In Kerala, Political Humor is Embraced

India may have dented its image as a champion of press freedom after the anticorruption activist Aseem Trivedi was arrested in September for lampooning the Parliament in a cartoon, but, in fact, political satire has a long history in many parts of the country, especially in Kerala.

No-holds-barred portraits of political leaders are daily fare on every local channel, and the targets of such shows even see it as an honor of sorts.

Such tolerance for ridicule lies in the fact that mimicry has long been the staple of entertainment in Kerala. Most of the top movie stars in Malayalam-language cinema, also known as Mollywood, started their careers as mimicry artists at temple festivals and other public functions. In the old days, they imitated sounds around them, like the birds, the animals and the machines. Then they move d on to imitating popular movie stars and eventually to political leaders.

With the explosion of the 24/7 television channels, many of them news channels, the mimicry artists found their way to the small screen. To meet the competition from entertainment channels, the news channels started showing movie clips in the guise of entertainment news and introduced several programs with sharp political satire.

The longest-running of these series is “Munshi” on Asianet, a daily show poking fun at the prevalent political and social practices. A fixed cast of half a dozen men, who represent not only different political views but also different castes and communities, discuss the day's major event with sharp wit and comical action. They take sides, attack politicians by name and generally reflect the frustrations of the common man. Fin ally, the wisest of them all, Munshi, or the Pundit, a wise old man who does not participate in the conversation, sums up the whole situation in a proverb or a pithy quote.

The actors live and work together day in and day out to produce their program, which reminds viewers of the cartoonist R.K. Laxman's Common Man, who appeared every day on the front page of a national daily to offer his commentary on the faults and foibles of politicians.

Asianet has another serial called “Cinemala,” in which actors appear as politicians. Mimicry is used very effectively to bring out the most comical aspects of the political leaders, and the actors bear striking similarities to politicians like the defense minister A.K. Antony, the Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy and the Communist leader V.S. Achuthanandan.

All the channels seem to have found their own versions of Antony, Chandy and Achuthanandan, with varying degrees of similarity with the originals. Just as the real Charlie Chaplin once lost a Chaplin look-alike contest, the real politicians will have a hard time competing with their impersonators, as the latter appear to be more authentic than the former.

Slapstick comedy is not the only medium for political satire. Following the lead of a show called “Natakame Ulakam” (“All the World is a Stage”) on Amrita TV, several others have emerged as one-man talk shows, in which political events are described with various degrees of ridicule. Some, like “Varanthyam” (“Weekend”) on Indiavision and “Sakshi” (“Witness”) on the leftist Kairali channel, show actual clips of news events to prove the point that facts are often stranger than fiction.

Torn out of context in some instances, the words and deeds of politicians appear ridiculous. One favorite item features political leaders falling asleep on the dais, often when the speaker talks about the need to awake, arise and stop not until the goal is reached. Some shows literally put words in the mouths of politicians by playing the soundtrack of a film.

Asianet's serious news program, “Cover Story,” is the hardest hitting of all the political programs. The anchor, Sindhu Suryakumar, minces no words in her critical analyses of men and matters and reinforces her arguments with hard facts. She also uses songs and scenes from Mollywood to great effect, but the mood is serous and purposeful. Much to the credit of the authorities, nobody has either tried to intimidate her or to influence her, and she carries on merrily, exposing all politicians.

“In my channel, I am happy to juxtapose a serious program on international matters with a slapstick on Indian politicians,” said T.N. Gopakumar, editor in chief of Asianet News. “I professionally believe that this goes to strengthen the aspirations of the people, who exercise their right to vote to elect a better government. Of course, we ensure that satire does not cross the borders, turn into vendetta or malice.”

A major dilemma of the politicians is whether to laugh or cry when they become caricatures in popular comedy shows. The appearance of their doubles indicates that they have arrived on the scene, and they may rejoice on that account. Only those who matter politically are imitated and ridiculed. On the other hand, upcoming politicians are not likely to be pleased to see their weaknesses exposed on television.

“As a devotee of free speech, I tell myself that it is flattering to be found worthy of being satirized, so one just grins and bears it and hopes the damage is not lasting,” said Shashi Tharoor, a member of Parliament and recently-named minister of state for human resources development. He was recently portrayed in one show's sketch as doing a cinematic dance with his wife, lampooning his image as a romantic Bollywood-style hero.

For more seasoned politicians, it is just an occupational hazard they have learned to live with. Mr. Chandy, the state's chief minister, was philosophical about his many appearances on these shows. “Satire is part of the vibrant visual media in Kerala, which enjoys freedom of expression,” he said.

