RECORD OF DISCUSSION Of Col ANIL KAUL VrC WITH RM: 11 MAR 2015

RECORD OF DISCUSSION Of Col ANIL KAUL VrC WITH                               RM: 11 MAR 2015

Dear Veterans

  

 

 Refer to:

  http://bcvasundhra.blogspot.in/2015/03/meeting-of-iesm-delegation-with-rm-sh.html

 

 

Further to meeting of five member IESM delegation with RM Sh Manohar Parrikar on 2 Mar 15, another member of GB IESM has met RM on 11 March 15 to get fresh inputs on disability pension and progress on OROP file. The report submitted by Col Anil Kaul VrC dated 11 Mar 15 is given below and is also attached for your reference. 

 

 RECORD OF DISCUSSION Of Col ANIL KAUL VrC WITH RM: 11 MAR 2015

I had the occasion to meet the RM today for duration of 45

 

mins in his South Block Office. The COAS was also present.

 

A record of our discussion is appended below.

 

 

Disability Issues:

 

The Hon’ble RM wanted a first-hand account of the effects of disability from a person who had undergone such trauma as against hearing it from other sources. Certain facts were conveyed including citing of personal examples which despite over twenty five years of consideration at various levels remain unresolved. A hard copy of all such issues was handed over to the RM.

 

 

Non-Implementation of Orders of SC/ Non-Issue of

 

Instructions on Disability Related issues of Def Pers including

 

the following: -

 

 

 

 

    (a)    Na-Na Cases

 

    (b)    Less than 20% disability cases

 

    (c)    Disability when on leave

 

    (d)    Broad-banding for those

 

 who superannuated

 

 

    (e)    Broad-banding for those who took voluntary

 

retirement?

 

 

MOD is yet to issue letter for enhanced DP for enhanced

 

pension WEF Sep`12, though case has been taken up by Service

 

HQ. 

 

 

 

Comments of RM:

 

He said that all disability related issues would be taken up appropriately w.e.f. 13 Mar 2015.He assured me that we would soon see the issue of operative letters.

 

 

 

Additional Points: 

 

 A few additional points regarding disability were also discussed with personal examples that would have an effect on the larger disabled environment of the disabled in the Armed Forces. These are enumerated below: -

 

There is no system of post disability trauma onset in any of the

 

 three services including counselling to enable a disabled soldier

 

to start functioning anew albeit with a few parts missing. This

 

needs immediate implementation.

 

 

 

 

There has to be a clear cut divide between those placed in LMC

 

 in normal course and BC’s.  This must percolate down to their

 

employment and functioning. I suggested that for starters at

 

least in the Army suitable disabled officers be posted in the

 

AG’s & MS branches as only a disabled understands the effects

 

of disability. Moreover such actions do not require any

 

elaborate Govt sanctions.

 

 

 

 

 

I submitted that “Constant Attendance Allowance” should be

 

applicable suo moto to anyone with 50% disability especially as

 

after superannuation all manner of physical support available

 

in service ceases. The RMB should be the final authority with

 

the PCDA (P) not having any say in this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Payment of double conveyance allowance, where authorised to

 

disabled personnel should be as matter of course and not based

 

on claims. We are all aware of who authorised Government tpt

 

is and who is not.

 

 

 

All service group Insurances are private entities and should

 

offer disability benefits to BC’s retained in service and who

 

superannuate in the normal course. The funds available are

 

adequate and if necessary and additional levy on premium can

 

cater for this aspect also. To deny this to one segment is a

 

violation of the principle of equality. Notwithstanding what the

 

Govt provides in such cases as that is a part of a service

 

obligation whereas group insurances are private funds meant

 

for this. The RM was appreciative of this logic and even

 

suggested a methodology for the COAS to consider. The RM

 

even mentioned that shortfalls if any could be made up by the

 

MoD. 

 

 

As per AO 17/89 Battle Casualties have the option of taking disability pension as a capitalized value in service. However there is no provision of restoration of such commuted value as in the case of normal pension. Disability is for life and there needs to be a reconsideration of restoring the capitalized value after 15 years, for those who took this option, as in the case of normal pension. A detailed case study is as given below:

Reference AO 17/89.

