Scholars throw light on essence of good governance
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, May 30 2013: A galaxy of scholars and stalwart speakers dissected the roles of youth in a democratic social set up for bringing about good governance during a day-long National seminar on 'Youth for good governance' jointly organised by National Service Scheme (NSS) Cell, Manipur University (MU), State NSS Cell and all the NSS Units of Manipur at the Centenary Hall of the University here today.

Emphasizing on the need of women empowerment in the process of good governance, Satyanarayan Sahu, Joint Secretary, Rajya Sabha Secretaria, Parliament of India, who delivered the key note address, observed that without participation of a "critical mass of women" in governance, there could not be any good governance in the country.

It would be hard to bring good governance in the country with the present scenario of scarce involvement of women, just 3 legislators in Manipur and around 10 MPs in Parliament, which is less than 33% of women's participation in governance.

Dignitaries who attended the inaugural function of a National Seminar on 'Youth for Good Governance' at Manipur University

"Good governance does not mean a scheme to change government but to change our outlook at women, empowerment, education, spiritual, etc.

And gender equality must be made in home to bring good governance," Satyanarayan added.

Dr Yugal Rayalu, Head of Vocational Department, Dharmapeth Science College, Ambazari, Nagpur, who participated in the seminar as one of the resource persons, stated that the government means to hold the authority that bestowed upon a political party to run the affair of a democratic nation while good governance is an effort of the ruling party and a "social management" to give a social life to the citizens of the nation.

The power of democracy lies with the common citizen; unless people participate, democracy becomes static and stops delivering the results.

Naturally the mood of the nation today is decided by youth- they should decide the direction of the politics.

However, as more and more youth kept away from politics, the worst among them got chance to enter the political arena without much competition.

"Today, we find that people with criminal background entering the Parliament and the legislative assemblies with ease because all the intelligent have opted to remain out.

When these criminals become ministers, these very intelligentsia start complaining that the democracy is defunct," Yugal Rayalu asserted.

Maintaining that good governance requires understanding and participation of every member of the society and stressing on the need for participation of young people in decision making process, Prof.C J O'Brien, Department of English, MU, another resource person retorted in his paper, 'youth and governance: a bird's eye view around the globe' that its refers to the practice of having young people to work in partnership with adults to establish the policies, goals, and activities for a programme.

The misconception is that adults may hold is that youth will not want to run key aspects of the programme.

But experience suggests that young people want to share responsibilities with adult as opposed to doing everything themselves.

Youths are the spinal cord of peace builders; elders can give idea but can't carry out it.

Unluckily, there is no culture to culture for the youths to bring positive change and good governance, O'Brien observed.

Dr M Nara Singh, National Coordinator of Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India (CERI); Dr Arambam Birjit Singh, Columnist; Dr N Sushilkumar Singh, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Management & Technology, Guru Jambheshwar University; Prof.S Lokendrajit Singh, Department of Philosophy, MU and Dr Y Junu Singh, Additional SIO, NIC Secretariat, Imphal, etc, were among other resource persons who shared their thoughts on the topic of the seminar.

The inaugural function of the seminar was attended by Prof.HNK Sarma, Vice Chancellor of MU; Prof.E Bijoykumar Singh, Dean, School of Social Sciences, MU; Prof.M Ranjit Singh, President, Manipur University Teachers' Association; Deepak Sharma, Youth Officer, NSS, NER, Guwahati as chief guest, president and guests of honour respectively.