Recently an interesting article appeared in The New York Times on how after the completion of a social audit at Nagarkurnool in Andhra Pradesh, villagers punished a local official for swindling funds allocated to the central government's flagship project, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. The irate villagers tied the official's hands and paraded him around the neighbouring villages. This is not a one-off incident; similar accounts have...

Police sub-inspector of Vyara police station, S H Bava, was nabbed red-handed by anti-corruption bureau (ACB) officials for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 5,000 from a NREGA misappropriation accused here on Sunday. Bava had demanded money for not requesting for further remand of the accused from the court to investigate the case. Kanji Chaudhary, post master of Pathakwadi village, and Sapna Chaudhary, sarpanch of the village, had been arrested on...

Today, the Indian media—both print and television—is focusing on the recent corruption scandals involving the UPA Government with unusual zeal. However, I fail to understand why almost every commentator, every TV anchor, every editorial writer feels compelled to pay ritual obeisance to the “personal honesty and integrity” of Dr Manmohan Singh while dealing with the scandals emanating from his cabinet colleagues. They do so even when there is clear evidence...

About 54% Indians paid a bribe in the past year, according to a global survey by Transparency International (TI), which pegs the extent of corruption in India at levels comparable with Cambodia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Senegal, Uganda and Liberia. TI’s Global corruption Barometer survey, released on global anti-corruption day, measures public perception on corruption across the world. One metric asks respondents if they had paid a bribe during the past 12 months...

The world is a more corrupt place now than it was three years ago, a poll suggests.Some 56% of people interviewed by Transparency International said their country had become more corrupt.In Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq and India more than 50% of people said they had paid a bribe in the past year - many of them paying off the police.Meanwhile, a BBC poll suggests that corruption is the world's most talked...