 

 

 

On Superannuation every service personnel is entitled to service pension. This consists of the service element and the disability element. As a battle casualty I come under the purview of the AO ibid.

 

 

Personal Illustrative Case: 

 

  I am 80% disabled due to battle injuries for life. As per AO 17/ 89 I was, entitled to, as were other BC’s, “War Injury Pay”. As per awards of the 4CPC, this was specified as “percentage of disability equivalent of percentage of pay drawn at the time of injury”. My pay at that point was approximately Rs 4200/- therefore I should have been entitled to 80% of which came to Rs 3360/- pm. This was later amended to “Not more than Rs 1500/- per month allowed for 100% disability due to normal service conditions”. This was to be proportionately reduced for lower percentages. Accordingly I was entitled to Rs 1200/- pm.  A loss of 3360- 1200 = 2160/- As a result BC’s lost out on higher emoluments due to some change that was not noticed by those dealing with such cases. 

 

 

A second provision of the AO was that one could take the capitalized value of this amount in service or await superannuation to get a disability pension.  This was to be calculated for a time period of service to an age and service in the same rank that is in my case a Major. As can be seen I lost out on the following counts: -

 

 

Reduction in overall authorized amount.

 

No consideration for promotion beyond the rank of Major.

No consideration for age applicable beyond the rank of Major.

I was paid such compensation after ten years of my injury. A request for interest on delayed payments was initially rejected till the Delhi High Court gave a ruling in my favour on which CDA (O) paid me the interest in the year 2000, i.e. after thirteen years of my injury and a court case lasting over two years.

 

 

The acerbic language of Army HQ, as a measure of no respect to battle casualties, stated,

 

 “ That the case stands closed and no further discussions would be appreciated”

 

So much for winning a gallantry award and losing your limbs.

 

 

Appeal:

 

 Notwithstanding the above as in the case of commuted value of service element of pension that is restored after a finite period of 13/15 years, similarly the capitalized value of disability pension needs restoration after a suitable period of time. In my case, the capitalized value has been taken for the rank of “Major” superannuation was 50 years that I crossed in Jul 2001 a full four years before superannuating in 2005 in the rank of “Colonel”. Considering that the capitalized value was applicable from 12 Oct 1987 but paid to me in 1996, a total of 25 years have passed and therefore the disability element of pension paid as capitalized value in service now needs restoration, keeping in mind that the disability is for life and as one ages the effects become more debilitating.
(g)  A staff check would show that there would be a handful of such personnel in such a predicament.

 

OROP;

 

The RM gave out the status of OROP as on date. He confirmed that OROP file is progressing as planned and as informed to IESM delegation on 2 Mar 15.  The salient features of which are as follows: -

 

 

 The final document duly cleared by FA (Def) and signed by him is being forwarded to the FM on 11 Mar 15.

 

 The amount worked out remains at Rs 8298 crores for one year.

 

He is planning to meet the Prime Minister and Finance Minister to discuss and get approval of OROP on or around 16 Mar 15.

 

He is making all out efforts to stick to the time schedule as indicated to delegation of IESM on 2 Mar 15. He is hopeful that the OROP notification will be issued by 31 Mar 15 or latest by end April.

 

He confirmed that 86% beneficiaries are JCO’s and OR’s and remaining 14% is for officers, family pensioners and veer naris. Fund allotment is also in the same ratio.

 

There being no other points the meeting was closed.

 

Anil Kaul

Col Anil Kaul, VrC

11 Mar 2015

 

 

 

Regards

Gp Capt VK Gandhi VSM
Gen Sec IESM
Flat no 801, Tower N5

Narmada Apartments

Pocket D6 

Vasant Kunj

Nelson Mandela Marg
New Delhi. 110070
Mobile   09810541222

 

 

 

 

OROP is our right. Dilution in OROP will NOT

 be accepted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NUCLEAR WARFARE : What Would Happen If An 800-Kiloton Nuclear Warhead Detonated above Midtown Manhattan?

