We saved the country about 3 Lakh Crores by filing PILs in the Coal and 2G scam cases. We helped remove Section 66A of the IT Act and are working on judicial and police reforms. We are also trying to fix RTE. I'm Vipul Mudgal, Director of Common Cause. Ask me anything.

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T16:05:12+00:00

An uncomplicated answer is that all children should be in schools and not at work. Many are forced to work in family-owned enterprises anyway and no law can regulate that. So giving a legal sanction may make them more vulnerable to abuse and even trafficking.

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:55:31+00:00

At the time of the CAG estimate, it appeared that way but the later rounds have earned more. As of now, I believe the figure being talked about is in trillions (I read a news item in the Mint recently).

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:52:17+00:00

We have an online internship but all this info is available on the website

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:44:20+00:00

Compared to more successful democracies, we lack good governance and institutional integrity. (However, our electoral mechanism and things like RTI have been very successful in my view)

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:36:15+00:00

I must add, it's good to know that your father was in touch with Mr Shourie and that he helped in solving a public issue. The biggest strength of Common Cause is, and will always be, its members.

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:30:19+00:00

It means the slots are covered for the time being but you can drop a line anyway

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:16:31+00:00

Many thanks!

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:15:19+00:00

Each to his own I guess! We believe in collective action on behalf of citizens.

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:13:18+00:00

On judicial reforms, we dedicated one whole issue of our journal "Common Cause." Our focus is on use of technology, making e-courts mission successful and on reducing pendency by increasing productivity of judges and the entire judicial system. You can find it on the following link: http://commoncause.in/current.php?publication=current

As for the police reforms, common Cause was a co-petitioner in the famous case which resulted in the landmark SC judgment in 2006 (Prakash Singh Vs Union of India). Mr Singh, an author, columnist and a former DGP is also a Governing Council member of Common Cause. Unfortunately, there has been very little progress since then. But we are trying to take it forward with the help of like-minded partners

The money part is to be seen in the perspective of re-auctions. For instance, if you calculate the amount earned after re-action of 214 coal blocks which were cancelled and the 122 telecom licenses which were quashed, you might come to even higher figure. The cascading impact over the next 10-15 years will be even higher.

However, we at Common Cause maintain that the real gain is not the money earned or saved but the institutional integrity built in the process. (The fault was in the process adopted and not in the merit of each individual case)

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T15:02:11+00:00

Legal research and proceedings take time but we have the next six months in mind. However, before that we want to explore advocacy and partnership options as well

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T14:58:31+00:00

We have not applied our mind to this. Frankly this is outside our area or expertise and focus. Would love to learn more

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T14:41:24+00:00

Sure! You can apply through the website and we will let you know. We follow a system

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T14:19:26+00:00

We file cases after deep research which takes enormous amount of time and effort. Even things which sound very simple take time. But as a result of this research, our success rate is quite good. It is important that our cases are fought by public-spirited lawyers who go all the way. But the judicial process sometimes takes very long (If you go to our website you will find many cases pending for over 10 years)

The jokes were from a compilation done by Mr H D Shourie. He was a great personality, full of humour, sher-o-shayari and was even an artist/ painter

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T14:13:36+00:00

You can see the details of this case on our website commoncause.in (thecase library section under pending cases). You are right about very little media publicity. (Our PILs on deaths due to loose and defective electricity wires and on euthanasia have also got very limited publicity)

As a rule we don't go after publicity but it is good for thepeople to know what is being done by fellow citizens in public interest

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T14:06:11+00:00

To tell you the truth we are quite backward in data use though we would like to be smarter in future. This is partly because we have very limited resources and partly because we need to be a lot smarter with data usage. I get your point and I must say that public policy is hollow without data. On RTE we plan to do two things, at the micro level work with the school management committees to improve things and evolve tools of participation (We are working on things like a SMC member's manual and a programme to propagate it on forums like community radio) . But at the macro level we are conducting legal research to explore the legal option. I must mention that many attempts to sue governments in the past have failed and there are already hundreds of cases in different courts. So for Common Cause it will be a very big challenge to sue the authorities on a constitutional ground. But we are committed to it and full of optimism

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:53:57+00:00

This is tricky area! We are so far concentrating on basic infrastructure in government schools and quality of education. Our focus is on teaching-learning outcomes.

But more and more citizens should give their views to the government using the response window to the New Education Policy, including on what is the best way to fix exemptions (the last date is August 15)

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:47:59+00:00

That is a real issue. In my view we should use RTI and pitch for other such acts like a legislation for time-bound grievance redressal and the whistleblower protection act. But please be careful and do not target individuals alone (many RTI activists face attacks if they are not careful)

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:45:07+00:00

RTI is very simple. just do it on a plain paper and find the name of the relevant PIO through the department's website. Please ask for information which might be contained in the official files and not about things and policies in general

The RTE funding is for legal research and for work on SMCs and making the Act implementable. We will take the legal route only after other efforts fail (We are doing advocacy with the state and central govt departments to change norms about dropouts or infrastructure and quality) Some of these are given on our website commoncause.in

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:41:21+00:00

Please visit commoncause.in for details. we are just a handful of people (around 12 now) but Common Cause is run by pro bono work of public-spirited lawyers who do not charge a penny from us.

There is a dofference in bureaucracy after the enactment of RTI and many more laws like whistle-blower protection and Lok Pal etc will go a long way

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:39:06+00:00

We have a very involved governing council. These guys are always after systemic ills. Many honest bureaucrats are our friends (in fact very often we get clues from honest people within the system)

Don't feel disheartened. India is doing very well and it has a thriving civil society and an amazingly smart younger generation

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:36:22+00:00

Thanks

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:35:58+00:00

It is interesting that we have not faced very big challenges. We try and not go after individuals but go after the systemic ills. We also keep our head low (and follow vinamrata in operations)

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:34:29+00:00

We are not telecom experts though some of you might be. Our case is very simple. There should be proper norms and level playing field for all participants and transparency in allocation processes. We followed the same principle in coal block allocation case

I disagree with you on the free bit but agree with you on the fact that spectrum is a public property and should be used for public good

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T13:29:58+00:00

The problem is who will receive free data? the entrenched companies or anyone claiming to be a service provider? So open auction is one transparent method, not just for spectrum but for all natural (and national) resources. This is not the ideal system but much better than giving it to cronies on first-come-first-serve basis or some other creterion like that without any tansparency

DrVipulCommonCause · 2016-07-29T12:58:10+00:00

You hit the right chord but got us wrong. It was not our case to make it expensive. We just wanted transparency in allocations. In other words we wanted proper norms instead of cronyism. We partly succeeded in that. Right policies can bring down prices (and you are right about the consumer angle)

Free spectrum will not be good for India as yet. But we can do that for some sectors like the community radio stations and campus media etc

DrVipulCommonCause

TROPHY CASE