, insight, and non-compromising skills development. We need to adopt or evolve correct policies and their implementation.

Let us take the development paradigm profile that India is following since early nineties- the Look East Policy (LEP) of the Narasimha Rao government. The time was gelling well into the first phase of economic reforms that removed the bottlenecks in international trade with a view to inviting investments in India in terms of industries and technology transfers.

The LEP also built up its muscle with the deterrent Pokhran II nuclear capability tests in 1998 by the Vajpayee government, which accentuated strong Track II diplomacy to put the reforms on rails. But the second stage of reforms was yet to come, as the country’s governance dithered on many key issues, until the rout of the UPA-II government in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections

If these were the natural developments — thanks to successful researches by Indians in many domains like, nuclear and information technologies, manufacturing, healthcare, medicines, skills-based education — why governance would falter on weak policies?

At least on three counts, India’s governance is faltering: One, incapability of harnessing the fullest potentials of all people, two, inadequacy in outreach of skills-education, and three, failing justice administration system.

In the first case, the policies do not seem to be keeping pace with developments in the healthcare sciences. With modern medicinal researches and capability, Indian life expectancy has grown. With more modern scientific applications of healthcare modules, it may go up to 90 years. In such a circumstance, the nation is retiring its workforce at 60 in most cases. In certain private organizations it is at 58 and in governmental educational institutions at 65.

A life span between average 60 to 80 is long twenty years, before getting natural death. During this period a senior person would have either to live on pension doled by the government and its systems, or as the burden of his/her kin.

If a burden, with nothing constructive to do and no important duties other than keeping home to perform, the talent of these seasoned people go unexploited. Not everybody can emerge to become a social activist, or a think-tank, or a mentor in his/her family, because in most cases they are ignored as a must-tolerate entity in the family.

The truth is, the country loses the services of a huge number of seasoned talents who groomed their families, organisations and India into what these are today. Our policies should be able to accommodate the capable talent- pool between 60 to 80, if necessary by a quota system.

The capable elders may be accommodated into higher education like PhDs, fresh skills-training into starting a new enterprise, and others. If gainfully involved ,they would live a dignified life, with nobody complaining.

The second case is that our education system fails to become inclusive. The regular universities’ intake of students through percentage, excludes many talents. Inclusive education outreach is possible through unrestricted induction policies, in which every talent should be given opportunities to flower. That is possible through subject-specific skills development modules. If the curricula develops modules based on skills development – such as skills to make, assemble, write, draw, interact, create, develop, communicate, etc. – half the targets of inclusive education is achieved.

The third case of faltering lies in the justice administration system in India, which often denies justice. The administrative bodies — such as police, army, navy, air force – cannot induce trust in minds of common people, because these are generally not reachable.

Of these, the police is the worst. Lodging a complaint to police indirectly means creating scopes for the Investigative Officer (IO) and his team to extort bribes both from the Complainant and the Accused.

A rich complainant would somehow manage to get his/her grievances redressed, but the poor would always fail. The rich mostly suffer in burglary cases. A burglary case in India is handled poorly. In modern democracies like the USA, the UK and Australia, these are always solved promptly.

A policeman must be made responsible for a single complaint from anywhere within his/her jurisdiction. S/he should be groomed as citizens' friend, a protector and a benefactor. That is why s/he is given huge salaries, and other perks. If police person fails to solve at least five cases in a year, should be given marching orders out of job or be removed from important posts for at least five years

There is actually no check on advocates. They know, even if they can't win they can still make money by ‘jugaru’ services. There is no check on their arbitrary charging of fees. They can charge any amount under the cover of “Fees”.

For the sake of larger democracy, the advocates’ fees should be standardised and made public through media campaign. Those who cannot win at least 10 cases a year, should be asked to quit. Winning cases would build up fair competition and stop them from playing secret double games for more money.

The irony is we want to emulate norms of governance of advanced democracies, but falter at the beginning, at our policy-making stages. (IPA Service)