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The mail inwards department: the stepping stone to clean governance

So, if Discretion is the founding stone of a corrupt society, what do you do to resolve the problem of Discretionary decision making ?

ANSWER: ESTABLISH A MAIL INWARD DEPARTMENT TO ACCEPT ALL INWARD MAILS.

How does a mail inwards department help in setting the stage for a corruption free governance?
The problem of Discretion has a positive aspect too, which will bear the truth that Discretion is sometimes so much unavoidable in our day today functioning. Discretion has to be applied to filter a genuine complain from a scrupulous complain.
But the necessity should not make it confusing to say that Discretionary Power can remain unaccounted. And that is what the Mail Inward Department does. It's job is to collect all the Inward mails, which are also likely to contain the mails of Grievances and  Complains, without any discretion of what mails to be accepted and what all can be avoided.
Hence all the mails are ensured for being reached to the already established offices, Vigilance Office and Public Redressal offices for being attended too.
The officers who are the recipient of the Inward Mails have no choice but to record down the decision or the discretion made in the related subject matter of the inward mail. This the beginning step of Good Record keeping. It is from this stage that the Right to Information is founded. It is from here that clean governance and clean management begins.

The mail inward department has the potential to break the chain of intra-personal conflict too. The intra-personal conflict is often a result of the 'discretionary' power tussles between two or more people and/or groups. The conflict begins from the decision-making clash between people and soon takes form of a political accusations against each other. Political Accusations are often times the uncertain, unverifiable claims, the public disclosures of undisclosed information about the rival groups.
What is 'political' about such claims is that these claims remain "uncertain" almost for infinity unless the organisation or some individual really decides to spent large amount of money / or his effort to unravel the scientific truths in those claims. Often times, the political accusations are of such nature that they can never be fully scientifically verified, more when the claims pertain to some subjective issues, such as, the 'real'  motive/ intentions of the rivaling persons, the speculation on his future conduct/ desires, etc.
     When good record keeping has been found to the better answer to manage such claims through a log-keeping and monitoring the rise of any future claim, the mail inwards department is, in a sense, tasked with maintaining the time-logs. Thus , to the scientific solution to "how to best judge the intentions of a persons", the answer of "by use of log-keeping of his words and statement" is, in one leg of it, implemented through the mail inwards departments.
    In various public offices, the mail inwards departments has found existence in many ways. In the Police department, the FIR has a semantic role of same nature.

    In the ship technical management industry, the "near-miss reportings" have an almost similar role to play in regard to implementation of safe working practices on board a ship. 
      
   


The case of the corruption crusader being denied entry into the airplane

So, Arvind Kejriwal, the anti-corruption crusader , was denied an entry into the airplane right when he was on the doors of the plane --on grounds that he had come late.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Dumped-by-Kingfisher-Kejriwal/articleshow/14349505.cms

There is lot to enquire in this matter. Both, procedural-ly and philosophically.
I will first begin with the philosophical enquiry- which is -- How does a person prevent the abuse of Human Rights violation-claim, the Human Rights Violation being alleged to actually demand special privileges.
      To clarify how I have reached to this query in my mind, I would want to give some explanation.
               The airlines often times delay up slightly to give time to their late-arrivals to catch on the flight because otherwise those people would be losing great money. In modern times of airticketing, the tickets are being "auctioned" which means the traveller is buying the ticket (which is actually only a right to travel in the airplane) at his own risk to be making use of his rights. Advantage to the buyer is that if he does it at an early date, he gets the ticket cheaper; but should he fail to report up, a condition of early reporting makes up for the risk factor (or the involved risk) for the buyer, the airlines reserves right to sell it away to another buyer at a premium price. That is how the risk is levelled out on both the sides, between the buyer of the Rights (in the form of air ticket being purchased by the traveler) and the Seller of the Rights (the airline company).
Ofcourse the Seller ensures his profits through lots of other involved angles in this entire trade. for example, high-price tickets to the late buyers; zero-interest refund payments On cancellation, or even penalties, for the early Buyers; and as discussed, the Right reserved by the Seller (air line company, in this case) to re-sell away those tickets who have failed to meet up the risk of timely check-in.
         If we focus only the last of the profit-making scope of the Seller, which is , right to re-auction those tickets where the previous buyer has failed to meet his condition of early check-in, -- In plain sight, this condition is not difficult to meet for the buyer of the Right. So the query comes up, '' then what is so risky in NOT DOING an early check-in which can make the traveller to lose something".
To this above query, the answer, in my view, is that "the airline companies have done insufficient to inform the traveller of his risks about NOT DOING the early check-in" with a good purpose of duping the traveller out of his money. NOT INFORMING the buyer of his duty to report check-in at right time-- increases the scope of the Seller to increase his profits.


   Now I make my philosophical, or the Ethical Question, once again: People are humans, who can get delayed in vast city traffic they meet on the way. there are lots of human reasons for why a person can get delayed . So , at what point should this game between the Buyer and the seller by deemed to have crossed the rights which come to life due to human reasons? (= Human rights)
In one other view, it is possible that some sellers of tickets (the airline companies) may be providing special grants or availing more delays to those passengers, the travellers, whom they deem as the VVIPs. 


In this combination of the two events, a new question will rise up asking for the justification for why Condition A has another justice from Condition B, the only clear and apparent difference between the two Condition being that the traveller is VVIP in Condition B while not so in the Condition A.


