-The Telegraph   A Comptroller & Auditor General’s report, tabled in the Assembly today, has pulled up the state for poor implementation of a central government scheme for rural roads, pointing to substandard work, Fraudulent payments to unscrupulous contractors and serious financial irregularities. Only nine per cent of rural habitations were connected with all weather roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) between 2005 and 2010, the five years that saw three...

-IANS   Bihar, for years a metaphor for backwardness, will now harness modern communiction tools to nail corruption. It will expose officials seeking bribes in welfare schemes by uploading clips of complaints against them on the video-sharing website YouTube. "The state government has decided to use YouTube as a new tool to expose corrupt and bribe-seekers," Bihar Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra told media as graft becomes a nationwide concern, particularly with...

-The Hindu   Following is the note placed by the CPI(M) at the all-party meeting held by the Government on the issue of the Lokpal today. August 24, 2011 Stand of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Lokpal: For An Effective Anti-Corruption Body Introduction Corruption has become a major public concern in the wake of successive scams unfolding over the past few years. In a country like India, where millions of people still suffer from acute poverty,...

-Agence France-Presse He may dress, talk and fast like his hero Mahatma Gandhi, but critics say anti-graft activist Anna Hazare has only managed to co-opt the style, not the substance, of India's independence icon. The figure of Gandhi looms large - and literally - over Hazare's anti-corruption campaign, with a giant photograph of the apostle of non-violence providing the backdrop to the 74-year-old's public hunger strike. Hazare's speeches are peppered with Gandhian references...

An international website that helped sustain recent mass movements in countries such as Syria, Libya, Canada and Brazil has involved itself in the Anna Hazare campaign. Avaaz.org is co-founded by Res Publica, an American “community of public sector professionals dedicated to promoting good governance, civic virtue and deliberative democracy”, and MoveOn.org, an American “non-profit progressive public policy advocacy group”. Avaaz has the expertise to manage funds, strategies and propaganda for public campaigns...