Why should you support Anna Hazare and a strong Lok Pal bill?

This is a burning issue many Indians are aware of (provided they follow Indian news). Most of us support Anna Hazare either because we know the facts behind the need for a strong Lok Pal (will be a very less percentage in my opinion) and others simply support because they don’t have faith in the current government’s version of Lok Pal (will be the majority). There is a third category of people who do not support Anna Hazare’s movement because they think only formally elected MPs and Ministers have the right to constitute a new law in the country.

This article is for the second category of people I have mentioned above – who want to support Anna Hazare but don’t know why! These are the top 5 reasons due to which I strongly believe that we all should support Anna Hazare’s movement for a strong Lok Pal (not necessarily all the points in their version though).

1)      Corruption is the root cause of most problems in India today

If you have lived in India for few years and visited government offices, you must be familiar with the way things work in most government offices. It can be as small as getting your address changed in your ration card to as big as getting a frequency range in the spectrum as a mobile operator, money does many things in India. This practice is so deep rooted in our society that even the citizens have become corrupt – a classic example is registering your property for a lower value to avoid paying stamp duty by paying bribe to the registrar to allow it. We do have a Prevention of Corruption act (1988) but nothing has changed drastically. As per the statistics from www.ipaidabribe.com, the total value of bribe reported so far in the site is Rs. 296,995,425. Remember, this is only from those who reported it and reported it in this website. The actual value of bribe paid in my view should be multiple folds of this amount. Even worse, the poor condition of infrastructure development and public services in India can be and should be attributed only to corruption and embezzlement by bureaucrats and politicians.             This clearly indicates the ineffectiveness of Prevention of Corruption Act and a need for a stronger law with severe punishment and penalties for those who are convicted of corruption.

2)      Other countries have set a working example through a strong ombudsman

This point in time, I should draw the example of how corruption was so well handled through the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was even more corrupt than India. But today if you talk to those who are from Hong Kong you would hear totally different stories. This was possible through a strong independent body with sufficient powers to investigate corruption and punish those who are corrupt working with a clearly defined SLA. You can get to know about the great story of Hong Kong from here.

3)      The Government’s version of Lok Pal is too weak to say the least

Intentionally or unintentionally, most likely intentionally, the Lok Pal bill tabled by government on 4^th Aug 2011 is simply too weak. You can see the complete draft of the UPA government from here. I did go through the entire draft (yawn :O) and tried to understand (difficult without legal knowledge). I’ve also gone through the draft proposed by Anna Hazare and team (you can read it from here). These are the key differences I have noticed which makes the Jan Lok Pal much better than the Joke Pal the government has tabled.

Feature	Jan Lok Pal	Lok Pal	Impact to Indians
Ability to enquire Prime Minister	Lok Pal will have the powers to initiate investigation and indict PM and PMO	Lok Pal cannot investigate any complaint relating to PM while PM is in power	If the highest person in the government of India is not made accountable by law, it is a shame on us! See what’s going on now – Raja is accusing PM but MMS is simply not answering!
Ability to prosecute MPs and Ministers	Lok Pal will be able to investigate and prosecute any government servant defined as per prevention of corruption act (1988)	Lok Pal will have to submit a report to PM and wait for the report to be discussed in parliament before MPs or Ministers can be prosecuted.	This is another place where UPA’s Lok Pal becomes Joke Pal. In other words, don’t even dare to touch politicians.
Investigation wing	CBI’s anti-corruption unit must be under Lok Pal	A separate wing will be constituted with powers equivalent to Delhi Police	What’s the point in CBI (which works for government) investigating corruption charges against government? If Supreme Court doesn’t intervene every single time (like it does now) nothing will progress.
Ability to enquire senior judges	Lok Pal will be able to investigate and prosecute any government servant defined as per prevention of corruption act (1988) including the Chief Justice of India	Senior Judges cannot be inquired by Lok Pal	Read my previous point where CBI working well only if SC intervenes. What if the CJI himself/herself is part of corruption? Remember CJI K.G.Balakrishnan?
Prosecution Wing	CBI’s prosecution wing to be under Lok Pal. A special court to be formed with retired judges of Supreme Court.	A separate court to be formed. Prosecution of general public within the purview of Lok Pal but cannot prosecute MPs or Ministers.	Prosecution Wing is included just for the sake of inclusion without any real powers to punish politicians.
Ambit	Jan Lok Pal will be able to receive complaints from general public and initiate suo motu against those accused.Any complaint received by Lok Pal to be investigated within 30 days. Any loss to government or public to be recovered from the corrupt.	General public should send their complaints to Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha speaker and it’s left to the Parliament to decide which ones should be investigated by Lok Pal.No authority to enquire low level corruptions.	Another point that makes the government version seriously weak and allow low level corruptions (that people face day to day) to continue.