The Airline will perhaps have to keep a clear Public Service Charter on display for everyone's knowledge and also have clear procedures laid out for the management of the claims of the aggrieved traveller once the situation of 'failure to meet-up with the involved risk" case builts up. That will mean, a clear guideline on How to do check-in, upto what maximum time limit the check-in will be admissible as normal , non-delayed check-in; What grants, if any, for the delayed check-ins;  Refund of money for the delayed-up-therefore-rejected travellers; And an issuing of a written documentary record for cause of rejection with good details.



In the case of predicament met by Mr Arvind Kejriwal, there is another Query raised: How do we know it is not a case of a malafide intentions ?


In India, it is normal for people to perceive such crusaders-against-corruption as the anti-systemic. Whereas the Corrupt have taken shelter behind the claim that those who are not with Crusades such as IndiaAgainstCorruption, should not be seen as the corrupt people, the corrupt have themselves seen such Crusaders as Anti-systemic and they act secretly to harm such crusaders.
Thus, if we ask the Airlines owners if they are with the IAC they might reject the idea to support the crusades. Further, if we take their rejection into a negative by enquiring that if their rejection of the support to IAC should mean that they (the airline company owners) are corrupt, they will accuse back saying that rejection should not be amounted to mean like that.
But how would we enquire a truely corrupt man if he supports or rejects the IAC?? Can any journalist ever do that? How else will the action of a corrupt man be put for public interrogation?


The problem of most of the crusaders will be that they all will be subjected to many numbers of secret malafide action by lots of people who are otherwise corrupt. In public offices, if an employee decides to act clean, he is ex-communicated. he is not given 'good' assignments. By 'good' it actually means those lucrative jobs which bring good under-table income.
So the corrupt keep secretly attacking the non-corrupts and put the honesty of non-corrupts on test , if a non-corrupt ever attempts to do any smart act to catch them up. the public opinion of what is corrupt and what is non-corrupt leaves no room of smart acts or secret acts by a Non-corrupt to ward off his corrupt rival.
Public administration system has no provisions to help the non-corrupt by demanding from everyone (both , corrupt and the non-corrupt) to create logs: timely issues of public information, creating a Charter of services, ...etc..


( It was possible to put the philosophical question in a apparently not so twisted way. Like, by questioning in more simple words: How to differ between privileges arising due human rights against those which are of corrupt intentions (like the VVIP previleges, special status to big and mighty). But , as life would have it, no body faces the dilemma as straight as this question. Since, nobody wants to be seen acting corrupt in full view of the public, and neither to to be acting inhuman , the situation of claim arises when a VVIP is given special previliges under pretext of honouring Human Reasons, and Common Man is denied those under reasons that business is impacted by contesting Human Reasons with Business Needs. )




UPA's esoteric open invitation to the NDA: come join our corruption booty

Sometimes I fail to understand why is Congress party behaving so fool by protesting over BJP's duty and job of protesting the acts of the ruling UPA. Is it some open esoteric invitation to the BJP to come and join the corruption bash of UPA ?


;-P

More on Jugaad

Here is collection of different views on Jugaad, primarily, how Jugaad has been perceived by Ratan Tata and By Anand Mahindra

Frugal Engineering is fine , but not Jugaad by Anand Mahindra
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-04-12/news/31331403_1_r-d-facility-chrysler-s-r-d-r-d-centre/2

Jugaad innovators don't plan, they improvise by Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu and Simone Ahuja
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/jugaad-innovators-dont-plan-they-improvise/476165/

Is Jugaad same as innovation?? Are we Indians truely Innovative
http://arewelikethisonly.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/is-jugaad-the-same-as-innovation-are-we-indians-truly-innovative/
                                                            Ratan Tata's comparison of Tata Nano with Jugaad:


Anand Mahindra's views:



                                                               Jugaad Versus Innovation



Intellectualism -versus- Intelligence -versus- Wise






http://www.weeklythought.com/2012/05/20/intelligence-vs-intellectualism/#comment-3

What does a 'Jugaad' symbolise ?

What does a Jugaad symbolize?
In common public's believes, a Jugaad represents our Innovative ness, our ability to fun-fully modify, indigen-ise a piece of technology; our ability to keep doing a business despite all difficulties; our ability to pull down the high cost of an equipment.
Not many people make a seminary view of what the above holy characterization of Jugaad do on the social arena. India is a country of Ulhasnagar, and Dharavi which have set a bench mark to show what the Jugaad of Indians is all about. In our belief to celebrate our Jugaad we lose the other view of the damages done by it. Jugaad is truely not an innovativeness but our spirit of survival against the odds. But the fight of survival is different from the evolution of the strongest,fittest gene. Our philosophers have suffered a big time failure to demonstrate sufficiently that Survival and Development of person or a society are two widely different path. The visions and beliefs of a survivor man and an evolutionary man are different. Survival of fittest is NOT Necessarily the same as the survival of the best. Sometimes the survival of a species is ensured merely by its large population, and it's enormous reproduction rate.
In the path of Survival, all the laws lie flat dead. Only the fulfilment of own's agenda -remains. A person can go all out to save himself, even choking up his neighbour , his brother for his own survival. The laws do not bind a person in his hours of survival struggle. Therefore, the laws collapse. The best is therefore choked up from survival.
That is trurly the Jugaad philosophey. In Jugaad we have refused respect for someone else's creativity, some one's Intellectual property is made cheap, someone denied the fruits of his hard work. We have made fun , ridiculed some one who had spent years of life to manufacture that product. We lose respect for life, safety and the laws in Jugaad. Jugaad is about confusing up the capital investment with revenue gains. Jugaad is forgery, an adulteration of good piece of creation. Counterfeit Milk is Jugaad, - abundantly available by a underground production and leaves a cross-generational damages on the consumer. It destroys the person and decays the civilization.

