I was in Beijing a couple of months ago and right from landing at the swish Norman Foster-designed airport—built for the Olympics—it had me marvelling about China’s ability to put up spectacular buildings and enormous infrastructure networks with the ease of a child playing with Lego. As I drove to my hotel—on multi-lane, tree-lined, First World highways—the other part of my brain couldn’t help but compare and cringe about our inability to construct competently. Pictures of half-finished, debris-strewn Commonwealth Games sites and the dug out, tangled up roads went through my head.

Corruption is the game spoiler in India—that’s the broad tune we have been humming collectively as a nation, as we watch overpriced treadmills and toilet paper turn into mascots of greed gone berserk. But I have been wondering how China, which too has record levels of corruption, manages to host a magnificent Olympic Games, and in the process build iconic structures such as the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. China and India are neck and neck on corruption measures—Transparency International ranks China at No. 79 and India at No. 84, with a Corruption Perception Index score of 3.6 and 3.4 respectively. Chinese politicians and bureaucrats are up to the same hanky-panky as ours, and evidently to the same shameful extent.

Taking corruption out of the running will be a blessing—and a much-needed moral victory—but that in itself won’t deliver a dazzler of a show. China is a winner, despite endemic corruption, because it has three essential enablers that we don’t—it aims higher, it implements faster, and it plays stronger.

Aims higher

China has “satellite vision” whereas we tend to have “in the well” vision. China scans the world to see what is “best” and then sets out to better it. Take the high-speed train network that it is putting in place—when it is finished in 2020 it will be the world’s largest, fastest, and most technologically sophisticated. I had a taste of it: I took the train from Beijing to Tianjin (something like Mumbai to Pune)—also built ahead of the Olympics—and sat in wonder as the speed reached 300-plus kmph, zipping through the 117km distance in half an hour flat. What was equally compelling was the ease with which huge numbers of passengers were processed—it felt like an enormous airport, run so efficiently that even without speaking a word of Chinese I had an incredibly smooth experience right from buying the ticket in Beijing to getting into a taxi at the other end in Tianjin.

The stadiums built for the Olympics are another example of China’s better-than-the-best mindset. The Bird’s Nest isn’t just another stadium—it is a masterpiece on a global scale, utterly modern and unmistakably Chinese at the same time, an instant icon that always makes me smile. The Beijing Water Cube is another stunner. The best architects in the world put in their best effort for the Chinese Olympic structures—Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron won the prestigious Lubetkin award for the Bird’s Nest; Australian firm PTW Architects (for the Water Cube) and Foster and Partners (for the Beijing airport) were finalists for the same award. Contrast this to what we have made for the Commonwealth Games—even if you set aside the implementation snafus, the vision itself is limited, the aim being simply to have something better than what we had before. How can you dazzle when you aim so low?

Implements faster

This is probably our greatest pain point and China’s shining strength. While our Games preparation is in the hopeless scramble phase, the Chinese were so far ahead of schedule with their Olympic preparations that the International Olympic Committee had to urge them to take it easy. “We had to persuade the Chinese to slow down on their schedule,” Kevan Gosper, vice-chairman of the Olympic Coordination Commission, was quoted as saying in October 2006. Despite the slowdown, the Water Cube was delivered and tested with a national event in January 2008, a good six months before the Olympics start date. The Bird’s Nest was inaugurated in June 2008. All 31 games venues were finished in good time, even the polluted skies of Beijing were cleaned up, and the city itself was dressed up like a bride for her wedding.

Plays stronger

It is finally about the games, the performance of the players, that’s what gets a nation’s pulse racing. While we struggle to put an occasional athlete on the world map, China has steadfastly built its sporting prowess with remarkable results. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, China ranked 11th with 28 medals; four years later at Barcelona it pole-vaulted to No. 4 with 54 medals; at Sydney it was up to No. 3, bagging 58 medals, 28 of them gold; at Athens it advanced to No. 2, 63 medals in its kitty, 32 gold; and then it put on a breathtaking show on home turf: a haul of 51 gold medals, the highest in the Games, although its total medal tally of 100 was behind the US’ 110. China can clearly build more than physical infrastructure.

Is China perfect? Not by a long shot—the recent 10-day traffic jam near Beijing is a case in point. It struggles with developmental issues just like us, but by using the “aim higher, implement faster, play stronger” principle, it has managed to get streets ahead.

