Tag: diplomatic cables

I did not nominate Bhushans: Anna Hazare

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is the next round. It’s going to be exciting. My general impression is that to discredit someone with a strong reputation you attack his colleagues. And those colleagues in this kind of struggle are likely to be politicians. Unfortunately, if you have been in politics any length of time, you have usually left some questionable decisions not wholly dealt with. What’s more, India seems to have some very creative ways for a politician to make money. In the United States, corruption is more institutionalized, so to see who owns a politician we just go online and look at the campaign contributions or we look to see what Political Action Committees their wives or relatives use to suck up money from the gullible.

My admiration for the Indian press is growing rapidly. I found the reporting informative and challenging. I got the impression that being a press favorite was not as common there as it is here.

The struggle goes on, from my distant perch in the center of the North American continent, I watch.

James Pilant

Day 4 Anna Hazare will end fast – What next on Middle Class Mobilization (via Offstumped – Social Media Commentary on India)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments
Anna Hazare

Who is Anna Hazare and what is his importance to the United States?

About 2 years ago, the United States cut a deal with the Indian government to share nuclear technology. The legislature ratified the treaty. It was a very controversial deal. The Indian government had been a rogue power in regard to nuclear energy having used what was supposed to be peaceful nuclear technology to build a series of atom bombs.

The deal allowed India to access fuel and nuclear technology from the rest of the world making India the only nuclear power a non-signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

Wikileaks revealed that the American State Department had directly observed enormous sums of cash to be used to bribe enough of the representatives to get the deal through.

Anger in India over this corruption is intense.

Hazare has been fasting to force the government to put in place anti-corruption legislation.

The struggles continues but Hazare appears to have won this round.

James Pilant

4 days on fast Anna Hazare after initially refusing to relent announced that he would end his fast on saturday at 10am. This follows the Manmohan Singh lead UPA Government coming around to his demand of a joint committee of Government and Non-Governmental activists and a co-chair to go with in drafting the next version of the Lokpal Bill. Much has already been said on the perils of an Ombudsman independent of the Constitutional separation of powe … Read More

via Offstumped – Social Media Commentary on India

#CSR the biggest and most dynamic corporate function of 21st Century (via Jayaribcm’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics3 Comments

Jayaribcm’s Blog discusses the problems with corruption in India. In this post he discusses the corruption of elections. As I have said before, corruption is not an Indian problem, it a worldwide phenomenon from which the United States is in no way immune. While they fight the fight there, we need to fight our struggle here.

However, there is a particularly disturbing element to the story of election fixing. American officials with the State Department were aware of the purchase of votes in a controversial piece of legislation on a nuclear deal with the United States back in 2008.

Since the United States did not share the information of the bribery and the U.S. benefited from it, there is bound to be suspicion of involvement in the bribery or that there may have been other wrong doing possibly involving the United States.

James Pilant

This is a significant article about election fixing as it is done in India. In the United States we fix elections by removing the poor and minorities from the election rolls on the grounds of non-existent election fraud. It’s the same game and just as evil.

Please take some time and read the whole thing.

From Jayaribcm's Blog

Around the same time when the children were meditating upon for a better world, the villagers were bombarded with blaring music and speech announcing why only one candidate would be the most suitable person for the ensuing election on April 13, 2011 for the Tamil Nadu Legislature. Meagre sum the villagers manage to get, surely is not sufficient for them to survive and when they are offered some few currencies in exchange of their vote they hesitate but agree. The gullible villagers are bribed and then are administered oath on milk, their livelihood they promise upon not to vote to any other candidate, lest… The present government run by DMK is notorious to have brought this system of bribing, in the last bye-election at a place called Thirumangalam near Madurai successfully that they were emboldened to apply the same logic to all other places of Tamil Nadu. The money they could spend is indeed enormous for they spearheaded the movement of corruption leading to one of their party members, a senior cabinet member of the Government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh now imprisoned at Tihar jail, is directly involved in the biggest graft in the world known as 2G scam. This time the Chief Election Commissioner of India Querishi had put a break to the distribution of money to the voters in a state-wide tough measures that had taken the ruling party by surprise & shock that the leader of the ruling party Karunanidhi was forced to say that it was a mini-emergency in Tamil Nadu declared by the Election Commissioner. The voters however keep their fingers crossed, for there’s an inherent fear about the Electronic Voting Machine [EVM], during its stay under lock & key before the results are announced on 13th May 2011, is most likely to be tampered with a remote control device favoring the ruling alliance of DMK & Congress.