Indian state empowers poor to fight corruption, By Lydia Polgreen, December 2, 2010, New York Times: “The village bureaucrat shifted from foot to foot, hands clasped behind his back, beads of sweat forming on his balding head. The eyes of hundreds of wiry village laborers, clad in dusty lungis, were fixed upon him. A group of auditors, themselves villagers, read their findings. A signature had been forged for the delivery of soil to rehabilitate farmland. The soil had never arrived, and about $4,000 was missing. The bureaucrat, a low-level field assistant who uses the single name Sreekanth, was suspected of stealing it. ‘I am a very rightful person,’ he declared. But the presiding official would have none of it. He ordered that the money be recovered and that Mr. Sreekanth be promptly disciplined. That simple verdict was part of a sweeping experiment in grass-roots democracy in rural India aimed at ensuring that the benefits of government programs for the poor actually go to the poor. It empowers villagers to act as watchdogs and to perform ‘social audits’ like the one that meted out quick justice to Mr. Sreekanth. Their success or failure could have broad implications for India’s quest to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty…”
Tag: Corruption
Corruption Perceptions Index
- The world’s most corrupt countries, By Mike Blanchfield, October 26, 2010, Toronto Star: “The No. 1 recipient of Canadian taxpayers’ foreign-aid dollars is the second-most corrupt country in the world, a new report says. Afghanistan tied with the military dictatorship in Myanmar as the second-most corrupt country on the planet, according to the yearly audit by the Berlin-based group Transparency International. Somalia won the dubious distinction as most corrupt on the organization’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index. On the least-corrupt scale, Canada inched up to sixth from eighth from a year earlier in the ranking of 178 countries. Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore topped the list as the countries with the most virtuous public sectors…”
- Russia most corrupt among global powers, study says; U.S. ranking also worsens, By Will Englund, October 26, 2010, Washington Post: “Corruption in Russia has grown even more blatant over the past year, according to a report issued Tuesday by Transparency International, and the country has fallen from 146th place to 154th on the organization’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Russia tied with Tajikistan, Papua New Guinea and several African countries, and was ranked most corrupt among the G-20 nations. For the first time since Transparency International began issuing its annual list 15 years ago, the United States dropped out of the top 20 least-corrupt nations, because of financial scandals it has endured. The United States fell from 19th place to 22nd, behind Chile…”
Right to Information Law – India
Right-to-know law gives India’s poor a lever, By Lydia Polgreen, June 28, 2010, New York Times: “Chanchala Devi always wanted a house. Not a mud-and-stick hut, like her current home in this desolate village in the mineral-rich, corruption-corroded state of Jharkhand, but a proper brick-and-mortar house. When she heard that a government program for the poor would give her about $700 to build that house, she applied immediately. As an impoverished day laborer from a downtrodden caste, she was an ideal candidate for the grant. Yet she waited four years, watching as wealthier neighbors got grants and built sturdy houses, while she and her three children slept beneath a leaky roof of tree branches and crumbling clay tiles. Two months ago she took advantage of India’s powerful and wildly popular Right to Information law. With help from a local activist, she filed a request at a local government office to find out who had gotten the grants while she waited, and why. Within days a local bureaucrat had good news: Her grant had been approved, and she would soon get her check…”