Unprecedented powers to investigate corruption, yes. But does not infringe upon normal functions of Executive, Legislature and Judiciary.Rahul M wrote:saying that it gives the lokpal unprecedented powers
How so?and it will end up subverting democracy and anti-development.
I think we may be missing the point here. It is easy to see the faults of the existing Lok Pal bill along with the faults of the proposed structure by Hazare.Rahul M wrote:times now had a pretty good panel on this yesterday. harish salve and soli sorabjee were on it. both, while very supportive of the general aspects of this movement came down hard on the current draft (salve was dismissive of the UPA draft, he refused to discuss it at all calling it was a waste of time) saying that it gives the lokpal unprecedented powers and it will end up subverting democracy and anti-development. going by the draft I agree completely, this is at best a naive movement, at worst a very dangerous one.
Indian democracy has survived due to the checks and balances that doesn't allow any one person to concentrate all power in his hands. take that away and we will become another ploglessive countly.
What does it mean? How do u say right wing is involved in it? Just coz u think he RSS is good does not mean all good things people do are because of RSS or any right wing (hindutwa) group. Inclusion of NGO in proposed bill will suggest me that it is not their hand.Chandragupta wrote:From what my neighbourhood chai wallah tells me, Anna Hazare is the new weapon of the Nationalists who tried their luck with Baba Ramdev but burned their hands. The ground support for Anna Hazare is still being managed & brought in by the Sangh albeit covertly. The right wing has been told to be totally off the radar, while slowly whipping up Anti-Congress sentiments on the ground. Anna Hazare is a shrewd choice because Congress cannot accuse him of being a Hindoo terrorist and his Gandhian ways unite the population something that Ramdev could not have done. The nationalists intend to kill two birds with one stone, one - wipe the ground support for Con party & the Die-nasty off the map, and two - in the process, ensure that their hatred for Hinduism is exposed in the process, which was seen when they called Hazare an RSS agent.
Chandragupta wrote:From what my neighbourhood chai wallah tells me, Anna Hazare is the new weapon of the Nationalists who tried their luck with Baba Ramdev but burned their hands. The ground support for Anna Hazare is still being managed & brought in by the Sangh albeit covertly. The right wing has been told to be totally off the radar, while slowly whipping up Anti-Congress sentiments on the ground. Anna Hazare is a shrewd choice because Congress cannot accuse him of being a Hindoo terrorist and his Gandhian ways unite the population something that Ramdev could not have done. The nationalists intend to kill two birds with one stone, one - wipe the ground support for Con party & the Die-nasty off the map, and two - in the process, ensure that their hatred for Hinduism is exposed in the process, which was seen when they called Hazare an RSS agent.
.. I wonder where is Suzanne roy.. 
Doing a hit job for Congress?Sri wrote:Chandragupta wrote:From what my neighbourhood chai wallah tells me, Anna Hazare is the new weapon of the Nationalists who tried their luck with Baba Ramdev but burned their hands. The ground support for Anna Hazare is still being managed & brought in by the Sangh albeit covertly. The right wing has been told to be totally off the radar, while slowly whipping up Anti-Congress sentiments on the ground. Anna Hazare is a shrewd choice because Congress cannot accuse him of being a Hindoo terrorist and his Gandhian ways unite the population something that Ramdev could not have done. The nationalists intend to kill two birds with one stone, one - wipe the ground support for Con party & the Die-nasty off the map, and two - in the process, ensure that their hatred for Hinduism is exposed in the process, which was seen when they called Hazare an RSS agent.
Chandragupta Ji, do you agree with your Chaiwala? What about demands itself? Do you agree with Anna Hazari that current draft of the bill is inadequate? Also I see people like Swami Agnivaish, Lord Meghnad, whole of Bollywood and many other people are joining... do you think it's because RSS is buying them?
Please answer the above Sir, otherwise I would deduce you are doing a Hit job for Congress. Calling Anna Hazari names and tainting his reputation without any basis and only attributing everything to your Chaiwala is a shameful act.
