History of Mother's Day

In the United States of America Mother's Day was first suggested in the year 1872 by Julia Ward Howe who wrote the words to the Battle hymn of the Republic as a day dedicated to peace. She would hold an organized Mother's Day meeting in Boston, Massachusetts every year.It wasn't until in 1907 when Anna Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. Ms. Jarvis persuaded her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mother's Day on the second anniversary of her mother's death, the 2nd Sunday of May. By the next year Mother's Day was also celebrated in Philadelphia. She and several of her supporters began to write to ministers, businessman, and politicians in their endeavour to establish a national Mother's Day. In 1910, the governor of West Virginia proclaimed the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day and a year later every state celebrated it. It was successful as by 1911 Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May.

Around the World
Indian Mother's Day

Hindu scripture credits the Great Mother, Kali Ma, with the invention of writing through alphabets, pictographs and beautiful sacred images.Buddha honored mothers when he said, "As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, loves and protects her child, so let a man cultivate love without measure toward the whole world." In India there is a ten-day festival known as Durga Puja which is held in early October. The festival honors Durga, the "Divine Mother". She is the most important of all Hindu goddesses.

May Day - the Real Labor Day

May 1st, International Workers' Day, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world, and is recognized in every country except the United States, Canada, and South Africa. This despite the fact that the holiday began in the 1880s in the United States, with the fight for an eight-hour work day.
In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the goal, since legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly, despite the indifference and hostility of many union leaders. By April 1886, 250,000 workers were involved in the May Day movement.
The heart of the movement was in Chicago, organized primarily by the anarchist International Working People's Association. Businesses and the state were terrified by the increasingly revolutionary character of the movement and prepared accordingly. The police and militia were increased in size and received new and powerful weapons financed by local business leaders. Chicago's Commercial Club purchased a $2000 machine gun for the Illinois National Guard to be used against strikers. Nevertheless, by May 1st, the movement had already won gains for many Chicago clothing cutters, shoemakers, and packing-house workers. But on May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality.
The meeting proceeded without incident, and by the time the last speaker was on the platform, the rainy gathering was already breaking up, with only a few hundred people remaining. It was then that 180 cops marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. As the speakers climbed down from the platform, a bomb was thrown at the police, killing one and injuring seventy. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one worker and injuring many others.
Although it was never determined who threw the bomb, the incident was used as an excuse to attack the entire Left and labor movement. Police ransacked the homes and offices of suspected radicals, and hundreds were arrested without charge. Anarchists in particular were harassed, and eight of Chicago's most active were charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket bombing. A kangaroo court found all eight guilty, despite a lack of evidence connecting any of them to the bomb-thrower (only one was even present at the meeting, and he was on the speakers' platform), and they were sentenced to die. Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer, and George Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887. Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison, The remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893.
It is not surprising that the state, business leaders, mainstream union officials, and the media would want to hide the true history of May Day, portraying it as a holiday celebrated only in Moscow's Red Square. In its attempt to erase the history and significance of May Day, the United States government declared May 1st to be "Law Day", and gave us instead Labor Day - a holiday devoid of any historical significance other than its importance as a day to swill beer and sit in traffic jams.
Nevertheless, rather than suppressing labor and radical movements, the events of 1886 and the execution of the Chicago anarchists actually mobilized many generations of radicals. Emma Goldman, a young immigrant at the time, later pointed to the Haymarket affair as her political birth. Lucy Parsons, widow of Albert Parsons, called upon the poor to direct their anger toward those responsible - the rich. Instead of disappearing, the anarchist movement only grew in the wake of Haymarket, spawning other radical movements and organizations, including the Industrial Workers of the World.
By covering up the history of May Day, the state, business, mainstream unions and the media have covered up an entire legacy of dissent in this country. They are terrified of what a similarly militant and organized movement could accomplish today, and they suppress the seeds of such organization whenever and wherever they can. As workers, we must recognize and commemorate May Day not only for it's historical significance, but also as a time to organize around issues of vital importance to working-class people today.
As IWW songwriter Joe Hill wrote in one of his most powerful songs:

Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying
We'll have freedom, love and health,
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Workers' Commonwealth.

ROYAL WEDDING INVITATION OF PRINCE WILLIAM AND KATE MIDDLETON

The world has finally received a glimpse of what a royal wedding invitation looks like courtesy of the newly released sample of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s famous invite.

Every bride knows the who and where of her wedding, but it takes a very special wedding invitation to make those vital details pop off the page. Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal wedding invitations are perhaps the most sought after in the world right now and if you’re lucky enough to score one, you might be surprised by its common appeal.

