It is business as usual in Arvind Kejriwal's organisation -- Parivartan.
It was July 4, when Kejriwal got a call from the Ramon Magsaysay headquarters in Manila informing him that he had won the award but requested him to keep it to himself till it was officially announced.
In recognition to his activating India's right-to-information movement at the grassroots, empowering the poorest of citizens to fight corruption by holding government answerable to the people, Kejriwal was named the awardee for emergent leadership.
The fact that he and his organization -- Parivartan -- are one of the winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2006 has not brought about a change in his personality.
When rediff.com called on him, Kejriwal was talking to social activist Anna Hazare on phone, chalking out the details of his visit scheduled for Thursday.
The former tax officer told rediff.com, "This award does not belong to me. It belongs to each and
every person associated with Parivartan, which stresses upon transparency in public life. This award is for all those who are associated in removing corruption from public life."
"We feel sad that while our efforts are being recognised internationally, our government is trying to put hurdles. I would like to appeal to the government to give one more year to Right to Information Act and strengthen it further," Kejriwal added.
"Initially, we encouraged people to come to us. We handled their work with the concerned organisations. We realised that we were actually doing the job of the middleman. So we decided to do become facilitators and told people to use the Right to Information and get their jobs done without paying anything. At one point, we did a project with the
Indian Express, then we had another called
Ghoos Ko Ghoosa (Fist to bribe) with
NDTV. Many people are now joining us in our fight against corruption," he said.
Thirty eight-year-old Kejriwal hails from Hissar town in Haryana. After serving the Indian Revenue Service for eight years, he went on long leave in the year 2000 to concentrate on Parivartan. He resigned from the IRS few months back.