Debate

A parliament is supposed to be the venue of political debate, for issues that affect a nation, its people. Strangely it is not always so. People prefer to protest in parliament and debate outside. I have been witnessing this, in my country India. The issue is the allotment of blocks of land for coal mining. It all started when a constitutional body CAG, Comptroller and Auditor General, reported that it finds the way it was done in the recent past. It resulted in a phenomenal revenue loss to the government, The Government of India, not a very rich country to afford a loss of billions of dollars, perhaps a million billion. The main opposition party is opposing any debate in the parliament for the past one week, as a result parliament has been suspended many times. Today, the Prime Minister decided to give his statement, regarding the allegation. The opposition maintains that it is a case of mega corruption, something that is highlighted time and again nowadays. Now we are indeed witnessing a public debate between the two main political parties of the country. The main opposition party, smartly convened a press conference, that was televised through the nation and countered the statement made by the Prime Minister in the parliament amidst lots of uproar. And countered each and every point made in the Prime Ministers statement. I find it really very educative, I think the younger generation will learn some lessons in Governance, something they seldom learn in the universities. I hope the future governments will be constituted of more capable persons. Not of those who get elected by hook or crook. Yes it might be a transition point for the parliamentary democracy in the country. It better be, people like me are getting sick of the present. I conclude this essay by quoting a paragraph from the article in Wikipedia about Parliamentary Democracy: One of the commonly attributed advantages to parliamentary systems is that it's faster and easier to pass legislation. This is because the executive branch is dependent upon the direct or indirect support of the legislative branch and often includes members of the legislature. Thus, this would amount to the executive (as the majority party or coalition of parties in the legislature) possessing more votes in order to pass legislation. In a presidential system, the executive is often chosen independently from the legislature. If the executive and legislature in such a system include members entirely or predominantly from different political parties, then stalemate can occur. Accordingly, the executive within a presidential system might not be able to properly implement his or her platform/manifesto. Evidently, an executive in any system (be it parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential) is chiefly voted into office on the basis of his or her party's platform/manifesto. It could be said then that the will of the people is more easily instituted within a parliamentary system. In addition to quicker legislative action, Parliamentarianism has attractive features for nations that are ethnically, racially, or ideologically divided. Rakesh Mohan Hallen