You won’t be seeing any over-the-top scroll or gaudy beauty on the royal wedding invitations. Instead, lucky guests will get their hands on an understated, yet elegant, white card inviting an estimated 1,800 guests to the April 29 wedding. The white card also features a small gold emblem for a bit of royal flair.

The card asks for guests to attend “the Marriage of His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales, K.G. with Miss Catherine Middleton.” It also adds that guests should come to the Westminster Abbey wedding dressed in “uniform, morning coat or lounge suit.”

Check out the royal wedding invitation above and tell us what you think. Do you think it was a bit lackluster for the world’s most talked about bride and groom? Don’t forget to save the April 29 date and catch all the latest news on Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding right here on SheKnows.

Royal wedding: What do we call her?

At the instant she and Prince William are pronounced "man and wife", Catherine Middleton will begin a new life and take on a whole new identity.

She will automatically become Her Royal Highness, Princess William of Wales.

However, she does not automatically become Princess Catherine - and certainly not Princess Kate.

The reason is very simple (if anything in this arcane area can be considered anything other than totally mystifying): Catherine Middleton is not of royal blood.

The Queen's late sister Margaret was entitled to call herself Princess Margaret. The Queen's daughter is Princess Anne and her granddaughters are Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. They are, or were, of royal blood, so they are princesses in their own right.

But Sarah Ferguson was never Princess Sarah and Sophie Rhys-Jones (wife of Prince Edward) is not Princess Sophie.

And, to the astonishment of many, Lady Diana Spencer was never officially Princess Diana. She was the Princess of Wales and, after her divorce from Prince Charles, she was Diana, Princess of Wales.

Royal dukedoms

But the Royal Family has not flourished for 1,000 years or so without finding a solution to this somewhat baffling (and, perhaps, in the opinion of some, meaningless) issue of what people should be called.

It is at this point that we unfurl the banners and polish the escutcheons of the royal dukedoms.

From the palace's point of view, these are rather handy handles for the members of the family who occupy prestigious but somewhat peripheral roles to the main business of monarchy.

The Queen's first cousins are, respectively, the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, and when her disgraced uncle abandoned the throne in 1936, he became the Duke of Windsor (and the more peripheral he could be made to seem the better, so far as the palace was concerned).

The point is that these ducal titles are frequently bestowed upon marriage, precisely because they give the new entrant to the family a grand-sounding title without making them princesses or princes in their own right.

For example, when Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in 1986, the Queen made him Duke of York, thus she became the Duchess of York - a title she continues to hold despite her divorce and subsequent difficulties.

Similarly, when Prince Edward married Sophie Rhys-Jones, he became the Earl of Wessex and his new wife the Countess of Wessex (Edward will become Duke of Edinburgh when his father dies, and his wife the Duchess of Edinburgh, but that is another matter).

All of which brings us neatly to the one person in this puzzling issue of protocol whom you may think disproves all of the above, the Queen's husband, Prince Philip.

Aha!, it may be said, he married into the royal family - and yet he is a prince.

'Youthful glamour'

But, in point of fact, at the time Philip married the then Princess Elizabeth in 1947, the then British King, George VI, only created him "Duke of Edinburgh".

In other words, when he married the future Queen, he was not Prince Philip.

Philip had indeed been born a Prince of Greece (though he is of Danish, German, Russian and British ancestry) but he renounced his Greek titles in order to take British citizenship and marry Princess Elizabeth. At the time of his marriage he was plain Philip Mountbatten.

He only became Prince Philip in February 1957 when the Queen "accorded him the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom".

That precedent is interesting. It suggests the Queen could, if she chose to, make Catherine Middleton a "Princess of the United Kingdom", in which case she would genuinely become "Princess Catherine".

The alternative is for the palace to dust off a long-defunct royal dukedom (Albany, Connaught, Clarence, and Cambridge are among the vacant ones), and William and Catherine would become the Duke and Duchess of somewhere.

Will William want that? There are suggestions that he would prefer to continue to be known just as Prince William (of Wales), without any further ducal decoration.

It might be thought to be a forward-looking gesture if they did dispense with titles that many might regard as faintly Ruritanian and irrelevant and, instead, make Catherine Middleton officially a princess in her own right as Princess Catherine.

Quite apart from anything else, princes and princesses sound youthful and glamorous. Dukes and duchesses sound as though they belong in the past.

So, will the palace break with established protocol on this occasion? To do so would seem to be in tune with the times. But that may not be a sufficiently compelling reason, in the palace's eyes, to overturn centuries of tradition.

way to save our world

Our World
Our World is precious to us and we must become more aware of it. Many of our everyday actions are changing the planet permanently. The evidence of global warming is clear in the Arctic and Antarctic continents. We must all do everything in our power to save our World.

