(a) What do you understand by probity in governance? Based on your understanding of the term, suggest measures for ensuring probity in government. (10 marks) (b) "Emotional Intelligence is the ability to make your emotions work for you instead of against you." Do you agree with this view? Discuss. (10 marks).

(a) Probity in governance

• Probity means complete honesty and integrity in the use of public power and public money: not only “no bribe”, but no hidden interest, no cooked record, and no private use of the official car of the soul.
• In governance it is the quality that makes a tender, a transfer, and a tax assessment believable.
• Nolan’s integrity and honesty, the Conduct Rules, and Article 14 impartiality are names for the same spine.
• Without probity, growth becomes a rumour, because investors and citizens both price the bribe.

Measures to ensure probity

• Law: a working Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, including the 2018 amendments on commercial organisations; a living Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013; and protection under the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014.
• Process: e-procurement, published asset lists of public servants, rotation in sensitive posts, and a cooling-off rule for jobs that look like a delayed bribe.
• Transparency: the Right to Information Act, 2005 as a habit, not as a war; proactive disclosure under Section 4.
• Institutions: strong internal audit, an independent vigilance unit, and a Comptroller and Auditor General whose reports are debated, not buried.
• Personnel: integrity as a criterion in empanelment; swift inquiry; and no honour for the officer who is only “efficient” at collecting for the party.
• Technology: Direct Benefit Transfer, geo-tagging of assets, and face-authenticated attendance where it cuts ghost workers without humiliating the poor.
• Culture: leaders who refuse a gift tray; training with live files; and social honour for the clean officer, not for the fixer.
• Citizen side: social audit, as in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, so that the muster is read in the village, not only in a secretariat.
• Ethics infrastructure is therefore legal, digital, and moral at once. A new circular without a brave inquiry officer is not probity.

(b) Emotional intelligence: emotions working for you

• I agree with the statement as a working definition, with one caution: emotions are not slaves to be “used” against other people; they are energies to be named, timed, and aimed at a right end.
• Emotional intelligence is the ability to notice what one feels, to hold it without being captured, and to read what another person feels, so that the task still gets done fairly.
• Anger that is noticed can become a firm no to a bribe. Anger that is not noticed becomes a slap at the counter.
• Fear that is named can become preparation for a riot. Fear that runs the officer becomes paralysis or cruelty.
• Empathy that is regulated helps a District Magistrate hear a displaced family. Empathy that floods the officer can become favour to whoever cries loudest, which is also emotion working against justice.
• Daniel Goleman’s popular account — self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skill — matches this view: the point is use, not suppression and not explosion.
• In public life, T. N. Seshan’s firmness and a good hostage negotiator’s calm are both EQ: feeling is present, and it does not drive the vehicle off the road.
• Agreement is not a claim that a person should fake warmth to manipulate a village into a bad project. That would be emotion working for the ego, which is the opposite of the quote’s ethical reading.
• Training for civil servants should therefore include stress drills, listening, and conflict, so that the first communal file is not the first time the officer meets his own panic.
• IQ writes the note. EQ decides whether the note is delivered without humiliating a subordinate or missing a human fact. The quote is right when “for you” means for your duty and character, not for your vanity.