[governance] FW: Governance and the Sclerosis That Has Set In

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Phew.

The book (by a former minister - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arun_Shourie)
this Guardian article is reviewing is available at  
http://www.amazon.com/Governance-Sclerosis-That-Has-Set/dp/8129105241

_____________

http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2271578,00.html

Inky fingers


Red and green should never be seen

Marc Abrahams
Tuesday April 8, 2008
The Guardian

Are officers in the Indian government's ministry of steel permitted to 
use ink colours other than blue or black?

Arun Shourie documents the process whereby this question was considered, 
tackled, bumped, spun and, to some extent, resolved. Shourie manages to 
compress the telling to a spare seven pages in his book Governance and 
the Sclerosis That Has Set In.

The matter arose in 1999, when two ministry of steel officials noticed 
some handwritten notations on official papers that crossed their desk. 
The notes were in red and green ink.

The two officials drafted a letter to the department of administrative 
reforms and public grievances, asking whether this was permissible. Six 
days later, the letter arrived at the department of administrative 
reforms and public grievances, having traversed a physical distance of 
less than a kilometre.

Two weeks later, the department of administrative reforms and public 
Grievances sent an office memorandum to the directorate of printing, 
which took three weeks to decide that it was not in a position to issue 
a definitive clarification.

The department of administrative reforms then turned to the department 
of personnel and training, which deliberated for several weeks, then 
replied that the matter could best be handled by the department of 
administrative reforms.

The department of administrative reforms then redirected the question 
internally, recommending it for discussion at the senior officers meeting.

Over the next year, the matter was sent out and on to the director 
general of the national archives of India, who tasked it to his deputy 
director, who issued a letter that noted the relevance of Bureau of 
Indian Standards specifications IS-221-1962 and IS-220-1998, 
IS-1581-1975, and IS-5805-1993, which pertain variously to inks, 
fountain pens, and ball-point pens.

Subsequent consultations with the joint secretary (O&M) in the ministry 
of defence and other officials led to the eventual modification of the 
government's Manual of Office Procedure, enlarging paragraph 32, 
sub-paragraph 9 and also paragraph 68, sub-paragraph 5, which, when 
considered jointly, now proscribe that "only an officer of the level of 
joint secretary to the government of India and above may use green or 
red ink in rare cases" provided, however, that doing so would serve 
appropriate functions.

That's how things stood in 2004, the year Shourie's book appeared.

Should the question be put again to the test, the government might reach 
a different determination. Key links in the original chain of 
consultation and decision-making have changed.

The website of the Bureau of Indian Standards says that standard IS 
221-1962 (ink fluid, blue-black, for permanent records) and standard IS 
1581-1975 (ferro-gallo tannate fountain pen ink - 0.2% iron content) now 
have a new status: "Withdarwn" [sic].

"Withdarwn", too, are the related standards IS-3706-1965 (fountain 
pens), IS-5215-1980 (desk type fountain pens), IS-4498-1978 (nibs for 
fountain pens), IS-4099-1978 (nibs for penholders for general writing 
purposes), IS-2456-1963 (brass strip for pen nibs), and, most ominously 
of all, IS-221-1977 (ink fluid, blue-black, for permanent records).

. Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research 
and organiser of the Ig Nobel Prize



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