[shajufx]

The person who received the intimation himself would have couple of accounts overseas, so how would he encourage anyone to respond for such things ?

[tsk1979]

A recent incident in Noida. Finally people are standing up
In India bribes are an accepted norm : India : Arvind Kejriwal : TOI Blogs

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by Brabus E V12

It has been 7 weeks since Rajus confession letter and 10 weeks since the aborted merger of Maytas and, for all the investigating agencies investigating, Satyam remains an enigma. No one is answering the obvious question: which politicians were involved in transactions with the family? And which company listed on the Indian stock exchanges could be a larger scam? In private, employees of Satyam can tell you names of politicians close to the Raju family. The investigating agencies seem lost. And why should they be eager? Their bosses may be cautioning them against getting too close to the truth. Because behind that will be the rotten smell of corruption. The most recent wagging finger came when the H-1 visa program was under threat from the Obama rescue package. Companies availing of the US government money cannot hire H-1 visa holders. That is discrimination, said the Indian government, we will fight it. (It is another matter that we have our own discrimination in India: seats are reserved for students based on caste, creed, and religion. If you take any government money for education, you need to follow the government guidelines on how you select your students.) But we object to this H-1 visa restriction said the government. Fingers will wag; tongues will get their daily exercise. But, nothing will come of it. The US will do what it wants, and we will be left with some "or else" hanging around our necks.


UBS blows a hole
So if the Indian wimp really wants to flex its muscles, here is another opportunity. The US government had filed a criminal charge against Swiss banking giant UBS and got UBS to disclose the names of 250 wealthy individuals charged with committing tax fraud in the USA. In addition, the US imposed a USD 780 million fine against UBS. That was on Wednesday, February 18th. One day later the US promptly filed a civil suit against UBS asking for 52,000 names allegedly with USD 14.8 billion of undeclared cash.

The Swiss are upset. The banking secrecy laws are a national treasure. And UBS has blown a hole by succumbing to pressure from the US. Over the next few days the Germans, Italians, and French are all expected to stand in line to get their lists. The Germans have already been fighting with the Swiss banks to confirm names they have bought from an ex-employee in the software division of a bank. The US win will strengthen their hand.

So where is the Indian request for a list of bank accounts held illegally in UBS by Indians living in India? Will the Indian strong man stand up and get results? Or will the Indian Wimp wave his finger and wag his tongue -and do nothing?


Why I wanted you all to read this is to PLEASE STOP ACTING AS 'THE INDIAN WIMP' and we should all take some concrete action whenever we see wrong-doers around us...

Here is the problem. Corruption has gotten into our blood. everybody is corrupt at their own level, and we get enraged when we see the big fish eating a large portion.

Even if we were able to bring back the money from swiss bank, I am sure it will again be distributed between ministers, contractors, down to the level of a peon. and nobody is willing to give up their share of the pie.

You can show the movies like RDB, nobody killed jessica, knockout and what not, even the leaked tapes from barkha gate, it doesn't matter until a large number of Indians change their way. We love corruption, we can not live without it. We are shocked at the idea of a high ranking poltician having to pay a traffic ticket or god forbid, going to jail for slapping a govt worker.

I might sound like a pessimist, but all I am trying to say is there is no easy solution as sending letters or even exposing corrupt people. Not because we are used to it but because we are a part of it, well majority of us.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

Here is the problem. Corruption has gotten into our blood. everybody is corrupt at their own level, and we get enraged when we see the big fish eating a large portion.

You hit the nail on the head there vivek. All of us are corrupt in our own ways. We want our stuff to be done fast without too much fuss. There is a system for everything, yes, maybe it is slow, maybe it is slow for a reason. But we come back from the US and expect it to be the same here and end up bribing to get it done fast and then come to a forum and complain. There are no Gandhis left here in this country, a Gandhi cannot survive now.

[Wolfheart]

Looking at the recent scams, Winston Churchill's prophecy comes to mind. Just before our independence he said "Power will go to the hands of rascals,rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts.They will fight among themselves for power and will be lost in political squabbles."