Closer home, the Indian Premier League is a vivid example of the aim-higher-implement-faster-play- stronger principle. Was the IPL a spectacular show? Yes. Was it clean? Doesn’t seem so.

Exactly my point—killing corruption is necessary, but not sufficient. Faster, higher, stronger—the Olympic motto—that’s what we really need to embrace. And build an India that we can truly be proud of.

Radha Chadha is one of Asia’s leading marketing and consumer insight experts. She is the author of the best-selling book The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury. Write to Radha at luxurycult@livemint.com

http://www.livemint.com/2010/09/02200624/China-vs-India-our-Games-the.html?h=B

Related posts:

1. Failings of Indian infrastructure
2. CVC checks all Games projects for Corruption
3. Commonwealth Games | Kalmadi fires officer appointed by PMO

Government is preparing a new Company bill, which will check out several other companies such as Satyam, said Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Salman Khurshid.

Khurshid clearly stated that government with the new bill does not want to dominate the country’s industries but they just want to pull back corruption from Indian industries.

“We do not want to enter the boardroom of corporates, but they also should be mindful of their responsibilities. We will be happy with little control,” said the minister.

Mentioning about the Bhopal gas row, Khurshid said that the government is concerned about the role of promoter directors, CEOs and independent directors in case of criminal acts.

The Company Bill, which is expected to be presented before the Parliament in the winter session in 2010, will contain some reflection from Satyam incident.

“Handling of the Satyam case has given India a higher standing in the world. Learning from Satyam will be reflected in the Bill,” stated Khurshid.

http://news.oneindia.in/2010/09/03/new-co-bill-to-check-indian-corporate-corruption.html

Related posts:

1. Indian political scandals thru the ages!
2. 7 Recent High Profile Corruption scandals to rock India
3. The Good and Bad of Indian Corruption

Gone are the long snaking queues in sweaty air smelling of insecticide and worse: You can now get through immigration and customs in air- conditioned bliss at least as quickly as in Singapore, faster than in Hong Kong and far faster than in London, New York or Washington with their crumbling Third World infrastructure and officials with the charm of a fourth world dictatorship.

Then you go outside and meet the real India, whose infrastructure is failing.

Much of New Delhi and its hinterland of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh resembles a sprawling construction site, perhaps evidence that India is finally trying to get to grips with its poor roads, slow railways and inefficient ports. Indeed, the government of Manmohan Singh plans to spend $1 trillion between 2012 and 2017 and to raise its investment in infrastructure from 4 percent to 9 percent of GDP.

Not soon enough: India is among the world’s worst for infrastructure, 89th out of 133 in overall infrastructure according to the World Economic Forum; 89th for road quality; 90th for ports, where the turnaround time for ships is 3.85 days, compared with 10 hours in Hong Kong; 65th for air transport; and 106th for quality of electricity supply. No Indian city receives water for 24 hours a day.

China has 3.75 million kilometers of highways, but India, though it has a slightly lower number of roads, has only 67,000 kilometers of highways. China has 854 gigawatts of installed power capacity; India just 150 gw. China adds 50 to 60 gw to power capacity each year; India just 8 to 10. China has 86,000 kilometers of railway track; India 63,000.

In steel capacity, China is way ahead of India, with 620 million metric tons per annum against 57 million metric tons. And in cement capacity, China’s 1.2 billion metric tons outscores India’s 270 million metric tons.

Bare numbers don’t tell the whole story. Only 25 percent of India’s highways are two- or four-lane, and almost 90 percent of highways are structurally inadequate to support truckloads of more than 10.2 tons.

All the evidence indicates that things in India will get worse in spite of the government’s promises unless there are major changes in policy and in practice.

Remorseless pressure is increasing, ironically from rapid economic growth. India’s 7.5 percent growth rate is imposing new strains on old resources. Poor roads means that up to 50 percent of perishable goods actually perish before they get to market. Better infrastructure would mean India could grow at double digits. Each year, too, India’s urban population is increasing as migrants flock to the city slums, driven by the lack of opportunities in the villages and the lure of jobs in the growing economy.

Some pundits believe that India will become an overwhelmingly urban country in the next few decades and thus urge planning for proper infrastructure. Skeptics and Gandhian opponents say that’s a colonial view, as it goes against the traditions and culture of village India.

