Dr. Shashi Tharoor, one of the few Congress candidates who managed to win the recently concluded general elections to Indian Parliament has written an article in which he describes how he is perceiving a new version of the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi. For a regular politician, it will take much more than a week, to evaluate a new Prime Minister. However, Dr. Tharoor, a lateral entrant to the power politics, has already chosen to go on record about the new Modi that he sees in the Prime Minister.

According to the Indian Constitution, no freedom is absolute. The Constitution itself makes fundamental rights enshrined therein, including right to life, subject to reasonable restrictions. Therefore, when we talk about the “absolute freedom of expression”, it has no sanction under the Indian Constitution. However, the Constitution does not solve our problem. What amounts to reasonable restriction is something subjective. At the most, it will help if a matter reaches the court and the court has to decide upon it.

It is a story of how a foreign power, then occupying the country, using their power, forced a native Kingdom to agree to give up its rights over a river and its water for 999 years, in exchange for a small amount to be paid as rent to the Kingdom. This agreement was inked in 1886. Even after the occupying powers had left the country, the succeeding popular Government of Kerala agreed to honour the agreement that was obviously one sided – in favour of Tamil Nadu – and executed a fresh agreement in 1970, with substantially same provisions.

Is Lokpal a panacea for all the ills of the Nation? After all, a Lokpal is only an Ombudsman with wider powers. It cannot eliminate corruption. At the best it can only put the fear of retribution in the mind of corrupt. Even that is limited because in any corrupt deal, unlike other crimes, both the parties are willingly participating, and therefore chances of complaints or production of evidences are limited. A bribe giver is not likely to complain against a bribe taker.

The round one of the confrontation between Anna Hazare led India Against Corruption and Dr Manmohan Singh led Government of India, has been won by the former. The manner in which the latter and the Delhi Police dealt with the agitation, by taking Anna into preventive custody and subsequently housing him at Tihar jail, has given further impetus to the anger of the constituency that is behind Anna’s movement, the Indian middle class, making them come out on to the streets.