[vishnurp99]

Fact is India is a young Democracy which is in the first century of it's existence. We are not doing that bad actually. I was in NY for a period of 3 years working in one of the biggest banks there. Interacted with a lot of expat indians/chinese/russians/pakistanis/native americans etc. Interestingly it was only the indians who wanted to go back/give something back to their native country. Rest of the folks were in US for good and was interested in becoming full americans as soon as possible.

Corruption is an issue for sure. So is caste, terrorism, illiteracy, cronyism etc etc. I don't think we should focus on corruption too much because atleast corruption is democratic here. Everybody gets a piece of the pie . It's far better than say a Russia or a china where very few gets a piece of the pie.

To fix all these problems, there has to be sustained public interest in policy making at the national, state and ward level. We have to get involved in local conversations and understand the undercurrents of the area.Whining about this on a Forum is going to be unproductive and will not get us anywhere.

India is our country and we will have to do the nationbuilding the hard way. Americans did it. The british did it. The chinese are doing it. Even we are doing it.
Let's make sure all of us contribute in our ways.

[vishnurp99]

One more thing is I have the highest regards for people like Manmohan singh , Chidambaram, Ram Jethmalani etc who are very accomplished people. We had people like Nandan who is a dollar billionaire leaving his company's rolls to go into government service. Let's not focus only on the bad things please. As a country we do have our teething troubles but if we don't believe in ourselves who else will?

Let's ask ourselves how many of us actually do any social service or atleast help our neighbours out when we have the chance? For all you IT guys, when a new guy from another part of india joins office do you actually help him out in terms of finding accomodation/good food at reasonable rates etc? Do we really try to talk about a vision of india or try to communicate to other indians around? We always whine about what others are not doing. In civics, I was taught about rights and duties. Let's focus on our duties too before we whine for our rights.

We have to do our bit and in some time we will see the change that we want to see.

[SILVERWOOD]

As someone said, 'Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.'

No body knows how big the snow ball is now, when and where it started rolling.

God help India.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

One more thing is I have the highest regards for people like Manmohan singh , Chidambaram, Ram Jethmalani etc who are very accomplished people. We had people like Nandan who is a dollar billionaire leaving his company's rolls to go into government service. Let's not focus only on the bad things please. As a country we do have our teething troubles but if we don't believe in ourselves who else will?

Let's ask ourselves how many of us actually do any social service or atleast help our neighbours out when we have the chance? For all you IT guys, when a new guy from another part of india joins office do you actually help him out in terms of finding accomodation/good food at reasonable rates etc? Do we really try to talk about a vision of india or try to communicate to other indians around? We always whine about what others are not doing. In civics, I was taught about rights and duties. Let's focus on our duties too before we whine for our rights.

We have to do our bit and in some time we will see the change that we want to see.

Sorry, I am not getting any piece of the pie. Please let me know how you get the piece of the pie. I would also like to eat cake and pie.

[vishnurp99]

@tsk1979 Have you or anybody in your family ever brought land? Did you register for the total cost of transaction? or did you register for % of the total transaction cost to save tax?

Haven't you ever brought something without asking for a bill so that tax is avoided?

These are instances of corruption in my book and you are eating a piece of pie here. Just a small example. Few others are getting a bigger piece and some of the other folks might be getting a smaller piece.

I was just trying to say that situation is not as gloomy as this thread portrays if you take a holistic view.

[alpha1]

Self discipline is seriously lacking in all aspects of Indian life.

Outcome: complacency and corruption.

[2500cc]

We elect our leaders, but dont have time to catch their collars and question them.

Urban Folks (Salaried Pros) : are busy in making property, buying cars, going on vacations, securing the family, etc., we do all this hoping that the leaders will take care of our needs, but unfortunately this is not happening and our leaders are happy gobbling the money we pay as taxes because, they know the fact that we dont have time to question them.

Rural Folks (Labour class, lazy guys, etc.,): dont have rights to ask the leaders because they have not elected them free (Rs1000, quarter bottle,Biryani, silk sarees, 1g Gold coin, etc.,).

Youth (18- till they are employed): Among the youth few are busy chasing the chicks, few them are busy hunting jobs, few them planning to settle in abroad, etc., these guys have their own tensions

Senior Citizens: Dont have energy to fight the goons.

Ladies: less said the better.