One test is the Commonwealth Games, due to open in October and intended as a sort of coming-of-age celebration for India, as the Olympics were for Seoul and Beijing and the World Cup was for South Africa. The New Delhi Commonwealth Games have cost a record $7.5 billion; by comparison, the 2002 Manchester games cost a mere £300 million, including building the stadium that is now Manchester City’s home ground.

The Delhi games have become a byword for chaos, waste, inefficiency and corruption. There is also corruption in China, but as one of my Indian friends remarked, China seems to produce corruption as well as competence and efficiency, but in India it is corruption and inefficiency.

In India, there is the democratic deficit. When you are elected, the spoils of power are at your disposal, and with the shining honorable exception of Prime Minister Singh, too many Indians have been too quick to seize the perks of power.

There is a failure to comprehend the size of the task. New Delhi friends point to the successful completion of the Metro. But a city of Delhi’s size needs not one but 12 to 20 lines like the Metro.

India has not geared up for the 20th century, let alone the 21st. Much work on Indian construction sites is being done by the human headload. Preparations last month for roadwork in an upmarket Delhi suburb saw four men squatting to chop bricks with a small hammer to lay the foundations. Nothing observed at Delhi’s construction sites matched Pudong’s more than a decade ago. There, cement mixers waited in almost balletic precision ready to pour their contribution to building China.

Above all there is the human deficit; no one cares beyond their own space. Four hours before departure from Terminal 3, signboards announced that check-in had commenced, but the rows of desks were empty. An American Airlines clerk snarled that he knew nothing, the information desk knew nothing, the airport owners desk said it only follows the rules, and a massive Star Alliance desk said, “We are Air India, go to airport information.”

The vast central concourse had no seats. Three weeks after T3 had opened, the two coffee shops and bookshop had not. For entertainment, two pigeons raced up and down under the roof.

T3 security retains the old insecure touches. You and your hand baggage — strictly one piece only — have to pass through the standard detectors, now state of the art, and then undergo a patdown check. But five meters on, you are challenged by a another security official, whose job is to check that your hand baggage has been officially stamped.

At the aircraft door, other security goons stand ready to check that you have collected enough stamps to be allowed on board — from immigration and customs on the boarding pass and from security on the hand baggage tag.

© Kevin Rafferty was executive editor of the Indian Express newspaper group.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100903a1.html

Related posts:

1. The Good and Bad of Indian Corruption
2. New Company bill to check Indian corporate corruption?
3. 7 Recent High Profile Corruption scandals to rock India

Information available on http://cvc.nic.in/pn0709.pdf

Related posts:

1. CVC checks all Games projects for Corruption

The “Tata Tapes” controversy was a political scandal in India that was the culmination of a series of allegations of anti-national conduct levied by the then Chief Minister of Assam, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, against the Tatas – their company Tata Tea in particular.[1] The controversy erupted when journalist Ritu Sarin of the Indian Express broke a story that involved the illegal tapping of the telephone calls of business tycoon Nusli Wadia and published, on October 4-5 1997, transcripts of the telephone conversations he had with Keshub Mahindra, Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw, then Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Jayant Malhoutra and Ratan Tata about Tata Tea’s problems with the Assam Government.

History

In the 1990s, the banned terror outfit United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was extremely active in Assam, and had been extorting money from tea companies to fund its activities. That most companies were paying up in fear was a well known fact. But Tata Tea never did, and this was confirmed by ULFA Commander-in-Chief Paresh Baruah in an interview published by Rediff.com, though according to Baruah, they did pay a ransom of INR ten million in 1993 to secure the release of their regional manager Bolin Bordoloi from the clutches of another banned terror outfit – National Democratic Front of Bodoland, something Tata Tea executive director S M Kidwai denied.

During 1997, the ULFA and Bodo militants were involved in many terror attacks and other militant activities, the biggest ones being the failed assassination attempt by ULFA on Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, head of the government of Assam formed by the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) party, and the murder of social activist Sanjay Ghose by ULFA. And this last incident received wide publicity and focused attention on the deteriorating law and order condition in Assam, threatening the very survival of the Mahanta government; his previous government had been dismissed in 1990 in similar circumstances.

