By giving the poor parents and children of India education vouchers and hence giving them a choice, you would be doing nothing more than what you and I have done for our children and what politicians of all hues have done for their children! Private schools will prosper; government schools will improve. What you do for schools, you can extend to colleges and vocational institutions. None of this is new; it is in keeping with what the National Knowledge Commission (appointed by you) has recommended. This one step will result in a “truly educated” India in less than two decades.

Two, police and judicial reform. Here again numerous commissions have given blueprints. The political resistance has been from the states. There is no need to enter into confrontations with them; that is not your style anyway. Your government can simply announce large “modernisation” grants to those states which agree to reform and in fact modernise their police systems and their judicial processes. Our policemen and policewomen desperately need better physical facilities, networked computers, video cameras, night-vision goggles, bullet-proof vests and so on. They also need to be insulated from biased interference, irrational transfers and harassment. There are plenty of reports on how to fix the situation. All we need to do is implement them.

Similarly, we need judicial reform. Judges need better offices, better administrative support and help from independent judicial commissioners who can take (and even video-tape) witness depositions. All this can help speedier justice for the citizens of the land. If some Luddite states turn down these funds, you can rest assured that the Congress party will win hands down in those states in the next round. Incidentally, meaningful improvement of the working conditions, systems and processes in our police and judiciary will be far more helpful in improving national security than draconian laws that are always susceptible to misuse.

... contd.