Daman, take care. Bharat Ratna Dr Manmohan Singh, 92 [26 Sep 1932 – 26 Dec 2024], rests. India mourns seven days officially. Soft Spoken gentleman. Silent, wise, thoughtful, intellectual, scrupulously honest visionary. Cambridge Master in economics. Oxford doctorate in economics. First in academics throughout the academic career. Professor in economics in Punjab University; and in International Trade in Delhi University. May be reluctant initially, Prime Minister of India for 10 years. Finance Minister for 5 years. Earlier worked with UNCTAD New York; Chief Economic Adviser; Secretary in Finance Ministry; Reserve Bank Governor; Planning Commission Deputy Chair; South Commission Secretary General; University Grants Commission Chair. He gave the UGC recognition to IRMA’s Programme in Rural Management – PRM as PG/MBA.
As deputy to PV Narasimha Rao, he ‘architected’ structural reforms, along with PM and Chidambaram, to liberalise, privatize, and globalize the Indian economy during 1991-96. During 2004-2014, he led his government in launching the Special economic zones Act, National Rural Health Mission, Aadhaar, MGNREGA, RTI, Right to Education, National Rural Livelihoods Mission, National Urban Livelihoods Mission. He continued reforms with his Finance Minister Chidambaram, to achieve 8-9% GDP growth rate. Launched value-added tax, a precursor to current GST. Signed India Civil Nuclear agreement. Telangana became a separate state.
Manmohan was Rajya Sabha member during 1991 to 2024, five times from Assam and later once from Rajasthan.
Books/films on him include: The Accidental Prime Minister; Pradhan mantri; Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gurusharan.
Note: CBI informs Supreme Court that there are 3.3 million NGOs, Voluntary Organizations, CSOs, Foundations, Trusts, Associations et al registered in the country. Only 0.3 million file accounts. They need to submit UCs, audited. Otherwise they need to be audited. NITI Aayog’s DARPAN has 0.27 million empanelled entities. There are religious trusts, entities; sports entities; for profit schools, hospitals etc., registered as charitable; numerous associations of youth, women, occupations, castes; small family, memorial trusts, foundations, libraries etc. Many of them may not take state funds, or public funds. Quite a number of them lack transparency. Corruption may be perceivably high. FCRA restrictions have reduced funds flows. Only a few demonstrate significant scale and impact. Quantity, quality, depth. Donors go with articulators, suave. Donors have their specific causes to go after. Fundraising capacity is lacking in a big way. No team(s), bandwidth, websites, social media presence for this. CSR does not see them as partners.
Can we show the theory of change for the vision-purpose we pursue? N-food system for PVM everywhere. Producers are getting ready to respond. Consumers are beginning to demand. Value-chain players are linking. Fairly. Can we build robust structure, teams to do this work on scale? Partnerships locally and outside? Can we build robust online-offline robust reporting, fundraising architecture? Can we join hands and mentor passionate high integrity teams for these ends, means? Can we get the triad state, market, civil society including collectives, local enterprises to serve people truly?
Yes, we can. If we coexist, keep flowing. Triad in tandem with life. In N? jeevakendrakayoga for 7L.
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