Class 1 Officers

I am currently at one of the "premier" management institutes of India doing my course work. Yesterday, late night, I was sitting in the lobby of the places where I am staying, three elderly gentlemen walked into the lobby and an interesting conversation ensued.

Elderly Gentleman 1 : Get me some tea!
Reception Man: Sir, this is late at night, almost the dinner time, there is no tea.
EG1: Tea has no time!
RM: I am sorry sir

EG2: क्या यार, क्लॉस वन ऑफिसर को चाय कैसे नहीं मिलेगा। (How can a class 1 officer not get tea)
RM: Nobody is there in kitchen, you can get tea only in the morning

EG3: At what time will I get tea in the morning
RM: Between 6-7 the tea is served in cafeteria

EG1: रूम में नहीं मिलेगा। Won't I get it in my room
RM: No sir, the team is served in cafeteria

EG2: क्या हाल है, क्लास वन ऑफिसर को चाय के लिये भी इधर उधर भागना पड़ता है।

At this time I had almost had enough of this class one officer business when one of those gentlemen turned towards me. From my dress, I looked like waiter of a highway dhaba.

EG1: पेपर किधर है।
Me: मैं तो पेपर को एक महीने से ढूँढ रहा हूं, आपको मिल जाये तो मुझे भी बता देना।

At the end of this conversation, I am thinking why have these guys been sent to a management school by the government. I am sure they have no interest in learning anything here. They are already missing their class 1 officer status. Let them enjoy it in their place of work and leave this management institute alone.

Seven jyotirlings, Thirteen days

This summer (2013) we decided to drive around and try to see maximum number of Jyotirlings that we can see in 11 days. This post is just to capture what happened. Following were the jyotirlings that we covered as part of this trip.

1. Ghrishneswar Temple near Aurangabad in Maharashtra
2. Bhimshankar Temple, Maharashtra
3. Trimbakeshwar Temple near Nashik, Maharashtra
4. Somnath Temple, Gujarat
5. Nageshwar Temple near Dwarka, Gujarat
6. Omkareshwar near Indore, Madhya Pradesh
7. Mahakaleshwar in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh

Following is the itinerary that we followed.

1. 06-April-2013 Left Bangalore, reached Pune for night stay
2. 07-April-2013 Left Pune and reached Aurangabad, planned night stay in Aurangabad. In the after noon, visited Ghrishneshwar temple and Ellora Caves. Both are next to each other
3. 08-April-2013 Drove to Bhimshankar, after darshan continued to Nashik and stayed night in Nashik
4. 09-April-2013 Went to Trimbakeshwar. Darshan took longest here. Temple seems very popular with devotees so one must plan for couple of hours for darshan even on lean days. Continued driving to Ahmedabad for night stay
5. 10-April-2013 Stay in Ahmedabad for relaxation.
6. 11-April-2013 Drove to Sasan Gir stayed night
7. 12-April-2013 Stayed in Sasan Gir for safari
8. 13-April-2013 Left for Somnath Temple. Reached around 10am. This place looks most commercial of all the jyotirlings. Continued driving to Dwarka. Stayed night
9. 14-April-2013 Did darshan at Nageshwar Temple and also visited Dwarkadhish and Bhet Dwarka
10. 15-April-2013 Drove to Surat. We decided to drive to Indore via Surat because we got very bad opinion on direct national highway from Ahmedabad to Indore. We were sure that road to Indore from Surat via Dhule is good, so we decide to drive longer.
11. 16-April-2013 Drove to Indore, reached night
12. 17-April-2013 rest day
13. 18-April-2013 Visited Omkareshwar in the morning and Mahakaleshwar in the evening.

Most of the route that we followed, roads were good. Detailed travelog for the journey would come up later at my other drive blog at Bimmer India.

Here are some more strange happenings today.

According to a source in LNJP Hospital, the doctors immediately began to provide CPCR, which involves pressing down hard and rapidly on the chest and blowing air into the patient's mouth. The doctors also removed the girl's clothes to administer an injection, but were unable to save the girl. At this, some of the people accompanying her began shouting that the doctors had misbehaved with the girl and killed her.

Why, in such stupid cases, does police look for amicable settlement. They should just book these mobs.

The accused party was accompanied by the police and brought to us. We had a talk wherein they profusely apologized for their misbehavior following which the doctors decided to call of the strike. The issue is being solved amicably," said a senior administrative officer at LNJP Hospital. 

What Team Anna needs to do?

Over this week, Team Anna seems to be in complete disarray. It had to happen. Earlier it was easy, bunch of guys, with very strong point of views and different opinions about many topics, came together on a cause for which all of them agreed. Corruption was the issue that was common to all of them and they all agreed.
As Team Anna started diversifying into other issues and plunged themselves into rough and tumble of electoral politics, although from sidelines, they broadened their scope and all of sudden the issue of them not agreeing on all issues started coming to fore.
For last three days, I have seen comments from, Kejariwal, Kiran Bedi and Bhushans contradicting themselves and each other.
I think Team Anna needs to take a step back, make sure that one issue that they have taken up is taken to closure before opening up the field.