Interesting Article to read : HOW Jugaad and Frugal Innovation are not one and the same thing
http://www.jugaad2015.com/?p=308




Difference between Discretion and Decision making

Discretion and Decision-making are not the same things. To understand the difference, take the example of a Person 'A' who is planning to go to a party. He has three apparells of three colours. The choice of colour that 'A' has to make from those three apparells is the Decision-making. But his prerogative to go to a party altogether or to not to go, is his Discretion. In Discretions, he by-passes the need for a decision-making from the limited choice of the three colours apparells completely. 'A' may also exercise Discretion to be in clothes or without clothing, thereof avoiding the decision-making, although that will not be socially acceptable, unless ofcourse he is going to a nudist club party.
There is always a little bit Discretion in every decision-making a person has to do. One can always exercise Discretions in such a way to avoid arriving at the cross-roads of decision-making. A police man can decide on the acceptability of your driving liscence after looking at the date of expiry, issuing authority, etc. But he has an un-avoidable Discretionary power to choose-- that is, choose you for DL checks from the thousands of people driving on the road. Likewise, he can always choose to apply his Discretions to put your genuine validity DL for a 'suspected' counterfeit checks, which may be an 'open secret' way to delay you and harass you.
Law Courts have not found foolproof logical ways to separate honest and fair exercise of discretion from a dishonest one. Arbitrariness is the right term to describe a dishonest application of one's discretion. Thus, Discretion, even when socially perceived as the better part of valour, in juryprudence is seen as a big source of corruption. Therefore, Technical managements with the help of technology should work to reduce the occasion for exercising Discretion.

A memory recall of school years
         The knowledge on the existence of a difference between Discretion and Decision-making is not an accidental occurance, although for most of the Indians this knowledge is going to take them by a surprise. For me, the knowledge is truly a journey into my memory lane to a point in time, my junior school days, when we had made some extensive debates and discussion on the meaning of discussion. The topic had risen  when studying about the Discretionary Powers of certain Constitutional ranks in the subject of Civics.
      Students, my classmates and myself, had lots of trouble understanding what is the meaning of Discretion. Many answers came around, some of them dictionary-based and some of them from the 'extra' knowledge which some students like to possess. The dictionary meaning of the word Discretion is the power or right to decide or act according to one's own judgment; freedom of judgment or choice. However such definition was creating a confusion about it's meaning from the decision-making which every executive was suppose to be making.
     Students very frequently have query which if chased properly for a good answer make the student and the teacher develop some insight into the subject matter of philosophy. A philosopher has to depend a lot on discerning observations. A student is habituated to take lots of varied observation about the topics he is being taught. Thus , students are a tremendous source of deep-cutting observations a teacher can come up against. Therefore a teacher must have some basic ideas generated from Pure Philosophy so as to handle her class room better.
      So it was. Extra knowledge about the meaning of Discretion, such as, the un-challengeable power, un-questionable power kept bring up many half-view understanding to us. It is not until I arrived in a profession, the Merchant navy, where we as Ship Captains have a Discretionary Power in regard to Matters of Safety and Security conferred through International Law codes, the SOLAS and the ISM Code, that I hit back on the path to research the meaning once again.
       In merchant navy, people like to interpret Discretion through the prism of Valour and Courage. No wonder, they say , 'Discretion is the better part of Valour'. Bu


Reasons for corruption
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Reasons_for_corruption

Discretion: Root cause of corruption

We the corrupt people

Building open and honest government: Anti-Corruption tools


"Mathematical representation of Decision Making"!! Did you know that??

Here I give the website link of a very interesting page I have found on the Internet. It is pertinent to mention that such pages and methods are part of the MBA Curriculum I am studying in the IGNOU. This is a mathematical proving of an argument presented by it's author, wherein he argues that why Authoritative Decision-making is better than the Democratic Decision-making. 
How many of us, indulging in the mere philosophical conversations of what is the best have ever found in the pure subjects, the mathematics in this case, the proof of what we are arguing for ??


That is the wonder and hallmark of the work, which is why i felt like preserving it and giving it away for the knowledge of the people who did not have any inkling.


Why a Group Needs a Leader: Decision-making and Debate in Committees. by Wouter Dessein
February 2007


http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/wdessein/papers/Why%2520a%2520Group%2520Needs%2520a%2520Leader.pdf

Over here I give the screen shot of the concluding remarks of this pure mathematics research.

The vocabulary used, and the how the utilisation of the observations which we all must have noticed to be happening during any decision-making exercise, in this mathematical research paper is what makes it more interesting to read for me. I am not sure how much genuine and cogent this work is, but my interest is only about the approach used.

