Cover Story

Amitabh Thakur: Cop with a difference

The young couple who got into the Nauchandi Express three-tier sleeper coach did so because there were no other seats available on the train. They assumed, incorrectly then, that the trip from Lucknow to Meerut would be short and enjoyable.

Samit Sharma: People’s bureaucrat

In Rajasthan, Samit Sharma is known as a common man’s civil servant. Such is his public image that when he was transferred as district magistrate (DM) Nagaur last year to Jaipur, the district rose in protest.

Somani Bora: Green credo

In the Ajay Devgun blockbuster ‘Apharan’, people take out a torchlight procession to block transfer of the superintendent of police (SP), deemed pro-people. Sonmani Bora is that kind of officer.

Nazrul Islam: Maverick lone ranger in West Bengal

‘What can’t a man in uniform do’ is a common refrain when West Bengal cadre IPS officer Nazrul Islam is in question.

Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta: Policing and the milieu

Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, IGP (T&AP) Assam, is a man of many parts. When not engaging militants in gun battles or tackling their threat calls, he is the nodal officer of ‘Project Ashwas’, an Assam Police project run for the benefit of children hit by terrorist violence.

Umakant Umrao: Preserving water in villages

The civil service by training equips an officer to become a specialist in his or her area of posting. Like Umakant Umrao, a Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officer, who has taken the science of water conservation to a new level and in a short span of time he has also succeeded in his efforts.

R Gokul: The hero of Belekeri

In the pantheon of civil servants dominated by the IAS and IPS, Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers generally maintain a low profile. Rarely does their path cross politicians in the same way as it does with some other sections of the civil bureaucracy.

P Manivannan: Mr Transparent

For the general populace, to meet an elected representative is a lot easier than meeting a top bureaucrat. At least the politician comes once every five years! With a few notable exceptions, meet 39-year-old IAS officer P Manivannan, who is trying to introduce a new transparency into proceedings.

Krishan Kumar: Punjab’s Game Changer

If a poor illiterate villager in Punjab thinks the deputy commissioner made life easy for him, the government’s state objective of meeting peoples’ aspirations could be considered to have been achieved to a great degree.

Nidhi Kesarwani: Question of life and death

Serving in strife torn states is radically different from a posting in the Indian hinterland. There are many imponderables.

Harsh Gupta: Stormy Petrel

As deputy collector (DC) of Bidar, Harsh Gupta was no less than a celebrity. As DC Chikkamagalur, tribals found a god sent savior in him.

Sandeep Silas: The unlikely peacenik

It is highly unlikely combination — a dyed-in-the-wool Government of India (GoI) bureaucrat who doubles up as peace activist. Meet Sandeep Silas, currently private secretary to Union minister of labour and employment Mallikarjun Kharge at Delhi.

From the Editor

Making a difference

An appointment to the civil service of the Company,’’ noted the Macaulay Committee Report in 1854 giving India its first modern bureaucracy which recommended that the patronage-based system of East India Company be scrapped in favour of tough competitive examinations, “will not be a matter of favour but a matter of right.

Column

Initiate legal reform

Calcutta High Court has its glorious past. There were judges who were considered legendary. Before Partition, there were lesser number of cases but it has increased for various reasons. Now, the Calcutta High Court has the highest number of cases.

Erudition and wit

In June 1967, when I loitered into the century-old Indo-Saracenic style building as a law apprentice, I was only partially aware that I was entering not just a historic but also a vibrant institution identified with administering justice of a larger Madras Presidency before reorganization of states and of present of Tamil Nadu.

Roses in December

The High Court of Judicature at Bombay (not Mumbai, yet) will soon complete 150 years of its existence. This court had tried the cases of Lokmanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi.

Interview

‘Spread of RTI will ensure good governance’

A keen observer of sociology and politics in the Ganga belt, veteran journalist Farzand Ahmed was with India Today for 30 years. His 1985 report “Agony of Kalahandi” about abject poverty in Orissa brought him accolades.

Bureaucracy

Conflict of interest

The UPA government proposes to place curbs on top bureaucrats wanting to join the private sector soon after retirement.

RTI

Double-edged wonder

Call it lack of good faith or misdirected agenda, the UPA government’s landmark legislation RTI is under attack. As it completes six years, political threats are not all what it needs to shield against

150 Years of History

The court with a lighthouse

Exactly 150 years ago, what would become the third pillar of Indian democracy, took roots in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. By an enactment of the British parliament, the Indian High Courts Act, 1862, high courts were established in the three Indian presidencies.