Public Policymaking in India

Preface

The beautiful face of Helen of Troy, it is said, ‘launch’d a thousand ships’; the epic war that followed that journey is immortalized by Homer’s Iliad. A chance encounter with a Helen of New York, about five years ago just before I retired from the Indian Administrative Service, launched me on a voyage of intellectual exploration that culminated in this book. After I developed the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), researchers used to descend on me to learn about the genesis of DPEP, and an answer for the question of why the government had decided to avail external funding for primary education. Ms Helen Porter’s questioning followed a different track: she wanted to know from me why in spite of its much-acclaimed design and ...