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History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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Re: History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

#11

Post by ankeshk »

GeneTraylor wrote: post #7

(note: I don't mean to be rude, but this comment has barely been up for 1 minute and I'm already being down-voted. Surely no one can read something this long this fast and down-vote even faster. I've tried to write a reasoned critique of the phenomena before me. It's not a political comment, but a logical one.) Any constitution is a fine balance of power, a body like this which concentrates power outside of the const…

There are checks and balances. The Lokpal will be supervised by the cabinet secretary and the election commission. Also, any case against a curropt Lokpal chairperson can be bought in court - and can be removed if found guilty. Its only independent of the government - who its supposed to keep a check on.

The Lokpal bill was initially introduced in the Indian parliament in 1968. 43 years ago. Many attempts were made to make it into a law - always unsuccessfully. Until Anna Hazare whipped the people into a frenzy, went on a fast and essentially blackmailed the parliament. That is why he is called a modern day Gandhi. He successfully used Gandhian techniques to achieve an impossible feat. Not because of some checkered instance from his past.

(Also, Gandhi recruited Indians to become soldiers during WW1 and fight for the British - going against his doctrine of non violence. No one is pure and nothing is black and white.)

Re: History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

#12

Post by ankeshk »

notanswerable wrote: post #6
evolution wrote: post #4

Surely it's going to be part of history. Besides there are being RTI and other laws, it was much needed. This bill will be independent and answerable to people not government. Hope it helps for good.

Actually they are not answerable to anyone.

Not true. They are answerable to the cabinet secretary and the election commission.

Re: History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

#13

Post by rushabh »

GeneTraylor wrote: post #7

(note: I don't mean to be rude, but this comment has barely been up for 1 minute and I'm already being down-voted. Surely no one can read something this long this fast and down-vote even faster. I've tried to write a reasoned critique of the phenomena before me. It's not a political comment, but a logical one.) Any constitution is a fine balance of power, a body like this which concentrates power outside of the const…

Totally agree. It seems like a media driven phenomenon. Incompetence is a bigger problem than corruption in India. The systemic problems that face the society need ambition, will and technology. This solution is too simplistic for me to be taken seriously.

Re: History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

#14

Post by kartikrustagi »

asdkl234890 wrote: post #9
dimmuborgir wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's not a constitutional body. So as long as it remains independent (most likely) it'll be lethal against corruption.

So as long as it remains totally independent (most likely) it'll be lethal against corruption. But what if someone tries to corrupt them? What makes them immune from corruption?

They can be corrupt, but then according to the proposed law every citizen will have a right to go to Supreme Court against the LokPal. This will surely be a deterrent.

Re: History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

#15

Post by blinkingled »

As rightly pointed out by Mr. Hazare this is only half the battle won.

Part of the second battle should be simplifying the bureaucracy - paperwork, transparency, easily interpretable procedures that are available for general public and infrastructure to monitor the efficiency of the bureaucracy - how many cases people brought, what was the resolution time, why was it not resolved etc.

Because the above are the main reasons general public becomes willing to be participate in corruption - the arcane, unclear, irrelevant processes that lead to confusion which the bureaucracy uses for their benefit. If they attack that issue and make the bureaucracy responsible and accountable that will go long way in reducing corruption and making the general public happier.

That's the harder part though. Without it people will continue to suffer.

Re: History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

#18

Post by anonri »

rushabh wrote: post #13
GeneTraylor wrote: post #7

(note: I don't mean to be rude, but this comment has barely been up for 1 minute and I'm already being down-voted. Surely no one can read something this long this fast and down-vote even faster. I've tried to write a reasoned critique of the phenomena before me. It's not a political comment, but a logical one.) Any constitution is a fine balance of power, a body like this which concentrates power outside of the const…

Totally agree. It seems like a media driven phenomenon. Incompetence is a bigger problem than corruption in India. The systemic problems that face the society need ambition, will and technology. This solution is too simplistic for me to be taken seriously.

> Incompetence is a bigger problem than corruption in India. The systemic problems that face the society need ambition, will and technology.

This is the elephant in the room when it comes to India. There is just a huge amount of apathy amongst the people. A simple example is how much produce rots to waste as a result of poor transportation/refrigeration. There are so many processes crying out to be optimized.

As a US-born NRI, there are so many things that I find appalling that my family in India doesn't even notice. It's like they've been desensitized to all of these issues over the years to the point where they're not even really considered problems.

A lot of people believe the difference between India and China is that China's autocratic government allows them to modernize and improve their country much faster, but the truth is that democracy can be compatible with rapid modernization if the people are willing to work together. Even in China, the government is ruled by a large number of people - no one would say that Hu Jintao has a level of power even close to that of a dictator. The real difference is that the Chinese government has labored long and hard to improve living conditions for hundreds of millions of its citizens (though it has also brutally mistreated several million of them) while the Indian government has been sitting around twiddling its fingers.

Re: History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

#19

Post by vinutheraj »

IF the act is going to be the same/similar to what is mentioned here - http://www.annahazare.org/pdf/Jan%20lokpal%20bill%20by%20Exp... then I will be very disappointed.

Creating an extra-body which itself can act as the police and be outside of the parliament and be a concentration of power not elected by the democratic process would be the wrong way to go I feel.

I feel the people have good intention behind coming up with this act, but that alone doesn't mean that this law is the right thing to do. We are trying to solve the symptom and not the disease. Corruption is just the symptom created by the way our society and culture functions, we will have to fix the root cause to fix corruption. I don't think increasing punitive measures is going to curb corruption in the big scale. Corruption as a whole is weaved into our social fabric. We would need a lot more than just a law to remove it.

Re: History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill

#20

Post by sandGorgon »

GeneTraylor wrote: post #7

(note: I don't mean to be rude, but this comment has barely been up for 1 minute and I'm already being down-voted. Surely no one can read something this long this fast and down-vote even faster. I've tried to write a reasoned critique of the phenomena before me. It's not a political comment, but a logical one.) Any constitution is a fine balance of power, a body like this which concentrates power outside of the const…

Even if the lokpal bill comes and goes, the impact has already gone far beyond the concept of an ombudsman.

For the first time in my memory, the urban middle class of India have been represented - as opposed to factions based on religion, caste, race and language. A new platform has been given due recognition - that of the growing, tax-paying, facebook-ing urban demographic which has never been able to dissolve its own lines of religion, caste, race and language.

This is a huge achievement in a country in which nearly every state is governed by a political party which is strictly local and more often than not ethnically and linguistically native. I am extremely optimistic that the next general elections (for the country's Prime Minister) will have corruption, infrastructure and education as some of the platforms rather than being right-wing, left-wing or secular.

I for one (as are many in India) am fearful about the lokpal - primarily because the actual people behind the Anna Hazaare campaign are "professional" non-profit organizations. I would much rather have e-governance as well as absolute and complete transparency on government functioning (for example, Estonia ??)

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