Before the assembly elections that brought the AGP back to power, Mahanta had visited Calcutta to raise funds for his party, and the tea companies had not responded well to the demand; Tata Tea in particular had refused to pay.

Pranati Deka’s arrest

On August 23, 1997, Pranati Deka, central committee member and cultural secretary of ULFA was arrested with her baby at Mumbai’s Santa Cruz airport along with two accomplices. A visiting card belonging to a senior Tata Tea executive was recovered from one of the accomplices. According to the police, Brojen Gogoi, a senior manager with the Community Development and Social Welfare wing of the company, had accompanied Deka to Mumbai for child-birth, and the cost of medical treatment and lodging – amounting to INR 50,000 was paid by Tata Tea. The company said that it was not aware of Deka’s identity, something Baruah confirms, and that the expenses were borne under a special medical aid scheme they had initiated in 1997 for the people of Assam.

The Assam police interrogated Tata Tea executives SS Dogra (General Manager), SN Kidwai (Executive Director), and Krishna Kumar (Managing Director), and arrested Dogra for “for aiding and abetting unlawful activities of the banned organisation ULFA and knowingly conniving with those who are waging a war against the state.” Since Gogoi had accompanied Deka, the police were also looking for him. Gogoi had been to Harvard on a study trip and checked into a company guest house in Calcutta after returning to India on September 6, when he came to know that he was wanted by the police, and on September 11, shifted to Hotel Rutt Deen where he registered under his own name. A couple of days later, Tata Tea officials became aware of an Interpol alert issued for Gogoi. On September 15, Tata group head Ratan Tata, and Tata Tea head Krishna Kumar met Chief Minister Mahanta in Delhi, and told him that Gogoi was abroad. Noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani wrote a letter to Mahanta confirming the same-
“ “It is true that the Managing Director Krishna Kumar and Ratan Tata, the Chairman, saw you on 15th September at Assam House (in New Delhi). They were told that Dr Brojen Gogoi was required by the police. But your Chief Secretary [V.S. Jafa] kept saying that he knew what Gogoi was doing in Chicago.

Now, Gogoi had gone to Harvard for a training course which ended in August and was on leave up to 15th September. He had not reported for duty and your visitors did not know on that day that Gogoi had already arrived in India. Even if they had some inkling, they would not dare contradict your Chief Secretary who affirmed that he was in the US (and that) Interpol was after him and he would be arrested the moment he lands in India. They made no false statement to you. They stated what they honestly believed at that time. It is their subsequent discovery that Dr Gogoi was already in India and had used their guest house which was entitled to do without reporting to anyone.”
”

On September 16, Gogoi admitted himself into the Woodland’s Nursing Home in Calcutta, and contacted Tata Tea on the 18th. He surrendered to the police on the 24th.

The “Tata Tapes”

The tapes that Ritu Sarin accessed contained conversations between Nusli Wadia and many political and industrial heavyweights, and showed that the Tatas were trying to get the central government to intervene in their problems with the Assam Government. Mahanta had met the Indian Prime Minister I K Gujral and had complained to him about the Union Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah’s interference in the matter. The tapes also seemed to suggest that the Tatas knew Gogoi’s whereabouts (he had stayed at the company guest house before moving to a hotel and then a nursing home) and had lied to the Assam government about not knowing his location. But that was denied by the group as also Ram Jethmalani.

The identity of the persons involved in tapping Wadia’s telephones remained a mystery. The Central government denied it had anything to do with it – the Intelligence Bureau works under the Home Secretary – Padmanabhaiah. He demanded a probe into the illegal phone tapping and said in a telephonic interview to the Indian Express-
“ “Prima-facie, I can say that we have no hand in the tapping. The Intelligence Bureau has not done it. The IB can not tap a telephone unless I permit. Therefore, the issue to be investigated is who is tapping the telephones of these private persons and why somebody is infringing on their privacy.

And the Indian government ordered a probe into the matter.

Aftermath

The United Front government at the Centre collapsed in November 1997, and Mahanta made peace with the tea industry but lost the state elections in 1998.

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Tapes_controversy

Related posts:

1. It pays to be a chief minister’s aide in Jharkhand

The Indian media, a pillar of the country’s vibrant democracy, is riddled with corruption that sees journalists report stories for cash in a phenomenon known as “paid news,” a probe has revealed.

