Jan Lokpal Bill - The Worst is Yet to Come

It all started at Jantar Mantar. A man called by media as "Mahatma Gandhi" of modern India sat for the fast till death. Whole India went into a revolutionary mode. Almost everyone dreamt of securing a place on Jantar Mantar. The hippo (read congress government) also left its place & came forward for the discussions and whole India went into celebrations after a joint committee was formed. This was going good till the old Gandhian went a bit too long with his dream agenda on Jan Lokpal Bill. The first draft which has came has many glaring issues which will give Jan Lokpal the powers of becoming a Hitler and at the same time, it will be a tool in the hands of nuisance creators to harass the general public. Let's analyze how.

The fundamental flaw is in the proposed working mechanism of lokpal. The lokpal has both investigation & punishment authorities. This is fundamentally against the principles of Indian constitution. The investigation authorities and punishment authorities should be completely separate. God forbid if even one committee goes berserk, they can become virtual Hitlers. This is something which looks good only in books in the name of complete transparency and process. But the actual results can be disastrous.

The first thing is about the complaint structure. The bill says that if any citizen feels that he/she is being taken for a ride and is being made to pay the bribe, he/she may approach the lokpal. The case will be registered, investigations will go on. The concerned government officer will have to bear the brunt of the same. If he is guilty, well he deserves it. But if that complaint is done to take care of personal matters or simply to harass the officer, there is no mechanism to punish the complainant. So it gives a free access to all the negative elements in the society to harass the honest officers. In the worst case, it can be used as a threat also.

Second is about the lokpal himself. If someone complains against the lokpal team member himself, then the same team with whom he is working will investigate the case. The case has to be closed within 2 months and if the lokpal is found guilty, he/she will be removed from the panel. Now how reliable the trial will be since these will be part of the same team. Next is why only removal from panel. The lokpal should also be given all the punishments given to a politician or a government official.

Third is about the panel formation. As per the latest draft, the lokpal committee will have retired judges and other representatives from the same age group. The other law making agencies like Anti-corruption bureau of CBI and state authorities will be merged with them. With complete respect to senior citizens, I still feel that these people basically lack the physical ability to work 12-16 hours a day, investigate cases, not to involve emotions, travel to the corners daily and meet the most notorious criminals. This has to have the young generation representatives in the committee to have fresher view-points and execution capabilities.

Fourth one is the lokpal committee rules. The person can be punished only if the crime can be proved. This is completely right. Now if the CBI and State bureaus are not working and this committee of 10 odd people is handling whole cities, where is the man power to lay traps to catch the culprits red handed, the complete network of informers to find out where the culprits are hiding. There is no rule in the lokpal draft which says that lokpal has all the authorities to make local police work on lokpal cases. Without this, I doubt the lokpal committee will be able to do justice to even 10% of the cases.  

Fifth one is the timeline. 1 year is a short time to punish someone after gathering all the details. The money may be lying in Swiss bank accounts, in land deals or in many fake name lockers. Getting all these entities in sync and getting all the data out may easily take 4-5 years in case of bigger frauds. The estimation of losses caused to nation due to this fraud may again take longer time. Hence the 1-2 year timeline is really really optimistic. This might just turn the whole lokpal agenda turtle & make it a body to punish smaller criminals while letting the big fishes enjoy their stay.

Last but not the least. The path of review is still unclear. If the person deemed as a criminal by lokpal feels that he is not guilty, then what. Does he have an option to appeal in court. If yes, the basic purpose is defeated. If no, then how do you handle the appeals? With number of cases & 10 people on team, how efficiently can a 1 year deadline be met? This bill needs a lot of revisions to be able to govern the lokpal proceedings properly. If this fantasy bill of Anna Hazare is implemented AS-IS, then the results will really be disastrous!!!

To do or not to do is the question.......

