Today myself along with my friends Manoj, Chanti and Gowri attended Lok Sabha question hour(11am to 12pm). First need to thank our Member of Parliamentarians(MP) because today fortunately without any adjournment, we were able to sit one hour question session. My intention was to realize, the then British PM Attlee statement of 'question hour is one of the surest means to put executive accountable'. partly i was convinced myself based on today's question hour.
After crossing Indian planning commission, constitutional club, etc finally entered into parliamentary premises. Our welcome note was, in front of parliament house, few Trinamool Congress MLA's were protesting about their assembly proceedings and walkouts! With the help of security guard, we observed few bullet shots on the walls of parliament, that was result of 2001 parliament attack.
We had gone through multilevel security checks(more than seven) and finally entered into Lok Sabha at 10.45 am. We were looking at architecture, buildings, etc got excited! saw couple of ministers named Finance Minister(Chidambaram), Health Minister(Gulabnabi Azad), and minister of state for petroleum Panabaka Lakshmi), etc. Leader of opposition Lok Sabha(Sushma swaraj), L.K Advani, etc. It was a bit thrilling experience to watch them very closely.
Upon Lok Sabha speaker entering, all members stand up and greeted her as per convention of Lok Sabha. Entire question hour meant for scrutinizing government public policies, programmes and schemes, so that to make governance more transparent and strengthen the parliamentary oversight mechanism over the executive decisions.
We found that, bureaucrats were sitting one side near to ministers to help them out by sending notes, documents, hand written replies, etc. And ministers were simply reading out! Then i realized how body of laymen are functioning with brilliant backup of Institutional memory of bureaucracy. This entire parliamentary exercise was to make democracy more vibrant through debates, discussion and dialogue and it's forum to ventilate common man grievances. Let me put few questions, which I was found interesting during the question hour:
One of BJP MP raised questions regarding the finance related matters of fraudulent schemes in the market(Ponzi schemes), how such type of schemes are affecting the common populace, and what are the measures taken by government to secure from the same? , etc. But looks like, opposition MP's were dissatisfied with the reply given by minister of state for finance.
With the next query, I was really excited because this sort of question was expecting by me! Truly experienced myself functional value of temple of Indian democracy i.e. Parliament. It is custodian of public interest, safeguards marginalized, destitute and to make governance more accountable to great-masters (people). The question was, Government after spending 40,000/ crores on drinking water still unable to provide clean, arsenic free to the rural population? One of the reason opposition MP pointed was, lack of inter ministerial coordination(Ministry of Health, Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation) towards sanitation, clean drinking water! Hon' Minister of Health replied for the same but none of opposition MP's were satisfied.(And even myself)
At 11.55a.m, Lok Sabha staff was asked us to leave the hall, then we came out and waiting for few ministers from Rajya Sabha(especially for Chiranjeevi). We spoke with Jaya Bhaduri Bachchan and one of the living legend Mani shankar aiyar.
Mrs. Bachchan, while interacting with journalists and she said that - behave like a first Indian citizen then journalist, your not a entertainment channel, don't sensitize trivial issues and trivialize sensitive issues, give due respect to the nation by bringing the important issues, etc. She was informing to journalist about journalist ethics since she had completed her doctorate in journalism.
Mr. Mani shankar aiyar was speaking about India-Pak bilateral issues and how to thrive for amicable solutions towards peace, stability and tranquility in the south Asian region.
One more interesting point was that, I interacted with the Delhi School children who visited along with us and found the following: They were really excited and come across parliamentary working mechanism at the pragmatic level, which was different experience altogether from textbook teachings. Whereas we told about the same through textbook figures during our school days!
That really makes a lot difference on children and their level of real time exposure to the parliamentary working procedures!
It was really a good experience, if one gets chance i would suggest better to visit at least once.
Suneel Anchipaka
anchipaka.suneel@gmail.com
After crossing Indian planning commission, constitutional club, etc finally entered into parliamentary premises. Our welcome note was, in front of parliament house, few Trinamool Congress MLA's were protesting about their assembly proceedings and walkouts! With the help of security guard, we observed few bullet shots on the walls of parliament, that was result of 2001 parliament attack.
We had gone through multilevel security checks(more than seven) and finally entered into Lok Sabha at 10.45 am. We were looking at architecture, buildings, etc got excited! saw couple of ministers named Finance Minister(Chidambaram), Health Minister(Gulabnabi Azad), and minister of state for petroleum Panabaka Lakshmi), etc. Leader of opposition Lok Sabha(Sushma swaraj), L.K Advani, etc. It was a bit thrilling experience to watch them very closely.
Upon Lok Sabha speaker entering, all members stand up and greeted her as per convention of Lok Sabha. Entire question hour meant for scrutinizing government public policies, programmes and schemes, so that to make governance more transparent and strengthen the parliamentary oversight mechanism over the executive decisions.
We found that, bureaucrats were sitting one side near to ministers to help them out by sending notes, documents, hand written replies, etc. And ministers were simply reading out! Then i realized how body of laymen are functioning with brilliant backup of Institutional memory of bureaucracy. This entire parliamentary exercise was to make democracy more vibrant through debates, discussion and dialogue and it's forum to ventilate common man grievances. Let me put few questions, which I was found interesting during the question hour:
One of BJP MP raised questions regarding the finance related matters of fraudulent schemes in the market(Ponzi schemes), how such type of schemes are affecting the common populace, and what are the measures taken by government to secure from the same? , etc. But looks like, opposition MP's were dissatisfied with the reply given by minister of state for finance.
With the next query, I was really excited because this sort of question was expecting by me! Truly experienced myself functional value of temple of Indian democracy i.e. Parliament. It is custodian of public interest, safeguards marginalized, destitute and to make governance more accountable to great-masters (people). The question was, Government after spending 40,000/ crores on drinking water still unable to provide clean, arsenic free to the rural population? One of the reason opposition MP pointed was, lack of inter ministerial coordination(Ministry of Health, Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation) towards sanitation, clean drinking water! Hon' Minister of Health replied for the same but none of opposition MP's were satisfied.(And even myself)
At 11.55a.m, Lok Sabha staff was asked us to leave the hall, then we came out and waiting for few ministers from Rajya Sabha(especially for Chiranjeevi). We spoke with Jaya Bhaduri Bachchan and one of the living legend Mani shankar aiyar.
Mrs. Bachchan, while interacting with journalists and she said that - behave like a first Indian citizen then journalist, your not a entertainment channel, don't sensitize trivial issues and trivialize sensitive issues, give due respect to the nation by bringing the important issues, etc. She was informing to journalist about journalist ethics since she had completed her doctorate in journalism.
Mr. Mani shankar aiyar was speaking about India-Pak bilateral issues and how to thrive for amicable solutions towards peace, stability and tranquility in the south Asian region.
One more interesting point was that, I interacted with the Delhi School children who visited along with us and found the following: They were really excited and come across parliamentary working mechanism at the pragmatic level, which was different experience altogether from textbook teachings. Whereas we told about the same through textbook figures during our school days!
That really makes a lot difference on children and their level of real time exposure to the parliamentary working procedures!
It was really a good experience, if one gets chance i would suggest better to visit at least once.
Suneel Anchipaka
anchipaka.suneel@gmail.com
feels like your first blog :) , content is clear !!! work on your sentence formations, grammatical mistakes. Never Give up !!! You are in the right path.
ReplyDeleteWay to go suneel. keep bloging..
ReplyDelete