Spread the word about conservation. Any way you can - get people to think about the earth. There are almost 6 billion people on this earth, and every one of them needs to take care of it!  Always look for environment-safe products and encourage others to do the same. From recycling to buying less packaging to planting trees to saving water to conserving energy, keep the environment in mind.   Recycle, recycle, recycle Recycle as much as you can – paper, glass, plastics, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, compostable food,   Re-use your plastic bags. Plastic takes over 100 years to biodegrade!  When you go shopping, reuse plastic bags from a prior trip or bring a cloth bag or backpack.   Don't buy products with lots of packaging. The more packaging, the more cost. If you see a small product (for example, a toothbrush) wrapped in five layers of plastic with a flashy cardboard insert all in a box made of a foam-like plastic, chances are most of the price is because of the packaging. Find a similar product with less packaging. Also stay away from individually wrapped products.   Buy fresh produce from Display Bins Select fresh produce from display bins instead of the pre-packaged variety. The more packaging, the more price, and (more importantly) the more garbage in the landfills.   Plant a tree. Either buy a plant or find a tree (like a maple) that produces seeds every spring, collect a few, and plant them. Start them in pots until they're at least a foot tall and then plant them.  It's a great way to save the earth's oxygen!   Put a bottle in your toilet. Fill a plastic litre bottle with water, put on the cap tightly and then put it in the back part of your toilet cistern. Since the average toilet uses 3 to 7 gallons of water per flush, the bottle will displace some water, so your toilet will use ½ - 1 gallon less each time someone uses it!   If you don't need a light on, don't use one! If it's a bright sunny day, don't turn on a light that you don't need. If you're going to be in a room for only a minute, try to go without any electric lights at all. Most houses have enough windows that you won't need to use lights for most of the daytime. If you do have to turn on a light, turn on only as many as you need and for only the time that you need it on. Buy recycled products Paper, packaging, plastic containers, cardboard, and other products are being sold that have been recycled. Don't confuse "recycled" with "recyclable"! Lots of companies will put the recycling symbol or "100% recyclable" on their products to appeal to ecologists. While that is all fine and good, "made from recycled waste" or "post-consumer waste" is what you really want. If you buy recycled notebook paper, no one will really care if your paper is a shade greyer than the non-recycled kind.   In general, don't use disposable products at all. Diapers/Nappies, pens, razors, towels; they're all disposable, so there are many ways to help the earth this way.  Don’t use paper towels--old t-shirts or towels work fine as messy-use rags. What's the use of using disposable razors if you have to buy a new bag every other week? It will save you money just to get a good one to keep using! In other words, don't get sucked into the world of simple disposable items because "it's easy and convenient." Keep a cloth handy in the house Instead of using paper towels, keep a cloth towel by the sink and use it to dry your hands or wipe up spills.   Use rechargable batteries. Although they may cost more to buy, rechargable batteries will save you 10 or 20 times the original cost (by not buying new batteries over and over again), and not get thrown in the trash. Prolong the life of any batteries by using a cord (and AC adapter, if necessary) for radios and other appliances when possible.   Make your house energy efficient. Use energy efficient light bulbs and energy-efficient appliances.   "Recycle" your clothes. Don’t throw away the clothes that no longer fit or are unwanted. Donate your clothes to the needy or to other clothing drives for the poor. If you can’t find anywhere then take them to the Salvation Army. If you want to make money, try having a garage sale or take the clothes to a resale shop. Use both sides of paper Save paper that has been used on one side for the next time you need to jot something down quickly. Having a few pages of "scrap" paper around is a good way to keep yourself from wasting new sheets each time. Buy organically-grown foods. Most grocery stores now have organic sections where you can purchase all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and cereals that have had no chemical fertilizer, pesticides, or herbicides. Show the stores you care by buying these things! They'll be better for you and for the earth because no chemicals are going into the soil or water. Don’t endanger animals Don't buy clothes or objects made of ivory, tortoise shell, coral, or reptile skins. They come from endangered animals or plants.   Put on a sweater! Put on a sweater instead of turning up the heat.   Leave the car at home The next time you need to go somewhere, think twice before you get the car out. Walk or ride your bike whenever possible.   Keep the fridge door closed Open the fridge when you've decided what you want to eat--not while you decide.   Warming something up? A microwave oven uses one-third the energy of a conventional oven.   Turn the tap off when brushing/washing! When you brush your teeth, wet the brush, then turn off the water until you need to rinse. The average bathroom tap runs at about 2 gallons of water per minute. That means every time you brush your teeth or when you wash your hands with the water running, you use about 4 gallons of water. If you brush your teeth twice and wash your hands three times per day, it adds up to 600 gallons of water per month.   Take a shower Choose wisely: A shower uses 3 to 5 gallons of water per minute. A full bathtub uses 36 gallons.   Water the garden at the right time If you water a lawn or garden, do it in the morning or evening when water won't evaporate as easily.   Inflate your tires/tyres Keep your car tires/tyres inflated to the proper pressure to improve fuel economy and extend the life of the tires/tyres.   Buy a light coloured car Choose a light-colored car with tinted glass to lessen the need for air conditioning.   Turn Off Your Car Engine.  If your car is going to be idling for more than 45 seconds, it’s more fuel-efficient to turn the engine off and restart the car again when you are ready to move.

