Quote:MUMBAI: Almost 10 months after a group of 14 eminent citizens (G14) created a flutter with an 'Open Letter To Our Leaders' expressing alarm over a "governance deficit in government, business and institutions", it has released another 'Open Letter' supporting the "need for the urgent passage of a well-crafted Lokpal Bill by Parliament", and calling for "urgent action on land, judicial, electoral and police reforms".



Acknowledging that a "strong nexus exists between certain corporates, politicians, bureaucrats and power brokers", which it described as "one of the greatest threats to the Indian economy", the G14 said both the "giver as well as the receiver of a bribe" should be punished.



The group, which includes some of the biggest and most respected names in India Inc, said, "We...believe that the Lokpal Bill is only one small but critical step in the national task of weeding out the plague of corruption in India. This draft Lokpal Bill is intended to address episodic corruption, but is unlikely to have any significant impact on day-to-day corruption, which is insidious and demeaning."



Biggies rally behind Lokpal



The group included Wipro's Azim Premji, HDFC's Deepak Parekh, ICICI's N Vaghul, industrialists Keshub Mahindra, Jamshyd Godrej and Anu Aga (also a member of the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council), former Hindustan Lever chairman and now Member of Parliament Ashok Ganguly, former RBI governors M Narasimham and Bimal Jalan (now a Rajya Sabha member), Justices B N Srikrishna and Sam Variava, architect of key Sebi and RBI regulations Yezdi Malegam, member of the PM's Economic Advisory Council AVaidyanathan, and banker-turned-social worker Nachiket Mor.



Implicitly throwing its weight behind a strong Lokpal, the group said, "August 27, 2011, marked a high point by the historic debate leading to the 'Sense of the House' in Parliament on the Lokpal Bill. The event reinforced the inviolable primacy of the Indian Constitution. It was also an event of relief and reassurance to the vast and silent majority who constitute India's core civil society."



The group lamented, at length and with examples, the fact that the common man's life was "vitiated by corruption" at every turn.



It has called for speedier environmental clearances, "online auction of natural resources...to prevent discretionary and irregular practices", and appointment of more judges for an effective redress mechanism.



It said the "impasse" on clearances continued to delay investment proposals and hamper economic growth. "Owing to several such impediments, fresh investments are not forthcoming at the pace required for a rapidly growing economy such as ours. Policy uncertainties and delays in approvals are forcing many large corporate entities to seek out opportunities in other geographies."



The group endorsed <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blink:' /> PM Manmohan Singh's "statement that economic progress must not be hijacked by internal dissensions" and "national challenges cannot be solved by urban protests and posturing."

Quote:NEW DELHI: Congress said on Monday that the Anna Hazare agitation was just a mask for communal forces. Retaliating to the anti-graft campaigner's call for the ruling party's defeat in the Hisar by-election, the party said it could not understand the reason for Hazare's stance to make it an issue in the poll when the parliamentary standing committee was going full steam to wind up the Lokpal legislation as per the understanding.



AICC spokesman Manish Tiwari said, "Is this really about corruption or is it again the traditional battle over the basic 'Idea of India' which is being played out in the garb of other issues... whether India should be a secular republic or a communal country." Tiwari said the view about Hazare's agitation being a proxy was given force by the group's unjustified aggression over Lokpal.



Monday marked a concerted Congress bid to dismiss the anti-graft agitations as driven by political considerations, clubbing BJP veteran LK Advani's yatra starting Tuesday in the same category. The timing of Hazare's Hisar call and Advani's yatra provided enough fodder to Congress to project them as planned from the same stable and with same objective.



Tiwari said, "The yatra has less to do with issues raised but is meant to see if 2014 can be fast forwarded in 2012. Unfortunately, it would not happen."

Quote:A day before the Jan Chetna Yatra begins, veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani made two points: he did not rule himself out of the race to be declared the prime ministerial candidate and his party did not agree with the Anna Hazare team on several issues, including the recent assertion by team member Arvind Kejriwal that Anna was “above Parliament.”



“The party [BJP] will decide when elections come,” he said when asked whether he had ruled himself out as a prime ministerial candidate.



It seems that on several issues, including the Jan Lokpal Bill, Mr. Advani and his party were not on the same wavelength as the Anna team. The BJP, he said, had differed with Anna and his men on several key issues related to the Bill. For one, he did not think anyone had the right to challenge the parliamentary system.



Addressing a press conference here on Monday, he said: “Parliament is the highest authority … I do not know in what context it was said Anna was above Parliament,” Mr. Advani.



“We [the BJP] had also differed with the Anna team on a bill that would send bureaucrats who delay work directly related to people. Our State governments have passed laws to give time-bound services to people and delays would attract fines. Later the Anna team agreed with us on this,” he said.



Mr. Advani said his ‘yatra' from the birthplace of Jayaprakash Narayan in Chhapra on October 11 to Delhi on November 20 would keep its focus on the twin issues of ‘clean politics' and `good governance” that he saw as keys to keeping India's democracy healthy. He pointed out that while Jayaprakash Narayan realised the importance of political parties and galvanised all the Opposition parties, the Anna team was shying away from engaging political parties.



On the demand for ‘right to recall' or ‘right to reject,' he said while there was need for electoral reforms to check criminalisation and the use of money power in politics, he was not sure whether in a big country like India the right to recall would work. “It is not so simple. No country of India's size has the right to recall.” [color="#9932cc"]{... and hence we should not have it. QED! [/color][/size][size="3"][color="#9932cc"][/color][/size][size="3"][color="#9932cc"] }[/color]

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Quote:NEW DELHI: Senior Supreme Court advocate and Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan was beaten in his chamber by youth allegedly for his Kashmir comments. [/size]



[size="3"] Supreme Court lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan was roughed up at his chambers here by a youth in full view of TV cameras Wednesday. The youth barged into his chamber and started beating him up, before being overpowered by others present in the room, TV visuals showed. [/size]



[size="3"] The two attackers claimed that they were from Sri Ram Sene. The attackers told Times Now that they were provoked by Bhushan's comments on Kashmir. One of the attackers has been arrested by the Police. Bhushan filed an FIR against the attackers. [/size]



[size="3"] In an earlier interview, Prashant had reportedly said that the Kashmiri people should be given 'azadi' if they don't want to live with India. He had also reportedly recommended that withdrawl of Indian army from Kashmir.