Children: They dont have voting power. So they cant question.

Business people: ????

So the question is who will question our leaders, when are going to ask them the accountability of their leadership, our taxes, etc.,. They gobble our tax money and that being not enough, they want the bribes too and we happily pay them because, we dont have time you see.

[tj123]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

India is our country and we will have to do the nationbuilding the hard way. Americans did it. The british did it. The chinese are doing it. Even we are doing it.
Let's make sure all of us contribute in our ways.

We are a nation of diversity since time in memorial, we Indian are inherently different in the way we think, our language, culture, caste ,creed, tribe etc etc are quite different.
Even though we say India is one but I don’t see an action/ spirit by our fellow citizen to do a constructive nation building activity. I hope one day we are wise enough to build this nation as others have done in the past.

[prince_pervez]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

India is our country and we will have to do the nationbuilding the hard way. Americans did it. The british did it. The chinese are doing it. Even we are doing it.
Let's make sure all of us contribute in our ways.

Hi @vishnurp99. I appreciate what all you have written but the quoted part puzzles me. Could you please explain how the Americans/British/Chinese did it and how are we doing it ? For all you know they might not be the best examples to make a developed country.

You were here 3 years in NY, and you know more than me, for sure, how happy the average American is.

In India majority people are happy, genuinely, despite everything. From whatever I have seen from my stint here, India is the best, the best, at education and health care. Although, there are rooms for improvement (Sibal saab... ??)

About corruption, when I became a graduate, I argued and insisted that I go about the passport procedures legitimately. My father was with me on that. He accompanied me to the Pune GPO for the forms and everything. I stood in the queues (once the wrong one). Got each and every detail and document the officer asked for. I was sent 3 times back on the pretext that something or the other is not in place. The document was wrong yetta yetta yetta. I finally realised, that he is hand and glove with the agents outside whom I lent a cold shoulder to earlier.
I went to an agent where my entire khaandaan used to get passports done and voila in 45 days with Police enquiry etc etc.
At the police station too, there were a couple of disgusted individuals who alledged that they have not received their passports in months.
My mother quitely said to me that 'they have not greased his palms yet' , so they were not getting their passports.
The Hawaldar had an account in the bank my mom worked with (behind the police station) so he knew her, and we were saved.

Thankfully I got through both driver's licenses w/o greasing any palms.

We can do what is in our hands to stop corruption. We can start by not cheating on taxes. Lets do our part. As for the polititians, they are there for a reason, and that is not at all in the interest of the people. For God's sakes, they have not spares flats and petrol pumps of martyrs who gave up their life, their life, in order to protect the same politicians and civillians.

From a religious angle, this land on the earth belongs to God. He is the sovereign owner of the skies and the earth. He had given us an updated code of life time and again. When the earthlings reject that code and take up the task of running this earth with their own set of rules (Passports, Visas, Paper money etc etc) there are bound to be mistakes as the human mind is limited. Then in the human made system we have the rich becoming super rich and poor becoming poorer and when we have mugging incidents in Bangalore and elsewhere we crib about these 'miscreants' which are nothing but outcome of man made governance and systems.

Whatever it is we have done now is pretty irrepairable but there is still that silver lining which keeps everyone going I guess. Chalta hain chalne do!

[Ragul]

Originally Posted by Wolfheart

Looking at the recent scams, Winston Churchill's prophecy comes to mind. Just before our independence he said "Power will go to the hands of rascals,rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts.They will fight among themselves for power and will be lost in political squabbles."

OT but in the interest of general knowledge -

Regardless of how true it may be, I can't allow any mention of Churchill in idealized tones. That comment was made with racist overtones by a man who willingly sacrificed the lives of a million Indians by creating a famine in India. The same person who called for gas attacks on rebellious Iraqis, in order to “spread a lively terror.”. He stands along with Henry Kissinger as the pair that escaped branding as recognized state or war criminals along with Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Miloslevic, Stalin and others.

You can read more here:

Churchill?s Dark Side: Six Questions for Madhusree Mukerjee?By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)

Churchill caused the Bengal famine: Madhusree Mukerjee - Rediff.com News

Bet nobody even heard of the Victorian Holoucast.

HTH