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Showing posts from October, 2016

India: Confetti Cleaners & Digital Dreamers

BY R.K. MISRA Cleanliness germinates in the mind and spreads to the streets. Last Sunday marked the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi (Oct.2,1869 ) and one of his most unassuming disciples, former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri (Oct 2,1904). It also marked the completion of two years of a national cleanliness crusade. Ironically what the Mahatma enunciated in five simple sentences, a century ago, is today the subject of a high decibel-multi-million rupee national project called ‘Clean India mission’ or ‘Swacch Bharat Abhiyan’. It was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his birthday two years ago. Coupled with ‘Digital India’ initiative- both have a completion deadline of 2019- the two projects, if successfully completed, possess the capacity to radically change the face of independent India. Almost  as much as Rajiv Gandhi’s telecom revolution and village panchayat empowerment or Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ road’s initiative. The Swachh