My idea of a Lokpal bill

In my last post I analyzed all the publicly available Lokpal bills in details. Here I am trying to do a cut and paste job and try to come up with a Lokpal bill that I believe is the best solution in our context. Before I do that, let me list down what is my expectation from Lokpal bill.

• It should be a strong deterrent for corruption in public officials without damaging independence and decision making of these institutions.
• The Lokpal should have jurisdiction over whole country

Prime Minister : Lokpal should have jurisdiction over Prime Minister but since any inquiry against Prime Minister can result in clamor of his resignation. The resignation of PM can result in vacuum in central government because there is no equivalent of President's rule at central government level, there should be checks and balances against exercising this jurisdiction over PM. I like the idea of NCPRI in how to deal with corruption by PM. In summary it is outlined below.

• Any complaint against PM is evaluated by full bench of Lokpal for prima-facie evidence. Once the bench finds the prima-facie evidence in the complaint, they refer it to a full bench of Supreme Court for their opinion. On positive opinion from SC, Lokpal notifies the ruling dispensation of imminent inquiry proceedings with a notice of few days giving them time re-elect a new PM.

CMs, Ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs : Nothing special against then, Lokpal exercises complete jurisdiction against them and can initiate inquiries against them on receipt of complaint. The reason CM is treated differently than PM is because there is provision of President's rule at state government level and no power vacuum is created if CM has to resign.

As for MPs, MLAs, and MLCs conduct inside Loksabha, Vidhan Sabha, Rajya Sabha is concerned, in the light of recent cases of mis-conduct of members during proceedings of these houses, Lokpal needs to exercise jurisdiction against them but sufficient protection needs to be given to members for their behavior in house. We can probably adopt the model suggested by NCPRI for PM with few changes for bringing MPs behavior in house.

• Any complaint against a member of any house by Lokpal can be sent to the presiding officer of the house, who will, within a limited (well defined) time, either approve the inquiry to be conducted against the member or if he wants to reject the inquiry refer it to the bench of Supreme/High court who has to validate the reasons of his rejection.

Public Officers : I believe that the skills that are required to inquire against corruption done by higher officers are very different than petty bribery committed by peons and lower officers. I believe that all the officers that are holding supervisory positions (i.e. there are people reporting to them), need to be brought under Lokpal. For this purpose, CVC and other equivalent agencies in states need to be merged into Lokpal. There is a difference in an individual demanding bribes and supervisors institutionalizing bribes and that's why these need to be tackled differently. For non supervisory officials (clerks, peons etc), departmental methods need to strengthened. All the supervisors need to be held accountable for corruption within a department. If there are more than a certain number of complaints against non supervisory employees of a government department, automatically it should trigger an inquiry against the supervisor of those employees by Lokpal.

The idea here is that it is the responsibility of supervisors to make sure that people reporting to them are not corrupt. Non supervisors can be handled with departmental disciplinary mechanisms.For example we could decide that if a department receives more than 5 complaints per week, the supervisor will be inquired by Lokpal for institutionalized corruption within his department.

Judiciary : Judiciary is our only safeguard against Lokpal and his officers gone rogue. We can not include Judiciary under Lokpal and to eliminate corruption against Judiciary, we need to probably strengthen Judicial Accountability Bill on the lines mentioned by NCPRI.

Summary : We need a poweful Lokpal but as I have always maintained, the most corrupt departments in India are the departments with most amount of power. A all poweful Lokpal will eventually become a all corrupt Lokpal. The government department will also have to start collecting the Lokpal officers' share of bribe and the cost of dealing with government with go up for every citizen.

We need to guard against creating an institution with tens of thousands of officers who start interfering in every part of citizen's life.

The Lokpal should also restrict itself to corruption, we probably also need to define corruption, where money or favors are demanded to get something done. Incompetence or decision gone wrong with best intentions, should not be part of what Lokpal should worry about. Take the case of a situation where there is a natural calamity and a district official needs to procure somethings urgently, if he buys goods and gets favor in return, that is corruption, but if be buys things quickly, may be at inflated prices, bypassing regular tender process with his best intentions to serve people, Lokpal should stay out of such cases.

My 2 cents.

 

My thoughts on circus called Lokpal and Jal Lokpal

Will all the circus going over Lokpal and Jan Lokpal, here is my attempt to understand see what is really going on. For people who want to read the whole stuff, Lokpal Bill 2011, IAC Draft of Jan Lokpal and Collective and Concurrent Lokpal Anti Corruption and Grievance Redress Measures- by the NCPRI here. This is a very long post so read it with patience. My belief, at the end of all this stuff, is that the measures suggested by NCPRI as the most mature measures against corruption because they seem to have thought through the issues and it is not a cow boy style response to a complex problem.