The findings of an investigation for the Press Council of India, seen by AFP but yet to be released publicly, throw a damning light on an industry that is meant to serve as a bulwark against corruption in other areas of public life.

Regional newspapers in vernacular languages are the biggest culprits but their national English language counterparts do not escape criticism and the venerable Times of India group is also in the firing line.

“This malpractice has become widespread and now cuts across newspapers and television channels, small and large in different languages and located in different parts of the country,” the report concludes.

The detailed 70-page study, prepared by two senior investigative journalists for the Council, lists testimony from leading journalists and politicians, as well as examples of suspect reports.

In its worst form, “paid news” sees newspapers present a rate card to political candidates who must pay a set amount for coverage for themselves or critical coverage of their opponents.

Former civil aviation minister Harmohan Dhawan is quoted describing his experience in 2009 of contesting a seat in the state of Punjab when he had calls from the Hindi-language Dainik Jagran and the Punjab Kesri newspapers.

“A representative of Dainik Jagran came to me 20 days before the election and clearly told me: ‘If you want coverage in this election, you have to buy a package’,” he said.

He turned down the offers. Various politicians quoted in the report said they had been offered packages by newspapers ranging from 1,000 dollars to 20,000 dollars.

In southern Andhra Pradesh state, journalist unions have estimated the size of the illicit market at 70-220 million dollars.

“I felt that newspapers would cover large election rallies … but the rallies that were conducted on my behalf were not mentioned in these newspapers,” Dhawan continued.

A manager from the Jagran group called repeated allegations against his company “rumours spread by lost candidates in frustration.”

In other cases, the report cites examples of how some newspapers routinely run political advertising as news stories without clearly indicating that the story has been written by the media team of a candidate.

In southern Maharastra state, identical articles appeared in three Marati newspapers in October last year headlined “Young, dynamic leadership” praising the chief minister of the state, Ashok Chavan.

Chavan replied that these were press releases that had mistakenly made their way past copy editors at the publications.

In addition to planted stories, there are also conflicts of interests that have built up in the Indian media business after the introduction of something called “private treaties.”

The practice was pioneered by the publishers of the Times of India which began taking stakes in companies from 2005 in exchange for advertising space in its outlets.

At the end of 2007, the company had investments in 140 companies in aviation, media, retail and entertainment, the report said, compromising its ability to report independently on these groups.

“When you do not disclose these interests then the whole issue of conflict of interest becomes important,” one of the authors, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, told AFP.

“What the reader or viewer does not know is that you have a financial relationship and have a vested interest in the share of the companies going up.”

Examples of dubious entertainment, society or product news being passed off as independent reporting have existed for a long time, says Thakurta, but it is the advent of political “paid news” that is most pernicious.

“When paid news enters the political realm then you are undermining the election process and therefore undermining democracy itself,” he said.

The consequences are unfair election results and plummeting trust in the media.

In a survey cited in the report conducted by Reader’s Digest in March of this year, journalists were ranked 30 out of 40 on a list of trusted professions — next to barbers and bus drivers.

The probe has been presented to the Press Council, which is currently debating how much of it to make public.

http://blogs.afp.com/?post/2010/05/05/Investigation-shows-how-corruption-undermines-Indian-media

Related posts:

1. Corruption In India: A Billion Dollar Industry
2. Will Growth Slow Corruption In India?
3. Great article on corruption in India

The striking though well known findings of the report points out that close to half the bribes are requested by the Government Officials both at the state and national level.The same government personnel who are entrusted with the development of the nation are filling their own pockets.No wonder then the nation’s politicians are the most corrupt lot.

However, it it was only for the petty money minded officials filling their own pockets, the enormity of the bribery might be restricted to a certain level.What if corruption takes the shape of a billion dollar behemoth.According to Management Guru C.K.Prahalad , the cost of corruption to the country might as well exceed Rs. 250,000 crores.

The total spending for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections is pegged at a whopping Rs. 10,000 crore.The breakup of this spending throws up some interesting insights too.

* Rs. 1,300 crore (Rs 13 billion) by the Election Commission
* Rs. 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) by the Centre and state governments
* Rs. 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) were spent by political parties and individual candidates

8000 crore spent by political parties and individual candidates ? Where do they get hold of this kind of money to spend. Again, it comes as a no brainer that it is hugely attributed to the Private Funding that political parties attract from big pocket industrialists.The reasons why private spending of this scale happens again is rather simple Favourtism.It is a well known fact that government support is crucial for industries small and large.One favourable swing in a huge tender or a favourable policy, and all the benefits can be reaped.