Source:
http://thebulletin.org/what-would-happen-if-800-kiloton-nuclear-warhead-detonated-above-midtown-manhattan8023



                                NUCLEAR  WARFARE




                                    [  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCme_K6MYLY ]

Washington, D.C. gets NUKED! (DAY AFTER DISASTER)  

Uploaded on Jul 10, 2011

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                                NUCLEAR  WARFARE


What Would Happen If An 800-Kiloton Nuclear Warhead Detonated above Midtown Manhattan?
                                   BY
    Steven StarrLynn EdenTheodore A. Postol

 

 

 Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit the US less than 30 minutes after being launched. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons; that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT.


What follows is a description of the consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan, in the heart of New York City


THE INITIAL FIRE BALL .

The warhead would probably be detonated slightly more than a mile above the city, to maximize the damage created by its blast wave. Within a few tenths of millionths of a second after detonation, the center of the warhead would reach a temperature of roughly 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius), or about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun. 



A ball of superheated air would form, initiallly expanding outward at millions of miles per hour. It would act like a fast-moving piston on the surrounding air, compressing it at the edge of the fireball and creating a shockwave of vast size and power.



                 AFTER  "ONE" SECOND

After one second, the fireball would be roughly a mile in diameter. It would have cooled from its initial temperature of many millions of degrees to about 16,000 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly 4,000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun. 




                 HURRICANE OF FIRE

On a clear day with average weather conditions, the enormous heat and light from the fireball would almost instantly ignite fires over a total area of about 100 square miles.  



Hurricane of fire. Within seconds after the detonation, fires set within a few miles of the fireball would burn violently. These fires would force gigantic masses of heated air to rise, drawing cooler air from surrounding areas toward the center of the fire zone from all directions.




                       MASSIVE  WINDS



As the massive winds drove flames into areas where fires had not yet fully developed,the fires set by the detonation would begin to merge. Within tens of minutes of the detonation, fires from near and far would join to form a single, gigantic fire.


The energy released by this mass fire would be 15 to 50 times greater than the energy produced by the nuclear detonation.



The mass fire, or firestorm, would quickly increase in intensity, heating enormous volumes of air that would rise at speeds approaching 300 miles per hour. This chimney effect would pull cool air from outside the fire zone towards the center of the fire at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. These superheated ground winds of more than hurricane force would further intensify the fire.

At the edge of the fire zone, the winds would be powerful enough to uproot trees three feet in diameter and suck people from outside the fire into it.



The inrushing winds would drive the flames from burning buildings horizontally along the ground, filling city streets with flames and firebrands, breaking in doors and windows, and causing the fire to jump, sometimes hundreds of feet, swallowing anything not already violently combusting.


These above-hurricane-force ground winds would have average air temperatures well above the boiling point of water. The targeted area would be transformed into a huge hurricane of fire, producing a lethal environment throughout the entire fire zone.





                                     GROUND  ZERO


Ground zero: Midtown Manhattan.

The fireball would vaporize the structures directly below it and produce an immense blast wave and high-speed winds, crushing even heavily built concrete structures within a couple miles of ground zero. The blast would tear apart high-rise buildings and expose their contents to the solar temperatures; it would spread fires by exposing ignitable surfaces, releasing flammable materials, and dispersing burning materials.



WITHIN A HALF SECOND OF THE DETONATION 

At the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building, and St. Patrick's Cathedral, about one half to three quarters of a mile from ground zero, light from the fireball would melt asphalt in the streets, burn paint off walls, and melt metal surfaces within a half second of the detonation.


ROUGHLY ONE SECOND LATER

 [ WITHIN A HALF SECOND OF THE DETONATION ]

Roughly one second later, the blast wave and 750-mile-per-hour winds would arrive, flattening buildings and tossing burning cars into the air like leaves in a windstorm. Throughout Midtown, the interiors of vehicles and buildings in line of sight of the fireball would explode into flames. 