Lokpal

Let's start with the Lok Bill 2011 as introduced by government. It is a pretty long bill, I have tried to summarize it below.

Establishment of Lokpal

Members : Lokpal will consist of a chairperson and eight members, chairperson has to necessarily be a chief justice of supreme court, retired judge of supreme court or a sitting judge of supreme court. Out of the eight members in the Lokpal, five will be judicial members (basically sitting or retired judges of supreme court or chief justice of high courts). Rest of the members could be non judicial members with atleast 25 years of experience in "anti-corruption policy, public administration, vigilance, finance including insurance and banking, law, and management". Chairpersons and members can't be involved with anything like business, any other office, profession.
Appointment Committee : The appointment committee will consist of Prime Minister, Speaker of House, Leader of opposition in Loksabha, Leader of opposition in Rajyasahba, A union cabinet minister, sitting judge of supreme court nominated by CJI, Sitting judge of high court nominated by CJI, eminent jurist nominated by central government, one person of eminence in public life.
Salary : Chairperson's salary would be equal to CJI, Members salary would be equal to other judges of supreme court.
Removal : Chairperson or members can be removed by president on grounds of misbehavior after supreme court holds an inquiry and reports that member may be removed on such ground. The reference can be made to supreme court by President, President on a petition signed by one hundred members of parliament, President on receipt of petition made by a citizen of India and president is satisfied that such petition needs to be referred to supreme court. While the supreme court is deciding on reference, president can suspend the chairperson or member. President can also remove Chairperson or member if they are insolvent, engage in any paid employment, unfit to continue in office by reason of infirmity of mind or body.
After Office : Any member or chairperson can not take up the position of member or chairperson of lokpal, any diplomatic assignment, administrator of union territory, any employment to office of profit under government of India or state, office of president, vice president, member of either house, state legislature, municipality, panchayat for a period of five years.
Investigation Wing
Lokpal will establish their own Investigation Wing. Till the time the Lokpal establishes its own investigation wing, central government shall make available investigation officers from its ministries and departments. Investigation will not be done by any officer below the rank of DSP.
Prosecution Wing
Lokpal will establish a prosecution wing and appoint director of prosecution and other officers. Director of prosecution, after being directed by Lokpal shall file a complaint before a special court and take all necessary steps in relation to prosecution.
Expenses
Expenses of Lokpal shall be charged to consolidated fund of india.
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction of Lokpal would cover, PM after he demits the office, any person who is or has been a minister of union, any person who is or has been member of either houses of parliament. Group A officer or above, any person who is or has been a chairperson or member or officer equivalent to group A officer in any body, board, corporation, authority, company wholly or partly financed by central government or controlled by it.
Exemptions : PM while in office, members of parliaments' behavior in house, society or association of persons or trust constituted for religious purposes. If anybody is working with a state government then the permission of state government has to be obtained.
Procedure
Lokpal would receive complaint do preliminary inquiry or direct its investigation wing if a prima facie case exists for proceeding in this matter. Preliminary inquiry has to be completed within thirty days.  Lokpal shall afford the public servant an opportunity of being heard.  Lokpal can pass appropriate orders for safe custody of the documents relavent to the inquiry. Website of the lokpal shall publish numbers of complaints pending and disposed by it. No approval or sanction is required by Lokpal for starting investigation.
Competent authority shall initiate proceedings within thirty days of receipt of recommendation against delinquent public servant accused of committing offense under prevention of corruption act and forward its comments on the report including action taken, proposed to be taken within six months of initiation of such proceedings.
Prime Minister, in case of ministers, the speaker in case of a member of the house of people and the chairman of the council of states in case of the member of that council, shall table the report in the house within a week or a week of reassembly if the house is not in session.
Powers
The Lokpal shall have search and seize powers. The Lokpal shall have powers to summon and enforcing attendance of a person and examining him under oath, requiring discovery and production of document, receive evidence on affidavits, requisitioning any public record or copy of it from courts or office, issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents. Lokpal may utilize the services of any officers or investigation agency of central government or any state government.
Lokpal can recommend the central government for transfer or suspension of such public servant from the post. Central government shall ordinarily accept the recommendation of the Lokpal except where it is not feasible for administrative reason with reasons recorded in writing.
Special Courts
Central Government shall constitute special courts as recommended by Lokpal to hear and decide cases arising out of Prevention of Corruption act. Investigating officer of the Lokpal can request any evidence to be collected or facts or circumstances of the case to be examined which is available in a place in a contracting state.
Complaints against chairpersons, members and officials
Any aggrieved party can send a complaint to the president against chairperson, members. President can issue a reference to supreme court if president feels that there is prima facie a case against them.
Complaints against officials of Lokpal have to be investigated by Lokpal itself within thirty days.
Assessment of Loss and Recovery
Any loss to the public exchequer can be recovered from public servant and any other beneficiaries.
Finance, Accounts and Audit
Lokpal shall maintain accounts and forward the same to Central Government for information. Accounts of Lokpal shall be audited by CAG of India.
Declaration of Assets
Every public servant shall make a declaration of his assets and liabilities within a period of thirty days. The assets/liabilities of spouse and dependent children are included in his assets/liabilities.
If a public servant fails to declare certain assets, these would be assumed to belong to him and acquired by illegal means.
Offenses and Penalties
Anybody making false complaint can be imprisoned for minimum 2 years and maximum 5 years. This can be only imposed on the complaint by the aggrieved party.
Miscellaneous
Anything done under good faith by public servant is not covered under this act.
IAC Jan Lokpal
Jan Lokpal is a draft bill prepared by India Against Corruption. The Lokpal established under this bill consists of a chairperson with 10 other members and various officers. The exclusion list of people who can't become member or chairperson of Lokpal are non citizens, anybody against whom charges were framed by a court of law, anybody who is less than 45 years of age, any government officer who has resigned or retired within last two years.