C.K.Prahalad fitting compares politicians with Venture Capitalists

Given the risky nature of the investments in elections, politicians as venture capitalists, we can assume, will not settle for less than a 10-fold return.

More than spending by individuals and political parties, what i fail to understand is , Why is a 10,000 crore rupee spend needed for carrying out Elections.There can be infrastructure and operational costs, but they can never amount to such alarming numbers.

Now, when the government is well aware of crores of amount spent on election campaigns and product like advertisements with politicians selling themselves door to door, why cant regulations be implemented to stop all this waste of money.Why cant the regulatory bodies impose a maximum cap on the amount spent on election campaigns failing which the political party is banned to contest.However, accountability is something that leaves a lot for asking and barring which none of the measures to put a stop to corruption can reap rewards.

It is embarrassing that billions of dollars are being spent on electing leaders who do nothing more than succumbing to taking bribes after getting elected.

The gory facts are for everyone to see but then a solution as usual is not in sight. Can you think of a possible solution to this massive problem? Do share your thoughts.

http://trak.in/tags/business/2010/01/16/corruption-in-india-a-billion-dollar-industry/

Related posts:

1. An Essay: Corruption in India
2. Great article on corruption in India
3. Corruption in India

1900s

* Telecom scam (Sukh Ram)
* HDW Submarine
* Bitumen scam
* Tansi land deal
* JMM Bribery Scandal
* St Kitts case
* Urea scam
* Anantnag transport subsidy scam
* 1971 Nagarwala scandal
* Fodder scam
* 1975: Declaration of Emergency
* Churhat lottery scam

1990s

* Bofors Scandal (1990)
* Animal Husbandry Case (1990)
* Bombay Stock Exchange Manipulation & Fraud by Harshad Mehta (1992)
* Hawala scandal (1993)
* Bangalore – Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (1995)
* Sukh Ram (1996)
* Fodder Scam in Bihar (1996)
* Kerala SNC Lavalin power scandal (1997)
* [Countless Corruption and Illegal Money Sources], [Karunanidhi, DMK chief]—-Still some cases are running in court

2000s

* Ketan Parekh Scandal, Barak Missile Deal Scandal, Tehelka Scandal (2001)
* Army-Coffins Scandal, MIG-Fighter Jets
* Taj corridor case (2002–2003)
* Telgi scandal (2003)
* Nitish Katara Murder Case (2004)
* Oil-for-food programme scam (Natwar Singh) (2005)
* Jessica Lal case (2006)
* Human Trafficking Scam involving Babubhai Katara.
* Cash-for-votes scandal
* Satyam scandal.
* [[Jharkhand robbery, Hawala transactions and secret bullion trade]],[Madhu Koda][2009]
* Madhu Koda:laundering money worth over Rs. 4000 crores.
* Common Wealth Games Scam:Illegal funds transfer in UK banks.

To get some more details on these scams, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_political_scandals

Related posts:

1. 7 Recent High Profile Corruption scandals to rock India
2. New Company bill to check Indian corporate corruption?
3. The Good and Bad of Indian Corruption

This discovery was made by Hindustan Times after accessing certain documents using the RTI Act which showed that the country’s oldest IIT — started in 1951 — blocked 25 per cent of its seats in popular five-year integrated science courses (up to M.Sc level) for handpicked nominees, even as IIT aspirants had to struggle to clear the IIT-JEE for admission.

Other things which came to light were that those who got admission under this quota between 2003 and 2005 did not even need to appear for the entrance exam.

However, due to pressure the Joint Admission Board of all IITs, which organises entrance examination, and the launch of RTI Act, this illegal quota got abandoned.

As per a report in Hindustan Times, the documents revealed that this premier institute admitted 88 students through the secret quota between 1998 and 2005, including 50 in 2003 and 2004. The quota was never revealed in admission brochures — unlike all other reservations for backward communities that the IITs have.

Describing it as the most shameful chapter in the history of IITs, a former IIT Kharagpur director said, “I knew about the existence of this practice and tried convincing colleagues to end the quota, but failed.”

