Plain Speaking

N. Chandrababu Naidu has brought a new dynamism to Indian politics. As chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, one of India’s largest and most populous states, he has set out to create new benchmarks in governance. He is attempting wide-ranging financial and administrative reforms and has given his state a vision document, vision 2020, which outlines goals to transform the economy of Andhra Pradesh and make it a global player in information technology. In Plain Speaking, Chandrababu Naidu, writing with journalist Sevanti Ninan, states the challenge of governance as he sees it in the new millennium. He talks of the need for a new kind of politics which is more purposeful, less self-serving and less fractious than in the past. He addresses the changing equations between center and states in the era of coalition politics, and the urgent need for administrative reform in a country where bloated governments have bled their exchequers dry. He describes the pioneering role assumed by Andhra Pradesh in electronic governance and says that information technology can provide what good governance needs: speed, efficiency, transparency, consistency and reliability. In this book, Mr. Naidu also focuses squarely on the need to tackle the basics: namely health, education and infrastructure, and describes Andhra Pradesh’s efforts to involve stakeholders in irrigation reform, education reform and rural resurgence. This is no dry discourse on governance : It should be of as much interest to the harassed citizen who dreads every contact with the government, as it will be to students of Indian politics and governance. It is an optimistic book from someone who believes that India will prosper if its leaders can create within the country a proper climate for achievement.