Maybe a bit early ... but still posting it here.
Arun Shourie talks about the tasks for the new government, the Gujarat CM’s style of working, the “understanding” that Modi could reach with the RSS and the fall in stature of the PMO.
This is the written transcript of last sunday's Walk The Talk TV show with Shekhar Gupta.
Unbelievable details from Arun Shourie'ji on some of the most stupid instances of governance being currently practiced.
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I heard a former general say the other day that there’s a nuclear plant coming up in Haryana. ‘A canal’s water will be used to cool it and then the water will irrigate the fields, it will carry radiation’. This is almost like Mani Ram Bagri in the ‘60s saying, ‘Bhakra Nangal mein paani mein se bijli nikali, ab gehoon kya paida hoga (Electricity has been taken out of Bhakra Nangal waters, what wheat can it irrigate now)?’. These things go unquestioned now.
Indira Gandhi said in 1983 in Parliament that one of the great breakthroughs for India’s atomic programme was the uranium finds in Andhra Pradesh. We have not been able to take one teaspoon out of it.
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You know better than anybody else what the condition of civil-military relations is, what A K Antony’s modesty has cost the country.
I call Antony the Bapu Nadkarni of politics. Bapu Nadkarni was a cricketer who holds a world record that will never be broken — 22 consecutive maiden overs. His figures were, I think, 24 overs, 23 maidens, one run and no wicket. He would not let anyone make runs, nor get them out. When batting, he wouldn’t get out, nor score runs.
But there is another feature which our common friend Ajai Shukla told me about… I hope I remember the figure correctly, 88 per cent is revenue expenditure of the Army’s budget. Only 12 per cent is for new acquisitions and weapons and capital improvement. So is this the way to defend the country?
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The head of SEBI, he gave me a figure. Do you know how many regulators there are for the economy? Thirty-six. In the financial sector alone, there are nine. In one single sector, education, there are 13 regulators.
That’s why we have such wonderful higher education.
With these 13 regulators, the good colleges are not being allowed to function, and you have a situation in which Rayalaseema University alone in two years gave 2,600 PhDs. Secondly, 23 universities in Andhra Pradesh admitted in five years 38,000 PhD candidates and gave PhDs to half of them.
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I think it was Agra University or one of these old universities in UP which gave a PhD on ‘Hindi Sahitya mein lote ka mahatva’.
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The fact that all hope has come to rest on Modi is a great responsibility for him… Naturally, he would require, as you said, a lot of talent. As he has mobilised for the elections, he will have to mobilise for the government.
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So Modi needs talent.
Talent, and also he needs the perseverance he has shown. Not GoMs and so on. What his style is, he makes everyone who is concerned sit together. Let’s say coal has to be solved, everybody concerned must sit on the table, discuss it thoroughly for eight hours. Decisions are taken there and then. Coal secretaries are asked what they need, finance what they need, commerce… it is done there and then. Now report back (in) the next meeting, one month from now.
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dafaq!! 
good one!