People like Director of IIT Bhubaneswar and the organising chairman of the IIT-JEE in 2006 have benefited from this quota.

http://jee.learnhub.com/news/1342-iit-kharagpur-gave-admission-to-children-of-staff-illegally?src=lh-nl-pg-aj-data-unreg-aug1&utm_source=lh-unreg-emails-pg-aj-data&utm_medium=mailer&utm_campaign=lh-nl-pg-august&utm-content=top-story-read-more

No related posts.

On the other hand, entrenched practices may prove the stronger force, and corruption could end up being a significant brake on India’s economic rise.

The License Raj and the Spoils System

One strand in the knot of corruption is the legacy of the License Raj, which ended in the early 1990s. The system created bureaucracies that were all but self-perpetuating. In a context where government workers were routinely underpaid, graft became an industry all its own. Civil servants were, and remain, anything but disinterested administrators.

Wharton management professor Jitendra Singh and Ravi Ramamurti, professor of international business at Northeastern University, have been studying the emergence of multinational corporations in emerging economies such as India. In late June, they organized a conference on this topic in Boston; the conference’s papers will form the core of an edited volume which is planned for publication in 2008.

“In the bad old days,” Singh said in an interview, “particularly pre-1991, when the License Raj held sway, and by design, all kinds of free market mechanisms were hobbled or stymied, and corruption emerged almost as an illegitimate price mechanism, a shadowy quasi-market, such that scarce resources could still be allocated within the economy, and decisions could get made.

“Of course, this does not in any way condone the occurrence of such corruption. The shameful part of all this was that while value was captured by some people at the expense of others, it did not go to those who created the value, as it should in a fair and equitable system.”

The real failing, he said, “was a distortion of incentives within the economy, such that people began expending efforts toward fundamentally unproductive behaviors because they saw that such behaviors could lead to short-term gains. Thus, cultivating those in positions of power who could bestow favors became more important than coming up with an innovative product design. The latter was not as important, anyway, because most markets were closed to foreign competition–automobiles, for example–and if you had a product, no matter how uncompetitive compared to global peers’, it would sell.

“These were largely distortions created by the politico-economic regime. While a sea change has occurred in the years following 1991, some of the distorted cultural norms that took hold during the earlier period are slowly being repaired by the sheer forces of competition. The process will be long and slow, however. It will not change overnight.”

The costs of corruption are manifest in various parts of the economy. Inadequate infrastructure, of course, is widely recognized as a serious impediment to India’s advancement. Producing valuable goods is of limited utility if they cannot be transported in a timely fashion, for example. Transparency International estimates that Indian truckers pay something in the neighborhood of $5 billion annually in bribes to keep freight flowing. “Corruption is a large tax on Indian growth,” Ramamurti said in an interview after the conference. “It delays execution, raises costs and destroys the moral fiber.”

Corruption also cripples the effort to ameliorate poverty in India and to improve the country’s stock of “human capital.” The rate at which this happens varies tremendously from region to region. Edward Luce, for example, author of In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India, notes that “Rates of theft vary widely from state to state in India, with the better states, such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu, getting more than 80% of subsidized government food to their poor. Meanwhile, in the northern state of Bihar, India’s second poorest with a population of 75 million, more than 80% of the food is stolen.”

Indian MNC’s as Change Agents

“A few Indian companies,” Ramamurti said, “such as the Tata group or Wipro, have taken the high road, but most firms find it impossible to get anything done without greasing palms.” Wipro, headed by Azim Premji, is India’s third-biggest global tech services provider (behind Tata Consultancy Services (other-otc: TACSF – news – people ) and Infosys).

In Bangalore Tiger: How Indian Tech Upstart Wipro Is Rewriting the Rules of Global Competition, business journalist Steve Hamm writes that “Wipro is not just a company, it’s a quest.” That quest, according to some observers, is as much about moral rectitude as it is about business success. For example, according to Hamm, the company pays no bribes and has a zero tolerance policy for corruption.

“The paradox,” Ramamurti said, “is that even though India’s faster growth in recent years is the result of fewer government controls, most Indian managers would tell you that corruption has increased, not decreased, in tandem.

“How could this be? The explanation is that faster growth has created new choke points at which politicians and bureaucrats can extract payments, such as land regulation, spectrum allocation or college admissions–all of which have become much more valuable in [this century]. Faster growth has also raised the economic cost to firms of delays in public approvals, giving officials that much more ‘hold-up’ leverage over private investors.”