It's true that the bill allows the Lok Pal to look into grievances over "mal-administration". That is rather subjective. It would be better to restrict the scope to corruption. Other than that I cannot see anything particularly objectionable.Rahul M wrote:times now had a pretty good panel on this yesterday. harish salve and soli sorabjee were on it. both, while very supportive of the general aspects of this movement came down hard on the current draft (salve was dismissive of the UPA draft, he refused to discuss it at all calling it was a waste of time) saying that it gives the lokpal unprecedented powers and it will end up subverting democracy and anti-development.
Chandragupta wrote:
Doing a hit job for Congress?
No saar, I am not calling Anna Hazare names & I am not tainting his reputation. I never said I agree with my Chaiwala, this 'RSS is behind ground support' came up during discussion with my 'sources' who happen to be jingoistic colleagues & friends who've visited Jantar Mantar. I take my words back if it appears like a hit job for the CON party. I think the demands are justified, there must be a Joint Committee to work out the Lokpal Bill, no questions about it. The draft that CON party has prepared is a farce. I am on the right side, Sri saab.
VikasRaina wrote:Whatever it may be, Howsoever faults we may find with everything he is doing, I still support some one getting up and launching a crusade against Corruption. So well done Anna Hazare. Better than complaining on some Forum board as anonymous poster.
Kudos to you...
Atri wrote:some times, a person puts his entire Punya and goodwill at stake and call for the assistance of all people whom he had influenced/helped/motivated/worked with previously.. I do not know whether agnivesh et al are there to heed this "call".. but I hope this is the reason for his "august" company
RSS support theory is BS, IMO.. RSS might support the movement later, but saying this is the brainchild of RSS is bit far fetched..
and BTW, Lalit Modi has supported Hazare on twitter..
I read tillShyamSP wrote:Atri wrote:some times, a person puts his entire Punya and goodwill at stake and call for the assistance of all people whom he had influenced/helped/motivated/worked with previously.. I do not know whether agnivesh et al are there to heed this "call".. but I hope this is the reason for his "august" company
RSS support theory is BS, IMO.. RSS might support the movement later, but saying this is the brainchild of RSS is bit far fetched..
and BTW, Lalit Modi has supported Hazare on twitter..
Hazare drama more looks like a Congress hit job.
source: http://janamejayan.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... nt-beware/
and knew it wasn't worth reading it anymore.I would have had faith in the Anna Hazare fast if he had made action on the Shunglu Committee the pivot of his crusade and fast in Delhi, and not made the personally honest Prime Minister the target of his rage.
JMHO onlee, but arent you overestimating the capability of the Indian public memory?Chandragupta wrote: For me, this movement would have failed if Congress is able to cross 100 in the next GE.
Another BRF member had written that he expects Rahul Baba to sit with Hazare and sip juice and ask MMS to listen to the Gandhian pleas and change the bill!Chandragupta wrote:.....
Unrelated news, but does Sonia Gandhi think 1.2 billion Indians are buffoons? She says she herself & her pack of dogs - NAC support the Joint Committee & have rejected the Government Draft, and then she says she hopes the Government will take notice of Anna Hazare's concerns & she is with him. She thinks Indians are idiots? She runs the GoI, she has the remote control of our PM and then she has the galls to speak nonsense like this! I hope people are beginning to understand what this lady is & boot her out in the next elections. For me, this movement would have failed if Congress is able to cross 100 in the next GE.
Anna Hazare: NGOs for Governance?
Sandhya Jain
07 Apr 2011
In the wake of an orchestrated frenzy to achieve a particular legal structure against official corruption, it is pertinent to ask all political parties if they are willing to abolish Parliament and representative government, and entrust power to a coterie of NGOs with overt and covert Western support.
Anna Hazare’s gigantic exercise to delegitimise the elected UPA and elected Members of Parliament, and insist that a self-appointed group of moral guardians shall determine the contours of a proposed national legislation to tackle corruption in government, is an assault on the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Unelected crusaders with agendas derived from unknown sources; and ample funds to whip up moderate street participation; can at best be regarded as a pressure group with a right to be heard.