Four members need to be with legal background, which means should have held a judicial office in territory of India for ten years or been an advocate for fifteen years.
Selection Committee
Selection committee consists of Prime Minister of India, Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, Two judges of supreme court of India and two permanent chief justices of high courts selected by collegium of all supreme court judges, CEC, CAF, all previous chair persons of Lokpal.
The selection committee selects the chairperson and other members from a list prepared by search committee. The search committee shall consist of 10 members, 5 members shall be selected by selection committee from amongst the retired chief justices of india, retired CECs and retired CAGs with impeccable reputation of integrity.  5 members shall be co-opted by search committee.
Search committee shall make a list and put it on a website to invite comments from people. After selecting people, the search committee shall ascertain their willingness.
Powers and functions
The Lokpal shall have superintendence over investigation of offenses involving any act of corruption. He will receive complaints from whistle blowers, receive complaints against any officers or staff of lokpal, recruit investigating officers and get then trained in modern method of scientific investigation, to appoint judicial officers, to acquire modern equipment, to attach property and assets acquired by corrupt means. to prepare award scheme to encourage complaints from within and outside the government to report acts and evidence of corruptions, such other functions as may be necessary for proper implementation of this act.
Powers of officers under Lokpal
The investigating officer shall have all the powers vested in a Police Officer as well as powers conferred on director of enforcement under FEMA and PMLA. The member of Lokpal shall have the power of a civil court.
Proceedings of Lokpal
The Lokpal may regulate the procedure for the transaction. No act or proceeding of Lokpal shall be invalid merely by reason of any defect in the appointment of a persona acting as a member of Lokpal.
Accountability
Lokpal can be removed by president on recommendation of supreme court on grounds of misbehavior, unfit to continue in office by reason of infirmity of mind of body, insolvency or engages in any paid employment outside the duties of his office.
If the complaint is frivolous, the court may impose a fine and one year imprisonment.
Appeals
Any order passed by Lokpal shall be to the writ jurisdiction of High Court under article 226 of constitution  Ordinarily high court shall not stay the order, if it does, it will have to decide the case within two months, else the stay would be deemed to have been vacated and no further stay could be granted.
Audit
The CAG shall conduct an annual financial and performance audit of Lokpal. A parliamentary committee shall do an annual appraisal of the functioning of Lokpal. The Lokpal shall submit a compliance report, mentioning detailed reasons where it does not accept the recommendations of this committee to the parliament.
Complaints Authority
Each state would establish a complaints authority of 5 members that would be selected and nominated by a committee of 3 persons consisting of the chief justice of high court of state, chairman of state lok ayukta, and the chairman of state human rights commission. The complaints received against any officer or staff of lokpal shall be inquired by complaints authority in a public hearing within 2 months of receipt of payment.
Investigation against high functionaries
For investigating, prime minister, members of council of ministers, judge of supreme court or high court, member of parliament, the 7 member bench of lokpal has to grant permission for investigation.
Removal of difficulties
If any difficulty arises in giving effect to provisions of this act, the central government may, on the recommendation of Lokpal, by order, non inconsistent with the provisions of this act, remove the difficulty provided that no such order shall be made after the expiry of a period of 2 years from teh date of commencement of this act.
Timely Completion
Each investigating officer shall endeavor to complete the investigation of an offense within a period of 6 months, in any case the period can not exceed 18 months. Special courts trying offense shall complete the trial within maximum period of 12 months.
Whistle Blowers
Whistle blowers and their identities shall be protected.
Penalties and Punishments against corrupt public servants
The punishment shall not be less than six months of rigorous imprisonment and may extend to imprisonment for life. If the beneficiary is a business entity, fine upto five times the loss caused to public shall be recovered from the accused and may be made from the assets of business entity and from the personal assets of its managing directors if the assets of the accused person are inadequate.
If any company or its directors are convicted for any offense under prevention of corruption act, the company and all the companies promoted by any of that company's promoters shall be blacklisted for any government contract in future.
Any public servant convicted under PCA shall stand removed from his office.
Grievance Redressal System
Each public authority shall prepare a specific charter within a reasonable time not exceeding one year from the coming into force of this act. Each public authority shall designate an official called Public Grievance Redressal officer. The senior most officer will be designated as public grievance redressal officer. It shall be the duty of the grievance redressal officer to get the grievance redressed within a period of 30 days from the receipt of the complaint. A complain to lokpal can be made if grievances are not redressed within 30 days, lokpal after hearing grievance redressal officer would impose suitable penalty not exceeding Rs. 500/- for each day's delay but not exceeding Rs. 50,000/- to be recovered from salaries of Grievance Redressal Officer. There shall be atleast one officer of the Lokpal in each district to receive grievances who shall be called an appellate grievance officer.
Budget
Budget of the Lokpal is les than 0.25% of the total revenue of the government of india.
Seizure and confiscation of property
The special court will pass an order for confiscation of all the assets and properties that have been acquired by the corrupt practices of the convicted public servants.
Public Servants Property Statement
Each public servant shall submit to the head that public authority a statement of his assets and liabilities and those of the members of his family which shall include their sources of income.
If it is found that public servant owns some property that was not disclosed in statement of his assets, the property would be liable to be confiscated by the Lokpal.
CBI
The anti corruption branch of CBI shall form part of investigative wing of the Lokpal.
Briber
If briber gives timely information to the Lokpal about giving of bribe by him with entire evidence for purpose of getting concerned bribe taker caught and convicted he shall be granted immunity from prosecution provided he also relinquishes all the illegitimate benefits which he had received by giving of that bribe.
Collective and Concurrent Lokpal Anti Corruption and Grievance Redress Measures- by the NCPRI
The NCPRI has taken a very different approach to eradication of corruption and suggest a basket of measures to tackle corruption.
It suggests following measures to be taken,

