Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Friday, August 28, 2015
Will boost governance by repealing 150 laws
Rajasthan today has 592 Acts. More than 150 of these will be repealed next month. The last such review was in 1964 and even then no principal Act of the state was repealed. An interesting side story of repealing 15 of our Acts was the inability of implementing departments to provide our review committee with physical copies of 55 Acts they were "implementing" - these documents had to be obtained from the state printing press and state archives in
Bikaner.
When Saint Kabir wrote, "Ati ka bhala na bolna, Ati ki bhali na chup. Ati ka bhala na barasna, Ati ki bhali na dhoop," he was emphasising balance - talking too much or too less is just as undesirable as extremes in climate. This doha is important for lawmakers because excessive legislation not only clogs our court system but is a breeding ground for discretion, harassment and corruption.
Surely reviewing laws for relevance and effectiveness is crucial to improving the government-citizen interface. Rajasthan has used three tests for repeal: if the law is not used, if there are other laws or rules which cover the same thing, and if there will be a reduction in needless discretion or public harassment. All democracies have an enduring conversation over laws. The world's oldest democracy - the US - continues to reconcile tensions between the view that its constitution should be restricted to its stated provisions by Thomas Jefferson's notion of a "strict construction" and the view that it should be given some doctrinal breathing space by a reliance on what Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall called a "fair" or "reasonable" interpretation.
As Richard Epstein suggests in his new book The Classic Liberal Constitution, "Jefferson and his followers insisted that courts would diminish the constitution through their expansive construction if the logic of strict constitution did not hold sway, while the other side insisted that if this view held the constitution would ossify and wind up as nothing more than a magnificent structure to look at, but totally unfit for use."
Babasaheb Ambedkar would agree with Hamilton. His wonderful closing speech to the Constituent Assembly debates in 1950 said: "The idea that institutions established for the use of the nation cannot be touched or modified, even to make them answer their end, may be a salutary provision against abuses, but is most absurd against the nation itself. The notion that we have a right to impose laws on us, unalterable by ourselves, and that we can make and impose on future generations, which they will have no right to alter is an earth that belongs to the dead not the living."
The Rajasthan government agrees with Ambedkar's view that our laws must be living documents that are diligently interrogated and continuously reviewed from the lens of an individual citizen.
It is unclear how the Rajasthan Refuse (Conversion of Manure) Act 1951, Vaccination Act 1957, Minor Irrigation Act 1953, Electricity Duty Act 1962, Motor Vehicle Taxation Act 1987, and the Coal Control Order Act 1964, among others, are helpful to the state or its citizens.
This project has three phases: repealing, consolidating and examining relevance. The first phase will soon conclude and involved wide public consultation and active input from Niti Aayog. The second phase will clear clutter - does Rajasthan really need 75 different Acts for higher education? The third phase is tricky and requires wide and deep consultation with all stakeholders.
An interesting consequence of this project is that we have now catalogued 598 rules belonging to 37 departments and are far from done but, over the next year, we will put all our Acts and Rules online in a search friendly format for all citizens because sunshine is the best disinfectant.
In 1928 Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel told the British in Bardoli: "Your government has run amuck. It thinks it can trample everything under its feet. Even so thinks the mad elephant, priding itself on having trampled every lion and tiger to death, and scorning the little gnat defying him. I am teaching the little gnat today to lthe elephant go on in his mad career and then get into his trunk at the opportune moment."
Gandhiji walked 390 km from Sabarmati to Dandi. I think he would be upset with the Salt Cess Act of 1953.
http://www.gandhigitadharm.com/kabir01.html
But most Indians don't realise the impact of live legislation like the Contract Act of 1872, Telegraph Act of 1885, Penal Code of 1860, Succession Act of 1865, and Evidence Act of 1872 that were written by unelected bureaucrats.
Rajasthan's law review programme is cradled within the broader central government agenda of minimum government and maximum governance. Too many Indian citizens view lawmaking and lawmakers with suspicion because of the huge gap between how our laws are written, interpreted, practised and enforced.
This project fulfils one more promise made to citizens and job creators before our Resurgent Rajasthan investment summit in November. Lawmakers voluntarily getting rid of the redundant burden of legislative history is the best demonstration that there is nothing wrong with India that can't be fixed with what is right with India.
(The writer is Chief Minister of Rajasthan)
Bikaner.
When Saint Kabir wrote, "Ati ka bhala na bolna, Ati ki bhali na chup. Ati ka bhala na barasna, Ati ki bhali na dhoop," he was emphasising balance - talking too much or too less is just as undesirable as extremes in climate. This doha is important for lawmakers because excessive legislation not only clogs our court system but is a breeding ground for discretion, harassment and corruption.
Surely reviewing laws for relevance and effectiveness is crucial to improving the government-citizen interface. Rajasthan has used three tests for repeal: if the law is not used, if there are other laws or rules which cover the same thing, and if there will be a reduction in needless discretion or public harassment. All democracies have an enduring conversation over laws. The world's oldest democracy - the US - continues to reconcile tensions between the view that its constitution should be restricted to its stated provisions by Thomas Jefferson's notion of a "strict construction" and the view that it should be given some doctrinal breathing space by a reliance on what Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall called a "fair" or "reasonable" interpretation.
As Richard Epstein suggests in his new book The Classic Liberal Constitution, "Jefferson and his followers insisted that courts would diminish the constitution through their expansive construction if the logic of strict constitution did not hold sway, while the other side insisted that if this view held the constitution would ossify and wind up as nothing more than a magnificent structure to look at, but totally unfit for use."