Anna Hazare’s so-called fast-unto-death is questionable for its anti-democratic disdain for elected government and people’s representatives. The timing is equally suspect – right after the adjournment of Parliament after passing the Union Budget. It may be recalled that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was forced to gift Rs. 40,000/- crores to the leaky MREGA project favoured by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her unelected friends in the National Advisory Council; his attempts to curtail this hole in the exchequer enraged her.
As if on cue, Hazare, NAC cronies, Rockefeller Foundation-funded Magsaysay Award winners, and other usual suspects, ganged up against the besieged prime minister. Concerned citizens and analysts have a duty to ask whether the government of a Republic that derives its power from the people should – in the months preceding the monsoon session of Parliament – cave in to blackmail by well-heeled and well-connected NGOs, and accept a legislation drafted by them? If laws are to be adopted and enacted in this manner, do we need either government or Parliament?
We may as well formally declare India a ‘Mandate’ of the United States. After all, the NAC that rules the government is chaired by ‘Indo-US nuclear deal is close to my heart’ Sonia Gandhi, and includes French national Jean Dreze, besides ex-IAS officer Harsh Mander, who became internationally famous by maligning the nation in the wake of the post-Godhra riots.
By an interesting coincidence, the attack of the NGO Armada coincides with the Supreme Court’s smashing the moral credentials of Medha Patkar and her Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), for filing a false affidavit in the matter of the Omkareshwar Dam project. A Bench of Justices JM Panchal, Deepak Verma and BS Chauhan – annoyed at the NGO’s false claim that the State of Madhya Pradesh had wrongfully acquired 284 hectares of land from Indore farmers – asked it to explain “why it should not be restricted from filing any case/petition before any court throughout the country”. Why indeed.
More pertinently, State Government counsel informed the Court that Patkar’s NGO is not a registered society and is thus not even entitled to represent the oustees! Surely that sums it up – NGOs are only a ‘lobby’; they are not equal to, much less above, elected representatives of the people. Yet the fact that Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan could exist and enjoy high profile for 30 long years without complying with any legal formalities, proves that such NGOs are intricately networked with the Congress-dominated political and bureaucratic hierarchy, despite pretensions of ‘dissent’ and leadership of the ‘voiceless’. There can be no doubt that they have a hidden agenda.
Now that the Supreme Court has taken cognizance of the dubious credentials of this NGO, it must direct the State Government to investigate the sources of its funding, and possible agenda.
To return to Anna Hazare, the aged war-horse has been seriously undermined by Karnataka Lokayukta Justice N. Santosh Hegde, whose name has been recklessly used over the past few weeks to garner middle class support for the private Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by Hazare, Hegde and others. Hedge has suggested that Hazare’s decision to fast until the Centre agrees to pass this Bill is premature, as the National Advisory Council is still discussing this private Bill and has not given its recommendations to the government.
Justice Hegde has indirectly admitted that there are differences of opinion regarding various clauses of the Bill even among the activists who drafted it. This suggests that the NAC may moot new clauses that could divide the activists further. With the private Bill thus likely to be subjected to further changes by the NAC, Hazare’s fast makes little sense to even some of his colleagues. It would seem that its purpose is to coerce Dr Manmohan Singh to commit to whatever Sonia Gandhi dishes out in the name of the NAC, despite institutional reservations from government. This is extra-constitutionalism at its zenith – strange that the opposition BJP should be so blind to it.
Certainly there is something inexplicable in Hazare’s haste – “It’s a fight to the finish for citizen’s rights”. Why? What is the hidden target he is hurtling towards; why is it secret from the rest of us?
Readers who may regard this critique as harsh should consider that Anna Hazare wants a joint committee comprising government and civil society leaders [read individuals and NGOs favoured by him and his friends] to rework the current draft Lokpal Bill. I am refraining, in this article, from going into the merits of his critique of the Government Draft ; in fact, I am not going into the text of his draft at all, nor comparing it with the impugned Government draft.