The Benefits of an Open Society

One of the inevitable comparisons in any story on rapidly developing economies is that between India and China. China has endured a spate of bad news in recent months regarding the impact of corruption and shoddy oversight on the quality of exported products–from cold medication that killed dozens of people in Latin America to toxic toothpaste to children’s toys coated in lead-based paint.

If China’s initial response was to attempt to characterize much of this as a Western conspiracy against Chinese products and businesses, officials were rather quickly goaded into taking serious action. In July, the government executed Zheng Xiaoyu, who headed China’s State Food and Drug Administration from 1997 to 2006.

“The good news in India, compared with China,” said Ramamurti, “may be that at least the most egregious forms of corruption are exposed by social activists or the media.” A more open society, by definition, provides more avenues for oversight, more empowered constituencies to ferret out and disseminate the truth when things go wrong.

“One big difference,” Singh added, “comes in the form of the legal system. In India, a firm can sue the government and win, which may not be as easy in China. Also, the public at large is much more vocal and active in India. Any group can file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against a firm, which will frequently get heard in court.

“Also, it is the case that corporate governance is stronger in India, on average, due to better disclosure and Securities and Exchange Board of India regulatory guidelines. This [is true] even though there are some fine Chinese firms, and some quite poorly governed Indian firms.”

Singh ticked off a quick list of additional cultural factors that are to India’s advantage: “A fierce–arguably sometimes to the point of being irresponsible–media, both the press and TV; a legal system descended from British Common Law like the U.S. which, while hardly perfect, does work reasonably well; [the existence of] certain rights … such as freedom of speech; strong links with the global economy through, though not solely due to, the non-resident Indian (NRI) community which provides global exposure; and a facility with English which makes for easier integration into the global economy.”

As in other countries, however, there is the nagging problem of money corrupting the electoral process and thereby short circuiting, or at least slowing, reform. “The business community and the public at large would welcome a reduction in corruption,” Ramamurti said, “but neither believes this will come to pass. Corruption is endemic in daily life, from things minor to major, and it has become the primary means of funding election campaigns.”

“The really serious problem here,” Singh stated, “is that the prevalence of corruption in the Indian economy may well have distorted cultural norms within the society. Yet I am also aware of countervailing forces, so I do not want to overstate the case.

“But to the extent that change in cultural norms will be needed to root out corruption, it will take a persistent, long, drawn-out effort. While economic change is easier to achieve, cultural change is much slower and more difficult. This is compounded by the rearguard actions of those who are beneficiaries of the status quo.”

Some Improvement; Some Distance Yet to Go

Transparency International monitors corruption globally and puts out an annual report which it refers to as the Global Corruption Barometer. The most recent figures from 2006 provide an interesting perspective on how Indians see progress in the area of corruption.

“Indians report a substantial reduction in the perceived level of corruption in a number of sectors,” according to the most recent report. “Improvements encompass education, the legal system/judiciary, media, parliament/legislature and utilities.

“It should be noted, however, that Indian respondents still indicate that the majority of sectors highlighted are significantly affected by corruption. These improvements should therefore be understood as a positive sign of progress, but not an indication that the problem of corruption has been solved.”

How much is left to be done? Some three out of four Indian respondents, on the question of the degree to which their government is fighting corruption, answered that the government was either “not effective,” “does not fight at all” or “actually encourages” corruption.

Where does business fit into this? Asked to rate the impact of corruption on various spheres of their lives–on a scale of one to four, from “not at all” to “to a large extent”–Indians identified “political life” as the sphere most significantly impacted (2.9), and personal and family life as the least impacted (2.3).They put the business environment squarely in the middle (2.6).

What institutions are respected? Rating the impact of corruption on different sectors and institutions (on a scale of one to five, from “not at all corrupt” to “extremely corrupt”), Indians identified “political parties” (4.2) and “police” (4.3) as the most corrupt institutions, with business again near the middle (3.2). The least corrupt institution? The military, at 1.9.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/15/wipro-tata-corruption-ent-law-cx_kw_0814whartonindia.html

Related posts:

1. Great article on corruption in India
2. An Essay: Corruption in India
3. The Good and Bad of Indian Corruption