There was yet another hard-hitting column by Tavleen Singh in today’s Indian Express, it’s not about the budget. She says that if clamouring (over TV, newspapers, or placards held up in Jantar Mantar) is the way to get ourselves heard, then why don’t we clamour about the biggest problems facing India — the poor schools in our villages, the broken roads, the neglected clinics, the corruption… Governance indeed is the biggest failure in India, as Tavleen Singh puts it.

To me and so many more, India hardly seems to be heading along the superpower direction it wants to, rather it’s a country in crisis. Every single infrastructural system seems to collapsing. Yet we are proudly happy about the GDP growth again heading towards the 9% region while the rest of world remained mired in a recession. How much of this 9% growth has actually translated into improving education, having more doctors, better healthcare, smoother systems in government offices? Don’t get me started on what this 9% growth is actually helping to fund, that’s another story! But the point here is that one of the jobs of the media is supposed to be to bring attention to the important issues at hand. The Indian media however has been a huge failure too. It is so depressing to hear the trivial arguments that most of our journalists make these days that for good reason I decided to not buy a TV and get all my news online from sources that I somewhat respect. Media and governance are however inextricably linked. The feedback loop is essential to ensure effective governance. This is the vision and mission of Gram Vaani, to equip the people themselves to put together the better media, a more sensible media, that closes the feedback loop and actually talks about important things which matter and help fix governance.