A MILE FROM GROUND ZERO


Slightly more than a mile from ground zero are the neighborhoods of Chelsea, Midtown East, and Lenox Hill, as well as the United Nations; at this distance, for a split second the fireball would shine 10,000 times brighter than a desert sun at noon.  All combustible materials illuminated by the fireball would spew fire and black smoke.


Grass, vegetation, and leaves on trees would explode into flames; the surface of the ground would explode into superheated dust. Any flammable material inside buildings (paper, curtains, upholstery) that was directly exposed to the fireball would burst into flame. The surfaces of the bronze statues in front of the UN would melt; marble surfaces exposed to the fireball would crack, pop, and possibly evaporate.


  "4" SECONDS : ARRIVAL OF BLAST WAVE


At this distance from the fireball, it would take about four seconds for the blast wave to arrive. As it passed over, the blast wave would engulf all structures and crush them; it would generate ferocious winds of 400 to 500 miles per hour that would persist for a few seconds


The high winds would tear structural elements from buildings and cause them to disintegrate explosively into smaller pieces. Some of these pieces would become destructive projectiles, causing further damage. The superheated, dust-laden winds would be strong enough to overturn trucks and buses.



"TWO MILES"  FROM GROUND ZERO


Two miles from ground zero, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with all its magnificent historical treasures, would be obliterated. Two and half miles from ground zero, in Lower Manhattan, the East Village, and Stuyvesant Town, the fireball would appear 2,700 times brighter than a desert sun at noon. There, thermal radiation would melt and warp aluminum surfaces, ignite the tires of autos, and turn exposed skin to charcoal, before the blast wave arrived and ripped apart the buildings.

"THREE MILES TO "NINE  MILES "FROM GROUND ZERO

Three to nine miles from ground zero.

Midtown is bordered by the relatively wide Hudson and East rivers, and fires would start simultaneously in large areas on both sides of these waterways (that is, in Queens and Brooklyn as well as Jersey City and West New York).  Although the direction of the fiery winds in regions near the river would be modified by the water, the overall wind pattern from these huge neighboring fire zones would be similar to that of a single mass fire, with its center at Midtown, Manhattan.


Three miles from ground zero, in Union City, New Jersey, and Astoria, Queens, the fireball would be as bright as 1,900 suns and deliver more than five times the thermal energy deposited at the perimeter of the mass fire at Hiroshima. In Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and in the Civic Center of Lower Manhattan, clothes worn by people in the direct line of sight of the fireball would burst into flames or melt, and uncovered skin would be charred, causing third-degree and fourth-degree burns.


It would take 12 to 14 seconds for the blast wave to travel three miles after the fireball's initial flash of light.  At this distance, the blast wave would last for about three seconds and be accompanied by winds of 200 to 300 miles per hour. Residential structures would be destroyed; high-rises would be at least heavily damaged.


Fires would rage everywhere within five miles of ground zero. At a distance of 5.35 miles from the detonation, the light flash from the fireball would deliver twice the thermal energy experienced at the edge of the mass fire at Hiroshima. In Jersey City and Cliffside Park, and in Woodside in Queens, on Governors Island and in Harlem, the light and heat to surfaces would approximate that created by 600 desert suns at noon.
Wind speed at this distance would be 70 to 100 miles per hour. Buildings of heavy construction would suffer little structural damage, but all exterior windows would be shattered, and non-supporting interior walls and doors would be severely damaged or blown down. Black smoke would effuse from wood houses as paint burned off surfaces and furnishings ignited.



Six to seven miles from ground zero, from Moonachie, New Jersey, to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, from Yankee Stadium to Corona, Queens and Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the fireball would appear 300 times brighter than the desert sun at noon. Anyone in the direct light of the fireball would suffer third degree burns to their exposed skin. The firestorm could engulf neighborhoods as far as seven miles away from ground zero, since these outlying areas would receive the same amount of heat as did the areas at the edge of the mass fire at Hiroshima. 


Nine miles from ground zero, in Hackensack, Bayonne, and Englewood, New Jersey, as well as in Richmond Hill, Queens, and Flatlands, Brooklyn, the fireball would be about 100 times brighter than the sun, bright enough to cause first- and second-degree burns to those in line of sight.


