FACE THE NATION | 26/11 AFTERMATH
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Cut the red-tape, India wants more heads to roll
Published on Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 07:37, Updated on Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 07:53 in 
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Two days after the Mumbai terror attacks - a siege that left 217 people dead - India's anger with politicians is at an all time high.
Politicians must be forced to be accountable, can a society achieve a real change by mobbing against them?
Maharashtra Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh has resigned, Maharashtra deputy chief minister R R Patil has resigned as has union home minister Shivraj Patil because of India's failure to prevent the Mumbai terror attacks. But are our political leaders wholly and solely to blame?
India's bureaucrats are also notoriously slow-moving and averse to taking decisions. Ministries operate in isolation and there is hardly any information sharing between Government departments.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have been accused of having lost the cutting edge-expertise.
CNN-IBN debate on Face The Nation if resignation of ministers was enough to win the war against terror.
On the panel of experts were Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi; former IPS officer Kiran Bedi; Executive Vice-Chairman of Mercury Travels Ashwini Kakkar (a concerned citizen of Mumbai who has been helping with rescue efforts); and former chief secretary of Delhi Shailaja Chandra.
At the beginning of the show only 12 per cent of those who voted in said yes, resignation of ministers enough to win the war on terror, while 88 per cent disagreed and said more was needed than simply political resignations.
TARGET BUREAUCRACY
Members of the media fraternity have been inundated with SMSes asking why only politicians were being attacked and why were bureaucrats being spared the rod. People are feeling that it is, at the end of the day, bureaucracy that gives ideation, implementation and administration to the politician. The politician is dependent on the bureaucrat and in our country, the bureaucracy is known to be slow and not to take decisions.
Shailaja Chandra said that India has a system whereby either we sack the person after holding an enquiry - which never gets finished and which is the bane of the whole problem - or we can take action under Article 311 if there is a situation where the security of a state is in question.
"We never seem to let heads roll. The Government has the authority to transfer them, replace them, get rid of them. The Government does have the authority to do it but then if everybody is in it together, then whose head is going to roll? Who is going to take action? asked Shailaja, making a very valid point.
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The process of reforms had started a decade ago. some powerful politician and bureaucrats are holding this up despite SC\'s
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The bureaucrats are in hand in glove with the politicians and delay decisions in interest of the politicians
The
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in london, when a cop shot dead a man who was suspected to be a terrorist who was threateningly running
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More heads to roll...what i would like to suggest is ki we should get rid of each and every politician
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This bunch of incorrigible fat bureaucrats have their own way of functioning. Traditionally used to the British lethargy and red
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