Anna Hazare's fast against corruption

[rad0]

Support Anna's Movement @ Freedom Park, Bangalore

Well,if you are in Bangalore and you are aware of the support campaign(I am Anna) for Anna from Bangalore.Go ahead and support

If you are still not aware of the support campaign for Anna @freedom Park, Bangalore. Its a request to all to take out a couple of hours after your office timings to support the cause @ Freedom Park, Bangalore. Freedom Park is loacted near Majestic Bus Stand.(for those who are not aware of where freedom park is )

There are around 30 activist fasting here in Bangalore.
The estimated gathering was around 50k people on Sunday comapred to 15k-20k on Saturday.

If you have commitment for your girlfriend/friends after office timing. Well you can take them along with you and support the cause.

We were a part of the candle light walk on saturday and Sunday. Hope to see few TEians

Thanks
Ramanuj

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

Put this piece of info on your Social Networking Page and help the campaign in anyway possible.

Still a lot of peopl aren't aware of this campaign in Bangalore. So do let your friends and relatives know about this.

 

[Superbad]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

I don't remember last when I've listened to so much crap. This guy is putting some serious allegations which he cannot prove at a court of law.

BTW, this video has nothing to do with this campaign. This was shot in February.

feels like crap? yeah

but thinking of it i dont think he should have any motive since he does not belong to any political outfit and he has mentioned it he had this info from his days as a income tax commissioner.
this was i think was done during their protest against price rise etc and i have not seen anyone other than subramaniam swamy in it.

also this has a mention of various corruption been happening on from the top brass.

 

[mrcool63]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : I'd rather not be Anna

Good find bad article... She has forgotten who caused the Dams to be built... Would it have been possible if the environmental agencies had actually checked unbiased the habitat... or has she forgotten the nuclear power plant being built because it got clearance from those in the environmental department once again.. corruption feeds corruption and destroys india.. it has already reached a state that consequences are being solved without solving the original problem.

She is worried that small vendors will be out of business but does she know why so many ended up there.. Where was she when big government companies like the ITI and HMT and Kirloskar and so many more went bankrupt because their staff sold half the merchandise off market for their own profit. Does she know how many went out of work because of it? Each industry had atleast 30-40 thousand workers!!! In binny mills in bangalore they used to line up a truck outside the window and spin cloth which they used to take away. How could they brazenly do it?? Can she explain that...

Do you have any idea how much money PV Narasimha Rao made during his stay as PM?? Do you have any idea that the indian judicial system has been given a 3.5/5 for corruption in judiciary!! Read Mayawati, Lalu prasad, jayalalitha and the list of corrupt goes on! Why that a bloody MLA(krishna yadav) from my constituency made 1000 crores illegally!! That is not a small amount in my opinion

 

[pauldmps]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

feels like crap? yeah

but thinking of it i dont think he should have any motive since he does not belong to any political outfit and he has mentioned it he had this info from his days as a income tax commissioner.

this was i think was done during their protest against price rise etc and i have not seen anyone other than subramaniam swamy in it.

also this has a mention of various corruption been happening on from the top brass.

Do you understand the degree of allegations he had been putting forward. He claims that he has documents to prove his claims. Why doesn't he put forward those in a court. I'd be happy to see Sonia Gandhi behind bars.

He was talking like a blind fan of the Babas (Ramdev?) present there. His voice had violent sentiments. I'd like this movement to be non-violent.

 

[Party Monger]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

Jeezus, huge candle light marches everywhere in Nagpur. Lots of squares having huge presence of supporters! Its getting bigger everyday!

 

[Superbad]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

Do you understand the degree of allegations he had been putting forward. He claims that he has documents to prove his claims. Why doesn't he put forward those in a court. I'd be happy to see Sonia Gandhi behind bars.

He was talking like a blind fan of the Babas (Ramdev?) present there. His voice had violent sentiments. I'd like this movement to be non-violent.

even If found guilty i doubt any politician will get a jail term certainly not someone as powerful as her.
We have an example of a guruji convicted of mass murder but still is not Inside the jail.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

Was just watching a debate on NDTV. one of the participants mentions that to get inside into Ramlila maidan to show your support, you need contacts high up among the top brass in Anna's team. Her friends had no qualms using those contacts to get in while others had to wait up to 2 hours or more. That is Anna's anti-corruption movement for you and that is your typical Anna supporter supposedly fighting against corruption.

