Do we need new Bills??

Its true that Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have brought marked awareness to the general public and highlighted the widespread corruption in high places, in record short span of time. But what about the degree of corruption in everyday life? Will that get taken care of in the Lokpal bill? I am for stengthening the mechanism to bring anyone against whom there is proof of corruption, to docks. And I am not sure if I want the Lokpal bill as envisaged by the Anna camp nor the Sibal camp. While the government obviously wants a watered down bill, the Anna Camp wants to create a new fourth powerful body other than the Executive, Legislative and the Judiciary. There is an inherent check and balance between the three and I wonder if a fourth can be accomodated. I read a very balanced article on this subject this morning.

I would rather look at implementation of the many laws / bills that already exist in our Constitution to bring transparency and accountability at all levels in the government. I would like the Anna team to focus on implementation of existing laws and usher in electoral reforms and such. A very important facet to this movement is also to reform society, at large. There has been so much written 'for' and 'against' the Lokpal bill that most of us have become either neutral or indifferent to the issue as the so called 'civil society' has not been able to consolidate and sustain people's attention, for long.

Its time for the Anna team to also work on transforming minds for which I think spiritual leaders like H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar can play a very significant role. Its also important for people to start maturing and not engage in war of words and slanging matches. India is poised to becoming one of the important economies of the World and we need to start preparing to be world leaders and not behave like petty school children.