Leadership style, Decision-making and the Anti-Corruption Campaign

          For all those among us who have ever wondered how the Team Anna's Anti-corruption campaign has connection the B-School Business Management lessons, here is some link I have attempted to draw between Leadership Style, Decision-making, the cultural climate in India and the Anti-Corruption Campaign.
            When making their personal fight against corruption in the Indian Society, many people must have faced the enquiry of how deep is the root of corruption in our society. Indeed there is a generation born and living for over half a century now which has seen Corruption as the only right way of life. This generation of corruption-DNA Indians discards the ideals, the seminary thoughts as some fantasy ideas, and conducts out with full confidence all the mal-practises which conform to the definition of Corruption.
           To this philosophical enquiry, the truth-seekers, therefore, must have stumbled on the answer that Corruption is truly a cultural problem of India. There is no iota of doubt that what Anna Hazare and his Team have set to fight out against is nothing but our own cultural mal-practises which we have conveniently adopted as the right way of doing Business and Administrations.
        It is from this answer that some leadership academic thinkers should begin to think over what is it cultural about Indians that their business environment does not identify as the mal-practises of Business, over other Transparency International-rated honest nations. Geert-Hofstede Analysis on Cultures across the World provides the clues where it rates India high on the Power-Difference Index (PDI) . A high PDI measurement implies a feudalistic culture when the leader in the group maintains a VIP Status, special facilities, above and beyond those which are standards for other, for himself. Indian style Leadership can show to all us the causes of how corruption is so much systemic and cultural among Indians. The style  of leadership among the Indians, the Political Leadership, has those fine features in its decision-making which make the beliefs of one leader spread downward from the leader to his followers and later, on the scale of time, through the generation of people born in Indian milieu.
       In summary, the link is something like :
Leadership style (in India , Political-style leadership) -->> Decision-making (un challenge-able, un reasonable, personally convenient decisions) -->> Corruption -->> business and governance failures.

The connection of Decision-making to the Culture-genetic corruption in India are not ill-reasoned. Here, I publish and provide web-link of the Ombudsman office of Western Australia Government ( http://www.ombudsman.wa.gov.au/Agencies/Agencies.htm) which has bothered to illustrate what is a Good Record Keeping (http://www.ombudsman.wa.gov.au/Publications/Documents/guidelines/Good-record-keeping-Guidelines.pdf) and Good Practises on Decision-making (http://www.ombudsman.wa.gov.au/Agencies/Good_admin.htm)  about.
        The website provides public information on how to exercise discretion in Decision-Making (http://www.ombudsman.wa.gov.au/Publications/Documents/guidelines/Exercise-of-discretion-in-admin-decision-making.pdf)Procedural Fairness (Natural Justice) (http://www.ombudsman.wa.gov.au/Publications/Documents/guidelines/Procedural-fairness-guidelines.pdf) .

         There is lot of perceivable connection between a Good Decision-making, and the Corruption and mal-practises becoming habitual in the people from a given culture. Good decision-making, in turn, has connection with the leadership style , which , in turn, becomes a function of cultural disposition of people towards there leader.
        In India, the leader is routinely expected to be a lead in both, the ideological leading as well as the administrative leading works. He makes his decisions "independently"so much that often times the leader's decision can surprise everyone within the group as what caused such a decision, who had advised him on the given course of decision-making. Notably, the language used to describe the abrupt decisions remain polite and humble out of a culturally-expected awe for the leader, therefore , being termed merely as "independent". The cross-examination of a decision is not accepted by the people in general. Neither does the leader deem it necessary to provide reasons for arriving at a given decision. This is something contrary to the guidelines given on the Ombudsman website of WA Government, Giving Reasons for your decisions.
           This problem of leadership style as practised by the Indian people is that we have subsidized knowledge of the difference between Decision-making and the exercising of Discretion.  In our culture, it is expected of a leader to be courageous and brave, which unwittingly involves, exercising Discretion as well. "Discretion is the better part of valour" , we believe in, to the ill-logical ends of it.
             Feudalism is ingrained in our culture in a very secretive deep-seated way. What makes this secretive is that our religious leanings has inculcated feudalism in us. Feudalism has roots in the by-birth Caste system of Hindus, and the Islam's and Moghul's religio-political leadership ways. It may not be mere co-incidence that the Geert Hofstede measure the Middle East's Muslim nations and India, high on the PDI.  Japan is another traditionally Feudalistic nation, although it is not rated high on the PDI by the Geert Hoftsede Analysis. Here is the website link to know and to compare the Geert Hofstede of different countries in the world.(http://geert-hofstede.com/japan.html). 
       One might question why the Middle-East countries, particularly the KSA , UAE, are not so much corrupt as us ? To this, the answer can be found in the GH Analysis itself, wherein the difference between culture of India and the Middle East can be seen largely vaired in the UAI , the Uncertainty Avoidance Index. How the uncertainty-avoidance makes the difference between the two cultures is that the Middle East are a tightly regulated countries, which have too many strict and even draconian and biased law system to prevent an accident , or a mal-practise. India, in comparison, is a "Polytheist"- confused nation which attempts to "respect too many views", in facts, the mutually exclusive views as well. Thus India is comparatively a less-regulated , "parliamentary democracy" nation which have confused up itself inside the mutually-exclusive choices too. Our laws are less inclined to prevent the accidents and mal-practises due to heavy confusion and "parliamentary-ness" (a decision-making paralysis due to simultaneous weighment of too many opinions, right versus wrong,versus, rights versus less rights,versus, wrongs versus less wrongs) in our system. The "parliamentary-ness" has brought to us immense "Democracy-ness ", where there are no laws, no system to manage properly the fatal-accidents of the road by having proper safety-regulations implemented, or even to handle unforseeable uncertainties such as a Tsunami or an Earthquake. The politicians have regularly taken advantage of the "Democracy-ness" to conduct the acts of corruption. Our regulatory control to keep check on the identifiable uncertainties  is very very poor. Many social-scientist have described this behaviour as the Fatalism in Indians.
      (that reminds me, when visiting any country the Uncertainty Avoidance Index of a country can sometimes be judged by the kind of roads, the road signs, name boards, driving skill of the people. India, clearly has very poor standards. The count of road-accidents casualties might just confirm the claim.)
    (the decision-making paralysis due to simultaneous weighment of too many opinions, right versus wrong,versus, rights versus less rights,versus, wrongs versus less wrongs, -- is something like a round-robin match, to quarter finals, to semi-finals, to the finals. India mostly does not reach the final, or loses it away if it does.)
       The feudalism , the fatalism, these all problems connect up with another commonly know problem in India, found in its Education System, - that the pupil are not encouraged to question. In the school days, we are trained not to question our teachers; in our job training the boss wants us to "find out and let me know" every question that we ask him; the Gods , the parents, the police, the government, no body wants to be questioned. For many of these groups, the reason for why these groups do not appreciate being questioned is from the religious learning of the people, for many other-- they do not have the answers. The Research and Development work in India is , not astonishingly, poor. The decision-makers get some advantage from the poor R&D investments in our country. The most rigorous of the opinion-making happens when a country has a good R&D infrastructure. And the real challenge of decision-making happens when the experts collide in a decision-making debate. Our public-administration, decision-making is truly of the Political kind, where the leader makes the decision to his own conveniences, by virtue of being a ideological and the administrative leader; this leadership achieved by him through the vote-bank politics, where in the social-justice has been fouled up by run of the numbers. If someone attempts to question his decision, the straight and most 'irrefutable' answer which stands is that, "you can do your kind when you come to power, when you turn comes".  This reply is irrefuatble because the Indian culture accepts such replies as the appropriate ones, unaware of the labyrinth route of how our social-justice is contributed to fouling-up by these.
             However wayward it might have sounded, but as the design of the nature is complex neural-networked inextricable, inter-twined circuit, the proposition of 'No Questioning Allowed' is the at present the node between our highly corrupt culture, and the poor public disposition towards R&D works. And that might explain better why a corrupt nation can never become a world leader. You can live up in you dreams 'India 2020', Mr Politicans.