A lot of people seem to absurdly believe that supporting Anna is fighting corruption and not supporting Anna is supporting corruption. It has become a trend everywhere to bash anyone who does not support Anna or his version of the bill rather than think intelligently for themselves and decide what merits and defects each of the versions has. It has become a fashion to support Anna and hold candle light marches and what not, showing support for him without even understanding his ideology and protesting against govt when they should actually be protesting against corruption.

As they say a person is smart, but people are stupid. I would rather see individuals thinking for themselves and deciding what's right and fighting against corruption with a sincere heart for their own sake than see them as just another voice in a mass of people crying supporting some other guy without completely understanding his ideology and fighting against the govt when they should be fighting against corruption.

 

[blr_p]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

Get the strong bill in then start building infrastructure needed to deal with the entire problem.

Ah, but JLP isn't just about corruption its also about addressing grievances. Now how is that to work ? From [here]

The fourth and one of the most contentious parts of the Jan Lokpal Bill is its insistence that the Lokpal should also look into ordinary grievances. This is an unsustainable mandate. Just a ballpark estimate would give you a sense of the magnitude of this work: just one Indian household would have a dozen grievances about public services not delivered or promises not kept by government departments and projects — a missing pension, difficulty in getting a ration card, potholes in a road, an FIR not registered, compensation not paid. Multiply that into a billion households. It is impossible for one centralised institution to manage this, which is why we have suggested a three-tier bottom-up approach with grievance redressal officers in every government department, then at the district level, the state level and finally, a central appellate body.

if lokpal has to watchover 12 millions govt servants as well as address grievances. How many staff are required in this Lokpal ? How much will lokpal cost the taxpayer ?

Pratyush Sinha, who’s just retired as India’s Central Vigilance Commissioner, says, whichever way the debate goes, it must certainly look at creating something that is easy to manage. Four years of dealing with corruption cases in the higher bureaucracy, Sinha says, the basket idea seems much more do-able. The devil here is in the detail. In the mountains of paperwork that every single complaint of corruption generates. This is what we’re talking about, if we really want action. “Certain complaints came to me about one important government functionary,” recalls Sinha. “And the system is that you first ask the Chief Vigilance Officer of the department to react to it. He sent us some papers. We found they were not complete: important documents were missing. We wrote back saying: Can the following missing papers be sent? It took 2-3 months. Then again some important documents were missing. We then decided to take it up for direct inquiry. The total strength in the Vigilance Commission is about 30 officers. We realised they had to go through 100 files, each running into hundreds of pages. It took us more than a year to complete that. Two or three of my officers were doing just this.”

Imagine, he said, his face twisting in horror at the thought, if the Jan Lokpal was to take on the entire bureaucracy. That’s several million officers. There’d be a few thousand complaints every day. The rest of the nightmare doesn’t need to be described. You can hear it accumulate and jangle inside Sinha’s head.

Now you can argue for stong lokpal but dont hold your breath as to how soon cases get resolved. It looks like it will take years.

In one area however, Prashant was almost willing to concede some ground to the new basket of reforms plan. Grievance redressal.

“For grievances, there is a case for putting that before a separate forum. That’s the only part of their suggestion where there is an arguable case although even there I feel corruption and grievances are inter-related. So it is functionally more efficient that the same institution looks after grievances that arise out of corruption,” he says.

Bhushan still thinks lokpal will be better at addressing grievances.

Or we will fast unto death for another Supreme Lok Pal Bill which monitors Jan Lok Pal Bill. Now if you ask me what if Supreme LP goes corrupt, then we can have Ultimate Lok Pal bill & this continues

Right..

govt is corrupt as its bloated so we appoint 'strong' lok pal which in turns gets bloated and eventually corrupt and we require yet another lok pal to watch over them.

ANd what Sibal says is applicable if Judiciary is brought under lokpal under government's draft.

Err, he was referring to JLP there. storng lokpal for you means bringing everyone under its ambit.

No such worry if Lokpal himself is responsible for determining the punishment and fines.

Don't understand what you mean here ?