 About 36 seconds after the fireball, the shockwave would arrive and knock out all the windows, along with many interior building walls and some doors.



No survivors. Within tens of minutes, everything within approximately five to seven miles of Midtown Manhattan would be engulfed by a gigantic firestorm. The fire zone would cover a total area of 90 to 152 square miles (230 to 389 square kilometers). The firestorm would rage for three to six hours. Air temperatures in the fire zone would likely average 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (200 to 260 Celsius). 



After the fire burned out, the street pavement would be so hot that even tracked vehicles could not pass over it for days.


Buried, unburned material from collapsed buildings throughout the fire zone could burst into flames when exposed to air—months after the firestorm had ended.  



Those who tried to escape through the streets would have been incinerated by the hurricane-force winds filled with firebrands and flames. Even those able to find shelter in the lower-level sub-basements of massive buildings would likely suffocate from fire-generated gases or be cooked alive as their shelters heated to oven-like conditions.


The fire would extinguish all life and destroy almost everything else. Tens of miles downwind of the area of immediate destruction, radioactive fallout would begin to arrive within a few hours of the detonation.




 NEXT


But that is another story.


Editor's note: This article is adapted from “City on Fire” by Lynn Eden, originally published in the January 2004 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

 



































 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Governance in India: Corruption

Source:
http://www.cfr.org/corruption-and-bribery/governance-india-corruption/p31823?cid=nlc-dailybrief-daily_news_brief--link18-20150311&sp_mid=48201607&sp_rid=YmN2YXN1bmRocmFAaG90bWFpbC5jb20S1




                                                         

                                                                   

 

             Governance in India: Corruption

                         Author: Beina Xu
                   Updated: September 4, 2014

Introduction

With a booming economy throughout the 2000s, India was touted as one of the most promising major emerging markets. But that breakneck growth sputtered to a decade low in 2012, with many observers pointing to the corrosive effect of endemic corruption—including a spate of scandals under former prime minister Manmohan Singh—as a culprit. Perhaps more than India's weak currency and rising inflation, the graft problem has undermined institutions and thwarted efforts to reduce poverty and catalyze sustainable growth in the world's largest democracy. Public revelations of corruption, including major scandals in the telecommunications and coal industry, have galvanized a rising middle class with increased demands for better governance. The tide has spurred new political movements, and forced the government to address transparency and marshal reforms.

The Roots of Corruption

Corruption in India can be traced back to the country's colonial past, analysts say. The British Raj period, beginning in 1858, excluded Indian citizens from political participation by dividing the country into districts with provincial governments controlled by a commissioner. The 1923 Official Secrets Act made it an offense for officials to reveal state information to citizens, ostensibly to protect military and government intelligence.


After India gained independence in 1947, the new regime implemented heavy economic regulations intended to develop domestic markets; the 1951 Industries Act, for instance, required all new industrial operations to obtain a license from the central government. The policy limited foreign investment and stifled competition, and bribery became part and parcel of doing business. The period up to 1991 was dubbed the "License Raj" as a result of the government's excessive oversight of the economy. The poor often suffered most from the widespread corruption, which diverted large amounts of public revenue intended for public works, aid, and social welfare programs.


"Historically, the roots of India's corruption came from the proliferation of licenses," said former CFR Senior Fellow for International Economics Jagdish Bhagwati. "The idea was to ensure economical use of resources, so you would not waste foreign exchanges. To this day, this is what Indians have been very aware of: that the institution of licenses and permits was responsible for creating corruption on a massive scale."


The first major law to combat government malfeasance was the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) of 1947, enacted to prevent officials from cashing in on postwar reconstruction funding. Parliament also established the Anticorruption Bureau in 1961 to investigate violations of the PCA, which has since been amended twice (most recently in 1988). The latest revision was a direct response to the late-1980s Bofors scandal, in which then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and other politicians were accused of receiving large kickbacks in a weapons bid from Swedish arms company Bofors. Many observers considered the scandal to be a main reason the Gandhi-led Congress Party was voted out of power in 1989.


