It was my first meeting with the Deputy Commissioner after assuming the charge of District Transport Officer. The young DC, who was from the South, asked, ‘Do you know how to drive any vehicle?&
Politicians and government officials are usually generous in giving members of the public their phone numbers and also telling them to contact them directly in case of need, whatever be the hour of th
Surinderjit Singh Sandhu
In Amritsar, there is a village named Gumtala. Very few know that it was earlier called Gummat Wala. Gummat is a dome-shaped structure. At this Gummat in the village, peasants who were unable to pay land revenue used to be herded and subjected to the worst kind of torture during the Mughal period.
Although the British constructed canals, made large areas of land cultivable and turned the disbanded robust army of the Khalsa Raj into firebrand farmers, the overall condition of the farmers remained pitiable as the Pagri Sambhal Jatta movement of 1907 indicates.
Renowned wrestler and actor Dara Singh has written in his autobiography that during his childhood, he noticed that his father would regularly go to the DC’s office to get some land re-transferred to some of his relatives. His father came to know from the Nambardar that the amount of his land revenue had increased as his relatives had transferred some land in his name. It was after protracted litigati
Surinderjit Singh Sandhu
The world observes Anti-corruption Day on December 9, but this spring of gutter continues to flow perennially. During a training programme at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, a woman IAS officer from Andhra Pradesh said ministers and senior officers generally, when they visited districts or sub-divisions, never spent a penny from their pockets and rather enjoyed the hospitality of the local administration, which is invariably based on the resources collected by officials by resorting to corrupt ways. All officers agreed that the same conditions prevailed in other states, too. The revenue department was considered as the major victim of this greed.