Cpl more interviews against bringing judiciary under lokpal [here] & [here]

So its not so easy to bring judidciary under lokpal.

nice article ,i support her bill ,its balanced in my opinion

Article you linked to refers to an earlier one [here]

Aruna's way is basket of reforms vs one bill for JLP

How would you reply to the below 2 counters against the basket-of-reforms approach ?

AN ANECDOTAL story Gandhi tells us, unfolds the much neglected tapestry in our country — where laws are passed but not implemented. “In Maharashtra, 4-5 years ago, we got a law which was again the result of an Anna Hazare fast. Which says that all officers will ensure that no paper remains with them for more than seven days. No department will keep any file with them for more than 45 days. Not one thing has been implemented. Under the RTI, I sought information — please tell me how many cases have you found (of people being punished for keeping files longer than this new stipulated time) and the answer is zero. So I asked some senior secretaries: Then why do we have this law? And they said: Oh, Annaji demanded it, so it was made a law.”

Gandhi extrapolates from this account to say, he therefore puts more faith in the Jan Lokpal Bill than the basket of reforms. That is because an all-powerful body that will be a sharp rupture from the past, in his opinion, will be more likely to get the job done, than a basket of reforms. That may end up being “business as usual”.

Bhushan is against this approach

“To my mind, the whole basis of proposing a basket rather than proposing one Bill is conceptually flawed. Unfortunately, they have fallen into the government’s trap of suggesting something that will lead to a bogus Lokpal Bill and everything else will be left to other Bills which will never come.”

For those who’ve been in administration, or taken on the government, as Prashant has, this is a highly emotive issue. If the government has already come down so heavily on the civil society version of the Lokpal Bill, how will there be enough support and pressure generated to get it to pass five Bills as the NCPRI basket proposes? The Judicial Accountability Bill has been pending in Parliament for a decade and the Whistleblowers Act has been an urgent, crying need ever since the RTI became an Act in 2005. But several RTI activists’ murders later, where does this Bill stand? The answer is a deafening silence

The article ends with..

Yadav cautions the naysayers of the Jan Lokpal, saying that labelling it an all powerful body is a bit over the top. There’s nothing wrong with a powerful institution. The question really is: “How many things do we want one institution to process.” Also, while we shout, harangue and TV debate our way to answers, Yadav, like Dey throws in another cautionary word.

“How institutions perform is not a function of how the law is worded. The word of law can be stronger or weaker and it only partly influences how institutions function.” Look for instance at the Indian Election Commission. More or less dead until election commissioner TN Seshan arrived on the scene in 1990. Not one word of law was changed. But overnight, the institution was transformed into an important watchdog and pillar of the Indian democracy.

“Any kind of institution that comes along — new or old, basket or single — if it is driven by the anti-corruption movement in the country, it will perform better. If it is driven merely by an administrative- bureaucratic thing, it won’t work.”

So the questions are:
- whether its possible to have 'strong' lokpal without being bloated or not. I cannot imagine how it can be 'strong' beacuse strong here is defined as scope and if thats the case then it will become bloated over time and unresponsive.
- does storng lokpal necessarily imply too much centralisation of power in one unaccountable org. If its to be independent then accountability is counter to that ie indenpece is inversely propertional to accountability. If everyone comes under lokpal there is strong chance of interefering with other depts govt in general.

These i would say are the two primary problems with strong lokpal.

 

[Shripad]

Ah, but JLP isn't just about corruption its also about addressing grievances. Now how is that to work ? From [here]

if lokpal has to watchover 12 millions govt servants as well as address grievances. How many staff are required in this Lokpal ? How much will lokpal cost the taxpayer ?

Now you can argue for stong lokpal but dont hold your breath as to how soon cases get resolved. It looks like it will take years.

Bhushan still thinks lokpal will be better at addressing grievances.

Right..

govt is corrupt as its bloated so we appoint 'strong' lok pal which in turns gets bloated and eventually corrupt and we require yet another lok pal to watch over them.

Err, he was referring to JLP there. storng lokpal for you means bringing everyone under its ambit.

Don't understand what you mean here ?

Cpl more interviews against bringing judiciary under lokpal [here] & [here]

So its not so easy to bring judidciary under lokpal.