India and Britain Deepen Their Artistic Links

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum, Mumbai

Interns at the Courtauld Institute working on the "Sword of Damocles." The London art school is active in restoration efforts across India.

MUMBAI - It has taken well over sixty years, but after a traumatic divorce that unraveled an empire, India and Britain now seem to be having some kind of cultural honeymoon.

"Akbar ordering the slaughter to cease in 1578" (c.1595), one of the works showing in the British Library's coming exhibition "Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire."

"Squirrels in a Plane Tree," another work in the exhibition. Cultural ties between Britain and India have become stronger in recent years.

The landmark exhibition “Mummy: The Inside Story,” which opens on Nov. 21 at the biggest museum in Mumbai, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, or CSMVS, is the result of a new collaboration between the British Museum, whose collection forms the display, and the CSMVS. In January, the British Council is holding an exhibition in India of 30 contemporary British artists, including David Hockney and Peter Blake. And in London, India's Minister of Culture, Chandresh Kumari Katoch, is set to inaugurate on Nov. 9 the opening of “Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire,” at the British Library. While that exhibition did not involve any explicit collaboration with Indian museums or curators, it is part of a wider cultural momentum that has increased in recent years and notably since both countries signed a memorandum of understanding in July 2010 to deepen artistic ties.

“For the British public, India has always been a starting point for Asia,” Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, said by telephone. He added that the concept of London museums working more closely with India makes sense, “as a very large part of India lives here.”

From the formation of the East India Company in 1600 to the rise of the British Raj and its fall when India declared independence in 1947, British-Indian relations have weathered ups and downs. But with India's growing economic importance, wariness of the shadow of colonization is waning and a recognition is growing that the country's art heritage should be reinvigorated. Since the cultural agreement was signed in 2010, there has been an increasing number of exchange projects, including traveling exhibitions, research, training, digitizing of archives and collections and fund-raising.

“British institutions have always seen India as a huge art resource, but now it's being seen as a place for serious high-level exchange,” said Adam Pushkin, the head of arts at the British Council in India.

Major British institutions are increasingly turning to India to expand their resources, including modern and contemporary galleries. “We are actively developing reciprocal projects and possible exhibition plans,” Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, said in an e-mail.

Lekha Poddar, an Indian art collector who heads the Tate's newly formed South Asia Acquisitions Committee and who founded the Devi Art Foundation in Delhi, pointed out that many British institutions wanted to “be part of the new economic power shift that's happening from West to East.”

Developments on the arts front between India and Britain have been numerous in recent years. Earlier this year, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London displayed paintings by Rabindranath Tagore, with many obtained from the Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan in West Bengal and shown outside India for the first time. A traveling exhibit of Kalighat paintings this spring, organized by the V&A and the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, was seen by 400,000 visitors in Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad and New Delhi.

Other initiatives include a show of works by the Indian-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor in Mumbai and Delhi, organized last year by the British Council, the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi and the Lisson Gallery in London. The British Council also reopened the Queens Gallery, an exhibition space in its New Delhi premises, last year.

Smaller galleries and provincial museums are also getting in on the cultural exchange. Spaces like Gasworks in London have residencies specifically for Indian artists financed by organizations like Creative India. Last year, the British artist Liz Ballard spent two months in Mumbai as part of a residency exchange between the CSMVS and the Norwich Castle museum, while the artist Simon Liddiment conducted printmaking workshops at the Sir J.J. School of Arts in Mumbai.

Exhibitions aside, Britain and India are also working together to share expertise. The British Museum held a leadership training program supported by India's Ministry of Culture for 20 people including museum directors, administrators and curators from across India earlier this year, while the V&A conducted a training program in London for 15 museum professionals from India. The V&A and the British Library are helping to digitize Indian archives and paintings from collections in India and Britain. Graduates from the Courtauld Institute of Art have worked at the conservation center at the CSMVS, and the Institute is active in restoration efforts across India.

In India, where many museums had, until recently, been left to languish, the fruits of collaboration might take time to be widely felt. “India is being courted by Western money and Western curators, but so far this simply hasn't affected the traditional museum sector, where the speed of change is glacial,” said the British historian William Dalrymple, who co-curated an exhibition on Mughal India at the Asia Society in New York this year. Mr. Dalrymple said that for that exhibition, no paintings or works were obtained from within India because the process was too cumbersome. But things are starting to change, led by institutions like the CSMVS and the Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum.

