The panelists represented the different pillars of the democracy. The discussion was presided over by Vice-Chancellor Prof R C Sobti.

In his opening remarks, the Editor-in-Chief of The Tribune, H K Dua, said he was disappointed with the running of the democracy. “Parliament, the judiciary as well as the executive have been failing people and not been running well. An example of its failure was the Emergency. The Budget is passed in four to five days with little scrutiny. People’s representatives are taking money to ask questions. The administration is callous and indifferent towards the people. There are numerous pending cases in courts. Even the media is not reporting many vital issues,” he said.

On politicians, former Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Rajiv Pratap Singh Rudy said, “A politician is someone who either creates a problem or allows a problem to be created or identifies an existing problem. Then he markets the problem and also creates a demand for himself to solve the problem.” He added, “The entry into politics is not defined. There are not many people willing to enter the field. The system does not accept vacuum and the right sort of people are not entering democracy.”

Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, Ramesh Inder Singh emphasised that for a politician the equity was the votebank. He said, “To maintain this votebank he tries to meet the demands of the voters. When it comes to the executive, the shine goes away from the new entrants to the administrative services and they become a part of the system.”

“Nowhere in the world has the judiciary established a democracy. The judiciary needs democracy as much as democracy needs judiciary. The media should not be playing second fiddle to the judiciary. No one speaks about the judiciary. It is deemed dangerous,” said Anupam Gupta, a lawyer.

The other speakers included Advocate General of Punjab H S Mattewal, Principal Secretary of Punjab D S Bains and Managing Editor of Hindustan Times Pankaj Paul. The discussion was moderated by Prof B S Brar from the Department of Political Science.