Group Dynamics of Volunteer's Movement ... the sowing of the seeds of corruption within

What makes the volunteers fight among themselves for the organisation ranks?

Group Dynamics of a volunteer's group, such as the India Against Corruption, is an interesting case study. The group IAC has the objective of doing a fight against Corruption. The roots of corruption in our society are myriad : from the Geert Hofstede-told High Power Difference Index, to the social outlook developed over centuries and millennium by institutions such as by-birth caste systems, to the conditioned acceptance of feudal lordship.
In this climate it becomes interesting to watch how the IAC will manage to steer clear of any internal corruption by taking the right managerial decisions. The challenge is to avoid those decisions which are the recognised root-causes of corruption. Corporates and Governments have a massive oppertunity to counter-claim that India cannot survive without corruption on the same grounds where the IAC will suffer failures in its internal management in sidestepping the corruption potholes.
The rising claims of the allied organisation of the IAC (such as the BVJA) of being neglected, and the claims of promoting the near and dear ones are something which confirm to the definition of Corruption as given in various Law Codes such as the UNCAC.
Corruption is the abuse of Power, for personal gains or influencing the just outcome of a decision.
A volunteer's group can be compared with a Democractic Country where people have come to reside out of their free-will. As a matter of fact, various beliefs and opinions will come to surface and the country will need to decide on some of them so for a uniform enactment on everyone so that the business of the country may proceed. Over here, the business of the IAC is to bring around a law code which they called the JLP Bill.
Status report, as of today, is that a universal agreement has come up on the structure of the JLP after the initial days of haggling in the Bill's contents, the new clash rising in the country, the IAC, is about credit-taking, and promotion (or down scaling) of other small factions within the larger country.
One wonders as to what purpose and what use is the fight of Credit-taking all about?? What would a person gain from such fight. Geert-Hofstede provides some clue to the reasons behind the conduct of sub- factions involved in such tussels.
India being a culturally feudalistic country, the people are habituated of accepting certain people as their leader, in both ideological sense and the administrative sense. Hence the leader has oppertunity of becoming the political head of such people. People naturally submit to the political heads and deliver the free-will to the services of the leader. In India, the leadership styles we are accustomed to adjudge as the best, can be been academically nomenclature'd as the Political style leadership : someone who is both an Ideological head as well as the administrative head. Our culture does not accept interrogation of the leader's decision. This is what Geert-Hofstede describes as the high power-difference index ( a Feudal culture). The leader is therefore an un-challenge-able king. We like to see the leader as a perfect person who embodies all that we desire out of him. Our leader's supreme qualities as as much diverse and immense as the hero we see in our Bollywood fantasy dramas.
While working with foreign nationals , particularly the Europeans, I have noticed that they do not have a boss-culture in their work place. The significant characteristic of a european work climate is that every body is called by his name. There is no 'Sir', 'Respected Sir'. While we Indians take aversion to this behavior as a ''dis-respect full'' attitudes, what it contributes to the management is that the leadership style develop some hidden but significant difference as compared with the Indian work climate. The european style leadership is Administrative Decision-maker style where the free-will of the group members is not surrendered before the leader. Such behaviours and work-climate prevents an un-challenged pass over of controls to the next-favourite of the incumbent leader, downplays the dynastic take-overs of leaderships, and helps more effective decision-making as a consequence of due argumentation.
In one of my viewes of how so many scams have come around in the UPA governance, it is possible that while PM MM Singh or Sonia Gandhi ( a born european) attempted or experimented with the european style of leadership, the Indian factions took advantage of the freedoms granted to them. Being culturally adept to feudal style, we treat a polite and respect-giving leader as impotent, 'slack', incapable.
In the european style leadership, the characteristic that free-will of the members of the group need not be surrendered and every opinion holds equal strength, the European style leadership can be compared to have something similar to an in-grained decentralization. The ministers within the UPA might have taken advantage of the decentralization naturally coming to them through the european style Leadership of Sonia and the PM , and seized oppertunity to work all their misdeavours.
The IAC might be undergoing problem which have similar cultural roots. The small-time, small-place volunteer's group who would be eyeing on the take over of the political legacy of the movement. Some  small-time, small-place  volunteer's through their immense knowledge of the old 'Sampoorn Kranti' andolan of Jai Prakash Narayan in 80's, and before that, of the Indian National Congress before the Independance (in the British Raj) would be prompted to raise claims of being "U.P Prabhari", near and dear to Anna, Kejriwal. Some of them might even take the route of accusing others who are presently in the leads, for not having contributed anything significant to the movement.
The claims and the accusations will be taking cover under the moral right of the volunteers, that the volunteers ''are being neglected'', ''should not be neglected'', ''cannot be neglected''. But in-fight has the potential to derail the movement. This in-fight, 'the rift', has strength to send the philosophical supporters to oblivion by drawing all the attention to crisis- solving.
India has another cultural problem- the problem of Idol Worship and the hero worshipping. Over here the Idols of the hero often become larger than the hero himself. The hero's idol become cause for the fight among the followers instead of integrating the belief of the people which the hero might have attempted to teach or practise.
The job-profile exposure of the members of Team Anna , mostly ex-bureaucrats, can make them compulsively do things which are otherwise injustice. Ex-bureaucrats might adopt a dual justice system by giving special privileges, special hearings to certain volunteers over other people. If they assign any organisational rank to any person without presenting due reasons, the claims of favoritism are due. IAC,  ofcourse, can not have UPSC type entrance test for assigning a rank for the organisational functioning, but the roles and choices of people will cause troubles to other sub-groups. Those volunteer who are eying a organisational rank know how Idols can later be made larger than the hero himself. It is happening in the present breeds of politicians such as Laloo, Mulayam, Sharad (from the Jai Prakash Narain movement), from Mayawati (through B R Ambedkar's heir-ship), through Congress (through the Gandhi-Nehru Legacy).
     A salaried appointment and a well-described duties for the organisational ranks created if any, should keep the claims and in-fightings off. IAC should consider this approach.
Another challenge before the group is to ensure that no advices or opinions are overlooked. Ofcourse the core committee cannot be sitting all through the day answering and discussing and debating with everyone who have something to speak to the IAC, the one precaution the IAC will have to exercise is not to response back to any volunteer such as to remind him of his position as a volunteer.
Like, "This is our decision of this issue, and if you accept it you can stay with the IAC otherwise it is volunteer's group, you can always move out".
This kind of response amounts to imposition of one's view on all others. The political parties have often been accused by their own people of being undemocratic when the party heads have adopted such responses to the disagreeing factions. The corporates and political organisations who may be standing opposite to the IAC's objectives will have all the due reasons to smile for their knowledge that how challenging is the running of a Democractic organisations in India without having a feudalistic leadership. The perception goes that in India if the leader does not demonstrate his crude self, acts too polite, we stop believing in his qualities.The responses as basically the Democractic styled answer of a feudal leader. Once feudal style takes over, corruption come in by its device. Discretion is the means  of a feudal leader. The decision maker is thrown out while the Discretionary man come to fore projecting himself as a courageous, brave man ready to face the fire. Our Indian eyesights are not capable of detecting the mangerial lapses happening. The discretionary man becomes the undisputed lord who can award or punish persons at his choice. Corruption then becomes a way of the life in such organisations.
IAC stands at one such phase where it have to demonstrate and train many other how not to be Corrupt by making the right decisions within itself.