Under the PCA, bribery is punishable by a fine and up to five years imprisonment. But many analysts believe India's sprawling bureaucracy and weak institutions—the police and judiciary were ranked as the second and third most corrupt institutions in India, respectively, after political parties—have thwarted convictions, and arguably increased incentives for bribery. In recent years, graft pervaded society from small-scale "harassment bribes" (payments for essential social services) to scandals on a national level. At least 42 percent of young Indians have paid a bribe, according to a 2012 Hindustan survey.


"There's been corruption in India for thousands of years—it's endemic—but what you see is the kind of corruption changing," says Milan Vaishnav, a South Asia associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "In the past two decades, there's been a shift toward grand corruption: the recent scandals are just qualitatively and quantitatively bigger than anything we've seen. And a big reason for that is India's rapid growth. Growth has expanded the possibilities for rent-seeking."


A 2011 report from KPMG stated that 68 percent [PDF] of India's total illicit capital loss happened after the country's economic liberalization in 1991, indicating that the reform and rise of India's economy has contributed to the transfer of "black money" abroad.

 

A Spiraling Problem

In 2013, India ranked ninety-fourth out of 176 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, alongside Mongolia and Colombia and below neighbors like China and Sri Lanka. The country has steadily slipped since ranking seventy-second of 179 in 2007, when the report debuted. Several recent high-profile scandals have underscored the extent of the problem. In 2010, allegations emerged surrounding the gross misallocation of funds at the Commonwealth Games, which cost almost eighteen times its budget estimate. Reports surfaced of shoddy infrastructure and financial irregularities regarding contracts, and the scandal led to the resignation of two senior Congress Party members and other government officials. The Central Vigilance Commission cited the total misappropriation of funds to be around $1.8 billion.

"There's been corruption in India for thousands of years—it's endemic—but what you see is the kind of corruption changing." —Milan Vaishnav, Carnegie Endowment

Soon after, controversy mired the government again when an auditor's report uncovered a massive telecom scam estimated to have cost the government some $39 billion, making it one of the largest cases of state corruption in Indian history. Telecom minister Andimuthu Raja, accused of orchestrating the sale of licenses below market value, resigned in 2010. (He was arrested in 2011, and was out on bail as of late 2013.) During the affair, outraged opposition parties shut down parliament for three weeks and prompted massive protests in Delhi.


Public anger escalated when the 2012 "Coalgate" scandal, in which an estimated $34 billion was lost, implicated the prime minister himself. The breadth of corruption has even touched the U.S. government, as cables released in 2011 by Wikileaks revealed that a Congress Party aide allegedly showed a U.S. diplomat chests of cash intended as a bribe to secure Parliament's endorsement of a controversial 2008 U.S.-India nuclear deal.

The Fallout From Corruption

Public outrage peaked by the spring of 2011. A social activist named Anna Hazare emerged as a prominent organizer of the anticorruption movement, vowing a "fast unto death" unless the government established a new anticorruption agency (Lokpal) to review complaints at the highest level. Thousands of citizens took to his cause, and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)–led government announced in August that it would form a committee to draft the law. After stalling for months in Parliament, India's lower house finally passed the bill in mid-December 2013 with both Congress and BJP's support, ending Hazare's nine-day hunger strike in a rare show of unity.

"In the end, the corruption in India is of a form that undermines growth in our institutions. It's a very expensive way to be corrupt." —Jagdish Bhagwati, Council on Foreign Relations

Mounting graft has stirred not only domestic worries, but has also tarnished the country's image among international investors. Since 1947, India has lost hundreds of billions of dollars in illegal capital flows (tax evasion, corruption, bribery, kickbacks, etc.), and was ranked 134th of 189 countries in the World Bank's 2014 Doing Business Report. At Davos in 2013, NGOs warned that the hefty investment needed for India's infrastructure development could breed more corruption.


