Kozhikode, Sep 3 (IANS) With the new-generation image of the V.D. Satheesan government firmly in focus, the entire Cabinet will step back from the corridors of power and head for the classrooms at the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIM-K) on Friday for a two-day brainstorming session aimed at giving ministers and senior officials a wider perspective on governance.
The classroom programme will bring the Chief Minister and his Cabinet together, along with high-ranking officials, before senior faculty members of IIM-K for a series of interactive sessions, role-plays, and discussions covering a range of contemporary governance challenges.
Interestingly, this is not the first time a Kerala Cabinet has taken the classroom route at IIM-K.
In 2011, then Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and his Cabinet spent two days at the institute in a brainstorming exercise on governance and administration.
IIM-K Director Debashis Chatterjee, who was at the helm of the institution then, will once again lead the programme this time also.
“The special thing is that this Chief Minister represents the new generation,” Chatterjee said, adding that the institute would place the insights and experience of its faculty at the disposal of Satheesan and his team.
The sessions will cover multiple subjects, including climate change and ways of converting emerging challenges into opportunities.
The programme is designed to be highly interactive rather than a conventional classroom exercise, with ministers and officials expected to participate in discussions, role-plays and other experiential learning exercises.
Recalling his interaction with Oommen Chandy in 2011, Chatterjee said the then Chief Minister had been told that winning future elections would require winning over the new generation.
“We told Oommen Chandy that you can’t win the next elections unless you win over the new generation. That happened,” he said.
The present Cabinet is going through a period of considerable pressure as it settles into office, and the IIM-K programme is intended to help ministers look at governance issues from a broader perspective.
Chatterjee described this as gaining a balcony view of the issues confronting the government, rather than remaining immersed in the day-to-day demands of administration.
The two-day programme, however, is not being conceived as a one-off exercise.
According to Chatterjee, it will serve as a trigger for a longer engagement, with the discussions and learning expected to be followed up subsequently.
For the Satheesan Cabinet, the exercise thus offers more than a change of venue.
It is an opportunity to pause, reassess challenges and look at governance from outside the immediate pressures of government while preparing a Cabinet that represents a new political generation for the demands ahead.
–IANS
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