Editorial
| DOI | 10.1177/0019556121989501 |
| Author | C. Sheela Reddy,Surendra Nath Tripathi |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Editorial
Contemporary society has become more complex and diverse than ever before,
necessitating initiatives and actions in varied areas and on different subjects. The
purpose of governance is to guide, steer and regulate citizens’ activities through the
power of different systems and relations to maximise the public interest. This issue
of Indian Journal of Public Administration (IJPA) comprises articles ranging from
sustainable farming to postal security in India. It also focusses on the governance
gaps in the Sixth Schedule mechanism, a theoretical understanding of the trajectory
of the Indian state, restructuring of Indian Railways, service quality of e-services,
a narrative of the processes and differing perspectives of communal representation
over the Nehru Report of 1928, lateral recruitment in civil services and challenges
to governance relating to land inheritance of tribal women.
Indian agriculture is replete with vibrant diversity of practices. Pushpa Singh
engages with the critique of increasing monopolisation of the food and farming
systems and captures the initiatives through which marginal women farmers are
trying to revive seed saving and natural farming. The author presents an analy-
sis of field research on sustainable farming practices in five districts of Odisha,
namely, Nayagarh, Ganjam, Sambalpur, Bargarh and Sundargarh, where consid-
erable work in seed saving and sustainable farming by women farmers is being
done with the help of voluntary organisations. Farming must be practiced in sym-
biosis with nature and sync with agroecology. The author unequivocally suggests
that organic farming and conserving native seeds hold great promise for marginal
farmers. The idea to ‘grow locally; eat locally’ must be popularised to make local
production and consumption more sustainable.
The Sixth Schedule as a tool of political accommodation and an instrument
of compromise grafted the Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) as agents of
modern democracy upon tribal hierarchical communities in the northeast region
of India. Legislative provisions and state politics created governance challenges
for the ADCs from the state structures above and the tribal bodies below. The
challenges are usually centred on the nature of interactions between the ADCs,
state bodies and traditional institutions. Kavita N. Soreide explores the nature of
local governance and its evolution through various discourses around the Khasi
Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC). She discusses the governance gaps
in the formal structures and follows it up with ‘hybridity’ between the formal
and the informal domains of institutional authority and jurisdiction in the state
of Meghalaya. However, the author underscores the spirit of the Sixth Schedule
which holds within itself the seeds for liberal, progressive and creative solutions
for managing heterogeneous pluralities.
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
66(4) 451–454, 2020
© 2021 IIPA
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DOI:10.1177/0019556121989501
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