All about India is the space where we cover something about India or Indians that you wouldn’t have known. Today we provide all information about the much in news, Hon CM of Delhi, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal.
About: The first image that comes to our mind, when we think about ‘Arvind Kejriwal’ is of the Gandhi topi clad leader in his trademark muffler, addressing a crowd. Taking up issues that have not in the past and fighting against the system Kejriwal (born 16 August 1968) is the 7th and current Chief Minister of Delhi Born in Haryana, Kejriwal is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur where he studied Mechanical engineering. He worked for the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) as a Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax Department. He is well-known for his efforts to bring and implement the Right to Information (RTI) Act at grassroots level and his role in drafting a proposed Jan Lokpal Bill.
Kejriwal won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2006 for his contribution to the enactment of the Right to Information Act. In 2006, after resigning from the IRS, he donated his Magsaysay award money as a corpus fund to found an NGO, Public Cause Reasearch Foundation. In 2012, he launched the Aam Admi Party (AAP), and he defeated Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in her constituency in the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly election.
Mr. Kejriwal has been portrayed as a leader is here to bring about change and not just increase his own revenues. Known to live a life of simplicity away from the regalia and luxuries demanded by other politicians, Kejriwal has been humble enough to decline the extra security that all Chief Ministers across the nation receive.
A bright student and academic achiever in his early days, Arvind Kejriwal also had the zeal and enthusiasm to help his fellow mankind since the very beginning. In an Interview he has mentioned how he returned to Hisar from IIT after his final year with just the clothes he was wearing and the residue of the money left from what he had set aside for his return journey. Everything else he owned, he had given to charity.
Work:
Parivartan
Kejriwal believes “Change begins with small things”. In December 1999, while still in service with the Income Tax Department, he helped found a movement named Parivartan (which means “change”), focused on assisting citizens in navigating income tax, electricity and food ration matters in parts of Delhi. The Parivartan organisation exposed a fake ration card scam in 2008 but, according to a founder member, did not have a great impact generally and was largely moribund by 2012.
Right to Information
Together with Manish Sisodia and Abhinandan Sekhri, Kejriwal established the Public Cause Research Foundation in December 2006, donating the prize money he had received from the Ramon Magsaysay Award as a seed fund. This new body paid the employees of Parivartan.
Kejriwal has used the Right to Information Act in corruption cases in many government departments including the Income Tax Department, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, , the Public Distribution System and the Delhi Electricity Board.
Jan Lokpal Bill
Kejriwal was the civil society representative member of the committee constituted by the Government of India to draft a Jan Lokpal bill, following a campaign for introduction of such legislation that featured Anna Hazare. He had been arrested for his support of Hazare.
Political career:
Kejriwal established the AAP in November 2012 as he believed that electoral politics was the next logical step in the fight against corruption. The party name reflects the phrase Aam Aadmi, or “common man”, whose interests Kejriwal proposed to represent.
He became one of the five most mentioned Indian politicians on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in the run-up to the Delhi legislative assembly election of 2013. This was the first election contested by the AAP.
Chief Minister:
In the Delhi election, Kejriwal defeated incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in her constituency of New Delhi by a margin of 25,864 votes. The party as a whole won 28 of the 70 available seats, finishing in second place.
The AAP then announced its intention to form a minority government in the hung parliament, with what Dikshit described as “not unconditional” support from the Indian National Congress. Kejriwal was sworn in as the second-youngest chief minister of Delhi on 28 December 2013, after Chaudhary Baram Parkash who became chief minister at the age of 34. He is in charge of Delhi’s Home Ministry, Power, Planning, Finance, Vigilance ministries.
Thank you , Rajdeep Sirdesai !
Thank you for conducting that brutal interview of Arvind Kejriwal , Saturday evening
Normally , Arvind is a very reticent fellow
But you managed to rattle him !
But for your penetrating questions , Arvind would not have volunteered to reveal on his own , the following :
> RESERVATION OF 90 % SEATS
– It is only for 28 colleges which are partially or fully funded by Delhi
Government
It is for ANY student ( from any state of India ) , who passes his / her
10th standard from any Delhi school
> FREE WATER
– Only 20KL per month is free
Our goal is to ” Reduce Consumption / Conserve ”
Hence it makes sense to charge those who continue to consume more
than 20 KL .
If they want FREE , they must cut back on consumption !
Again it makes lot of Economic Sense , to give water free , only to
those who have meters
Lakhs of households will now get motivated to install meters !
A very powerful incentive
That will introduce ” Measurement of Resource ”
> NO WATER IN SLUMS / UNAUTHORISED COLONIES
– This is a physical problem of laying 150 Km of new pipe-lines /
installation of pumps etc
No one asked Congress government re this for 15 years !
It is totally unfair to expect AAP to do this in 15 days !
> DIFFERING VIEWS / OPINIONS AMONGST AAP LEADERS
– This is what democracy is all about !
We encourage ALL to speak their minds without fear / reservations
Ideas must flow unhindered
We believe in brain-storming , not in suppressing views !
But ,
PAC members / MLAs / Core Committee Members etc will need to toe the
FINAL PARTY POSITION ( arrived after fierce internal debate / evaluation /
consensus ) in public , irrespective of their personal views
As far as millions of ORDINARY MEMBERS are concerned ( including Capt
Gopinath / Mallika Sarabhai etc ) , they are at liberty to criticize even the
FINAL PARTY POSITION
We impose PARTY DISCIPLINE , only on office bearers
And since Vinod Binny is our MLA , he is bound by this internal CODE OF
CONDUCT .
He must leave the party , if he cannot comply
> SOMNATH BHARATI TAKING LAW IN OWN HANDS
– If Delhi police won’t act against drug mafia / sex racketeers , despite a
pile of complaints from local citizens , then our ministers will come out on
the streets , in support of the oppressed
We will not hesitate to join their agitation / revolt against the corrupt !
Even Mahatma Gandhi , had to break the unjust British Laws
We will do the same
If we cannot change the law with the support of our MLAs , then we will
break it with the support of the suffering public
Make no mistakes about it !
> AAP ENGAGING IN ANARCHY / CHAOS / POPULISM
– Another TV channel editor said , we are continuing ” Activism ”
Still another TV anchor says , AAP failed to graduate to ” Governance ”
Use any – and all – adjectives you can , to describe our behavior / actions
We are not guided / governed by any ” Ideology ” ( Left / Right / Center )
When we take any decision / action , we only apply ” Gandhi Guideline ” ,
viz ; ” Will this help the poorest person ? ”
> AAP TAKING CONGRESS SUPPORT
– If they like , let them withdraw their ( unasked for ) support today
Let there be re-elections
People of Delhi will bring us back with 50 seats
> CONTESTING LOK DABHA SEAT ?
– I may , if Party asks me
[ Arvind ,
Whereas all the rest of your answers were most appropriate , this was
the most disappointing !
If you succumb to the ” wishes ” of your colleagues , not only the
people of Delhi , but of entire India , will conclude that ,
# You are an opportunist
# You are after power
# You cannot be trusted
# You have betrayed them ]
Once again , thank you Rajdeep ,
But for your grilling , public would have continued to believe the canards being dished out by those pseudo – experts trying to drown out each other , on panel discussions / obsessions !
* hemen parekh ( 20 Jan 2014 / Mumbai )