Group Dynamics of a people's movement , India Against Corruption

The leadership issue in a volunteers' movement

This is one debate which came up while inquiring about how assertive, if at all, an honest man can become. It was during this course that I made an attempt to image better what and how a Volunteer's Movement should work. The dynamics of a Volunteer's movement is unconventional, because everyone is free to join and free to move out. Kiran Bedi has often described the India Against Corruption as Volunteer's movement. But the bogged up minds which we all become by a quirk of Nature, we make mistake if we attempt to treat such a movement with how our regular Political Parties function.

Indeed, the mere exploration in the dynamics of a volunteer's movement will be a great lesson on how a Democratic Society should function with enormous freedom to everyone, while still not missing out the correct direction, the common goal, that every one in the group has. The disagreements result into the emergence of what should be the the right, and that Right is accepted and practised by everyone. So, there are enormous disagreements between the people only to feed up into a search of what should be the right.

Here is how the debate proceeded :

SU  (on his FB post) : If u r honest, but not assertive, u r no better than manmohan singh. Period!!!!!


the comments followed:

RSI would like you to be in the Core Committee....as u have all the ingredients to be there.....!!! What say Friends???????/

SU:Thanx, but no thanx..... I am ethically against any committee which has no democratic basis..... Core committee is just one mutual admiration club where 6 people are symbiotically associated and rest parasitically..... :)


MS:stronger arguments will be required to be assertive in any Democractic set-up. Maybe some conclusive arguments.

SU: MS,..... Janamdin mubarak..... Teri wall par post nahi ho raha..... :) YE Conclusive statement hai...... :)

RS:any movement needs a leader to take it further....and to give it direction.....!!!!Certain code of conducts and discipline must be there.......Here Anna is a symbol but his team is not like Manmohan's ...Anna's team are free to express and do whatever they want...but Manmohan's team can't even dare to utter a word without Her Majesty's wishes....not even ManMohan himself.... So I think there must be a shrewd and leader like person to b at the helm of affairs of IAC........like ex army chief V.K.Singh, Subramanyam Swami, and the likes....


