Anticorruption Jan Lokpal Bill: Arvind Kejriwal the Proposed Member of the Joint Drafting Committee

© Harish Jharia                        

Here is a brief introduction of Arvind Kejriwal who has been nominated as a member of the joint drafting committee constituted by Government of India through a gazette notification. Arvind Kejriwal has been right there, all the time, with Anna Hazare during his fast unto death at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi and managed the proceedings in addition to assisting Anna Hazare in negotiations and interactions with the people and Government of India. He also assisted Anna Hazare, along with Kiran Bedi in conducting the historic press conference held at Press Trust of India on 9 April 2011 after the successful completion of the first step of the Lokpal Bill movement. 
  
Couple of Awards and Recognition:

1. Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2006, for activating India's Right to Information movement at grassroots and social activities to empower the poorest citizens to fight corruption by holding the government answerable to the people.
2. CNN-IBN awarded him the title 'Indian of the Year' in Public Service for the year 2006.

Brief Biography:

Arvind Kejriwal was born in Hissar, Haryana in 1968. He graduated from IIT Kharagpur as a Mechanical engineer in 1989. Subsequently, he joined the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), and was posted at the Income-tax Commissioner's Office in Delhi. While working in his office, he realized that most of the corruption in civic life was prevalent in the government and that because of lack of transparency in the official process. Even being in his official position, he started crusading against the corrupt practices and brought about changes to increase transparency in the Income Tax office.

In January 2000, he took a long leave from his job and founded a Delhi based citizens’ movement ‘Parivartan‘ that worked on spreading awareness for ensuring just, transparent and accountable governance. Eventually, he resigned from his high profile job, in February 2006 and dedicated himself for his NGO 'Parivartan'. 

In association with the well known social activist Aruna Roy and few others, he campaigned for introduction of the Right to Information Act that eventually turned into a silent social movement. The Delhi Right to Information Act was passed in 2001. Subsequently, the Right to Information Act (RTI) was also passed by the Indian Parliament in 2005.

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