Thought Garage

By any and every measure, the whole Jan Lokpal and/or Anna Hazare movement against corruption has been phenomenal. Tremendous response and discussions all over. Do not know what triggered so many people to come out and support in their own ways. I am not sure even today, everybody really understand the whole issue and what this bill is practically capable of. Some don't know what it is all about. Some understood a little. A whole majority of people are yet to read the bill.   via  78638509@N00@Flickr However, the movement as it is, some thing of huge importance, we need to think about. The bill may take a while to come into existence and actively enforced. But if we can leverage the rage and support of general public, we may be able to do something immediate and that make a difference in common man's life. May be, we can encourage more participation in other civic issues, enlist greater participation in politics in general. May be we can start focus groups to resear...

Its rather intriguing but totally reasonable critique of the euphoria of Jan Lokpal bill. Glad not all people are simply carried away with emotions. He did not answer the question on the big ticket corruption as much convincingly as he did for the retail aspects, probably his work involved more of the later than the former. And strikingly, the JanLokpal addresses the big ticket corruption to a large extent. By no means, I am against the Jan Lokpal bill, but I don't believe in those wild fantasies that it can somehow magically eradicate corruption. An independent body with powers is the need of the hour, but setting up a whole new body without checks and balances is set for disaster. Why not make some of our existing bodies that are setup to fight against corruption independent. After all, even the Lokpal is supposed to execute the law through these bodies.  But none of those above objections call for dissing the whole movement. Its rather a great start to go...

Arvind Kejriwal @ IIT Chennai explaining the Jan Lokpal Bill, background, history of the movement and clarifying so many frivolous objections raised by the Government. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4