• Strengthen current Lokpal bill draft by government
• Reform existing Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003
• Strengthen existing Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill
• Creation of National Law for Public Grievances Redressal
• Strengthen existing Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Persons making the Disclosure Bill 2010

Jurisdiction

• Prime Minister, Ministers and Members of Parliament, Government Servants (Class 1) -- Covered under National Anti corruption Lokpal
• Government Servants (Middle Level) -- Covered under Central Vigilance Commission
• Government Servants (Lower Level) -- Covered under PCA with appellate jurisdiction with CVC and SVC
• Corporates and NGOs -- Covered under National Anti-Corruption Lokpal as co-accused
• Judges of supreme court and high court -- Covered under National Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill

Selection Procedure

The selection committee shall meet periodically to select members of the various commissions constituting basket of collective and concurrent Lokpal Anti Corruption and Grievance Redress Measures. The search committee to provide common pool of applicants from which selection committee will allot members.

NCPRI position paper, PM under Lokpal

NCPRI position paper on Anti-Corruption Lokpal evaluates specific issues of Prime Minister under Lokpal. It identifies specific reasons why prime minister can't be treated as all other government servants and it also makes it clear why PM needs to be under Lokpal. It also articulates a formula that I think is reasonably sound to prevent misuse.

• For launching investigation against PM, the complete bench of Lokpal shall, based on the evidence available, recommend an investigation and make a reference to supreme court which will examine available evidence. Once supreme court concurs with Lokpal, Lokpal after making sure that evidences and witnesses are safeguarded, serve a notice to ruling dispensation and give them 15 days to make alternative arrangement and then continue with investigation. Also Lokpal shall deal with complaints related to actions done by prime minister and not worry about situations where prime minister can be held responsible as head of the government and cabinet but is not directly involved. No Vicarious Liability.

NCPRI position paper, Exclusion of higher judiciary

Since supreme court has the authority to hear complaints against members of Anti Corruption Lokpal, it would be undesirable to have then hear complaints against Supreme Court Judges. An effective Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill should be taken up with National Anti-Corruption Lokpal bill to provide for anti-corruption measures against Higher Judiciary.

NCPRI position paper, Civil Servants

NCPRI suggests that while Anti-Corruption Lokpal shall take up complaints against group A and above officers of central government, rest of the officers should be investigated by CVC. CVC has not been performing very effectively, but the primary reasons of this are identified as limited, almost non-existent investigatory capacity and limitation placed by "single directive" that requires the permission of the central government to be taken before investigation can be undertaken. NCPRI suggests that investigatory capacity of CVC should be strengthened and power to grant permission should be moved to CVC itself.