Article you linked to refers to an earlier one [here]

Aruna's way is basket of reforms vs one bill for JLP

How would you reply to the below 2 counters against the basket-of-reforms approach ?

Bhushan is against this approach

The article ends with..

So the questions are:

- whether its possible to have 'strong' lokpal without being bloated or not. I cannot imagine how it can be 'strong' beacuse strong here is defined as scope and if thats the case then it will become bloated over time and unresponsive.

- does storng lokpal necessarily imply too much centralisation of power in one unaccountable org. If its to be independent then accountability is counter to that ie indenpece is inversely propertional to accountability. If everyone comes under lokpal there is strong chance of interefering with other depts govt in general.

These i would say are the two primary problems with strong lokpal.

You again miss the critical point of how two different drafts suggest the structure of the institution.

The scope will become an issue only with having one central lokpal. Civil body wants to have state level agencies. Just that rather than reporting to governer or CM, they will be reporting to lokpal. On the day to day work basis, these agencies will continue to work on local level independently, but now without any government pressure or manipulation. All big or widely spread corruption cases can be then handled by central lokpal members. Our their help can be taken by state agencies if and when needed.

Government lokpal bill completely eliminates this. Even from the states that already have this infrastructure.

And ofcourse it has to address grievances, any investigative body has to. They can't magically come to know about something out of thin air.

And out will cost money. But it will be peanuts compared to the amount off money we are loosing to corruption, not to mention amount of load it will reduce on our civil courts.

All this is needed as our law system which is suppose to be independent of political interference, is rarely so. When there is change in power at center, all law officers are made to resign and new ones are appointed which are loyal to the new ruling party. This is primarily why big corruption cases most of the times do not even see light of the day unless its broken to public by media or they are too obvious like CWG. And even when they do, ruling party has enough clout and people in key places to limit the damage ( like what we are seeing in cwg and 2G scams ).

Sent from my Motorola Atrix using Tapatalk Pro.

 

[blr_p]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

You again miss the critical point of how two different drafts suggest the structure of the institution.

The scope will become an issue only with having one central lokpal. Civil body wants to have state level agencies. Just that rather than reporting to governer or CM, they will be reporting to lokpal. On the day to day work basis, these agencies will continue to work on local level independently, but now without any government pressure or manipulation. All big or widely spread corruption cases can be then handled by central lokpal members. Our their help can be taken by state agencies if and when needed.

ok

Government lokpal bill completely eliminates this. Even from the states that already have this infrastructure.

Not quite sure about this , GOI stipulates the creation of an Investigation Wing & Prosecution Wing, state lokayukta will most likely go into the IW, PW will be state employess deputed into the PW. But GOI says it has to get the consent of the state govt concerned. Now until such times these teams are constituted in the states concerned central govt employess will go do the ground work.

But GOI limits ppl that can be investigated to just class A, which works out to like 65k employess instead of 12 million. Thats a difference of about 180 and GOI's LP does not deal with grievances.

And out will cost money. But it will be peanuts compared to the amount off money we are loosing to corruption, not to mention amount of load it will reduce on our civil courts.

So they have to deal with 180 times more ppl with JLP than GOI.

Could we say JLP's LP will cost many times more than GOI's LP ?

And ofcourse it has to address grievances, any investigative body has to. They can't magically come to know about something out of thin air.

What about the volume of work ? here's what the document below says..

Should public Grievances be brought under the jurisdiction of Lokpal? This will overburden Lokpal and make it unwieldy.

Under the grievance redressal system proposed in Jan Lokpal Bill, none of the complaints would directly reach the Lokpal members. It is only when the officers of a department, including its head of department fails to redress the grievance of a citizen, does the grievance reach the Vigilance officer of Lokpal. The Vigilance officer, in addition to getting the grievance resolved, will impose penalties on the officers including the head of department. It is expected that this would act as a very big deterrent and the Heads of various departments would start strengthening their systems. Also, each department would be asked to prepare their own citizens’ charter. They will themselves assess which items to put on citizens charter where they could make a firm commitment. However, the departments would be expected to bring all public dealing issues in citizens charter in one years time.