SU: RS...... Ur perception about the team is puritanical.... One up-manship has taken over the core committee.... There will be no ''competent'' person at helm of affairs.... It would undermine the self proclaimed leadership of vultures like sanjay singh and manish sisodia...... Resurrection is need and if tough decisions are not made, the core committee will be historically culpable for criminal breach of trust of 100 crore plus Indians.....

RS: I believe in leadership....Anna is such a simple soul...and and at a time when parliament is all too active in killing this movement, it needs a shrewd leader who can anticipate their every move and start acting on it timely..


SU: RS.... Entire nation is looking upto it.... Thing is, the committee is not inclined to serve the nation.... They all have been infected by vested interests....

MS:shrewd leader will be a bad idea. Rather, IAC can resort to collective leadership by keeping the affairs open and public. For a movement of volunteers that is the right way. Most volunteers will not want to submit to a ''direction-ing'' leadership. Truely, the leadership in such cases emerges natural by Darwin's method of selection of the best, instead of the conventional method of projection and promotion of a person. You know what, most of the people movements sooner or later become a political party, (E.g. Congress party) and the leadership becomes the lobbyist handicraft if the leadership is attempted by human action, in place of Darwin's natural selection. Let Anna be the face, and for sure he will not take the leadership at this age,.... He will be more as a 'promoter and underwriter of a Company'.

RS:yeah...Darvin's law is apt suited here.....survival of the fittest.....

RS;But still I do favor a strong leader to give directions to this movement.....as our enemy is too powerful and organized.....They try very effort to get this movement die a natural death.....and volunteers just won't be able to judge their tricks...

MS:Leadership , anyway, will be required for the purpose of administrative needs. Like, for signatures on any Memo or MoU to be signed with the government. But here too, the face should only be an executive style leadership, not the philosophical , mentoring leadership. Executive leadership can put all documents in public space and Decision-making can remain public after doings it due philosophical haggling on the decision in a collective style. Monetary Funding will be a challenge for the functioning of the movement. Maybe the smaller groups can do the in-house fund raising keeping the larger movement clear from the funds raised as there are risks of falling into the trap of corruption-allegations for the entire bigger group of IAC due to mis-deeds or ill-decisions of one small group in any financial matter.

MS:Organised enemy is indeed a dangerous group to fight out. Our organisation should come as a natural rebellion, revolution (revolutions don't have leaders, it is only the historians who assign leadership to the prominent faces). we are overall in a in-fighting cause, with our own people, the elected representatives. leadership will come at the cost of political fragmentation of the movement.

RS:Here when I talk of leadership, I don't mean committee, I think there is one able shrwed aware Leader to head this movement....!!!! Core Committee is all too divided among themselves mainly bcz it does not have someone to control over them....

SV: SU, mera maanna hai ki hamare dushman wo to hain hi jo sansad ya vidhansabhaon mein baithe hain...lekin ek kadwaa sach ye hai ki anna ji ka movement kewal paise ka bhrshtachaar na hokar hum sabke andar samaaye huye aise bhrasht maansikta ko bhi maarna hai jo ye kahti hai ki galat sonch,galat paisa or galat aadmi hi safal hai...jis din hum sabne apne andar ke is paapi ko maar diya usi din anna ji ka sapna 'ek saaf suthra or viksit bharat' duniya ke saamne aayega ...

RS:isa kuch nahi hota.....apne andar sabke kuch paap punya hote hain.....agar dar na ho to punyatma bhi paapi ban jayein...aur paapi bhi punyatma...

MS:(I am sorry, I am not able to clear my mind of the seminary enquiry into what should be a leadership for a volunteer's movement). I think Darwin's natural selection can bring out executive leadership, but should not be applicable for the Ideological leadership EPITOMISED into single human body. Since all humans have diversity in their beliefs, it will NOT be good idea to have any ideological leadership EPITOMISED. Through the Darwin's natural selection, factors such as long time association have good chances to become the face of the movement, being the old and recognised people. They can EXECUTE the Decisions (which, of course, will be made in collective manner). In the longest terms, movements like IAC should come to an end after achieving their due, and the old and recognised faces transform into political class to carry the legacy forward after the demise of the movement. The objectives of the movement take shape of laws and regulation, ( e.g. Liberty ,Equality, Fraternity in the French revolution; Non-violence from India freedom struggle; and (if at all) Corruption-free public Institutions from IAC movements.

The natural demise of such movements is essential to prevent abuse of the energy created during the movement.

SS: अभी कुछ दिन पहले किसी ने हमारे प्रधानमन्त्री को शिखंडी कहा था .यार ! यही समस्या है , लोग सही और सटीक उदाहरण नहीं देते . प्रधानमन्त्री शिखंडी नहीं हैं . शिखंडी बड़ा फोकस्ड व्यक्ति था . कोई कन्फ्यूजन नहीं ... अम्बा से भीष्म ने शादी नहीं की तो ज़िन्दगी का केवल एक मकसद , भीष्म की बर्बादी. हमारे प्रधानमंत्री भीष्म हो सकते हैं , द्रोण हो सकते हैं , कृपाचार्य हो सकते हैं ; जो कुरु राजसभा में उस दिन बैठे रहे और दुशासन द्रौपदी की साड़ी खींचता रहा 

MSk : shikhandi ke shareer pe ye log chale jate hai magar vo bhi ek maha rathi tha us yudh me aur uska ek he lakshya tha bheshm ke maut

SS: completely agree with parasitic and symbiotic association defn...now we the volunteers have to decide what kind of association we have had and will have...