Considering the PM, Ministers, and senior civil servants are individually supervisory authorities, and the MPs collectively so, as the corrupt are exposed and weeded out the overall tone of governance is bound to improve, making it more difficult and risky for the subordinate officers to continue to be corrupt. A positive message will also go out that even the most powerful are not beyond the reach of the law. It would also go a long way in removing the widespread cynicism that prevails today about how only the small fry get caught while the big fish always escape!

CVC would cover everybody except ministers, class A officers and class IV officers. First two are covered by Anti Corruption Lokpal and the last one is supposed to be covered by existing departmental methods.

Scope

NCPRI position paper, discusses the fact that Lokpal should only restrict itself to the issues related to the corruption. All other grievances needs to be addressed by Grievance redressal commission which will have decentralized offices all over the country.

Towards that end, citizen’s charters would be upgraded and integrated into a service delivery guarantee law, along the lines of the one recently enacted in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, but with the necessary teeth and public accountability provisions. Apart from citizens charters, basic entitlements and rights would also be codified and their violation treated as a grievance. 

Why I think "Civil Society" drafting laws is elitist

My understanding of democracy is that it is off the people, for the people, by the people. In any decent sized country, people are too many so they chose their representatives which are legislatures and executive.
In India member of parliament (and assemblies) are law makers and ministers, prime ministers and chief ministers are executive.
Now if people of the country want something to be done, they will chose people who would get those things done and that's how democracy works.
We see ourselves in a situation where a section of society thinks that they are better than rest of the people, who are too naive to understand the stuff that is going on and they assign themselves to be protectors of rest of the people. They go ahead, blackmail the government and become pseudo-lawmakers without any responsibilities. This behavior is driven from the belief that rest of the voters who peacefully go and vote in every election are fools and idiots and do not comprehend bigger and better things.
Just think about it, if government drafts a bad law, after five years they are answerable to the people and can be voted out, but "civil society" is now answerable to anybody.
If the "Civil Society" was really representative of society and believed in democracy, they would just go ahead and fight the next election, get elected and then do the right thing.

Finally some concrete action against pre natal tests

Even though pre-natal tests related to discovery of gender have been illegal for quite some time in India, I never came across that anybody was punished for violating the law. That changed today. A court in Gurgaon has sentenced five doctors for violating this law.

Five Gurgaon-based doctors have been convicted and sentenced to three-year rigorous imprisonment for conducting pre-natal diagnostic tests at unregistered genetic clinics.

More such action is needed to curb this menace.

Law is an ass (continued)

Another interesting twist to my post yesterday. The guy was declared as alive yesterday by the courts, today the family has hit back saying that he is not the same guy but impostor.

But his family, including his wife and sons — Baljit, Prabhjot and Jagjit — and daughter Sarbjit Kaur, refuse to accept him so and have filed an appeal to challenge the decision. Nasib has alleged that the person, who won the case in Rajpura court, is not her husband, but "another man, who is impersonating as her husband``

Read more: Family challenges man`s claim of being 'alive', call him 'impersonator'

I only hope that they will not another 12 years to decide this. A simple DNA test should resolve this issue. If he has kids, the DNA test could prove if these were his kids. Also if he is an Air Force officer, they must be having some kind of record, atleast finger prints etc.

Why law is an ass

Here is an interesting story. A 70 years old gentleman, retired from Indian Air Force has to fight the courts for 12 years to prove that he is not dead. I mean this sounds like a joke. His family refused to recognize him since they had already moved authorities claiming that he was dead and claiming his pension.

Between 1987 and 1998, he kept moving from one place to another and did not contact his family members, who were residing at their ancestral house in Patiala town.
Bagi stayed at various places in Orissa, Kolkata and also in Dhaka.
When he returned home in 1998, his wife and children refused to recognise him, the ex-air force officer claimed. It was when he approached the IAF authorities that Bagi found his wife had submitted his death certificate there.

What the hell is going on

Here is an interesting new item that I saw today on CNN IBN. The news item is actually a positive. Basically a mall guard saw another person dropping some money and returned it to him.

The incident occurred last Friday when designer Saurabh Sharma, after coming out of DT Mall, sat in his Gypsy right outside the complex.
"While sitting in my vehicle, I somehow dropped Rs 60,000 that I was carrying in the denomination of Rs 1,000. As I moved away from the complex, the security guard Ram Ashish appeared to have noticed that I had dropped something. Later, I saw him following my vehicle. I stopped and found that he wanted to return the cash which I had dropped there," said Sharma.

My problem with this story is little different. Who really carries Rs. 60,000/- in his pocket, drops it and does not even notice it. Even in Rs. 1000/- notes, 60K is lot of notes that can not just slip out. It seems to be that some people just have too much money and really don't miss it at all.