“Before, very few Indians traveled abroad,” said Sabyasachi Mukherjee, director of the CSMVS. “Now thousands go and the first thing they do is visit museums. The government realized it's important to develop relationships with foreign institutions.”

The learning and sharing is not just one-sided. “We would like to see scholar participation from India and new scholarship on Mughal art and culture,” said Malini Roy, a curator at the British Library, who put together the Mughal India exhibition.

Mr. MacGregor of the British Museum agrees. “The CSMVS is way ahead in how it presents material to children,” he said. “We've sent colleagues to study the coins display and we're thinking of using the CSMVS model of stamping and making your own coins.”

A version of this special report appeared in print on November 1, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.

Anti-Corruption Activist Targets Indian Company

India's biggest business group became the latest target of the anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday, when he accused Reliance Industries of colluding with the federal government to profit from a contract to drill for natural gas.

In recent weeks, the activist and his group, India Against Corruption, have made headline news as they leveled allegations of corruption against several high-profile Indian government officials, including former law minister Salman Khursheed, who is now the foreign minister; Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and Nitin Gadkari, the president of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

On Wednesday, Mr. Kejriwal alleged that in 2000 the B.J.P.-led coalition government Reliance Industries, which is led by Mukesh Ambani, favorable terms to extract gas from the Krishna-Godavari Basin off India's east coast. He also accused the current Congress-led government of r emoving a minister who questioned the contract's term.

Mr. Kejriwal distributed copies of document that he said showed Reliance Industries had initially agreed to produce the gas at the price of $2.34 per million British thermal units (B.T.U.), with a total investment of $2.39 billion. The memo said that under the profit-sharing terms, if Reliance's investment increased, the company's share of gas profits could also increase even if the overall profits fell.

Reliance Industries denied all of Mr. Kejriwal's accusations. “The statements made by I.A.C. in the press conference today are devoid of any truth or substance whatsoever,” the company said in a statement Wednesday evening. “Irresponsible allegations made by I.A.C. at the behest of vested interests without basic understanding of the complexities of a project of this nature do not merit a response,” the statement said.

B. K. Hariprasad, the Congress Party's general secretary, also said the charge s were baseless in an interview with NDTV,. “It has become a fashion for India Against Corruption to level some charges on the government and to remain in media limelight,” he said. “This country is run by 1,200 million people and not by Mukesh Ambani.”

Reliance Industries' operations in the Krishna-Godavai Basin have been complicated. In 2006, Reliance Industries raised its investment in the basin to $ 8.8 billion, which the government approved. In 2007, the natural gas price was increased to $ 4.2 per million B.T.U. Mr. Kejriwal alleges this was done to further benefit the company.

Earlier this year, Reliance Industries asked to raise the gas price again, to $14.20 per million B.T.U, but that request was rejected by Jaipal Reddy, the petroleum minister. Mr. Reddy was one of several officials who were reshuffled by the central government over the weekend. Mr. Kejriwal attributed that move to Mr. Reddy's refusal to give in to Reliance Industries.

†œThis episode explains the real reasons for the price rise in the country,” said Mr. Kejriwal. “The government seems to be succumbing to illegitimate demands of some powerful corporate in the country.”
He demanded that Reliance Industries' “blackmailing” should be immediately stopped and that its contract to drill the basin should be canceled.

Image of the Day: Oct. 31

Altaf Qadri/Associated PressA group of Sikhs at a protest in New Delhi, demanding the arrest of those who carried out the anti-Sikh riots in 1984. The riots were sparked by the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

A Conversation With: Actor-Director Naseeruddin Shah

Courtesy of Motley ProductionsNaseeruddin Shah.

The third edition of the Tata Literature Live's Mumbai LitFest opened Wednesday at the National Center for the Performing Arts. Over five days, the festival offers a mix of panel discussions, book launches, workshops, poetry readings and performances. Participants include the Nobel Prize laureate V. S. Naipaul, the historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala, the psychoanalyst Juliet Mitchell and the journalist Scott Carney.

On Friday evening, the director Naseeruddin Shah will perform a reading of short stories and poems of James Thurber and Vikram Seth. Mr. Shah is widely recognized as one of the finest Indian film and stage actors and directors. He has won numerous film awards during the course of his career, and he has also received the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan civilian awards from the Indian government for his contribution to Indian cinema.

Mr. Shah recently spoke to India Ink about the state of cinema in India, his theater group and his connection with Indian youths.

