This was the consensus reached at on the opening day of a two-day national seminar on ‘Public Administration in the 21st Century’, being held at Punjabi University by the Department of Public Administration.

In his inaugural address, C P Barthwal, Vice-Chancellor of Kumaun University, Nainital, laid emphasis on evolving an ethical environment to protect citizens’ rights, foster accountability and transparency even as globalisation was leading to the shrinking of public space. He advocated the cause of making governments more decentralised, participative, gender-sensitive and responsible towards the socially-marginalised.

Presiding over the seminar, Punjabi University Vice-Chancellor, Jaspal Singh said, “Though we have become globalised, yet internally we are becoming all the more skewed and shallow, a trend which ultimately is going to prove catastrophic,” he said.