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Best podcast in recent times:

"Bureaucracy needs to be evaluated from someone outside the system".

"They don't like the microscope turned on them"

"They have become a law unto themselves".

We need to take up critical projects in 'mission mode' shielded from IAS.

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thank you, harish! the entire bureaucracy needs to be rethought, re-evaluated, and revamped.

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A few more such talks and there will be enough material to write a book on reform/Perestroika. Mukesh Chatter had <a href="https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/innovation-strategicintent-technology/comments">this amazing idea</a> on how to fix the system:

"When you design chips and circuit boards there's a team that designs the integrated circuits. There's a completely independent team that verifies independently that the chip design is what it is supposed to do. And those two teams, the verification team does not work for the design team. They independently verify and only come together at the top. So there's no incentive for compromises at any level. The same mechanism must exist if we want to succeed in India, which is when the budget allocation is done somebody else should be verifying that it is being implemented right.".

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good point, harish. it is true that in companies you have an adversarial relationship between implementers and those who do quality control/quaoty. that is the only way you can ensure that the original objectives are met, by not allowing the implementers to a) get away with shifting the goal posts, b) avoid their own skin being in the game in terms of demotions, dismissals etc for lack of performance.

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Usually, in the hardware world, this adverserial relationship is between designers and 'design-verifiers'. Because once you go past the design phase, any design flaws can be very costly to fix. So, the idea is to take your time in the early stages and verify it to death.

This very much applies to management and to governance too. Had our govt employed a 'design-verification' team before passing the CAA, they would have tailored the narrative to thwart the designs of Soros Open Society and JNU-Breaking-India types. In a way, it is an antidote to 'Yes-minister' culture that governments are prone to.

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Best podcast in recent times:

"Bureaucracy needs to be evaluated from someone outside the system".

"They don't like the microscope turned on them"

"They have become a law unto themselves".

We need to take up critical projects in 'mission mode' shielded from IAS.

Expand full comment