 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 Features & Spotlights |
Promod Chawla (280-J '58)
Many of us are ideally positioned to fight the battles of righteousness and truth. Now that the initial brickbats are over ! - by a favourable Supreme Court verdict of 13 March 03 - each of you can join other Doscos like Promod Chawla, Prem Shankar Jha, Ravi Prakash & Murad Baig to make a difference to India’s destiny.
Read herein about the National Campaign for India and join in.
|
See also: |
Problems are immense - India’s black board has a depressing message – a breakdown of civic services, motorists jumping traffic lights, graffiti, public urination, lack of bijli & pani, a polluted environment - the list goes on and on. Bureaucracy makes jerky arthritic moves - killing entrepreneurship and employment. Glaringly in our face is a diminishing jobless future with potholes of uncertainty.
To top it all, criminals sit in the state assemblies and the central parliament, grabbing goodies & aggressively granting unlawful concessions to ensure their re-election. Not to forget that civil society is quiet, not knowing where & how to begin corrections.
10 citizens, among whom were four Doscos, decided to take stock of the situation in October 2000 and formed a think tank to be proactive. One of their first initiatives under the leadership of Mr. H.D Shourie (a Dosco grandfather) was to help popularize a Delhi High Court judgment of November 2000 which made it mandatory for legislators to be - declare their assets, liabilities, educational qualifications and criminal convictions to voters. ADR a group formed by IIM Ahmedabad professors and their friends had earlier won the case in the Delhi courts.
The Government filed a petition to prevent the implementation of this ruling even though they were requested to implement the judgment in the interests and well being of the nation. Latter request was disregarded.
The think tank held public meetings, addressed students including at Doon & Welham, coordinated debates, solicited the support of lawyers and created awareness of the issue with the media. This was all done without any funds. The think tank even wrote to the Prime Minster and appealed to the President of India. This resulted in the government losing their plea petition on 2 May 2002. The Supreme Court asked the election commission to collect and provide information on candidates to all voters.
Soon thereafter, sensing parliamentary action to squash the May 2nd, 2002 verdict, the think tank with over 24 Civil Society Groups across the country - under one umbrella - met major political party stalwarts such as Sonia Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh, Kapil Sibal, Shivraj Patel, Manishankar Iyer, Naidus, Somnath Chatterjee, Raja, Sitaram Yachury and Sangma cautioning them that transparency and right to information are the pillars of a Democracy and must be kept intact.
President APJ Abdul Kalam was requested to intervene when there was parliamentary action to squash the verdict and a twenty five-member delegation met him on 16 Aug, 02 on this issue. Promod Chawla was one of the delegates who met him. President Kalam saw merit in the request and returned the Ordinance but it was unceremoniously resent to him and enacted.
A writ challenging the Ordinance & the Act was heard in the last week of October, 2002- fundamentally stating that the voter has a right to information as it is a fundamental right under the constitution.The favourable verdict of the Supreme Court came on 13 March 03 – is front page news in Newspapers of 14 March 03 –`The Week’ Magazine dated 30 March 03 issue – TN Sofres Mode Survey states that 99% approve of the Supreme Court decision & 92% respondents state that Implementation will clean up politics.
As you can see - taking on an active role as a whistle blower has yielded positive results - Spunk & persistence has paid off – exhilaration exceeds the exhaustion !! – first steps taken to bringing back order and discipline to ungoverned India.
You too can help – Email promodchawla@vsnl.net to be included in the National Campaign for India (NCFI) yahoo group mailing list.
Next steps on the Agenda are:
1 To create an IT led Information Hub – provide back up of Rules & Regulations, successful interventions – recognizing - Information empowers – travels almost at the speed of light - making People party to change. Have a Website.
2 India needs to enact a law ensuring transparency and accountability of government transactions and services. An act of this type (E-Government Act of 2002) was recently signed into law in the United States
3 MCDs want to extract more by way of Taxes not accounting for what they collect already - inspite of a near collapse of civic services. Their budgets and quarterly accounts should be public knowledge and on the Web. In Bangalore PROOF ( em : proof@vsnl.net ) has started the process – its being replicated, no need to re-engineer – there is now even a Book for Change available for approx Rs 200 ( from em : mani9000@hotmail.com) – `Making the State Accountable` by Samuel Paul which advocates Report Cards.
4 Civil Society creates a stir by `Jan Sunwahis` - a MKSS Aruna Roy initiative using the Right to Information bill enacted in some States & you may like to activate your Resident Welfare Association to follow this route - be proactive.Awakening and livening your own RWA is a priority task to undertake. This makes Authorities start delivering Services.
5 Take on issues, which are priority to you - you can bank on linkages to Civil Society Groups within the country - working on similar issues - through the info back up hub – which will be at your service – an email away.
As you can see taking an active role as an umpire, watch dog or whistle blower can yield positive results and is essential to bringing order and discipline back to a currently ungoverned India.
If you are interested in helping please join the National Campaign for India (NCFI) yahoo group site by e-mailing promodchawla@vsnl.net
Back to Top