There is an apprehension that the Lokpal will get flooded with thousands of complaints and jam its machinery. This apprehension is not correct because only those grievances which result from violation of citizens charter will be accepted. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that lakhs of grievances do come up in any place against any department, that would not jam the entire machinery of Lokpal. It could only jam the functioning of some VOs in some departments in some stations. If Lokpal feels that there are more VOs required, it will have the powers to appoint as many VOs as it wants.

All this is needed as our law system which is suppose to be independent of political interference, is rarely so. When there is change in power at center, all law officers are made to resign and new ones are appointed which are loyal to the new ruling party. This is primarily why big corruption cases most of the times do not even see light of the day unless its broken to public by media or they are too obvious like CWG. And even when they do, ruling party has enough clout and people in key places to limit the damage ( like what we are seeing in cwg and 2G scams ).

When you say 'law officers', which ones are you referring to ?

Would recommed ppl read the analysis of the JLP bill from IAC's site [here]

It contains counters to including the judidicary which have not been covered in the articles provided here earlier.

 

[avi]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

and what about Aruna Roy's draft ? Atleast she included NGOs :bleh:

 

[blr_p]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

Don't know how to counter those two rebuttals against her draft, lets see what others say ?

as for your other question look at pg.8 of the previously linked document

e. Illegally obtained benefits are deemed to be obtained through corruption
In the current system, if anyone obtains any benefit from the government illegally, it is difficult to prove that he did so by paying bribes. Therefore, it has been provided in Jan Lokpal Bill that if a person obtains any benefit from the government in violation of a law or rules and regulations, that person along with concerned public servants shall be deemed to have indulged in corrupt practice.

So that covers everybody, govt & private right down to the individiual citizen.

 

[Shripad]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

Actually thats fantastic summary, it has combined and addressed all the major concerns that have been posted here.

Everyone confused about what Lokpal is all about should really download and read it : http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/docs/Jan_Lokpal_Bill-A-Detailed_Analysis.doc


^^ That article itself addresses your issue on volumes. And yes, the Government draft intents to eliminate state lokayuktas. Its documented and opposed even by some NAC members. And do keep in mind that the Lokpal will have to deal with complaints. India have billion plus people, so do you think the courts should not exist as there are too many people and its impossible for any legal system to give justice to all, and because it faces tremendous load it should not exist or should exist in diluted form to only deal with serious crimes? No you dont. Same will be case with Lokpal. Sure the larger scope would mean more people, more expenses, but the system is needed regardless. And one with wider scope.
There can be little trade off with couple of posts, but not what government are proposing. And if PM is to be exempted, there should be amendment stating that if PM is holding multiple portfolios (which he can) he will only be exempted from the action taken as PM and not as a minister of any other portfolio.

As far as law officers are concerned, all of them are chosen at discretion of the new government. The system was intended to be free of political influence, but its not at all. All posts including ATTORNEY GENERAL, SOLICITOR GENERAL, ADDITIONAL SOLICITOR GENERAL and heck even CHIEF JUSTICE of INDIA are totally under the control of ruling government. The system was grossly abused during the emergency days. Has been abused by UPA on multiple commissions

You can check out the history of their appointments and terms.

 

[blr_p]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

what was most depressing in those tehelka articles is this line...

“The RTI got mauled in the cabinet,” explains Nikhil Dey. “It got restored by the standing committee of the Parliament where 150 amendments were made.”

so lets take this as an example of what will happen if the govt goes ahead with its draft and refuses to budge from its current position !!

India have billion plus people, so do you think the courts should not exist as there are too many people and its impossible for any legal system to give justice to all, and because it faces tremendous load it should not exist or should exist in diluted form to only deal with serious crimes? No you dont.

Ah, but can you say our courts are efficient and deliver on time ?

Same will be case with Lokpal. Sure the larger scope would mean more people, more expenses, but the system is needed regardless. And one with wider scope.

Yes, but they say 1 yr max and they want resources to open more courts if required.

 

[Shripad]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

^^ No they dont, that is why the certain limits that the lokpal bill imposes are important. These guys have done their homework, there is time limit on the cases and investigations, failing to adhere to those time limits mean departmental punishments. Also that one year period is after case goes to trial. This means the initial investigation is done and when lokpal forwards the case for actual trial, there will be a time limit of 1 year for completion of case. Which is good thing. In certain cases this means additional temporary courts. That practice is even there today when special bench / courts are formed for some high profile of time sensitive cases.