Q.

In recent years, Mumbai has become host to various festivals in the realm of theater, film, music and the arts. What are your thoughts on the cultural scene in Mumbai today? Do you think the city's reputation for not being as culturally exciting as Delhi is changing?

A.

I think it's a complete myth because Mumbai is far more culturally alive than Delhi. On any given evening in Mumbai there will be about 20 different plays in different neighborhoods and different languages. Whereas whenever I visit Delhi I scan the papers and I'm hard pressed to find a single play to watch. There is such a lot happening here in terms of art galleries, music programs, theater festivals â€" I think Mumbai deserves the title of the cultural capital of India.

The festivals that occur each year are like a gathering of the fraternity of that field, and I think that it is wonderful that literature is being celebrated. I do hope it makes some difference to the younger generation and encourages them to read. Communicating great writing has been part of my aim over the course of my career, and I have often done enactments and readings of writing from the subcontinent. At Literature Live, I'll be doing a reading of James Thurber and Vikram Seth with a group of three others, including my son and my daughter, which I'm excited about.

Q.

What do you think is the one thing you would like to see change in the Indian cultural scene?

A.

I think if somehow reading could become a part of our culture and upbringing, it would be fantastic. Maybe it will happen in this generation. I feel like the previous generation did not, by and large, read much great writing. I think exposure to great literature makes a huge difference.

Q.

What is your opinion of the state of cinema in India today? Is there a vibrant parallel cinema or art cinema scene?

A.

There is a healthy parallel cinema culture in India, with youngsters attempting to make movies in the language they know and about problems that concern them and issues they understand. I think these films are far superior to the films that were made in the '70s. We no longer have people sitting in air-conditioned rooms in Mumbai making movies about landless laborers in Bihar. Now people from Bihar are making movies themselves.

I'm very excited by a couple of young filmmakers. There is this young fellow called Qaushik Mukherjee in Kolkata who goes by just Q, who I find really interesting. Also of course Anurag Kashyap and Dibakar Banerjee are doing some fantastic work.

Q.

Is there audience interest in viewing offbeat and art cinema?

A.

I don't think the audience has changed much â€" they still want their daily dose of mindless masala. I think that now mainstream cinema has become part of the daily diet, it is accepted and digested, and cannot be done away with. But there is a niche audience for parallel cinema, and for that I am thankful.

Q.

Across all the different avatars you have had as an actor and director on stage, in Bollywood and Hollywood â€" what would you say has been your favorite? What have you enjoyed the most?

A.

It's difficult to say, and I've enjoyed most of my career. The ones I've enjoyed I was good in, and the ones I didn't enjoy doing, I did not fare very well in. But I would say the t elevision series “Mirza Ghalib” is at the top of the list.

Q.

What has been the most challenging aspect of your work?

A.

I think now the challenge is to try and stay fit and healthy, and somehow find a connect with the youth of today, which is very stimulating. I am very impressed with young people today. I do a lot of teaching at various institutes, and I love interacting with the students there.

Q.

Motley Productions, the Mumbai-based theater company you co-founded with Benjamin Gilani in 1979, has received several accolades and performed in India and abroad over the years. What are your plans for Motley?

A.

My plans as long as I live are to keep it running and keep doing interesting work. I also want to ensure that Motley does not become synonymous with my name, as I want the company to outlive me, so we purposely do a number of productions in wh ich I do not act. There are still a couple of plays in my wish list, and among them is “Saint Joan,” a play by George Bernard Shaw. Outside of that, I am grateful for the support we have received and hope that we are able to do the work we love for a long time.

Q.

What other projects are you working on?

A.

At the moment there are no movies on my plate. I've done one movie, “John Day,” which is a vendetta story of an ordinary man driven to murderous acts because of the trauma he experiences. The film has been directed by Ahishor Solomon and produced by K. Asif and Anjum Rizvi, the person who brought out “A Wednesday.” That should be coming out next year.

Tamil Nadu Prepared for Cyclone Nilam, Officials Say

Nathan G/European Pressphoto AgencyFishermen at the Kasimedu fishing harbor, prepare for Cyclone Nilam in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on Oct. 31.

CHENNAI-Tamil Nadu officials, hoping to avoid a repeat of the destruction caused by Cyclone Thane last year and other recent storms, have prepared extensively for Cyclone Nilam, which is expected to make landfall near the state capital of Chennai early Wednesday evening.

Cyclone Nilam, with winds traveling at 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour, is off the coast of southern India and expected to make landfall at about 6 p.m. Hundreds of people from the region have alrea dy been evacuated.