Babasaheb Ambedkar would agree with Hamilton. His wonderful closing speech to the Constituent Assembly debates in 1950 said: "The idea that institutions established for the use of the nation cannot be touched or modified, even to make them answer their end, may be a salutary provision against abuses, but is most absurd against the nation itself. The notion that we have a right to impose laws on us, unalterable by ourselves, and that we can make and impose on future generations, which they will have no right to alter is an earth that belongs to the dead not the living."
The Rajasthan government agrees with Ambedkar's view that our laws must be living documents that are diligently interrogated and continuously reviewed from the lens of an individual citizen.
It is unclear how the Rajasthan Refuse (Conversion of Manure) Act 1951, Vaccination Act 1957, Minor Irrigation Act 1953, Electricity Duty Act 1962, Motor Vehicle Taxation Act 1987, and the Coal Control Order Act 1964, among others, are helpful to the state or its citizens.
This project has three phases: repealing, consolidating and examining relevance. The first phase will soon conclude and involved wide public consultation and active input from Niti Aayog. The second phase will clear clutter - does Rajasthan really need 75 different Acts for higher education? The third phase is tricky and requires wide and deep consultation with all stakeholders.
An interesting consequence of this project is that we have now catalogued 598 rules belonging to 37 departments and are far from done but, over the next year, we will put all our Acts and Rules online in a search friendly format for all citizens because sunshine is the best disinfectant.
In 1928 Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel told the British in Bardoli: "Your government has run amuck. It thinks it can trample everything under its feet. Even so thinks the mad elephant, priding itself on having trampled every lion and tiger to death, and scorning the little gnat defying him. I am teaching the little gnat today to lthe elephant go on in his mad career and then get into his trunk at the opportune moment."
Gandhiji walked 390 km from Sabarmati to Dandi. I think he would be upset with the Salt Cess Act of 1953.
http://www.gandhigitadharm.com/kabir01.html
But most Indians don't realise the impact of live legislation like the Contract Act of 1872, Telegraph Act of 1885, Penal Code of 1860, Succession Act of 1865, and Evidence Act of 1872 that were written by unelected bureaucrats.
Rajasthan's law review programme is cradled within the broader central government agenda of minimum government and maximum governance. Too many Indian citizens view lawmaking and lawmakers with suspicion because of the huge gap between how our laws are written, interpreted, practised and enforced.
This project fulfils one more promise made to citizens and job creators before our Resurgent Rajasthan investment summit in November. Lawmakers voluntarily getting rid of the redundant burden of legislative history is the best demonstration that there is nothing wrong with India that can't be fixed with what is right with India.
(The writer is Chief Minister of Rajasthan)
Monday, May 11, 2015
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Sayings
https://sayskabir.wordpress.com
1. The life is passed in turning the beads, but the darkness of the heart is not destroyed. Leave the turning of beads by the hand, but turn the beads of your mind.
2. If you have no devotion to God, you will not gain anything by pilgrimage. You may roam over the country and yet your heart will be impure. The man who has gone to Varanasi to see Lord Viswanath, but has not destroyed hypocrisy, lust and greed and has no devotion, will gain nothing.
3. I am very fond of the words of my sweetheart— Beloved (God). I do not get any solace if anybody tries to console me in other ways. If you make a fisl1 lie on a golden cot and give it ambrosia to drink, it will surely die in no time.
4. The diamond appraiser only can know the value of the diamond. Kabir says: only he who has developed devotion can attain God.
5. Show thou a rose to him that showeth thee a thorn. To thee there is always a rose; to him there is a thorn for ever more.
6. Have no faith in this perishable body. Remember the Lord by all your breaths; that is the only way to salvation.
7. "Why dost thou trample upon me?" crieth the earth to the potter, "A day will come when I shall trample upon thee."
8. The body is an inn and the mind a bird that has willingly taken a lodging in it. It is but a truism that none is none's relative.
9. 'Virtue' abides where there is compassion, 'vice' where there is greed; 'death' where there is wrath, and the Lord Himself where there is forgiveness.
10. Every forest does not contain a sandal tree; every army does not contain a real soldier; every sea does not contain pearls; even so, a Sadhu or a saint or a Mahatma is not found everywhere in the world.
11. Have patience; everything comes out in time. The gardener waters the plant daily, but it bears fruit only in season.
12. If I turn the whole earth into paper, al 1 the trees into pens and the seven seas into ink, even then the greatness of the Lord cannot be fully described.
13. There is no greater evil than a bad word; it burns everything into ashes. A kind word is, on the contrary, like rain that falls in nectar-like torrents.
14. A word is priceless if one knows how to use it. Let every word be weighed in the scales of the heart before it is given out.
15. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today, nor till the evening what you can do this very moment; for you know not when death may overtake you, upsetting all your plans.
16. He alone is the hero who has all the five senses at his command. He who has no such control never approaches the Lord.
17. A dumb man, having tasted sugar, cannot express its taste. Even so, the experience of Self-realisation cannot be expressed.
18. Just as sugar toys are made of sugar and sugar exists in all of them, even so, the whole universe exists in Brahman and Brahman in it.
19. The sugar and the sugar toys are not two things; they both are one. Similarly, when real knowledge dawns, the manifold universe appears as one.
20. Just as the tree is in the seed and the seed in the tree, even so is the world in Brahman.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
kasturi
Can you locate all 11 deer hidden within
Meaning
Musk is in the navel of the musk deer, but the deer searches for its fragrance everywhere in the forest. In the same way, God dwells in every heart, but people search for Him elsewhere, and do not find Him.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kasturi+kundal
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