Kafka Index, Redtape and the endless Trial

Posted on April 18, 2006 by Neha Viswanathan

I love this. A Kafka Index.

France has created a “Kafka index” that measures the complexity of a project or law against its usefulness to cut red tape.

The index – referring to Franz Kafka’s The Trial, which describes one man’s fight against a nightmarish bureaucracy – is a scale of one to 100 measuring how many hurdles, from forms to letters or phone calls, are needed to win state permits or aid for a project. (via the wonderful SM)

Well, if it does have to have a literary reference, India probably would need many such indices (indexes?). Every language in India must be pouring with literature on red-tapism and the government. No?

About Neha Viswanathan

Neha Viswanathan. City-hopping, trivia-gathering, identity-hunting. Obsessions include culture, social software, cities, literature, internet, music, history, marketplace and anything that doesn't twinkle.
This entry was posted in Governance, Random Links. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Kafka Index, Redtape and the endless Trial

  1. Anonymous says:
    April 18, 2006 at 12:11 pm

    neha
    forget kafka we can create our very own
    kautilya index ;) with some “metamorphosis” :) of kafka index

    ashu

  2. Illogical Truisms says:
    April 18, 2006 at 7:46 pm

    Great post Neha. I’m just looking up the Wikipedia to see if I can find any logical fallacies.

  3. neha vish says:
    April 23, 2006 at 8:13 am

    Ashu: A Kautilya Index (other than the damn truckload of taxes he had in mind) would probably be an index of good administration I think.

    Illogical Truisms: When you find out – let me know!