Renaming of a road in the capital city of new Delhi

The New Delhi Municipal Council has substituted the name of Aurangazeb road with that of APJ Abdul Kalam. It has been questioned by a lawyer before the Delhi High Court.

The powers of the municipal body in this regard are not questionable although the same are subject to a judicial review. But the naming of a structure or a facility after a high dignitary living or dead within the last 50 or 100 years is normally not to be encouraged, however esteemed or revered a person may be by the public. A good convention could be the naming of an individual at least 100 years after his / her expiry. The nation and its history is not short of great names any way for this purpose.

This could be either decided by the Parliament or adjudicated by the Supreme Court of India.

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'Good governance has become a casualty'

"Transfers and postings were some ways in which the bureaucracy was made compliant. Today government servants are used to cushy postings which is a gift of the political bosses. Transferring of officials is not and should not be the prerogative of political bosses. It is a potent weapon by which one can control the honest bureaucrat or reward a dishonest one. I strongly believe that the power of transfer should b vested with the bureaucracy itself and politicians should not have any role to play in it."  -- said N. Santosh Hegde, former Supreme Court judge and former Lokayukta of Karnataka State while delivering the 12th Nani Palkivala memorial lecture in Mumbai on Tuesday, September 1, 2015.

One should agree with his observation and await the day when politicians would realise this truth and voluntarily surrender their right as we desire. I would go a step further and argue that the promotions and punishments too should not be left in the hands of politicians although there is no guarantee that the senior bureaucrats too would be impartial in their conduct. Rather a panel of expert-seniors drawn from other cadres should be given this task for a fair and free disposal of such activities. Till then only psychopaths and selfish officials and politicians would spoil the atmosphere and ruin the administration permanently. We are no doubt fast moving in that direction both in the states and the centre. We certainly need a stern direction and ruling in that direction from the Supreme Court at any date in future!

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