World ENDS In 2012 Due To Solar Storms!!

Well, maybe not the entire world. But, if NASA doomsayers are on point with their prediction, then my world will end in 2012. Why you ask? Well, NASA is foreseeing that the year 2012 will bring solar storms and flares, the likes of which Earth hasn’t seen since 1958. If we’ve been through this before, why am I so worried about my world ending? Because my world revolves around cell phones and similar gadgets – toys that were not around in the 50′s. While poodle-skirt wearing adolescents of yester-year went about their day unaffected by solar flares, my world will be filled with chaos and havoc when I can’t get any gsm reception or check the local weather on my phone. The horror! Can you see it? Millions of people will be left with no way to instantly text message their friends abut the night’s plans, and will be left wondering what the weather will be, or will be lost for directions to the nearest Starbuck’s. Oh the humanity!

Scientists are saying that the Sun’s surface is eerily devoid of activity at the moment. It’s “Like the quiet before a storm,” says NASA. When the sun’s surface quiets down, we can expect an incredible burst of activity in the form of communications disrupting solar flares and storms. This is referred to as a maxima in an 11-year cycle of sunspots. But there is one glimmer of hope. Scientists are unsure how to predict these maxima and admit that the upcoming maxima in 2012 could be as viscious as in 1958, or as meek as in 1805. We can “expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011,” says David Hathaway of the National Space Science & Technology Center (NSSTC). So get ready or the end of the world, ya’ll! Stock those dry goods ands ammo! I’ll see you in my bunker.

Combating Corruption in Corporate-Dominated India

Corruption has once again emerged as arguably the foremost concern of the Indian people. Not a week passes without some scam being unearthed in some corner of the country. These scams could be related to any department of any government, but as easily they could also involve the top brass of the Army, venerable judges of the apex judiciary or top officials of premier institutions of scientific research.  While the pecuniary gains involved in these scams may not always be obvious or easily measurable, all scams slaughter public good for private gain in utter disregard for the fundamental notions of fair play and justice. Given the frequency, range and magnitude of these scams, one can easily say that corruption today is certainly no aberration; it is a hallmark of governance in the corporate era. 
Paradoxically enough, the lengthening list of scams in India is matched by an even longer list of probes by different agencies, yet India is yet to see an example of a guilty being brought to justice by the system. The list of cases in which investigations petered out and the culprits got away is endless. A major reason for this impunity enjoyed by the corrupt, especially the corrupt in high places, is the inherent hollowness of the existing anti-corruption mechanisms in our country. 
Any meaningful and consistent campaign against corruption must therefore have two prongs. It should challenge the policy regime and political environment in which corruption is thriving. At the same time it should also fight for an effective anti-corruption mechanism so the corrupt can be brought to justice.

In what follows we focus on these twin aspects of an anti-corruption campaign. We draw the attention of our readers to the changing face of corruption in India today in close relation to the prevalent policy regime which even the staunch proponents of neoliberal reforms can no longer ignore. We also bring to our readers excerpts and summaries from the observations and recommendations of a civil society initiative called ‘India against Corruption’ that has prepared the blueprint of a more transparent, accountable and effective anti-corruption mechanism in the shape of a draft Jan Lokpal Bill.

The Changing Face of Corruption in Corporate-Driven India: 
Challenge Corporate Domination to Combat Corruption
Till the 1980s it was widely believed that corruption was primarily associated with government departments dealing with the public where smalltime babus thrived on smalltime bribes. Big business houses too of course complained of corruption, but they wanted us to believe that it was a necessary cost of survival that they were forced to bear under the prevalent ‘licence-quota-permit raj’. Since the mid-1980s and especially since the 1990s when India made a concerted transition from the so-called ‘licence-quota-permit raj’ to the neo-liberal trajectory of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, the LPG advocates argued that it would usher in an era of not only accelerated economic growth but also all-round efficiency and transparency where corruption would find it difficult to raise its ugly head if not rendered irrelevant by the dynamics of the market.