The cyclone is heading “northwest to cross anywhere between Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu and Nellore in Andhra Pradesh,” said Y.E.A. Raj, deputy director general of meteorology in Tamil Nadu. He warned that destructive winds and rains unleashed by the cyclone are likely to disrupt daily lives in Tamil Nadu and adjoining south Andhra Pradesh.

After dozens of people were killed by Cyclone Thane in December 2011, and thousands were forced into emergency shelters, the state decided to bulk up its disaster response, using India's National Disaster Response Force as a model. In March, the Tamil Nadu government set up a State Disaster Rescue Force, or S.D.R.F., which pledges to handle natural disasters “on a war footing.”

“Tamil Nadu has a long coastline and the state has witnessed many storms over the years,” said M. Jayaraman, joint commissioner for revenue administration for Tamil Nadu. “We have standa rd operating procedures already in force to tackle natural calamities and have also taken extra efforts this time,” he said.

Courtesy of Sangeetha RajeeshCyclone Nilam approaches Chennai, Tamil Nadu on Oct. 31.

Two teams of S.D.R.F. forces, of 35 trained personnel each, have been sent to Mahabalipuram and Cheyyur Taluks in Kancheepuram district, Mr. Jayaraman said. “They are officers trained by the state in disaster risk management and experts in handling situations arising as a result of natural calamities,” he said. Four more teams are on standby for flood-prone coastal districts, he said.

“All district collectors have been alerted, an d flood-prone districts have fire and rescue personnel ready in case the need arises,” he said.

Heavy rains are expected during the next 24 hours in many coastal districts in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu, the most affected districts will be: Nagapattinam, Thiruvarur, Thanjavur, Tiruchirappalli, Cuddalore, Pondicherry, Villupuram, Kanchipuram, Chennai, Tiruvannamalai, Vellore and Tiruvallur. In Andhra Pradesh, they are Nellore, Chittoor, Anantapur, Cuddapah and Kurnool.

The ocean is expected to surge about 1 to 1.5 meters (5 feet) over the normal astronomical tide, which is likely to inundate the low-lying areas of the Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts in Tamil Nadu and Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh.

Crops, including paddy, groundnut and maize, in the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are likely to be damaged. Fishermen have been warned not to venture into the sea until the storm subsides.

In Kancheep uram district, seven teams formed by the district authority are stationed on land and two are patrolling the coastline, said the district collector, L. Sitherasenan. “We have already evacuated 500 people from flood-prone villages, and they are now housed in some of the 19 rescue shelters,” he said. The district has taken cues from past experiences of storms like Thane, he said, and has automatic tree-felling machines and seven ambulances waiting.

The low and vulnerable Cuddalore district has often suffered from natural calamities in Tamil Nadu, recording 486 human fatalities out of 3,925 in the state after the 2004 tsunami. The district collector, Rajendra Ratnoo, said that because of that past experience, the district is now well-equipped to handle Cyclone Nilam. “We have ensured that manpower and material are on alert and special teams are stationed in vulnerable blocks,” he said.

Cuddalore has mobile tree-cutting machinery, sandbags and casuarinas tree s waiting, to prevent flood waters from entering villages. Rescue shelters, food and water are also ready in case of evacuations. “Our priority is to prevent loss of life, and so we have readied a multilayer approach, with all departments working as a team alongside the people,” Mr. Ratnoo said. “We have not evacuated people as yet since the wind is still toward the sea.”

Doing the U.P.A. Shuffle

European Pressphoto AgencyPrime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a blue turban, with Vice President Hamid Ansari, sixth from left and President Pranab Mukherjee, fifth from left, with the newly sworn-in ministers in New Delhi on Oct. 28.

India's most recent cabinet reshuffle, the third since the United Progressive Alliance was re-elected in 2009, had a familiar, head-spinning feel to it.

Once again, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has moved ministers from one massive and fundamental issue that needs serious attention and reform in India, like commerce or roads or petroleum, to another, often completely unrelated, issue.

In the current reshuffle, among other changes, the law minister became the minister of external affairs, and the petroleum minister became the minister for science and technology. In January of 2011, Mr. Singh made the minster for rural development the minister for science and technology and nominated a new law minister and petroleum minister, among other changes.

Political experts say this strategy, of swapping out top lieutenants in rapid succession, is preventing badly needed development from happening in the country.

