The ministry of personnel has shown a surprising lack of alacrity in prosecuting errant babus In August last year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was keynote speaker at the annual meeting of India’s premier anti-corruption agency, the CBI. There, addressing officers of the agency and state vigilance bureaus, he made a telling remark, “Our anti-corruption agencies must make the cost of corruption unacceptably high for those indulging in this evil practice.” The prime...

Why is the government aggressively attacking and destroying inexpensive eco-friendly technologies and promoting pollution-friendly ones? Are we obliged to repeat all the mistakes that the West committed in its pursuit of economic growth? While it makes sense to corner First World countries into investing in eco- friendly technologies to control carbon emissions, as was attempted at Copenhagen, the stand of the Indian government that India cannot afford to enforce better...

A bench of the Supreme Court recently said: “When you say it is the world’s oldest profession and when you are not able to curb it by laws, why don’t you legalise it?” Really? While dealing with a PIL filed by Bachpan Bachao Andolan about large scale child trafficking in the country, a Supreme Court bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice AK Pattnaik are reported to have advised the...

A rogue’s gallery of corrupt politicians and entrepreneurs trying to create money out of thin air.  It is impossible to quantify the level of fraud in public spending on wind energy The European wind association does not have a code of conduct for developers A big Danish firm revealed that it was the victim of a 12 million euro fraud The northern trade winds of the Canary Islands have long tempted daredevil windsurfers,...

On International Anti-Corruption Day (9 December), the United Nations has warned that corruption kills development, and is one of the biggest impediments to reaching the Millennium Development Goals. "When public money is stolen for private gain, it means fewer resources to build schools, hospitals, roads and water treatment facilities. When foreign aid is diverted into private bank accounts, major infrastructure projects come to a halt," said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He warned...