New Delhi:
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has condemned the attacks on Team Anna members, Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan.
"There is no place for violence in our democracy. Therefore any act of violence is to be condemned. I am absolutely clear that nothing is gained by pursuit of violence. There are more civilised ways of expressing one's anger and frustration," Dr Singh said on-board the flight back from Pretoria.
(Read: Full transcript of PM's Q&A session)Dr Singh was in South Africa to attend a conference of IBSA (India-Brazil- South Africa) leaders.
The Prime Minister reiterated his government's commitment to a strong and effective Lokpal."I think Anna Hazareji's movement has served its purpose. I think we are all working to ensure that we have in place, before long, an effective Lok Pal Bill in Parliament."
"I think the recent debate over corruption has served itspurpose. It has awakened our country to the harmful consequences of corruptionwhich is eating into the political, economic and social fabric of our societyand our government is committed to all that is necessary to clean up thesystem." he added.
Dr Singh disagreed with a suggestion that corruption is an inevitable fallout of development as similar issues were finding resonance in public protests in other IBSA member countries - Brazil and South Africa. "I can't take that view of complacency. Corruption hurts development processes, corruption hurts the poor, corruption affects the quality of governance. Therefore, I can't say corruption is something which is inevitable in the society," he asserted.
Dr Manmohan Singh also denied suggestions that he had pitched for dilution of Right to Information Act. He maintained that he had never said that there should be any dilution of the Act. "There are certain ways in which things can be done. All I said is that we should reflect how to achieve in totality the purposes for which RTI was set up. I never said we are going to change RTI (Act)," he told reporters.
Dr Singh had last week said the government wishes to make Right to Information an "even more effective instrument" for ensuring transparency but wanted a critical look at it to address certain concerns.
(with PTI inputs)