Today the big news is not just corruption has grown exponentially but that it is thriving precisely on the basis of liberalisation and privatisation and the growing corporate-government nexus.  This public perception has even been endorsed by a recent survey on corruption and bribery conducted by the consulting firm KPMG. The KPMG study “Survey on Bribery and Corruption: Impact on Economy and Business Environment”, based primarily on corporate response, highlights the ‘changing face of corruption’. The survey clearly recognizes, “From what started as petty payments demanded by ‘babus’ during the license raj days, corruption has taken a much larger form and scale today. … It is not about petty bribes (‘bakshish’) anymore but scams to the tune of thousands of crores that highlight a political/industry nexus which if not checked could have a far reaching impact. Media stories on financial scams indicate that while petty corruption is more of an irritant and mostly driven by public officials at lower levels, larger scams could be attributed to the willingness of the private sector to pay senior public officials to get their work done.”

On the basis of corporate perception (48% of the respondents were from MNCs and another 28% from India-based MNCs), the KPMG survey has ranked certain industries and sectors as being particularly corruption-prone. Real estate and construction tops the list followed by telecommunications, social development sectors, financial services, defence, IT/ITES/BPO, energy and power, and others (including media, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, health care, heavy engineering and transport). 68% of the respondents acknowledged that corruption was often induced by the private sector. Accordingly, the survey emphasises the need to bring the private sector within the ambit of anti-bribery, anti-corruption regulations.
Another myth fondly marketed by pro-liberalisation advocates is that corruption is induced by high levels of taxes. Interestingly enough, even as the KPMG survey highlights the complicity of the private sector in the ongoing growth of corruption, in the preface to the survey, economist Surjit S Bhalla echoes this view quite loudly, calling for further reduction in taxes including capital gains tax levied on real estate transactions. “Na rahega baans, na bajegi bansuri” (if there is no bamboo, you cannot have a flute) – this is Dr. Bhalla’s simple prescription for containing and curbing corruption. Well, this is precisely the policy direction that successive governments have been following in India over the last three decades. In the latest 2011-12 budget, the government has reduced the surcharge on corporate tax from 7.5% to 5% even as corporate tax exemptions handed out in the preceding year reached a staggering Rs. 88,263 crore (between 2005-06 and 2010-11, the total volume of exemption in corporate tax has been an astounding Rs. 3,74,937 crore)!
If high taxes induced corruption, reduction in taxes should have pushed corruption progressively down. Yet we have another study, funded by the Ford Foundation and undertaken by the Global Financial Integrity, which indicates precisely the contrary. A GFI study entitled “The Drivers and Dynamics of Illicit Financial Flows from India: 1948-2008” by economist Dev Kar estimates the illicit financial flows (IFF) from India during the 61-year period (1948-2008) at $462 billion. As much as 68% of this aggregate IFF is attributed to the post-reform period (1991 onward). According to Mr. Raymond W. Baker, the Director of GFI, budget deficits and inflation have had little to do with the accelerated rate of transfer in the post-reform period. The GFI study squarely attributes the alarming increase in IFF to the reforms themselves: “What is clear is that, during the post-reform period of 1991-2008, deregulation and trade liberalization have accelerated the outflow of illicit money from the Indian economy. Opportunities for trade mispricing have grown, and expansion of the global shadow financial system accommodates hot money, particularly in island tax havens. Disguised corporations situated in secrecy jurisdictions enable billions of dollars shifting out of India to “round trip,” coming back into short- and long-term investments, often with the intention of generating unrecorded transfers again in a self-reinforcing cycle.”
Illicit financial flows constitute the dominant part of India’s black or underground economy. According to the GFI study, 72% of illicit wealth is accumulated abroad while the remaining 28% is held domestically. And the study finds both to have been increasing quite rapidly in the post-reform era – while the post-reform size of the underground economy has increased on an average to 42.8% of the GDP (as against 27.4% in the pre-reform period), the compound annual rate of growth of illicit flows which stood at 9.1% during the pre-reform period shot up to 16.4% during the post-reform years.
The study categorically admits that its estimate of illicit flows is quite conservative, as it underestimates both the principal amount (for example it does not take into account smuggling and distortions in trade pricing, not to talk of deficiencies of official statistics) and the interest component (the study has applied the rate of return accruing on US treasury bills which is far short of the actual rate of return on assets like real estate, precious metals, art objects). Yet even this conservative estimate is more than double the amount of India’s total external debt at the end of 2008 ($ 230.6 billion)! 

