I regard the middle classes in India and elsewhere to be basically sympathetic. But if you are told that the government can’t do anything and there is nothing you can do about it, then you get a reason for the smugness of cynicism that nothing can be done. But the truth is we can do things, things have happened.

For example, India was thought to have been the main centre of the AIDS epidemic earlier on. But that didn’t happen. Because that fear actually made the middle classes very worried and were very conscious of the issue. So my hope is that if the middle class gets the right information about health and education and other issues, they can get involved and something similar can happen.

Remember that administration and accountability are not independent of what we want. I am very strongly pro-reform. I would like more reforms in many ways. Though reforms are needed, they should be combined with health and education. Read More

Jyothi Shankaran

    Jyothi’s last role was as Senior Editor with the business news channel Bloomberg TV India. He also worked as News Editor at business-standard.com, the online version of the business newspaper Business Standard. Jyothi is a chemical engineer from the Regional Engineering College, Srinagar.