1000 Rupees notes garland for Mayawati

Look at how money is being used in public in UP. Earlier they started using crores of money to build the statues of Mayawati and other leaders of SP, now 1000 rupees notes garland made for Mayawati. Where does this much money come from. Is it the tax money of people or is it the corruption money being used. Isnt there any account of such things in uttar pradesh.

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It was a one woman show at the BSP rally marking the 76th birth anniversary of its founder Kanshi Ram today with chief minister Mayawati being presented a garland made of hundreds of Rs.1000 notes while other leaders were literally relegated to the background.

The garland also attracted the attention of the crowd at Ramabai Ambedkar maidan as they could not make out from a distance that it was made of currency notes. Some were heard discussing about the "shining garland" and concluded that it could be made of some "imported flowers".

Mayawati, who arrived at the venue on a helicopter amidst sloganeering by supporters led by senior ministers Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Lalji Verma, took the lone chair in the middle of the dais, while all senior party leaders including the Assembly speaker Sukhdev Rajbhar sat much behind her or were standing.

Members of Bahujan Volunteer Force, assigned the task of controlling the cadres during such rallies, could not stop themselves from breaking into a jig during a cultural show at the event. Men and women donning blue danced enthusiastically to songs in praise of the BSP chief and she looked on.

Source: www.dnaindia.com, 15th March 2009

AN IAS officer in India has 220 bank accounts

One more example of corruption and black money existing in India.

An Indian Administrative Officer (IAS) in Chhattisgarh has been found to have a staggering 220 bank accounts and assets worth millions of rupees.

This was revealed after the income tax department raided his residence here, official sources said Saturday.

The IT department raided the houses of some IAS officers and businessmen in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in the past two days.
Chhattisgarh's Bharatiya Janata Party government is waiting for a final report from the IT department about Agriculture Secretary B.L. Agrawal's assets to initiate action against him.

IT officials searched the residence of Agrawal as well as business establishments of his close relatives Thursday.

On Friday, the officials similarly raided his chartered account Sunil Agrawal's house and came across documents suggesting that the IAS officer had amassed assets disproportionate to his known income.

The officer had at least 220 bank accounts, several of them opened on fake names and addresses, and a few in the names of his domestic helps.
Efforts by IANS to contact B.L. Agrawal failed. A man who answered his mobile telephone said Agrawal was "busy in a meeting".

Income Tax department sources said they were analysing the documents and papers they seized. Some documents suggest he might be involved in hawala transactions, the sources said.

The Madhya Pradesh government had Friday suspended a Bhopal-based IAS couple -- women and child development department principal secretary Tinu Joshi and her husband Arvind Joshi, principal secretary of the jail and parliamentary affairs department. IT department found Rs.3 crore (Rs.30 million) in unaccounted cash in a raid on their residence Thursday.

Brajesh Gupta, Director General of Investigations (I-T) for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, said bank notes stuffed in a suitcase were recovered from the residence of the couple.

The IT department had also conducted simultaneous raids in Madhya Pradesh at the houses of retired commissioner of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation M.A. Khan, and residences of road and bridge development engineer R.D. Chaudhary, superintending engineer with Power Works Department Deepak Asai, his wife Jyoti Asai, and businessmen Sunil Agrawal and Pawan Agrawal dealing in fertilisers besides ICICI Bank manager Seema Jaiswal and bank agent Bharti Bhasne's.

Source: www.deccanherald.com, Feb 06 2010

Fighting corruption in India - The Zero Rupee Way

People in India are finding new ways to fight corruption. They are so frustrated about this whole thing in government offices that they dont know what to do since your work will not be done until you pay hefty money as corruption. Hence people find innovative ways to frustrate the government officials.

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A ZERO-SUM game is one in which the gains of one player are exactly balanced by the losses of another. In India a local non-governmental organisation has invented a new sort of zero sum which, it hopes, will leave everyone better off: the zero-rupee note.

What on earth is the point of that? The note is not legal tender. It is simply a piece of paper the colour of a 50-rupee note with a picture of Gandhi on it and a value of nothing. Its aim is to shame corrupt officials into not demanding bribes.

The idea was dreamt up by an expatriate Indian physics professor from the University of Maryland who, travelling back home, found himself harassed by endless extortion demands. He gave the notes to the importuning officials as a polite way of saying no. Vijay Anand, president of an NGO called 5th Pillar, thought it might work on a larger scale. He had 25,000 zero-rupee notes printed and publicised to mobilise opposition to corruption. They caught on: his charity has distributed 1m since 2007.

One official in Tamil Nadu was so stunned to receive the note that he handed back all the bribes he had solicited for providing electricity to a village. Another stood up, offered tea to the old lady from whom he was trying to extort money and approved a loan so her granddaughter could go to college.

Mr Anand thinks the notes work because corrupt officials so rarely encounter resistance that they get scared when they do. And ordinary people are more willing to protest, since the notes have an organisation behind them and they do not feel on their own. Simple ideas like this don’t always work. When India’s government put online the names of officials facing trial for corruption, the list became a convenient guide for whom to bribe. But, says Fumiko Nagano of the World Bank, transforming social norms is the key to fighting petty corruption and the notes help that process. They are valueless, but not worthless.

Source: www.economist.com, 28th Jan 2010

TED India Talks: Shaffi Mather- A new way to fight corruption

Shaffi Mather explains why he left his first career to become a social entrepreneur, providing life-saving transportation with his company 1298 for Ambulance. Now, he has a new idea and plans to begin a company to fight the booming business of corruption in public service, eliminating it one bribe at a time.

About Shaffi Mather:

Shaffi Mather is the founder of 1298 for Ambulance, Education Access for All, and co-promoter of Moksha-Yug Access. He was a successful young entrepreneur, who brought a family-run real estate business to the forefront of the local market before moving on to take major positions at two of India’s largest communication corporations -- Essel Group and Reliance Industries. However, after a perilous ride to the hospital with his mother he was forced to confront India’s need for a dependable ambulance service. He left his career at Reliance and founded 1298 for Ambulance, a for-profit service with a sliding scale payment system that has revolutionized medical transport in Mumbai and Kerala.

Today, Mather is also a co-founder of Moksha-Yug Access, a microfinance instiution that operates in rural India, and The Education Initiative, which is involved in e-learning and in creating schools across India. In addition, Mather is a lawyer focusing on litigation in public interest -- battling for transparency in governance and use of public funds, human rights, civil rights and primacy of constitution. He is a TEDIndia Fellow.

Here is the Video: