Analysis of Political Dynamics for Enacting Lokpal and Suggestions for IAC

India’s institutional system lacks one key component: That is an adequately independent and empowered office of prosecution ( with power to conduct/supervise investigation) from district/regional level up to the central government level. Current system of prosecution/ investigation is pathetically insufficient since it is heavily influenced by political bosses and is not empowered to allocate resources where needed.  A push to create such offices, at least for corruption cases, have gained popular momentum through India Against Corruption’s (IAC) Lokpal movement. However, as seen in 2011 winter session of the parliament, political forces are not fully aligned with the popular movement to realize this critical reform in India’s institutional mechanism. 


Politics ultimately empower and influence decision making on behalf of the people of the country. Therefore, it is  critically important to correctly read the underlying political dynamics and realities when assessing best methods to influence these political decisions.

Following is my analysis of the political dynamics involved.

I. Lokpal is detrimental to politicians.

Unfortunately, this obvious notion is quite true concerning many politicians and can be sited as the biggest determent for passing strong Lokpal bill in the parliament. For these many less than honest politicians, passing a strong Lokpal bill is equivalent to shooting themselves in the foot. Although this is a cynical and generalized notion, it unfortunately defines overwhelming political dynamics that have played out against the passage of the Lokpal for the last 43+ years. Survival being the most basic of  instincts, why would anyone volunteer to shoot himself in the foot? especially the political class?  It is extremely difficult to break this impasse.

I suspect there are some other political dynamics involved here, certainly some that can benefit a way for possible passage of the bill.

II. Can High Commands really benefit from Lokpal?

Fortunately, there is a legitimate political purpose that can be served by a Lokpal type institutional body for the high command (HC) of the leading party in coalition governments ( specifically Congress HC in the current case). Raja’s and Kanimozhi’s 3G scam, that put the government  in a delicate political situation and brought the survival of the government into the brink - clearly demonstrated this need. This was a “damned if do, damned if i don’t”  type of situation for the HC where initiating effective legal action against the key ally's minister would have brought down the government and not taking action would have subjected Congress to a substantial PR beating over an issue instigated by someone else (the allay). Luckily for the Congress HC, the damage was managed because the government could say to the ally that the court forced its hand and also at the same time proclaim to the public that it is taking strong actions against corrupts. The ally was in a weak enough position to accept this situation and not withdraw support.

           

In this type of scenarios, that can repeat many times over in the future, the government/HC may appreciate having a Lokpal type institution that it can use to deter uncomfortable decisions ( against allys or own partymen and thus avoid taking responsibility for such actions). This is a necessary tool/mechanism in the era of high command politics.  Although this political dynamic supports creation of Lokpal body, it by no means support granting ancillary infrastructure for strong and effective functioning of the institution.  This is because the HC’s political interest in having Lokpal is only to have a mechanism to avoid responsibility in making uncomfortable decisions, it does not have sufficient interest in seeing a Lokpal that actually is effective in fighting corruption.  

III. Opposition’s and government’s politics and  IAC’s role.

Up until the run up to the parliamentary debates in late December, opposition parties were team Anna’s best pals. However during the debates, opposition has squandered their high moral position by disowning Lokayuktha provisions in the bill.

By not wanting strong Lokayukthas in states they govern, opposition is signaling their political interest here is quite shallow. They just want a Central Lokpal to dig up dirt against the parties in power in the Center (to make it easier for them to comeback to power there) and clearly they don’t want the same scenario playing out in the states they govern.

This clarified position from the opposition created a disincentive for Congress HC to bring strong Lokpal  since it is perceived that bringing strong Lokpal will amount to yielding to opposition’s tricks and thus detrimental for Congress.

Meanwhile, Congress showed it does not want BJP’s support by introducing minority quota and thus deliberately wanted to prevent any possibility BJP will support this bill. This can be interpreted as a political tactic to prevent BJP from getting credit for passing the Lokpal bill by forcing their hands to vote against it. It appears Congress is convinced that it wont get enough credit if Lokpal is passed and wanted to make sure BJP wont get credit either.

In politics, who get credit and who get blame is critically important.

Although IAC’s movement and its pressure tactics were dramatically successful in raising the profile of Lokapl bill and making it an emotive issue, its success has strangely created critical disincentives for Congress HC. Stated more clearly, Congress HC is facing a real dilemma:  that is even if it bite the bullet and passed a strong bill (and took on political heat for it), it will not get any credit for passing the bill since all the credit for the passage will be given to Anna. Unfortunately, this political dynamic is not conducive for passing strong Lokpal and IAC should strategies to reverse this dynamics. Political parties normally would not act on something if it is perceived that their actions will only yield credit to someone else. Therefore, it is critically important for IAC to create plan to convince Congress HC otherwise.

Additionally, it should also be noted that IAC’s pressure tactics were also creating disincentives for the opposition to be constructive since they benefit from the fighting match between Team Anna and the Government.

V. The Ideal political consciousness needed for Strong Lokpal:

There is sufficient political will by the Congress HC for enacting a weaker Lokpal bill ( as tabled in the winter session). However, more bolder and decisive political consciousness and incentive structure need to be evolved for any hope of instituting stronger/effective Lokpal. In order to materialize this realization the governing HCs need to realize that they have to consider Lokpal as a  bitter life saving medication that they have to swallow for enduring health of their parties, rather than consider it as something that can put a bullet in their foot.

Although Anna’s team has been trying to convince Congress HC ( via ongoing pressure tactics)  that it is in their long term self interest to enact strong Lokpal, it is clear now that the HC has not yet fully convinced.  This reluctance may partly due to the political incentives/disincentives presented to them but ultimately the shameful lack of leadership skills and statesmanship in Congress’s core group deter this realization.   

So what can be done?

Both IAC and Congress HC is better of working on amicable basis. Public confrontation weakens both IAC and government and possibly weakens IAC more than the government.  IAC should intelligently design a strategy of carrots and sticks to deal with the government. So far its strategy only involved sticks. Ultimately, IAC has to credibly convince Congress HC that it can politically benefit from passing a strong bill (i.e govt can get credit for passing the bill,than Anna) . Threat of politically singling out Congress if they don’t bring strong bill is counterproductive for the movement especially if acted upon. At any cost, IAC will stay above confrontational politics and reduce possibilities for others(media) to blame the movement. IAC should be laser focused on keeping Lokpal an emotive issue, not political.

In this context, I suggest IAC to:

A. Understand the political dynamics and adjust expectation for having strong Lokpal.Focus IAC’s energy and media PR power on three or four specific doable items -low hanging fruits - for strengthening Lokpal. It should set aside big ticket items like complete independence of CBI or further independence of the Lokpal appointment mechanism. Rather, IAC is better of pressuring the government to bring back a few key powers previously granted in government’s earlier drafts but withdrawn in the bill tabled in the winter session and passed by Loksaba, such as:  

• withdrawal of Lokpal’s suo motu power
• withdrawal of the power to choose and appoint Lokpal’s Prosecution and Investigation directors without government interference
• withdrawal of power of the police station for Lokpal

B. Create parallel private prosecutors. Organization like India Against Corruption (IAC) can set up NGOs to institutionalize the helpful role a private citizen like Subramanian Swamy (not endorsing any of his views or politics) is playing in the 2G case. In US, American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) is a private organization staffed mainly by lawyers with the aim of protecting civil rights of the public through the court system. Similar organizations can be set up in India, filled with law professionals with  prosecutor mindset (such as Bhushans), with the sole aim of delivering justice to corrupts. I believe IAC has grown enough in strength and resources to facilitate this type of NGOs across India.

Arvind Kejriwal

As the key organizer of the Jan Lokpal movement, this man deserves utmost respect from each Indian.

It will be people like him who will determine how bright India’s future is. He not only correctly diagnosed problems with Indian anti-corruption institutions, but also came up with effective solutions and could strongly influence implementation of it.

He is an IIT graduate.  After graduation, he has gained experience in the private sector (Tata Steel) , social charities (Mother Teresa & Ramakrishna Mission), government civil service (Income Tax Officer) and lead various NGOs.

His appearance is very simple. His attire indicate he allocate little thought and money for his physical image.  Although young, he appeared weak and was coughing very often during the Jan lokpal agitation..

Media interviews and speeches he gave showed his mind is extra ordinarily sharp and fearless. He was uncompromising in demanding a strong institutional mechanism to fight corrupt practices.

The team he brought together (Anna Hazare, Prashant  Bhushan,Shanti Bhushan, Kiran Bedi) successfully demonstrated their mix of political and technical talent can force top decision makers to trigger an extraordinary political consciousness for structural institutional reforms in India.

Pretty much no Indian political, media or NGO sectors can speak as intelligently and in depth about corruption and anti-corruption matters as him.

Here are some videos of Arvind Kejriwal’s speaking engagements:

Lokpal Bill - Suggestions to the Standing Committee on Committee on Personnel

Today, I wrote a letter to the standing committee reviewing the lok pal bill for the sake of doing something for lokpal. Shows below is the letter. 


Respected members of the standing committee,


I put forward for your kind attention following suggestions as ways to improve certain imperfections in the Lokpal bill, so that aspirations of billion+ Indians can be better reflected through the bill under your consideration.

Remove provisions that appear to intimidate complainants. Specifically, remove the 2 year minimum imprisonment for frivolous/ vexatious complaints. Leave punishment to the judge on the merit of the specific case against the complainant and after hearing the opinion of the Lokpal if the complaint was frivolous.

Simplify Lokpal investigation process (section 23) that appears to unfairly favor the accused and hinder Lokpal's investigation process. There is no need to mandate by law to allow the accused to be heard three times before even the charge sheet is filed: 1) once during preliminary investigation stage, 2) during secondary/final investigation stage and 3) before the charge sheet is filed. This process will severely hinder the effectiveness and speed of the Lokpal investigations. A better suggestion would be to hear the accused only once before the charge sheet is filed and provide evidence to the accused to defend himself only after the charge sheet is filed in the court.

Expand the jurisdiction of the Lokpal beyond the Group A officers. All central government civil servants or employees of programs substantially funded by the central government should be covered under Lokpal. Provided that below group A civil servants do not need to disclose their assets, unless ordered with respect to a specific investigation.

I am shortening my suggestions in abovementioned three points in the interest of prioritizing your attention on the most important areas with respect to improving the effectiveness of the Lokpal institution. I request you to please address these suggestions and incorporate it in the lokpal bill.

Thank you for your kind consideration,
Jai hind,
yours truly..

Why+sarkari+Lokpal+is+a+big+dud

Why+sarkari+Lokpal+is+a+big+dud

Govt Vs Anna Lokpal Drafts

Following is a list of weak provisions in the government’s lokpal draft released on June 21st.

1 Not covering lower bureaucracy (below Group A officers) under the scope of Lokpal's investigations

2 By law, instituting 2 year minimum prison term for frivolous complainant, rather than allowing the judge to decide minimum punishment

3 Having to hear the accused and provide evidence prior to initiating investigation and prosecution.

4 Not having expedite mechanism to make appeals/trials faster.

5 Not covering PM’s Office

6 Not allowing citizens to directly petition the Supreme Court for dismissal of corrupt Lokpal members

7 Not instituting powerful Lokayukthas in States

8 Not having the power to impose penalty to civil servants violating Citizen’s charter.

9 Not merging CBI’s anticorruption wing with Lokpal

10 Having to consult Finance ministry in deciding the budget for lokpal.

11 Not having the direct power to wiretap phone conversations (need permission from Home
Ministry).

12 Not covering MPs actions within the parliament

13 Having only 4 of the 10 members in the Selection Committee being independent of the government.

14 Not merging CVC with Lokpal

15 Not covering whistleblower protection law

16 Not having the direct power to dismiss civil servants found to be corrupt

17 Not covering Judges


I feel strongly that the government should reverse its position for point 1 through 6. Point 7 and 8 are also excellent suggestions from the civil society that the government is ignoring.

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : The CAG's mandate

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : The CAG's mandate

Expanded Suggestions for Jan Lokpal Draft

See below for the list of suggestions I submitted for the drafters of Jan lokpal bill through the consultation website: http://www.lokpalbillconsultation.org/


Foreword
I envision the Lokpal to be an independent prosecutor with direct and indirect investigative powers and having the ability to take up cases suo motu. It should not have any judicial power to render resolution of a case it investigated/prosecuted, even for cases concerning corrupt civil servants’ administrative matters.

A. Composition and appointment of Lokpal commission

1. At least one member of the Lokpal commission should have established auditing work experience (i.e ideal candidate would be former CAGs or at minimum CAs with substantial government auditing experience). This is because an audit professional’s perspective will be extremely helpful in understanding intricacies within government accounts but also in understanding root causes in the internal control framework that is leading to corruption. Legal (Prosecutor), Investigative and Audit professionals need to combine their professional strength and resources for effective fight against corruption. To this end, all 3 professions should be well represented in the commission.

2. Jan lokpal draft does not seem to explicitly mention if Lokpal would have the authority to maintain its own prosecution staff although this authority can be implied within section 23. Since prosecution power is critical to the effectiveness of this institution, please explicitly state by law that Lokpal should maintain its own independent prosecution staff and that a Chief Prosecution Officer should be appointed by Lokpal by a method formulated in the this law to ensure quality and fair selection. Appointment process of Chief Prosecutor and other senior officers/agents of lokpal commission is important enough to be mandated by law, at least in principal rather than completely delegating to the commission.

3. Each nominated Lokpal commission members should undergo x hours of ( say 12 hrs) public questing under oath by a parliamentary sub-committee (ideally Public Accounts Committee (PAC),also by any willing MPs or others) before their nomination is confirmed. This is to ensure opposition members who may be sidelined during private appointment process (if this process effectively one sided) get amble time to make their concerns public and receive direct answers from the nominee. Nominees later found to have less than truthful during the nomination process should be held accountable.***This should be considered as an alternative provision if the government would not accept Janlokpal’s proposed appointment system****

4. It would be great if PAC (traditionally chaired by Opposition) “confirm” nominees similar to the process in USA - Confirmation by the Senate for nominees by the president.***This should be considered as an alternative provision if the government would not accept Janlokpal’s proposed appointment system****

5. PAC ( as long as it is chaired by Opposition) seems to be the best vehicle to make Lokpal accountable to the Parliament, if needed at all. For general administrative needs such as budgeting, it would be beneficial for Lokpal to report to the Parliament through PAC. This way PAC can be its advocate for resources, instead of the cabinet, and mitigate the criticism that lokpal is not accountable to the parliament. Nevertheless, even PAC should not be allowed to dictate the functioning of Lokpal.

6. Section 5 of the Jan Lokpal mentions a 5 year term per member but not clear if a member can be re-appointed to another 5 year. Please make this clear in the law. I would like to see the option for re-appointment subject to the age limit. Also, to ensure continuity of the Lokpal institution, no more than x (2-3/10) members should be retiring during the same year..

7. Question: Why is there a need for 10 members in Lokpal? Is there any evidence that having more members will make the commission more effective? My concern is that having too many members in an executive commission will lead to too much internal politics between members and more talking/discussion and less action.

8. Lokpal should have regional offices all around the country to make it more visible for the public.It should not be another institution just sitting at Delhi. If possible, a minimum number of regional office(s) per state should be mandated by law. In an ideal environment for law enforcement effectiveness, there should be a Lokpal/lokayuktha, CAG and independent prosecutor office per district.

9. Lokpal should have the power to direct CAG to conduct audits on those public authorities that it suspect to have high ongoing risk of corruption, provided CAG has enough resources to comply with lokpal’s request. If CAG do not have the resource audits can be done by other qualified agencies.

10. There should be an “Internal Affairs” department within Lokpal to monitor professionalism of its staff with respect to established code of conduct on an ongoing basis. A performance review of the office on say 3-4 yr cycle may be mandated. In addition, it would be prudent to set up another i “Internal Audit” group (potentially even independent of lokpal) to conduct regular audits.

11. Measures to further empower PAC and the power of its opposition chairman is also an area that should look into. Please try to add in a few provision to empower PAC to this draft to see if the government is receptive to this idea:)

B. Integration between Audit and Lokpal Functions

This is an area few pay attention but i believe from practical experience on this matter that coordination between auditor and prosecutor is a very effective practical tool in fighting financial crimes.

1. Seamless working relations between CAGs and LokPals is an effective tool against corruption. Therefore,
a. CAGs should be encouraged by law to refer potential criminal corruption cases that they come across during audits to LokPal/Lokayuktha.
b. Lokpal should be able to recommend/direct to CAG to conduct audits in areas that Lokpal believes high risk of corruption/misappropriation of money. Lokpal should be able to influence the scop of this audits.
c. To improve and ensure working relations with CAG and Lokpal, periodic (ex. bi-annual) meetings between them should be mandated. During this meeting both institutions should share their assessment of
i. areas of high risk (wrt fraud/corruption) based on their recent working experience.
ii. Preventative and detective internal controls that can me implemented in high risk areas. This should be then formally recommended by both institutions to the respective governments bodies.

C. Miscellaneous anti-corruption mechanisms that can be added to Lokpall bill

1. For every large government expenditure project/programs/departments, xxx basis points of the total annual expenditure should be earmarked for anti-corruption or quality improvement functions for that project. This money should be spend on Internal Audit, CAG audits, Vigilance or Quality Assurance staff concerned with the project.
a. Exact percentage point (or % range) of money to be spend for this purpose should be formulated by risk assessment of fraud/corruption in the respective project/area. General assessed risk level should be determined by the Planning commission in consultation with Lokpal and CAG.

2. Internal Audit departments (separate from the authority of the Vigilance and CAGs) should be chartered for every large scale government programs and/or ministries. Charter of this department is primarily to ensure preventive and detective internal controls exists and working as designed.
a. Internal Audit department (embedded within each program/ministry) should report to the Planning Commission or PM directly. This will provide a tool for the PM and Planning Commission to monitor internal controls of departments/ministries where they dont have direct control.
b. Internal Audit should be shielded from other institutions like lokpal, CAG, CVC,etc to maintain confidential nature of Internal Audit. This is necessary because Internal Audit should not be seen as a vindicative organization in order to ensure better cooperation from the department/project staff.
c. A research educational institutions should be established to provide continuous training for government audit professionals and act as ‘brain’s behind the internal audit cells .
d. Where central funds are allocated to state/local government bodies, above a specified threshold, central government should mandate annual audit report by an independent entity (this can be private qualified CA companies) regarding the performance/usage of the governmental programs... Google “Single Audit/ OMB A-133 audit” for similar mechanism employed by US federal government.

Drafting LokPal

Institutionally, India’s law enforcement system has been suffering for decades due to the lack of an executive and independent Prosecutor. Lokpal bill appears to be intended to address this gap with respect to corruption by appointing Lokpal as the independent prosecutor for corruption cases.

For effective functioning of the Lokpal institution, drafters of the law need to prioritize their attention on the following 3 critical elements.

Appointment
Appointment of Lokpal members should be in a way that provides legitimacy to the institution and at the same time ensure appointment of independent and qualified persons who would not be influenced by political considerations of people who appointed them. This would be a difficult balancing act especially since in order to provide legitimacy, the appointment process need to be primarily influenced by the political/parliamentary leadership. I would presume appointment models for the Chief Election Commission or the US Supreme Court justices may provide acceptable starting point for negotiations on this matter in additions to the proposal already included in the jan draft.

Power to take up cases, investigate and prosecute on its own will
Needless to say, operational effectiveness of Lokpal institution will be primarily dependent on this power. I hope civil society will resist any attempt to dilute the concerned provisions in the jan lokpal draft.

Tools/resources to ensure speedy investigation and prosecution of cases by Lokpal
In order to ensure successful prosecution of cases, Lokpal needs to interface with other institutions such as government investigative agencies and courts. For investigation purposes, in addition to the proposed oversight over CBI anti-corruption wing and CVC, Lokpal should be able to deputize any other central investigative agencies for investigations even though such agencies may not directly report to Lokpal. Furthermore, a fast tracked trial process should be introduced by law within judicial courts and central administrative tribunals for cases prosecuted by Lokpal. As such, processes need to be streamlined to reduce delay in investigation and trial.

This is a historic moment for India. If an effective Lokpal commission is instituted in the center and Lokayukthas in states, it will make huge difference in deterring corruption and modernizing government institutions to address aspirations of a billion + Indians! I hope there is enough political will and pressure to see this through.

Evolving Role of the Home Ministry and P.C - Interview

I just watched an interview with P. Chidambaram (Minister of Home Affairs)aired on CNBC TV 18 recently. This is probably the only media interview that I've seen where an Indian minister intelligently discussing the institutional reforms for the country.

In this interview,he was making the case for his ministry to exert greater "political oversight" on all security agencies of the central government, even the Research Analysis and Wing (RAW)! Further, he wants to limit executive roles of National Security Advisor (NSA) by leaving such work to "professionals" (i.e MHA subordinates).
I fully agree with him on these reforms..Afterall, if something bad happens, he will be the one getting fired. So he should be rightly given all powers necessary to do his job right (trying to keep 1+ billion citizens safe is no easy task!)

What made me jump out of the couch while listening to this interview is what he said when talking about setting up the new National Counter-terrorism Center(NCTC). He said: "NCTC will be an institutional mechanism rather than individual headed mechanism and the response will be an institutional response rather than an individual driven response".
It may be a dull boring quote but what it tells me is that he gets the point: What India needs for its chronic governing inefficiency is an institutional response not individual response.

P.C is great! I am sure he will be able to do to Home Ministry what T.N Sheshan did to the Election Commission. After taking care of Finance and Home, I just hope that he will also get an opportunity to "excert" his skills on the Law Ministry before becoming the PM! India will be a better place if he can..

See the interview below
Part 1


Part 2


Part3


Part 4

The Best Indian Government Ever!

The new council of ministers Manmohan Singh inducted into his government is definitely the best team I have seen in my life time on the helm of Indian politics. He has picked the best men and women for the job given the choices he has to make.

The Duo of SM Krishna and Shashi Tharoor in Foreign Ministry signals a drastic positive change in India's relationship with our immediate neighbor ( Pakistan and resolution of Kashmir Issue) and even better relationship with larger powers is coming soon. They are indeed the cream of the crop and no reason to expect anything less from them.

Chidambaram back in Home Ministry is very reassuring. The most able minister in the cabinet has given the most difficult task! He is smart, visionary, good communicator, mature, tactical and an executioner. A man like him is the need of the hour to contain and eradicate the naxal , terrorist, communal and northeast issues hurting India for a while. His priorities should be on strengthening the internal security institutions and enforcement of law.

AK Antony as Defense minister is telling me that Congress has no plans to go to war with any country for the next 5 years! His personality is not what one would expect from a Defense Minister aka Offense Minister. At least he will live up to the name of his ministry! A truly defense minister! He is not the minister to project the military strength of India but rest assured he will do his best to prevent corruption in Defense spend. This is indeed great for our defense forces long term.

Pranab as Finance minister seemed like a mediocre pick to me given his baggage from old license raj era. But given allocation of other important ministries to other able persons (Chidambaram and Kamal Nath), I think the best position to accommodate a senior congress man like him was indeed Finance. Especially, since MMS can strongly influence this ministry, if warranted. I was hoping Sonia will create a deputy PM post for him and keep him out of finance but it is little unrealistic to expect a deputy PM post in Congress for him while Rahul is supposedly being groomed for the PM post.

Snatching up the infrastructure ministry from DMK and handing it over to Kamal Nath tells me MMS has big plans for modernizing India’s infrastructure. Really glad to see Kamal Nath in this post. A China style infrastructure face up is on Indian horizon!

Kabil Sibal as Human Resource Development minister and Ghulam Nabi Azad as Health minister show UPA is very much committed to to social sector development. Both had a combination of vision and execution to do great things in these ministries.

I am also very optimistic about having Veerappa Moily as Law minister. His previous experience as the chairman of Administrative Reform Commission will make him a unique law minister. If he was serious about the recommendation that he made under ARC and other institutional strengthen initiative that he proposed, law ministry gives him a platform to implement those proposal.

Finally, I am glad to see young people like junior Scinda , Sagma and Pilot (all sounded extremely smart and sharp on TV and also well educated despite their family background that could have spoiled them) was inducted to the government. I would like to see them as Cabinet ministers or as PMs one day!

-Jai Ho MMS

Strengthen India by Strengthening its Governmental Institutions

Recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai demonstrate yet another example of the weakness of the Indian governments. Rather than turning our anger at politicians and bureaucrats for being incompetent as usual, as Indians, we owe it to ourselves to think about the underlying causes behind widespread incompetence across Indian government systems.

Incompetent politicians, bureaucrats and slow judiciary are just symptoms of a sickness. The actual cause of the symptom is poor design of government institutions where incompetence breeds and allowed to flourish.

I hope it is obvious to everyone that for a country as big as India, a few good politicians or bureaucrats cannot do much of anything. What is absolutely necessary for lasting positive change is strong intelligently designed governmental institutions that can harness energies of thousands of Indians and coherently work together to effectively tackle the changing challenges facing the nation.

Most of Indian government institutions are inherited from the British Raj. Starting with our parliamentary democracy to various ministerial department and bureaucratic systems such as Indian Administrative Service are rooted in the British Raj. British intent in creating such institution was to run India with an Iron hand, not with quality. Unfortunately, we have failed to adjust these colonial era institutions to the new century and have it work for better serve the rising aspirations of a billion + citizens.

In surface, India’s institutional design is in par with any other modern developed countries but why is it not effective to address the current challenges?

Generally speaking, Ineffective feedback dynamics between the people and the politicians is the underlying problem within our democratic institutional framework. Sadly the bottom line that we see again and again is that the peoples demands/needs are not met by their representatives. The long five year between elections cripples peoples grip over the representatives and the bureaucracy. In American system, the lowest legislative bodies of local, state and federal government have only 2 year terms. This means a few months after election, they need to be back on election mode and start begging for mercy of the voters. The short terms will keep the legislators on tow and force them to be very responsive to the voters needs.

Since having a stable executive branch in the central and state governments is equally important, a good approach for Indian parliamentary system would be to have Rajya Saba MPs elected directly by the people on a shorter cycle (2 yr) and give Rajya saba more oversight powers over the cabinet.

To its credit, the grumpy incompetent Indian governments institutions are successful in achieve its most important goal that is to protect the great Indian democracy and unity. This is no easy task. Any future changes to the system should ensure our democracy and unity would not be at risk.

During the recent past, the Central government has taken some good steps to adjust the countries institutional set up to enable the country to better face the new challenges. Right to Information act, creation of the new central agency to investigate terrorism cases and the creation of the office of National Security Advisor in the last decade were all good example of institutional strengthening. Though these changes are delayed and reactionary, nonetheless should be appreciated.

The challenge for the future of the Indian state is while keeping its institutions and democratic forces inclusive and unites a billion + people, trigger positive changes in its design so that it will become more capable, assertive and effective in serving the interest of its own citizens.

To this end, a more thorough across the level rethinking is needed on the way people’s representatives and bureaucrats are recruited, and maintained and held accountable. This is a very complex subject and cannot be discussed in a single blog post . A good book for anyone interested in this subject is “Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design” by Devesh Kapur.

Government Institutions are above the interest of a few people; they are immortal and are the real guardians of our democracy. I hope enough attention and resources will be spent on strengthening it. All of us have a huge stake in it.

Fight corruption with powerful anticorruption Institutions

In U.S the fight against governmental corruption/waste is raged by two independent constitutional institutions: The Office of federal/state/city comptroller and corresponding Attorney Generals' office. While comptroller has the expertise to oversee the quality of government services and identify fraud within government, Attorney general has the complete teeth to enforce law against culprits. It is this partnership between these two agencies that keep U.S relatively corrupt free.

In India, We have CAG but this office needed to be further decentralized to at least corporation/city level. Furthermore, all 7 suggestions that our honorable president recently put forth to improve government auditor's effectiveness should be implemented. Also, proactive participation from accounting professionals within the country is a must to formulate modern internal control systems for the functioning of all levels of govt.

Evenstill, India lacks a powerful law enforcement institution like Attorney general's office in US. In U.S, attorney general is directly elected by the people in the state and local level while in the federal level this position is filled by a president's nominee subject to senate approval. (Comptrollers are sourced in a similar way as well but federal comptroller has a 15 yr fixed term.) An
attorney general has the power to use the resources of the entire law enforcement agencies under his jurisdiction while prosecuting/investigating criminal acts. Sadly in India, attorney generals are just legal advisers of the government. This ought to change if we want to win the fight against corruption and lawlessness in our country.

The key to fighting corruption is the strength and organizational set up of anti corruption institutions. In India only a few cares about our institutions. I feel some foreign development banks put more efforts in strengthening our institutions, than ourselves. Not the media, not even the NGOs nor activists in the field, focus on the root causes behind our country's problems..their focus is only on symptoms. Remember the famous quote " power corrupts and absolutes power corrupt absolutely", this is true for at least 95% of the peopleWe need to be really cynical when we talk about corruption. ( Even myself, who talk about all these bad things about corruption can't guarantee that i won't take/give bribe one day) The mindset that blames all our failure on our netas doesn't help either. politicians are people too.. Our politicians fails us because our systems fails us in the first place.

Formation of Lokayukthas, implementation of Right to Information Act and various E-Governance initiatives (even with its limitations and lapses) are very positive steps from the government/us and an indication that the government can still
reform itselves. The upcoming deliberations from the second Administrative Reform Commission promises to pump even more positive energy to our government institutions. We shall focus our energy on pushing for more similar institutional changes so that one day our naturally corrupt politicians/babus/citizens will have to think twice before involving in any corrupt practices. For that, we need to hang a
sharp sword above their head, at all times. That sword will be our
anti corruption institutions and its our duty now to sharpen it!

Thanks for reading,
---
PS: Good book to read in this subject: Public Institutions in India, Performance and design.
Relevant websites to check out:
www.Loksatta.org
www.skdubeyfoundation.org
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=187832
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eGovINDIA/

something to add to my last post

No wonder why American universities suck in talent from accross the globe. Take a look at the endowment funds at these top universities. Harvard, $22 billion with double digit growths for a student population of 16,000 or so.. siva siva!!!

A thing about my last semster

Interestingly, out of the five courses that i took, three were taught by Indian (south Asian) professors, one Chinese and only one American borned prof. It is kind of weired going to an American university, paying tution in dollars and feeling like I am essentially getting and Indian education. (fyi, the dean of our management school is also an Indian). anyhow, I am not complaining at all, all my professors irrespective of their nationalities are pretty skilled at the job they do. I just wanted to point out the state of the affairs in a globalized society these days.
In Indian or any developing nation's perspective, this is another instance of brain drain from developing world to the developed. In American perspective, this exemplifies the severe shortage of talent to educates its own young ones and a lack of interest in teaching by a lot of educated Americans . As a result, shortage of qualified teachers exist even in the primary school systems in U.S.A - which is of course not a good thing for America's future....

Inception

I am hereby setting up this blog..
goold luck blog, you are on your own!!