PNA :दुनिया के इस सबसे बड़े प्रजातांत्रिक कहे जाने वाले देश में ऐसा लगता है की दुनिया का सबसे सूक्ष्म स्तर का ही सही लेकिन वह भी कुछ भी प्रजातांत्रिक नहीं है यहाँ पर और यही है इस देश की समस्या की जड़ जिसे परिवार नामक संस्था से लेकर कही भी महसूस किया जा सकता है !अन्ना टीम या कोई और इस बीमारी से अछूते नहीं है ! हम सिर्फ "प्रजातान्त्रिक" कहते भर है "अमल" नहीं करते और वह भी "इरादतन" ...............अगर प्रजातांत्रिक व्यवस्था विशुद्ध रूप से अमल में ले आयेंगे तो हमारे काले मन की पापी सोंच की मुराद पूरी हो ही नहीं सकती है यह अव्यवस्थाएं है इस देश में ! हम सिर्फ कहते भर है " From the People , By the People , For the People " लेकिन सच्चाई यह नहीं है सच्चाई तो सड़क पर "नागिन डांस" कर रही है ----For the People और डांस करवा रहे है From the People क्यों की डांस करवाने वाले From the People उस गलती का परिणाम है जो गलती की गयी By the People................









People's movement..India Against Corruption

India is a land of saints. It is a land of civilization, a land of enormous spirituality, a land of many religions. But what makes us, and the whole world, look at this aspect of India in an indifferent manner is the social paradigm which encircles India all the while-- the social issues : such a female foeticide, dowry, caste discrimination;   the social-political issues such a the systemic corruption; and the Public Governance issues : the Banyan Democracy, the Anarchial Democracy, the victory of the dishonest.

While Indians have often flipped out some pride from the fact that Indians have never attacked any country while itself has suffered attack from the Ghazani,s the Greeks, the British, the french, the Portuguese, if it were not the post World War II era, maybe, we might have been living in immense shame for the generational insult we have had. Nevertheless, time has taken a turn to over vantage while the onus shifts to we the people to take steps to correct up and restart where we had left it out, some 1000 years ago.

the land of spirituality and Philosophy has nothing much to offer to the world in terms of its religious leanings--the Om, the Shanti, the values and the respect. The polluted culture has become a corrupt culture with the enormous freedom that came to it from 15th of August 1947. Liberalism has not come about, where Freedom has come to great extent for all the small-minded people to avail-- to  pass out on the roads and to abuse the Justice through the strength of numbers , and the numbers being generated form the communal identity of the political abuser.

Where is the spirituality? where are the learning of the Vedas ? where is the Bhagwad Geeta? where has the great Indian civilization come? While Anna Hazare and his "team" sat of fasting to bring about some indisctinct law which they call the Jan Lokpal Bill, there are the anarchist Indians mocking around as there usual self, asking, "As if this one Law will change the entire evil of India", "as if sitting of fasting will change the fate of the country"?

The movement has succeeded in making the people question, that is what is important-- to question. How much is the corruption and why is there so much corruption? People are perhaps being initiated to look for it within themselves, and to dig out that 1000 years of pollution which has reached deep into our DNA that we all are convinced we cannot live without it, the corruption. It is a corruption of our philosophy, our soul, our culture , out intellect, our religion.

While we have in course of these 1000 years become a nation of multi-religiosity, we have become low on our intellect to differ out how the Icon-clasm of Islam is not anything different from What the vedas ask , or what any natural law will dictate. At the same time, Islam has become habitual of overlooking the truth , the order of Nature, for want of putting the belief, the faith , the maker of nature above the Nature itself. It refuses to see the maker in his creations, the Nature itself as the Maker, thereof putting to risk the entire order of the system. Indian Philosophy has become a messy cocktail all the conflicting ideologies which have ever reached India. Today, our philosophy is in the same great mess, as the pollution in the Great Ganges on which our Civilization is born. 


What this movement has achieved is to make us enquire, about every thing from our own self. Our lost wealth of knowledge, our lost knowledge of Nayay, our ability to reason, our linguistic development, all those things which make the people peaceful and prosperous. Our common identity as a National, as Indian, will arrive from our common belief, our belief in our common fate. But for that we need to figure out how corruption is eventually an offence on the soul , and offence on the Morality. Morality is the BODMAS rule of Social Engineering by which a man connects up with another. We need to figure out that and we are in need to discover the Brahm  of how peace and order in this world is linked with Morality , and why Shanti is sought by Indian sages for this world for which we revere those saints.

Systems cannot afford to have immoral and corrupt rules-- and the Public Governance systems , the least. If we have to preserve peace we need to bring equal opportunity to everyone. The rising cost of Petrol cannot be seen un-connected with the suicide of the farmers, the increasing cost of living for the service class, and enormous luxury enjoyed by the political ruling class with credit for all the scams in their audit reports. Money cannot be allowed to make a naked dance while others live up or die making their ends meets. There can be no peace without sufficient economic strength to everyone. And an economically strengthened man will naturally demand more political freedoms and rights. That will mean , more participation in the law-making and more transparency in Public Governance. the circle is viciously made from the nature itself. Morality, therefore is the true basic rule, the BODMAS rule of this mathematics of Social Engineering. you might connect up two communities of people by some erroneous mathematics and think of that as social engineering, but the mistakes will show themselves up someday of the other. With enormous love will follow the enormous hatred or a pressure from the other groups which will have to take burnt for the mistaken mathematics conducted in the present social engineering.

The movement has sent the brain on a great search, perhaps that true unending search which keeps a civilization intact and alive. the keeps the people going. makes them keep walking ..up the ladder of evolution.

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