NKC: The Big Feud

The very public feud [see this post] between the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission gets ugly:

Bhargava retorted: "This is not a fight between Bhargava and Pitroda, but between the truth and the false. Knowledge is truth and the knowledge commission chairman should not take resort to lies. If he was a murderer or a rapist, I would have expected such a reaction. But he is a distinguished and knowledgeable person."

The ugliness of the fight moved DNA, a Mumbai daily, to say this in its editorial:

All of which makes us ask: of what use are commissions like this anyway? There are enough policy think tanks, industry associations and, of course, ministries to suggest and create policy. Time-bound commissions like these may sound grand and worthy, but hark back to a paternalistic time when governments knew all. In any case, as has become evident, the members are too busy — or, too egoistic — to sit together more than a few times. The best thing the government could do, instead of creating sinecures, is to give this and other similar bodies a quiet burial. They seem to be causing more harm than good. [Bold emphasis added]