To sum it up, the government version of the Lok Pal cannot prosecute corrupt MPs and Ministers without the permission of the parliament which is totally absurd. Furthermore, they cannot enquire senior judges and PM who can well be part of the corruption. General public are not given any assurance of elimination of corruption in day to day life and punishment to those who are corrupt is not within the purview of Lok Pal. In a nutshell, Lok Pal will seek help from government to investigate, seek help from government to prosecute, and seek help from government to even appoint its own members, including the chairperson. In other words, Lok Pal will be indirectly controlled by the government, like MMS being controlled by Sonia

4)      The government has betrayed team Anna and the nation

Remember what UPA said when they asked Anna Hazare to withdraw his hunger strike in April’11? They assured to formulate a joint committee which will draft Lok Pal bill. What happened then? The ministers kept closing meetings in disagreement and finally decided to get away with the joint committee totally. Even then Kapil Sibal assured to present both the versions in parliament. But look at what they have done now. The government has silently ignored the version prepared by Anna Hazare’s Panel and just proceeding with the one they made with some minor alterations such as investigation and prosecution powers. This is a total betrayal of the nation which supported Anna Hazare’s movement in April’11. What else can you expect from a government which filed a suit in Supreme Court to stop Supreme Court from formulating a committee to investigate and recover black money? It can happen only in India and only when Congress is ruling.

5)      If it’s not now, it is never

As you might know the very first draft for an independent Lok Pal more than 40 years back. It has taken 40+ years and a strong protest from Anna Hazare and team and the whole nation to even table a Lok Pal bill in the parliament. Now if we allow this weak bill to get passed it might take another 40+ years to strengthen the bill. We not only need a Lok Pal but a strong Lok Pal which can take severe actions against those who are corrupt. If this Lok Pal is setup, it won’t even be able to punish those who are already corrupt, forget about those who commit corruption in future.

This is the right time to bring the right Lok Pal bill by supporting Anna Hazare’s movement in every little way you can, by participating in the protest or participating in a signature drive or just spreading the word, or anything you can do. Remember, it’s now or never! Jai Hind!!

PS: After a long time (since my MS days), I have read, referenced, and written so much in a single day…At least happy that I did not have to include a reference list ..Phew! Time to take some rest before the next post

Angry Birds – 10 Lessons I Learned

As I sat to write a post in my blog after a really long time, a compendium of thoughts and ideas flowed through my mind. I contemplated for a long time and decided on this. After all, if I am not writing a post on the activity that I am spending most of my time with these days, if I am not writing a post on something that’s keeping me motivated even during this lull, I am doing a serious injustice to this game. Unlike many other games, Angry Birds offers a whole lot of lessons which can be applied in your career and life in general. While many of us may overlook these, fortunately I had the time and energy to ruminate through and come up with this list. This post is dedicated to all those awesome fans of the awesome game of Angry Birds Now, let’s get to the lessons.