Some experts note that while there isn't necessarily a direct correlation between corruption levels and India's economic health, the nature of the graft has been corrosive to its growth. "The way corruption has been practiced in India has been particularly harmful," says Bhagwati, who contrasts India's rent-creating corruption, which carves out monopolies for cronies, with China's profit-sharing system, which takes an interest in growth. "In the end, the corruption in India is of a form that undermines growth in our institutions. It's a very expensive way to be corrupt."

 

Campaigning for Reform

As India's economy slowed, successive revelations of graft exacerbated public outrage at the inability of the former Congress-led government to mitigate corruption. In turn, the country saw an uptick of anticorruption rhetoric ahead of state elections in November and December 2013. The Aam Aadmi Party, led by activist Arvin Kejriwal, emerged as a new political party that got its start on an anticorruption platform, while the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also emphasized good governance. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who leads one of India's poorest states, Bihar, also won accolades for his success in emphasizing good governance.


"What is new and politically relevant has been, in response to citizen outrage, the rise of parties explicitly focusing on governance," says CFR's Alyssa Ayres. "And most importantly, the transformation of campaigning from a mode that focused on a language of empowerment with an appeal to caste, to one focusing on good governance and delivering services to citizens."


The BJP championed the clean track record of its leader Narendra Modi, whose reform efforts as chief minister of Gujarat, made his home state a key driver of national economic growth, and who went on to win the 2014 national election. Yet corruption remains rife in India's political landscape. In 2012, criminal cases were pending against 31 percent of members of parliament and the legislative assembly. Campaign spending limits are low, driving expenditure underground and fostering reliance on "black money." Many experts also point to Indian voters' complex relationship with corruption; research from a wide range of states finds that political candidates often promote their criminality as an indication of their ability to defend the interests of their communities.



 

Prospects for Progress

India's government has made a few attempts at the federal level to combat corruption. The 2005 Right to Information Act allows citizens to request access to any public record and, if approved, receive it within thirty days. The law, which can penalize noncompliance and requires authorities to digitize records, has been hailed as a pivotal achievement in the fight against corruption. The government is also considering moves to strengthen the national antigraft law [PDF], potentially introducing changes that would punish corporate failure to prevent bribery.

"What is new and politically relevant has been, in response to citizen outrage, the rise of parties explicitly focusing on governance." —Alyssa Ayres, Council on Foreign Relations

An increasingly activist judiciary has also taken a stronger stance against corruption; in early 2011, the Supreme Court asked all trial courts in the country to fast-track corruption cases. The next year, it limited the amount of time the government had to decide whether or not to prosecute a public official for corruption. And in July 2013, the top court ruled that it was illegal for politicians convicted of crimes to continue holding office, although, in a highly controversial move, Singh's cabinet withdrew the decree in October. Modi announced in an August 2014 speech that his government will initiate tough initiatives to battle corruption, likening the problem to a "disease."


Technology has also helped. Some states like Gujarat have implemented online systems for state contract bids, allowing for greater transparency. Others have also put land records and death certificates online, while websites like IPaidaBribe.com expose graft associated with common public services. The government is also devising an electronic ID system, which would allow poor citizens to avoid intermediaries and receive aid directly through a bank account.



But technology can only do so much, says Jennifer Bussell, assistant professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Bussell notes that technology's most important contribution has been granting citizens greater access to information. "Some combination of administrative reforms and local-level technology initiatives to help bring corruption to light—in addition to efforts by organizations like the Comptroller and Auditor General, which is exposing corruption at the highest levels of government—would help. You need all of these things."

Additional Resources

Transparency International India offers statistics and reports about the current state of corruption in India.

Accountability Initiative offers reports and policy briefs using publicly-available data collected from the Right to Information Act.

This CMS India Corruption Study [PDF] breaks down corruption statistics by state and public service.

 

This U4 Anticorruption Resource Center report gives an overview of India's corruption problem and efforts to address reform.

This Fair Observer article asks whether computerization of public service transactions could help curb petty corruption in India.

More on this topic from CFR

• India's Fight Against Corruption
  Author: Jayshree Bajoria

• Corruption Threatens India's Growth
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• Getting Corruption Right
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