Interview with social activist and Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal. THE organisational abilities of Arvind Kejriwal exhibited during the recent Jan Lokpal Bill movement earned him the sobriquet “Field Marshal of a peaceful agitation”. The social activist and Ramon Magsaysay Award winner played a significant role in conceiving the slogans, the symbolism and the trajectory of the movement. He is credited with anticipating some of the moves of the government...
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Extreme problems don't always need extreme solutions
-The Times of India The Anna Hazare-led civil society movement cannot be faulted for having come up with its version of the Lokpal Bill, because otherwise it would have been accused of campaigning for something essentially negative - the withdrawal of the flawed government version without putting forward an alternative. Frustration with everyday corruption - as well as the spectacular kind that explodes in the public sphere ever so often (...
More »Need to review parliamentary privilege: Aruna Roy
-The Hindu Civil rights activist Aruna Roy on Sunday termed the notion of parliamentary privilege ‘fundamentally flawed' and said it needed a relook. “The privilege issue, we [the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI)] feel, is fundamentally flawed. We will have to examine it. Not only now, we have raised this over a number of issues [earlier],” she said at an interaction with the media. On Parliament's breach of privilege motion...
More »Arvind Kejriwal, RTI activist and Magsaysay award winner interviewed by Vidya Subrahmaniam
'We want to pressure the government and assert our rights as citizens.' Arvind Kejriwal received the Magsaysay award in the Emergent leadership category in 2006. A mere five years later, he has far surpassed that milestone, winning acclaim and notice for the way he conceived and crafted Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement. He talks to Vidya Subrahmaniam about the Jan Lokpal campaign, what it accomplished and why it often became controversial. The scale...
More »Hazare vs Hazare: A Scenario as a Warning by Shiv Visvanathan
As the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement moves to the legislative phase it has to rid itself of the panacea model. The Hazare group has to realise that it has no monopoly on diagnosis or the cure for corruption. The Lokpal is no magic bullet which will solve the problem of corruption. Corruption needs a more cautious and nuanced problematic and a wider set of solutions. To put it facetiously, Hazare’s...
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