What is it that is driving the illicit flows of funds (as distinguished from what constitutes legal flight or export of capital) in the wake of the reforms? The study suggests a couple of important reasons – (i) the growth of foreign trade leading to greater scope for trade mispricing (according to the study 77.6% of aggregate illicit outflows is attributable to trade mispricing), and (ii) greater income inequality within the country leading to the emergence of a growing band of High Net Worth Individuals (each with investable assets of more than $1 million) who are “the main drivers of illicit financial flows”. In 2006, India had 100,000 HNWIs, and by 2009 the figure jumped to 127,000. In the recently released Forbes list of dollar billionaires, India with 55 billionaires stood at third position – next only to the US and China – in a global total of 1210 billionaires. In 2001, there were only 4 Indian billionaires in the global list of 538.
What is the destination of the illicit financial flows? Typically, these flows end up either in commercial banks in developed countries or in offshore financial centres (OFCs), the emerging ‘retreats’ for global finance. In 1995, developed country banks absorbed 60% of illicit flows from India, but over the next two decades the share of banks fell to 40% while the share of OFCs rose to 60%. The reason behind this shifting preference is quite obvious – the OFCs offer greater secrecy and immunity than banks and hence attract more illicit funds from across the world. India currently has Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements with 65 countries and even when the government is aware of part of Indian assets illegally held abroad, it avoids naming those account holders in the name of respect for international diplomacy and investor confidence!
Any serious discussion about corruption in India today therefore cannot be removed from this policy environment. Interestingly even as neoliberal advocates have to acknowledge the growth of corruption, they arrogantly use this evidence to push for still greater liberalisation and global economic integration. The KPMG survey would have us believe that it is the disproportionate growth of certain sectors and the indiscriminate entry of new players which lies at the root of heightened corruption as these new players seek to resort to bribery to disturb the level-playing field and secure a skewed field in their favour and everything could be sorted out by just strengthening the regulatory mechanism. The Radia tapes however tell a different story, it is the well-entrenched players who go all out to protect their turf and the so-called new players are often proxy players propped up by the big few. But the question is not so much whether new or old players are more responsible, it is the subservient role of the state vis-à-vis big business which is facilitating and increasingly legalising corruption as a by-product of economic reforms and as a byword for governance. The US apparently has the best regulatory mechanisms in place, yet the world has seen its worth during the recent explosion of the financial crisis. And any mechanism in India will have to cope with not just the pressure of domestic big business but global capital and its chief custodian, the US imperialism.
Indeed, to comprehend the political economy of corruption, one must view it in this political context where corruption in the economy is growing hand in hand with corruption in the polity. A telecom minister continues in office even after the CAG alleges a spectrum auction fraud worth Rs. 176,000 crore. After months together, the minister is forced to resign and the Prime Minister describes the whole thing as a compulsion of coalition politics, but the coalition is quickly renewed after a dramatic announcement of break-up. A key accused in a state-level scam is appointed the Central Vigilance Commissioner, and the government defends it adamantly till the Supreme Court eventually strikes down the appointment. And now courtesy Wikileaks   we have US embassy cables confirming the sordid saga of the UPA government buying votes to win the trust vote following withdrawal of Left support on the controversial Indo-US nuclear deal. But Pranab Mukherjee tells the Lok Sabha that the issue has already ‘expired’ because it concerned the previous Lok Sabha while Manmohan Singh tells us that the issue has been rejected by the Indian people during the last Lok Sabha elections!
