The book consists of eight chapters) analysing Corruption, Police, Population Control. Urban Administration, Executive Vigilance, Electoral Reform, Secularism and National Integration and Crime and Punishment. All are in micro fields of administration which are mismanaged or not managed at all.. Corruption is a much talked about subject. Various types and causes of corruption have been classified, elaborated and analysed and in this context function and malfunction of audit and executive vigilance have been focused in the book.

The chapter on Police shows why and how the lack of sincerity and political will is standing in the way of actual reform and how it can be overcome successfully.

In population it has been shown with factual arithmetic as to how the deployment of family planning workers can bring about economic results more than expected in medium and long terms and what methods should be applied in the Indian context.

Executive vigilance had no contribution in exposing nearly fifty scams which came into limelight during the nineteen nineties.

Electoral strategy should be such that mushroom growth of parties can be curtailed without offending any party and the concept of value of votes should be introduced for actual reform, the book says.

The writer has a firm conviction that all systemic weaknesses of administration can be overcome for betterment in all fields through participatory democracy.

K.C. BRAHMACHARY (b. 1935) is a Post-Graduate in Economics. Having served the Delhi Administration for over thirty years in various capacities, he has intimate knowledge of the jagged roads of administration. He served in various departments, e.g. Industry, Labour, Sales Tax, Food & Civil Supplies and Vigilance. He has had detailed encounters with the problems of the departments and the people affected by them. He has sought to answer them patiently and sympathetically with original thought provoking ideas.

As an Industries Officer, he served the Royal Government of Bhutan, fruitfully for two and a half years on deputation. Rich in experience at Bhutan, he penned a book on Bhutan which was well received. He has been contributing to various journals including Yojana.

The very title of the book signifies the relation of the common people with the administration, close or distant, desirability or otherwise of such relations. Spending the whole life in the government service has afforded me an opportunity to see and understand many things from close quarters including the public in general. It was perhaps, an advantage to see incumbents both above and below in an ambient atmosphere which could not have been possible as one of millions from outside. The approach therefore, has of necessity, been down to earth contrary to a scholastic and theoretical exposition.

The Administration touches every aspect of life of the people or the people depend to a large extent on the programmes and their implementation by the administration in a democratic set up. The acid test of success of an administration lies in the understanding of its schemes by the people in general and the extent of concern it has to deliver goods to the people. The indispensability of individuals for managing the system instead of scientific management is the weakest point of an administration and sine qua non of backwardness beset with sinister possibilities of undue secrecy, corruptibility and monopoly of a few managed to be kept vested for decades together. In such a predicament we, the public are kept at bay, befooled and beguiled.

Ideas to speak about and finding simple solutions to break down many problems and artificial deadlocks were brewing for years but the modes of exposure and implementation remained a question to liquidate. Many news and views on many aspects of administration have been and are always delivered in the newspapers and magazines which are forgotten after a couple of days but to me these appeared to be jewels floated on the fleeting time and I felt a necessity to grab an opportunity to catch hold of them which are the product of intellectual luminaries and brilliant journalists. I contributed from my own experience and constructive imagination as well.

The topics incorporated are Corruption and Crisis in Institutions, Police, Population Control, Urban Administration, Executive Vigilance, Electoral Reforms, Secularism and National Integration and Crime and Punishment. These eight chapters reflect a good deal of administrative activities to which every body is concerned some way or the other but in no way it is an exhaustive list of administrative activities. Each topic can be a subject for PhD research and erudite volumes can be written by the scholars and the accomplished ones. But the purpose of this book is not scholarliness, but to appraise common run of man and all of us, suggesting some simple but viable solutions for remedy of ills.

**Contents and Sample Pages**