My friend just said that when your aspirations come in the way of your dreams, you start looking at yourself as an opponent. A real expression of the feelings. This is something which does not happen with everyone. There are only few who face this situation and there are still less numbers who come out victorious. The latter is the community which I want to be a part of. Where will I land is left to the time though.

I was wondering why does this happen? Is it the money which attracts me towards the aspirations or is it the need for security or is it plain indecision which is stopping me from going in a single direction. A long thought on it & I just got the probable answer. The probable culprit here is a very natural & a very humane feeling.. HOPE.

The moment I decide that my dream is the way forward & I need to leave everything behind for it. When I tell myself that this risk is worth taking, everything looks settled. I sleep over my decision. Yes a decision finally. Next day when I wake up, it is like I had a long discussion with my mind & I am again confused. The family, friend and all others who measure my success by the money I earn stop me from following my dream. Their hopes from me are different than the path I have chosen. I then just keep my dreams to myself for some time & let the time pass.

It rarely happens.. But is does that I start to feel that my dreams are more of a childhood fantasy & nothing much. My ways of becoming an independent person & following his own dreams is just a false alarm of success. I then think that lets leave it & trade along the more traditional path. The moment I decide this, like minded people come to me. They show me that my dream has a real potential to become big. It is surely a world beater concept & I should not leave it in between. Well..... The devil's advocate comes back & my hopes of becoming successful while following the dream come back. They stay there until the next thought process & this cycle just keeps repeating itself.


I tell myself every time that just take a decision & stick to it. But that's much easy to say & much more difficult to do. Its just not possible to let go the dreams & the current aspirations also. Just a feeling of being stuck remains!!!!!

A World Class Comment by World Class Leader????????

Mr. Jairam Ramesh....... Arguably one of the most controversial ministers India unfortunately has. This is unfortunate for two reasons. First is that this guy is allowed to blabber without thinking even once & second... he is made the cabinet minister by the Italian lady. What more can one ask for? Now the reason why I am so pissed off here with this guy is for his outrageous comments against the institutions I once dreamt of joining.. The respected Indian Institute of Technology & Indian Institute of Management. Though I failed in joining both, I have a deep respect for the faculty & students who have made them such a resounding success in the world of quality education of highest kind.

Now what did he say?? "faculty of the premier IITs and IIMs are not world class. What a pity. A real third grade comments from Mr. Ramesh. It was not only outrageous & baseless but was downright insulting for those respected professors who have made these institutes such an excellent brand. On one side, we Indians preach that we respect the teachers & treat them with ultimate respect and on the other hand, this person goes & treats them like piece of crap is something which is impossible to digest.

One more thing to take into consideration here is the credentials of Mr. Ramesh himself. Being an IIT alumnus, he should have known the dedication of teachers & open classroom policy which allowed students to walk off if the teacher can't hold their attention. This made the faculty to better himself every time. Were you not present in any of the class Mr. Ramesh?

Being famous for all the negative reasons, he has lost the sense of what is right & what is wrong. His introduction to Indian market, the BT Cotton is now proving to be a nightmare. Constant changing stance on Jaitapur power plant is not helping either. He has no idea of his job. I do not want to remind the Beijing blunder by the great Ramesh.

What does he achieve by this statement? May be he wants himself to be viewed as an opinion leader & someone who wants to improve the quality of these institutions. Well Mr. Ramesh you proved that you are none other than a complete fool. These institutions are envied by the world & they certainly do not someone like Mr. Ramesh to improve.

Second, he just wants to create controversy to stay in news. Well in that case, he has beaten Rakhi Sawant hands down. Many of the educated janata did cursed you. You were on their lips after What the ****....

Last but not the least, he wants to come up with his own institute which can be claimed as world class. Mr. Ramesh, Arindam has tried to do that for years by thinking beyond everything but has landed himself in the web of negative publicity & lawsuits. Some things are simply the best & there is no harm in accepting it.

Well nothing can be done to stop this man from blabbering but I really that at some point of time he realises that this publicity is not going to help....