As the joint drafting committee begins work on the Lokpal Bill, its civil society members face challenges from various quarters. AS the leader of the five-member civil society group within the 10-member joint drafting committee to prepare the new Lokpal Bill, Anna Hazare finds himself in an unenviable position. After his successful agitation for equal participation for civil society in the legislative exercise to create the first Lokpal at the Centre,...
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History of deception by AG Noorani
The 1985 Lokpal Bill destroyed the raison d'etre of the institution of an ombudsman, but all successive governments copied it. PUBLIC anger was understandably aroused over the gross delay by Parliament in the last 40 years to enact a Lokpal Bill and with the toothless one that the government sponsored. It is not widely known that the delay was aggravated by deception and fraud in 1985. It was, however, emulated by...
More »Maheshwar dam: Digvijay defends intervention
Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Saturday defended his decision to intervene in the issue of the Maheshwar dam project in Madhya Pradesh, on whose work the Environment Ministry, headed by Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, revoked the ban on Friday. The ban on work at the site was ordered by the Ministry in April 2010, with the resettlement and rehabilitation of affected villages largely pending. “Yes. I...
More »Ghost of Marichjhapi returns to haunt by Snigdhendu Bhattacharya
It was the mother of all Nandigrams. If there was one Nandigram on March 14, 2007, then perhaps there were dozens of Nandigrams during the three-day cleanse-Marichjhapi operation in January 1979. “It was Saraswati Puja. The police were just raining bullets as soon as the refugees landed in our village! Like everybody else on the road, I, too, fled for safety as I could see people falling either injured or...
More »Prashant denies bid to ‘gag' Amar Singh by Gargi Parsai
Lawyer and civil society member on the Lokpal Bill joint drafting panel Prashant Bhushan on Thursday denied that he had spoken at all to the former Samajwadi Party member, Amar Singh, or to anyone else from his office or home. “Not at all,'' he said when asked by The Hindu if he had spoken to Mr. Singh on Thursday and tried to “gag'' him as claimed by the latter at a...
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