My point is that he is instigating the middle class intelligentsia that comes to hear him at Jantar Mantar – and neither he nor any of his allies is a grassroots mass leader – to despise and distrust politicians and bureaucrats as a class when these are the constitutional pillars of State. In their place, Hazare moots an unelected oligarchy. This does not bode well for the nation or the society.
While he is within his rights to fiercely criticise the Government draft Lokpal Bill, it is utterly unworthy to say that, “If the government alone drafts the anti-corruption bill, it will be autocratic not democratic, there will be discrepancies.” Here it may be pertinent to note that while Hazare’s charmed inner circle includes some high profile lawyers who have made a mark in the battle against corruption in high places, he has placed NO FAITH in the Judiciary as an institution in rectifying anomalies in the law and its application, and in bringing culprits to justice. This is a strange kind of crusade.
A major plank to justify the hunger strike is the string of scams that have hit the UPA-II, most notably the 2G Spectrum Scam and the scandals associated with the Commonwealth Games.
Yet the 2G Spectrum Scam probe is being closely supervised by the Supreme Court and the principal accused are already in jail – without help from Hazare or his associates.
On the Commonwealth Games – Hazare & Co. are conspicuous by their silence on the Report of the V.K. Shunglu Committee which has nailed Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Lt. Governor Tejinder Khanna, and the Central Ministries associated with the Games for all the sins of omission and commission. The shameless manner in which Mrs Dikshit has sought to ridicule the Shunglu Committee, her meeting to garner the support of Ms Sonia Gandhi, the failure of Sonia Gandhi and Congress to move against Dikshit, all speak eloquently about who shields corruption in the UPA.
I would have had faith in the Anna Hazare fast if he had made action on the Shunglu Committee the pivot of his crusade and fast in Delhi, and not made the personally honest Prime Minister the target of his rage. The fact that this very live issue of high level corruption in the capital – which still reverberates in world capitals – did not even occur to him or his associates should be evidence enough of an unspoken agenda and an illegitimate target. It reminds one of Sherlock Holmes’ quintessential query – but why didn’t the dog bark?
In conclusion, I must say I cannot agree with the main object of Anna Hazare’s fast –to elevate a select coterie as national super cop and super judge, as a national daily put it so aptly.
I robustly condemn the idea that Magsaysay Award-winning Indians should figure in the Lokpal selection panel. This stinks of an American hand. Without casting aspersions on any individual, it bears stating that the Magsaysay Award is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, though it is named after late Philippine leader Ramon Magsaysay.
As the Rockefeller family has vast business interests all over the globe and doubtless also in India, we shall never know what kind of private networking could take place in government and bureaucracy via its favoured persons, to further Rockefeller interests. Recently we saw US insurance corporate-cum-philanthropist Warren Buffet visiting India and Government pushing to raise FDI in insurance from 26% to 51%! Bill and Melinda Gates were also here – peddling vaccines of unknown quality and of course the detestable GM seeds.
India’s high profile elites derive status from the international NGO cocktail circuit. Their insatiable quest for funds and glory makes them adopt ideas and concepts without examining their validity in an Indian context. As they are very conscious of their elite status, they have unacceptable contempt for the people and their elected representatives. We cannot endorse these non-accountable and glittering Western satellites.
http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisp ... px?id=1716
Bingo, shaurya ji..I think we may be missing the point here. It is easy to see the faults of the existing Lok Pal bill along with the faults of the proposed structure by Hazare.
Gandhiji's movement of satyagraha and boycott using Ahimsa seemed as impractical and naive and many critics have pointed to the failures of that strategy but the other side of the coin is it made the masses participate in a freedom struggle and through that participation good things happened, not in the way Gandhiji wanted but nevertheless, he got the credit.
Anna Hazare has that quality. Not the intellectual and policy kind but the mass movement kind. A leader who can connect with the masses and not just the DIE crowd. There are many anti corruption bills and checks and balances and yet corruption pervades in our society. The proposed Lok Pal Bill changes by Hazare is impractical but therein lies the genius of the movement. It proposes something that will never be accepted but if in the process the nation has a mass movement against corruption then good things may come out of it. That is my hope.
