- This event is over. However, time travel possible through our Audio & Video! See upcoming events
Glimpses of the Steel Frame
The Memoirs of a Rebel IAS Officer
Speakers
V Balasubramanian joined the IAS in 1965. Having graduated from the Rangoon University, he was influenced by Marxian philosophy. He held various interesting posts such as Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate for six years, even in the Bangalore district during the Emergency. He worked under different Chief Ministers such as Veerendra Patil, Devaraj Urs, Gundu Rao and Ramakrishna Hegde, whose Secretary he was for three years.
After his retirement in 2001, he was the Chairman of the Task Force for Prevention of Land Grabbing in Karnataka. When the government refused to print his report ‘Greed and Connivance’, he published and distributed it at his own cost. Before his adieu from public service in 2013, he was hauled up by the Privileges Committee of the Karnataka Legislature for contempt, but it was dropped due to media criticism.
He has narrated incisively, his fall from grace of political leadership and bureaucracy in the last five decades in his new memoir Fall From Grace: Memoirs of a Rebel IAS Officer. The themes of the book include the role of the bureaucracy, the nature of administration in India, Karnataka’s governance during his tenure, and the role of leaders like Devraj Urs, Ramakrishna Hegde, J. H. Patel and Devegowda.
In this session, he will make a small presentation which will be followed by a discussion with Tara Kishnaswamy and D Umapathy.
You can find an article about the book here.
Speakers
V Balasubramanian
V Balasubramanian joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1965. He served as Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate for five years in three districts (Shimoga, Gulbarga and Bangalore) from 1971 to 1976 in Karnataka. He was the Director of Sericulture in Karnataka from 1976 to 1980 and negotiated the first Karnataka Sericulture Project with World Bank for US$ 70 million. He has been a Consultant to the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, UNDP and FAO and has prepared project reports and implemented projects in Zambia and Nepal. He also organised an Employment Project for Swiss Development Cooperation in Bangladesh.
D Umapathy
D Umapathy has worked in Delhi for over three decades and was witness to the power politics, and how the three pillars of democracy operate from the capital city of the country. He has worked with the Indian Express Group (Kannada Prabha), Times of India Group (Vijaya Karnataka) and The Printers Mysore Limited which publishes Prajavani and Deccan Herald. He is currently associated with EEdina.com, a people driven digital Media organisation. He is a recipient of several awards in the media field and has published two books. He is an alumnus of the University of Mysore.
Tara Krishnaswamy
Tara Krishnaswamy is a co-founder of Citizens For Bengaluru, a grassroots people’s movement with landmark campaigns for #SteelFlyoverBeda, campaigns for mass public transit like the #ChukuBukuBeku & #BusBhagyaBeku for suburban trains and public buses, and the #BekuBedaSanthe for the citizens manifesto in Bengaluru. The current campaign is for institutionalising Ward Committees for systemic participation of citizens in grassroots democracy in urban local bodies. She is also the co-founder of Shakti, a pan-India, non partisan citizens pressure group working to get more women into State Assemblies & Parliament.
She has independently authored on federalism, citizenship, gender and caste issues with First Post, The News Minute, Live Mint, News Laundry, Times of India, Hindustan Times etc. She is a TEDx speaker and has taught public policy courses in Bengaluru.