Anyway, who am I to talk about it.

Curious case of Dr. Binayak Sen

I don't know whether the judgement in Dr. Binayak Sen case is fair or not. I don't know all good or bad that he did. But current competition in intellectuals to support him seems very unfair and in my view doing more harm to his cause then good.

A day after 40 Nobel laureates from 12 countries called for Dr Binayak Sen’s immediate release, the Chhattisgarh High Court on Thursday denied bail to the civil rights activist. Sen, charged by the state government with sedition, will now appeal against the high court order in the SC.

Do these intellectuals expect courts to agree to their demand and be seen to be giving out an judgement based on pressure put on them. I don't think that is going to happen. The best these people could do is to leave him along and if the judgement was really unfair, based on the merit of evidence, it will be quashed by the higher courts.

A lesson for everybody

Here is a really sad news. Just goes to prove that one can not be too careful in this materialistic world anymore.

The worst nightmare of working parents entrusting the care of their children to nannies became a reality for a city couple recently.
As soon as they would kiss their little one goodbye, the nanny would feed him and get him ready - for a day of begging on the streets of Bangalore. Instead of milk, the baby was fed sedatives; instead of the clothes carefully put out by his parents, she would dress him up in rags.

Looks like it is really a kaliyuga.

I saw an ass today

I have always maintained that there should be a professional certification for parenting and only after that people should be allowed to procreate. Every now and then I see examples that makes view stronger on this. Something similar happened today.
I went to the gym for my usual exercise routine and a father and a son (a kid of approximately 8-9 years walked in). The kid was playing tennis and father called him to join him in gym. The gym instructor also advised him that too much of formal exercise is not good for small children.
Then the drama started, Father pushed the kid on to the treadmill and started it at a speed, the kid started running. After around a minute, the kid is begging and pleading the dad that he wants to get off the machine but the father is not listening. It went on for around 5 minutes and then finally the kid jumped off the machine.
Then the father asked the kid to do push ups. The kid is not able to do push ups and father is reprimanding him and forcing him to push ups.
It went on for quite some time before both of them pushed off. I am sure this is not really the way to inculcate physical fitness in kids.Anyway, just my rant, who am I to say anything about peoples' parenting skills.

Another moron in this world

The world is full of morons and idiots and some of these characters sometime prove, why there needs to be capital punishment in this world.

A 27-year-old man has been arrested for throwing his newborn baby girl into a river in Durg district of Chhattisgarh, police said on Friday.

"Premjeet Deshmukh confessed that he tossed his week-old girl into Shivnath river as he was expecting a baby boy. He was arrested late on Thursday," superintendent of police (Durg) Dipanshu Kabra said.

Rich people, poor people

So H1N1 has gripped the country.  It is sad that this happened. Following points that I believe are important in this regard.

• I think NRIs are responsible for bringing this epidemic to the country. People don't follow quarantine rules. There have been cases of people running away from quarantines.


• On TV one sees journalists creating panic, running like headless chickens.

What worries me most is everybody is just panicked by H1N1. As of today there are 8 unfortunate people who have died. But there is absolutely no or very little mention of Munger. Munger has 30 people dead with cerebral malaria. Why there is no media scrutiny? I believe it is just a case of rich people and poor people. Just because people that are dying in munger are poor and H1N1 people are comparatively rich with access to media, their voice is being ignored.

Infosys issues travel advisory to pune

Infosys has issued a travel advisory to its employees to restrict travel to pune in the light of swine flu. Great step, but I don't remember them issuing a travel advisory to US or Mexico where all this started.

EVM/EC and attention whores

The circus with electronic voting machine has come full circle. I know little bit of technology and I always believed that the fact that the voting machines are made by only two public sector manufacturers and has a set of handling procedures that are physically verifiable makes it pretty much tamper proof.

• The voting machine has a physical lock that makes sure that it has not been physically opened.


• The voting machine has the software code in a non-writable ROM makes sure that once the software has been validated, it is tamper proof


• The voting machine is a unconnected device i.e. there is no chance of somebody hacking into it remotely.


• The voting machine has no knowledge of the order of candidates on the machine. This is just a manual mapping that is made outside of technology. The machine in the end just tells the number of votes for candidate at each position and the candidate to position mapping is an offline mapping and is maintained using a ballot paper look alike.

The only way the voting machine can be hacked with is somebody opens it, replaces the software code running. Even that is harder it do with well defined results because the the order of candidates on the machine is assigned much closer to the polls.

When somebody as responsible as Saigal who has been a senior bureaucrat in government makes an alligation, people will have to take him seriously and political parties will take him seriously because it is a question of bread and butter for them. But when election commission of India gave them an opportunity to demonstrate the tamper-ability of the machines he did not do much.