The battle against corruption must therefore be carried forward to press for a complete rejection of the current policy regime and insist on an alternative pro-people path of development that accords centrality to the needs and rights of the Indian people and not to the dictates of big business and US imperialism. Beyond the Eyewash of Lok Pal Bill 2010 – 
Towards a More Transparent and Effective Alternative
The Existing Anti-Corruption Mechanism: Loophole-Ridden and Hollow
At central Government level, there is Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and Departmental Vigilance which deal with the disciplinary proceedings aspect of a corruption case, and the CBI which deals with the criminal aspect of that case. Central Vigilance Commission
The CVC lacks adequate resources to match the large number of complaints that it receives. In most cases it only monitors enquiries that are conducted by the vigilance wings of respective departments. Given the manpower constraints it is able to directly enquire only into a very small number of complaints where it suspects motivated delay or where senior officials could be implicated. Moreover it is merely an advisory body, and governments are free to reject or accept the CVC’s advice. Experience shows that CVC’s advice to initiate prosecution is rarely accepted and whenever CVC advised major penalty, it was reduced to minor penalty. Therefore, CVC can hardly be treated as an effective deterrent against corruption.
CVC cannot direct CBI to initiate enquiries against any officer of the level of Joint Secretary and above on its own. The CVC Act gives supervisory powers to CVC over CBI. However, these supervisory powers have remained ineffective. CVC does not have the power to call for any file from CBI or to direct them to do any case in a particular manner. Besides, CBI is under administrative control of DOPT rather than CVC. The CVC does not have powers to register criminal case. It does not have powers over politicians. If there is an involvement of a politician in any case, CVC could at best bring it to the notice of the Government.
Appointments to CVC are directly under the control of ruling political party, though the leader of the Opposition is a member of the Committee to select CVC and VCs. But the Committee only considers names put up before it and that is decided by the Government. The appointments are opaque and as we have seen in the Thomas case, it is very easy for the Government to appoint a pliant CVC. Departmental Vigilance Wings: Each Department has a vigilance wing, which is manned by officials from the same department, thereby making it practically impossible for them to be independent and objective while inquiring into complaints against their colleagues and seniors. In some departments, especially in the Ministries, some officials double up as vigilance officials. So, if some citizen complaints against an officer who has also been assigned vigilance duties, the complaint is expected to be enquired into by the same officer! Even if someone complaints against that officer to the CVC or to the Head of that Department or to any other authority, the complaint is forwarded by all these agencies and it finally lands up in his own lap to enquire against himself.
There have been instances of the officials posted in vigilance wing by that department having had a very corrupt past. While in vigilance, they try to scuttle all cases against themselves. Departmental vigilance does not have the powers to register an FIR nor any powers against politicians. They have been known to softpedal on genuine complaints or used to enquire against "inconvenient" officers.CBI: CBI has powers of a police station to investigate and register FIR. It can investigate any case related to a Central Government department on its own or any case referred to it by any state government or any court. But the CBI is overburdened and does not accept cases even where the amount of defalcation is alleged to be around Rs 1 crore. Further the CBI is directly under the administrative control of Central Government, and has had poor credibility in investigating cases involving ruling political figures. Likewise, it has also been perceived to have been used to settle scores against inconvenient politicians.
Therefore, if a citizen wants to make a complaint about corruption by a politician or an official in the Central Government, there isn’t a single anti-corruption agency which is effective and independent of the government, whose wrongdoings are sought to be investigated. CBI has powers but it is not independent. CVC is relatively independent (though even here the appointment is in the hands of the Government) but it does not have sufficient powers or resources. 