These “changes appear arbitrary, and don't have any apparent logic for the efficient functioning of the ministries,” said Neelam Deo, the director of Gateway House, a research institution in Mumbai, who has been the Indian ambassador to Denmark and the Ivory Coast. Ministers are changed for state politics an d political preferences, not their expertise, she said.

As the leadership of the ministry passes from hand to hand, decisions that are made are often myopic, and sometimes even harmful in the long term, critics say. Very often, projects that open with pomp and planning by one minister, who has spent some time understanding a particular sector, are abandoned or reversed by his successor in an attempt to stand out or second-guess why the predecessor was removed.

For many ministers, this reshuffling has been almost constant since the U.P.A. won the last national election.

Take, for instance, Kamal Nath. Since 2009 alone, he has been minister for commerce and industry, minister of road transport and highways, minister for urban development and, as of this past weekend, minister of parliamentary affairs, a politically crucial position given the deadlocked Parliament.

In several of these positions, he started with gusto, only to leave the ministry with goal s unmet. As commerce minister, for example, a role he first took in 2004, Mr. Nath spoke against subsidies for American farmers, pledging to end them in world trade talks, and arguing the point so vigorously that a World Trade Organization meeting was suspended. (Now, Brazil is considered the leading developing nation in that push). As roads minister, he pledged to build 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, of highway a day. (There's no way that number can be met, his successor said recently.)

Urban development, a key post for a rapidly urbanizing India whose cities lack basic necessities like enough water and proper garbage disposal, is sure to take a back seat to Mr. Nath's new, additional, post when India's embittered Parliament gets back in session.

Constant cabinet changes are an inevitable consequence of the instability of coalition politics in a parliamentary democracy like India's, analysts said. “Where the people's mandate is fractured and you have a fractured polity, frequent cabinet reshuffle is likely,” says Satish Misra, a senior fellow in politics and governance at the Observer Research Foundation in Mumbai.

You have to take into account the political survivability of the government, he said. Otherwise, “we have to ask â€" would frequent elections be any better for governance?”

Calls and e-mails to Mr. Singh's spokesman on the topic were not immediately returned.

Another reason for the merry-go-round of ministers is the U.P.A.'s multi-headed decision-making process, say government officials and analysts. While Mr. Singh announces these new appointments, he doesn't call all the shots. Instead, the Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi and sometimes her son, Rahul, are also involved in the process, which can undercut any strategic plan the prime minister may have, they say.

Knowing the reasons behind these reshuffles doesn't make them any less perplexing.

Jairam Ramesh, the head of the govern ment's sanitation and water ministry, as well as the rural development ministry, started a nationally recognized campaign against open defecation, a widespread problem in India which is responsible for millions of illnesses and deaths every year. He was unceremoniously yanked out of the position last weekend and replaced by Bharatsinh Solanki, a Congress Party stalwart from the Anand district of Gujarat. (Toilet construction there, incidentally, has seriously lagged stated goals, although Mr. Solanki is not directly involved with the program.)

The railway ministry, on the other hand, which oversees India's underfunded and dangerously decrepit 40,000-mile railway network, has had six ministers in just over three years, counting Sunday's newest appointee, Pawan Kumar Bansal.

This revolving door is due, in part, to the ministry's early assignation to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has left the U.P.A. But Ms. Banerjee can't be blamed for all the chan ges. The minister before Mr. Bansal, C.P. Joshi, was in charge of the railways ministry for just two months before the most recent reshuffle, and had started to take some steps toward modernization in that time, including the creation of this real-time map of the trains operating in India. (An aside: Mr. Bansal has no experience with railways, while Mr. Solanki, the new water and toilets minister, came from the railway minister.)

In the worst-case scenario, ministers stop trying, analysts say. Sometimes because ministers “don't know how long they will remain at one position, they try to be careful not to offend at the party level and allies, so they try not to be too proactive,” Ms. Deo said.

Years of expertise on a subject are suddenly made worthless by these reshuffles, Ms. Deo of Gateway House said. Pallam Raju, for example, was minister of state for seven years in the defense ministry, but he has been moved into the human resources development. “Why is he moved there? What expertise does he have there?” she asked.

Very occasionally, the frequent shuffling can actually work to a minister's advantage.

Take, for instance, P. Chidambaram, who was named finance minister this summer. His appointment is widely credited with helping to restart the financial reform process, which included an announcement that foreign investment will be allowed in India's multibrand retail sector.

Mr. Chidambaram should be able to get things done in the finance ministry. After all, it's the third time in his political career he's held the position.