 

[chiron]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

After a lot of thinking back and forth and now its take a stance time for me as all this debate about actual implementation/clauses are making it harder to make a decision, especially when they could end up being amended down the line

imo the need for the hour is as simple as more accountability for the elected representatives rather than something grandiose like eliminating all traces of corruption from India. If jlp insists on wider scope at the outset itself then I don't support it. If jlp insists on power to impose penalties bypassing the judiciary then I don't support it. And as far as the govt lp goes I never agreed with it in the first place so I guess to hell with it all

 

[6pack]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

I do not understand one thing. Saw on news yesterday or day before that, our PM said that corruption cannot be stopped by passing a bill in parliament. Then why the heck are they wasting our time, and everyone's else time by bringing their version of the bill in parliament too? According to him and his party, no matter whether the bill is passed or not there will be corruption. So why pass a bill and do all this drama in the first place. Why not just say we have no inclination to free India from corruption so we will not pass such a stupid bill and be done and over with? :S

Each day they bring this into parliament money is wasted in crores. why not spend that money on buying food grains and distributing it amongst people free of cost? Either way they're wasting money then waste it on a good cause.

 

[blr_p]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

I do not understand one thing. Saw on news yesterday or day before that, our PM said that corruption cannot be stopped by passing a bill in parliament.

Absolutes, ie cannot be elliminated. Setting expectations.

Can it be reduced ? most defnitely. Both bills will reduce it but the JLP one will go further, much further at least initially.

Then why the heck are they wasting our time, and everyone's else time by bringing their version of the bill in parliament too?

So they can say they addressed the issue. What i'm not sure about is whether they are determined to water down whatever bill that gets discussed in parliament. Oh and bringing a bill is no guarantee it will be tabled and if that happens whether it will even pass.

There is a funny situation here where govt has to look good to the ppl and not weak. If they accede then they look weak because of all the previous coercive tactics. So i suspect there will be pushback now.

Each day they bring this into parliament money is wasted in crores. why not spend that money on buying food grains and distributing it amongst people free of cost? Either way they're wasting money then waste it on a good cause.

Debating this bill is defnitely worth it, if you consider last winter one month went by with nothing done.

The big question is what will we be left with in the end. How good will it be.

As far as law officers are concerned, all of them are chosen at discretion of the new government. The system was intended to be free of political influence, but its not at all. All posts including ATTORNEY GENERAL, SOLICITOR GENERAL, ADDITIONAL SOLICITOR GENERAL and heck even CHIEF JUSTICE of INDIA are totally under the control of ruling government.

See, this is why i asked which officers, what you mentioned are all TOP posts as opposed to all law officers, what about chief justices in high courts do they get changed too ? The question is what % gets changed with each administration ?

I thought it was the same in other countries as well. to change the top posts.

 

[6pack]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

One more:

Govt is asking how the lok pal will look after the heavy burden of scrutinizing its 1 crore + govt employees. So does this mean govt. is directly claiming that all or majority of the 1+ crore of their employees are corrupt? Speaks volumes of the govt's faith in their employees doesn't it?

 

[blr_p]

Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.

Good news !

Going by my daily. Both sides have softened their positions. Hazare wants this passed by diwali which is 3rd week of october instead of this month end as was said earlier but govt thinkssmore realistically in the winter session which beings third week of November.

This gives the parliament standing committee on law enough time to look it through and make recommendations.

That even the parliamentary panel studying the Bill was ready to expedite its report was voiced by its chairman and Congress MP Abhishek Singhvi. “We will give recommendations on Lokpal Bill well before three-month period given to us”, he said, indicating that a bill more acceptable to all sections may be brought in the winter session. “Give us a chance, we may spring surprises. We can change the (government’s) bill up to 80 per cent,” Singhvi said, adding: “ A solution is certainly possible. I fail to understand why a reasonable solution cannot be found to the issue. Our committee is open to all suggestions.”

So 20% is non-negotiable, wonder which that is ?

Why the change of heart ? Upcoming UP elections and congress needs to create a good impression.