Saigal refused to demonstrate the points raised by him, using any of the 100 actual ECI-EVMs he was offered to choose from. He wanted certain arrangements for him and his team of hardware and software professionals from a private company before coming to demonstrate about the tamperability of the EVM. He also offered to show what he claimed as possibility of tampering using his personal computer and a look alike of the ECI-EVM, that was privately manufactured, and is also seen on several TV channels.

It was pointed out to Saigal that the ECI-EVM was not at all comparable with what he had brought. EC officials declined to deal with, what appeared to be an imitation machine, so as to avoid creating any confusion in public mind.

So in nut shell, he never claimed that voting machines can be tampered with, what he claimed that one can make a machine that looks like EVM and that machine can be tampered with. Nobody will argue with that. Actually I will even make another allegation that somebody can make a machine that looks like a EVM and it can be used to fly rockets.

Anyway, the net result of election commission hackathon was as follows.

On Saturday, the Election Commission asserted the infallibility of EVMs citing the failure of persons who had claimed the machines could be tampered with. This has come after a demonstration of 100 EVMs in the EC office that lasted for six days from August 3. These EVMs were randomly obtained from 10 states and kept for scrutiny to establish fallibility. The outcome of this exercise was that none of the persons, who were given the opportunity, could actually demonstrate any tamperability of the ECI-EVM, in any of the 100 machines put on display. They either failed or chose not to demonstrate, said an EC statement.

I hope this matter can be put to rest now. But one never knows.

Stupid main stream media again

The main stream media in India never ceases to amaze me. Here is a news item which has been reported in most of the news papers of the country. The headline reported by the media is as follows.

Kicking daughter-in-law or divorce threat not cruelty: SC

Now, what the supreme court seems to have really said was

Allegations that appellant No 2 (mother-in-law) kicked the respondent (daughter-in-law) with her leg and told her that her mother is a liar may make out some other offences but not the one punishable under Section 498A

and further said

Similarly her allegations that the appellant No 2 poisoned the ears of her son against the respondent; she gave two used lady suits of her daughter to the complainant (daughter-in-law) and has been giving perpetual sermons to the complainant could not be said to be offences punishable under Section 498 A

Now with very little knowledge of english that I have, I can only figure out that supreme court said that these acts are not punishable under section 498A, but the great media makes it out as if supreme court is saying that "it is not cruelty".

What is surprising that not only one news paper but the other one also reports almost an identical headline for the story.

Pathetic police work -- Two examples

So today I saw two examples of pathetic police work in two different states of the country. The first one being the UP police which engaged in an encounter a single dacoit Ghanshyam Kewat alias Nanhu with 400 police personnel for overl 47 hours and finally he managed to escape.

"Company commander PAC Beni Madhav Singh and constables Shamim and Iqbal were killed in the encounter while IG, PAC VK Gupta, DIG Chitrakoot SK Singh and four others -- Navendra Singh and Akram of STF, Dileep Kumar Tiwari and Rajendra Singh -- were injured," the officer said on Wednesday.

The second incident is the incident in Lalgarh involving local administration and Maoists.  This seems to be total breakdown of any kind of administration in that place. Everybody is doing whatever they want.

Maoist gunmen on Wednesday emerged from their stronghold in jungles along the Bengal-Jharkhand border for an audacious strike near Jhargram town, killing a local CPM leader and two activists in full public glare. As Trinamool Congress activists and Maoists have battled to capture turf from weakened CPM cadres, nearly 25 people have been killed, mostly CPM workers and supporters. At many places, the anti-CPM forces have been supported by locals who see the CPM as a receding force in the face of Mamata Banerjee's electoral surge.

Atleast one news paper claimed that in the past police just outsourced the security to local CPM cadre and finally maoists just had enough and when the came the police, already having abdicated, was nowhere to save them.

The murders today underline how administrative institutions, systematically subverted over the years by the CPM, collapse when there’s threat of a power-shift reducing party cadres to sitting ducks. Nothing illustrates this better than the story of those who were killed: 27-year-old Tinku Mahato; Anil Mahato, 48, the branch committee secretary of the CPM, and 23-year-old college student Abhijit Mahato.

An MA in Sanskrit from Vidyasagar University, Tinku was recently employed as a “para-teacher” in the village primary school. But Tinku Mahato was also the secretary of a “security syndicate” that employed nearly 200 youths of the village as security guards. The other two killed, Anil Mahato and Abhijit, were also key members of this syndicate. Their job: to provide security cover to vehicles on National Highway 6 as they passed the vulnerable Lodhasuli forest stretch where armed robbery is common.

This should have been the job of the Jhargram police but they had, in effect, “outsourced” this responsibility to this syndicate largely comprising CPM supporters. Routinely, armed robbers deflate tyres of vehicles on this stretch by littering the road with “improvised nails” and loot passengers. The police asked Tinku Mahato’s team to take over.

Seems to have another disaster in the making.