The Joint Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee concludes its meetings without any agreement on major issues. ON June 21, as the five government representatives and the five civil society members of the Joint Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee ended their deliberations after exchanging their versions of the draft Lokpal Bill, the battle lines were clearly drawn. The government was in no mood to agree with the civil society members led by Anna...
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Trouble for govt if Lokpal draft is bogus: CPI
-PTI Pressing its demand for a strong Lokpal with teeth to fight corruption, the CPI has warned that the government could face "trouble" if it comes up with a bogus draft in Parliament. The remarks came after a team of civil society activists led by Anna Hazare met leaders of the Communist Party of India (CPI) to put their points across on the issue of the Lokpal and seek support for...
More »Don't treat Team Anna draft as dissent note: Shanti Bhushan by K Balchand
The co-chairperson of the Joint Drafting Committee on the Lokpal Bill, Shanti Bhushan, has urged Union Finance Minister and chairman of the Lokpal panel Pranab Mukherjee to treat the two drafts as the outcome of the joint committee and not to treat the Team Anna draft as a “dissent note.” In a letter to Mr. Mukherjee, Mr. Bhushan took exception to Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily's statement calling the government draft...
More »Sparring partners by Nandini Sundar
Rather than shutting its doors on ‘civil society’, the government should be thanking its stars that the latter wants to make law, not war. Distributing tee-shirts with this slogan would be a better use of the government’s ‘hearts and minds’ funds than the integrated action plan to counter Naxals, or the army’s tourism trips to Pune for Kashmiri schoolgirls. The UPA regime has been unprecedented for the spate of legislation that...
More »How to overcome Lokpal drafting committee impasse by Praful Bidwai
The roller-coaster ride of the government-civil society joint drafting committee on the Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill has ended in a draw, but left both sides badly injured. Whether the tie will be broken when they present their separate recommendations to a proposed all-party committee in July remains an open question. Yet, this is a good time to draw up a balance-sheet of the government's first-ever effort to take on board civil...
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