This is news item published in Economic
Times. It clearly reveals that Corruption is root cause of all evils in India.
Corruption, scandals top concerns for
Indians; jobs for others
PTI Mar 13, 2012, 07.34PM IST
At
a time when people across the world are mostly worried about their jobs, issues
likecorruption and
financial or political scandals are the biggest concerns for Indians,
says a latest survey.
According to the study conducted by global research firm Ipsos, 71
per cent of Indian surveyed said that corruption and financial or political
scandals are their biggest worries.
Terrorism
emerged as the second biggest concern for Indians (38 per cent), followed by
crime and violence (34 per cent) and poverty and social inequality (31 per
cent). As per the survey, these were followed by concerns related to
unemployment and jobs (28 per cent), high tax rate (15 per cent) and healthcare
and education (14 per cent).
Results
from the Ipsos poll, conducted among over 18,000
persons across 24 countries, further showed that globally 49 per cent
respondents termed unemployment and jobs as their biggest concern.This
was followed by concerns over poverty and social inequality, corruption and
financial/political scandals, and crime and violence as the major concerns
globally.
"India
has been rocked lately by a series of corruption scandals that have embarrassed
the government, rattled markets and delayed reform bills as the opposition
stalled parliament and government was busy tackling agitation for strong anti-
corruption Citizens Ombudsmen 'Jan Lokpal' bill lead by Anna
Hazare," Ipsos said.
"The
country, 87th in Transparency International's rankings based on perceived
levels of corruption, is no stranger to scandals, thus it is not a surprise to
see Indians are most worried about corruption and financial or political
scandals," it added.
The
survey found that 45 per cent Indian respondents believe that things in the
country were heading in the right direction currently, which is a big drop of
27 percentage points from a year back when the Indian economy was registering
healthy growth in spite of global slowdown.
"Multiple
high-profile corruption cases in the recent past and regular harassment faced
by ordinary citizen to get a simple job done from various government
departments has dented confidence of Indians in the system and given rise to
deep sense of dissatisfaction," Ipsos said.
News published today on 17th
March 2012 in newspaper called ‘The Hindu’
Survey advocates ‘ruthless' crackdown on corruption
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2999460.ece
With a slew of scams
vitiating the government's policy-making environment and holding up reforms,
the Economic Survey 2011-12 on Thursday advocated need for a ruthless crackdown
on corruption, but cautioned that a large and cumbersome anti-corruption
bureaucracy could impact decision-making.
“While we need to ruthlessly crack
down on corruption, it must, at the same time, be recognised that the fear of a
large and cumbersome anti-corruption bureaucracy can be detrimental to risk
taking and may hamper legitimate activities in public institutions,” it said.
In particular, civil society
activism could lead to delay in the process of final decision-making by civil
servants, it said, while pointing to the country's GDP (gross domestic product)
growth data, which showed a consistent decline from 7.8 per cent in the first
quarter to 6.1 per cent in the fourth quarter this fiscal.
Without referring to the Anna
Hazare campaign for a Lokpal to look into corruption cases, the Survey said:
“Increased awareness of high-profile corruption scandals in different part of
India and welcome civil-society activism” has resulted in “a sense of caution
among civil servants in taking the final decision … this would cause a slowdown
in decision-making.”
The Survey sought to blame
coalition politics and federal considerations in this regard.
The United Progressive Alliance
government had to keep in abeyance its decision to permit foreign direct
investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail following stiff opposition from many
parties, especially its key ally, the Trinamool Congress.
Fear of prosecution
Citing a research paper (authored
by A. Banerjee, S. Cole and E. Duflo) on the Indian banking sector, the Survey
observed that fear of prosecution for corruption resulted in reduced lending in
an affected branch of a public sector bank and its neighbouring branches for
about two years. “In essence, smart policy design needs to be distinguished
from mere procedural tightening and bureaucratic expansion, since the latter,
if not properly thought out, can increase inefficiencies and wastage in public
expenditure and in service delivery,” it said.
Chief Economic Adviser Kaushik
Basu, as chief architect of the Survey, noted that the issue of corruption has
to be fought, but cleverly. “You see [to fight] corruption, you put in
regulation and create a cadre of people who go and try to control that kind of
corruption ... Once you create another group of bureaucracy to control that
corruption, you would probably create another level of different kind of
corruption,” he said and went on to argue that to “tackle corruption you will
have to think [of a] clever way, where you are not making use of very heavy
bureaucracy but little change in regulation, little changes in rules of
regulation, which creates less propensity for corruption.”
The Survey also underscored need
for political leaders and policy-makers to become “role models” of honesty and
integrity, as market economy cannot function if people are totally
self-serving. “If the political leaders and policymakers act as role models in
terms of ... qualities of honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness, that can set
the ball rolling [for better governance],” it said.
Noting that non-economic facets of
life do not get adequate attention, the Survey said: “We ... know that a market
economy cannot function if people are totally self-serving.” Although
self-interest is a major driver of economic growth, “it is important to
recognise that honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness constitute the cement
that binds society.”
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