Government’s Lokpal Bill 2010: An Eyewash   
The UPA government has been under constant attack due to exposure of one scam after the other on the issue of corruption. In order to salvage its image, the government proposes to set up an institution of Lokpal to check corruption at high places. However the remedy seems to be worse than the disease. Rather than strengthening anti-corruption systems, this bill if passed, will end up weakening whatever exists in the name of anti-corruption today.
The principal objections to government’s proposal are as follows:
1.       Lokpal will not have any power to either initiate action suo motu in any case or even receive complaints of corruption from general public. The general public will make complaints to the speaker of Lok Sabha or chairperson of Rajya Sabha. Only those complaints forwarded by Speaker of Lok Sabha/ Chairperson of Rajya Sabha to Lokpal would be investigated by Lokpal. This not only severely restricts the functioning of Lokpal, it also provides a tool in the hands of the ruling party to have only those cases referred to Lokpal which pertain to political opponents (since the Speaker is always from the ruling party). It will also provide a tool in the hands of the ruling party to protect its own politicians.
2.       Lokpal has been proposed to be an advisory body. Lokpal, after enquiry in any case, will forward its report to the competent authority. The competent authority will have final powers to decide whether to take action on Lokpal’s report or not. In the case of cabinet ministers, the competent authority is Prime Minister. In the case of PM and MPs the competent authority is Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha, as the case may be. In the coalition era when the government of the day depends upon the support of its political partners, it will be impossible for the PM to act against any of his cabinet ministers on the basis of Lokpal’s report. For instance, if there were such a Lokpal today and if Lokpal made a recommendation to the PM to prosecute A. Raja, obviously the PM will not have the political courage to initiate prosecution against A. Raja. Likewise, if Lokpal made a report against the PM or any MP of the ruling party, will the house ever pass a resolution to prosecute the PM or the ruling party MP? Obviously, they will never do that.
3.       The bill is legally unsound. Lokpal has not been given police powers. Therefore Lokpal cannot register an FIR. Therefore all the enquiries conducted by Lokpal will tantamount to “preliminary enquiries”. Even if the report of Lokpal is accepted, who will file the chargesheet in the court? Who will initiate prosecution? Who will appoint the prosecution lawyer? The entire bill is silent on that.
4.       The bill does not say what will be the role of CBI after this bill. Can CBI and Lokpal investigate the same case or CBI will lose its powers to investigate politicians? If the latter is true, then this bill is meant to completely insulate politicians from any investigations whatsoever which are possible today through CBI.
5.       There is a strong punishment for “frivolous” complaints. If any complaint is found to be false and frivolous, Lokpal will have the power to send the complainant to jail through summary trial but if the complaint were found to be true, the Lokpal will not have the power to send the corrupt politicians to jail! So the bill appears to be meant to browbeat, threaten and discourage those fighting against corruption.
6.       Lokpal will have jurisdiction only on MPs, ministers and PM. It will not have jurisdiction over officers. The officers and politicians do not indulge in corruption separately. In any case of corruption, there is always an involvement of both of them. So according to government’s proposal, every case would need to be investigated by both CVC and Lokpal. So now, in each case, CVC will look into the role of bureaucrats while Lokpal will look into the role of politicians. Obviously the case records will be with one agency and the way government functions it will not share its records with the other agency. It is also possible that in the same case the two agencies arrive at completely opposite conclusions. Therefore it appears to be a sure way of killing any case.
7.       Lokpal will consist of three members, all of them being retired judges. There is no reason why the choice should be restricted to judiciary. By creating so many post retirement posts for judges, the government will make the retiring judges vulnerable to government influences just before retirement as is already happening in the case of retiring bureaucrats. The retiring judges, in the hope of getting post retirement employment would do the bidding of the government in their last few years.
8.       The selection committee consists of Vice President, PM, Leaders of both houses, Leaders of opposition in both houses, Law Minister and Home minister. Barring Vice President, all of them are politicians whose corruption Lokpal is supposed to investigate. So there is a direct conflict of interest. Also the selection committee is heavily loaded in favour of the ruling party. Effectively the ruling party will make the final selections. And obviously the ruling party will never appoint strong and effective Lokpal.
9.       Lokpal will not have powers to investigate any case against PM, which deals with foreign affairs, security and defence. This means that corruption in defence deals will be out of any scrutiny whatsoever. It will become impossible to investigate into any Bofors in future.
Therefore, the draft Lokpal ordinance is eyewash, a sham.  How the Jan Lokpal Bill Differs from the Government Draft 
Unlike the toothless Lokpal of the Government draft, the Jan Lokpal Bill has provision for the Lokpal to have powers to initiate investigations suo moto in any case and also to directly entertain complaints from the public. It will not need reference or permission from anyone to initiate investigation into any case. Lokpal is not an advisory body. It will have the powers to initiate prosecution against any one after completion of investigations in any case. It will also have powers to order disciplinary proceedings against any government servant. It would have police powers and be able to register FIR, proceed with criminal investigations and launch prosecution. That part of CBI, which deals with cases of corruption, will be merged into Lokpal so that there is just one effective and independent body to take action against corruption. The Lokpal will have jurisdiction over politicians, officials and judges. CVC and the entire vigilance machinery of government will be merged into Lokpal.
The composition and process of selection of the Lokpal members under the Jan Lokpal Bill too would be open and more democratic. The Lokpal would have ten members and one Chairperson. Out of them four need to have legal background (they need not be judges). Others could be from any background. The selection committee would consist of members from judicial background, Chief Election Commissioner, Comptroller and Auditor General of India and international awardees (like Nobel prize winners and Magsaysay awardees of Indian origin). A detailed transparent and participatory selection process has been prescribed.
The Lokpal as envisioned by the Government draft will not have powers to investigate any case against the PM which deals with foreign affairs, security and defence. This means that corruption in defence deals will be out of any scrutiny whatsoever. It will become impossible to investigate into any Bofors in future. In the Jan Lokpal Bill, there is no such bar on Lokpal’s powers.
Whereas the Government Bill does not talk of investigation of complaints against judges, the Lokpal under the Jan Lokpal Bill will have powers to initiate investigations on complaints of corruption against judges.

The Government draft of the Lokpal Bill will in no way help but will rather hinder the fight against corruption. We must demand that the Bill be redrafted on the lines of the Jan Lokpal Bill and the country gets an effective anti-corruption mechanism that is accessible and accountable to the people.