Why do I get this nagging feeling that if Anna Hazare goes down, he will take all the other septu, octo and nono-generians down along with him, thereby leaving a clean slate for the "ilam rattham" (young blood) politicos of the country (not including clown plince here)?Atri wrote: a disclaimer - I am wishing things here.. afaik, anna is one of the good guys left in India. I have been to his village and he truly is a "mohan bhargav" of that village.. his work on RTI is fantastic too.. I wish, he stays clean and "unused" by dienasty..
Is nt that well-known? Here is what officially it states:Sushupti wrote:I robustly condemn the idea that Magsaysay Award-winning Indians should figure in the Lokpal selection panel. This stinks of an American hand. Without casting aspersions on any individual, it bears stating that the Magsaysay Award is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, though it is named after late Philippine leader Ramon Magsaysay.
http://www.rmaf.org.ph/enewsletter/spec ... e/?evenT=4In April 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award was established by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) based in New York City. Conceived by John D. Rockefeller III, the award was created to commemorate President Ramon Magsaysay and to perpetuate his example of integrity in government and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society.
In May 1957, seven prominent Filipinos were named the founding board of trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF), the non-profit corporation tasked with implementing the awards program. Invited to serve as honorary chairman and vice-chairman, respectively, were the Honorable Sergio Osmeña, former president of the Philippine Commonwealth, and Don Exequiel Magsaysay, father of Ramon Magsaysay. Elected to the board were then Secretary of Justice Pedro Tuason as chair; Paz Marquez Benitez, editor and publisher of the Philippine Journal of Education, as vice-chair; and Francisco Ortigas, Jr., lawyer, industrialist and real estate developer, as treasurer. The other members of the board were Dr. Leopoldo B. Uichanco, dean of the University of the Philippines' College of Agriculture; Jesus Magsaysay, timber concessionaire and closest brother to the late president; and Jaime Ferrer, former secretary of agriculture. Belen H. Abreu, legal counsel of the Commission on Elections, was asked to serve as executive trustee.
The interesting thing is even INC wants MMS to resign. The only party that doesn't want MMS to resign and instead arrest the real culprits is BJPramana wrote: Another BRF member had written that he expects Rahul Baba to sit with Hazare and sip juice and ask MMS to listen to the Gandhian pleas and change the bill!
Looks like SG has already done that!
You think this will grow big enough to take out MMS, pranab and chidu? all at same time? the ilam rattham haj to phuck up at sahi moment onlee.. if they sit on the takht zarurat se jaldi, then diffculty onlee..Klaus wrote:Why do I get this nagging feeling that if Anna Hazare goes down, he will take all the other septu, octo and nono-generians down along with him, thereby leaving a clean slate for the "ilam rattham" (young blood) politicos of the country (not including clown plince here)?Atri wrote: a disclaimer - I am wishing things here.. afaik, anna is one of the good guys left in India. I have been to his village and he truly is a "mohan bhargav" of that village.. his work on RTI is fantastic too.. I wish, he stays clean and "unused" by dienasty..
Chandragupta wrote:Arnab Goswami on TimesNow making an emotionally charged appeal to 'trust' Anna Hazare and not to fall for the propaganda that Delhi's 'cocktail circuit' is dishing out against the Anna. "How can they say those things about a 73 year old?!"
All the formerly Con-Chamcha media suddenly going all pro-Anna & anti-Government. Daal me kuch kaala hai bhaiyya.
Hazare ji is in it for a very clean reason but the other jokers in the pack have their crosshairs fixed on the targets you have mentioned. If push comes to shove, they will be taken out in first salvo itself. Then it is up to ilam rattham to consolidate or not consolidate.Atri wrote:
You think this will grow big enough to take out MMS, pranab and chidu? all at same time? the ilam rattham haj to phuck up at sahi moment onlee.. if they sit on the takht zarurat se jaldi, then diffculty onlee..