1. Keep Learning – Change is the only constant thing in this ever changing world. If you thought you can just deal all those bloody pigs with just the red bird alone, sorry my friend, you are wrong. You need to learn when to tap to speed up the yellow bird and when to split the blue bird. And when time demands, you need to know when to drop the egg of the white bird and when to boomerang the green one. There are always new birds and new demands. Like they always say, it’s an ongoing process, be it Angry Birds or life
2. Perseverance is key – It’s quite easy to withdraw from a challenge with a lame excuse that you can’t do it. But if you keep trying with perseverance, you will realize that all it takes is time and some serious application of thoughts. You will also realize that there’s nothing called a problem that can’t be solved – a serious message for those who are demotivated with life and career.
3. A solution worked in the past is not necessarily the best solution – This is an important lesson taught in many B-Schools for a hefty fee which is offered for FREE by Rovio. The solution you used last time isn’t necessarily going to work every time. While your previous experience can help to some extent, it entails creativity and pragmatic approach from you to solve the current problem, every single time.
4. There’s more than one solution to a problem – this is a classic statement told by professors with multiple Ph.Ds during their business strategy classes or during a case study. This applies to Angry Birds and of course life in general as well. Not many games offer you the luxury of finishing a level through multiple ways but Angry Birds does. Lesson to be learned – there could be multiple ways to reach your goal, consider the options and choose wisely
5. Every step is critical while solving a problem– Killing as many pigs possible in the first step doesn’t necessarily achieve anything. Every step is as critical as the previous one to make sure you kill all those culprits and destroy their safe havens. Similarly, just completing a significant portion of what you wanted to do in life may not produce any fruitful results anything until you finish it completely.
6. You don’t always get what you want when you want it – If only Angry Birds allow us to shuffle birds as we like, I bet we all can beat our best scores easily in many levels. But that’s not the point. You’ve got what you got and you’ll get the next one only when you’ve used what you’ve got. Life is even better for the suspense it keeps where you might not even know what’s in store until you complete what you’ve got in hand now. So put your best effort forward with what you’ve got now and you will be rewarded accordingly
7. Improve resource utilization – Sometimes, you may not need all the birds to finish a level. If you don’t have to use it, just don’t use it, it’s as simple as that. This is an important lesson in any walk of like be it your utilities or a project you are leading to remind you to conserve resources.
8. If it’s not perfect, it’s not perfect – While killing all the pigs alone will complete a level, it isn’t really enough to get 3 stars. You have to think about all possible strategies to maximize efficiency, improve resource utilization, and destroy as much property as possible to get the best score to earn 3 stars. This will make you someone who tries to go that extra mile every time to achieve the perfect result. There cannot be a better motivation for one to achieve the best possible result!
9. Keep ‘Optimizing’ – Being complacent about what you have achieved is not going to help you in anyway. While you can be proud of finishing all levels with 3 stars, there are numerous people who have performed better than you, if you look at the official Angry Birds scoreboard. This will motivate you to beat your own achievement every single time, making you a CMM level-5 player in both Angry Birds and in life. Yes, it is ‘optimizing’- a present continuous which reminds you that there’s always scope for further improvement.
10. It ain’t over until it is over – Just by finishing all levels with 3 stars and finding all golden eggs in Angry Birds, it’s not over. You and I now have the challenge of finishing Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. Most likely you and I will have much more in front of us while we finish these two. So never ever think that you are done with all the challenges in life. Always take the next challenge as a new one and start with #1 from above

PS: While I thought this topic would be very innovative and creative of me, when I searched the internet I found few similar thinking minds around the globe so I had to remove some of my best points to save myself from accusations of plagiarism (as if anyone is going to read and accuse me ). But it’s my duty to share the best one I came across  (of course, apart from the one I’ve written )- http://www.cio.com/article/678656/10_Lessons_from_Angry_Birds_That_Can_Make_You_a_Better_CIO?page=2&taxonomyId=3172; Read both of them and enjoy your Angry Birds even more