High Security, Indian style! Above: The Vyapam whistleblower being ’driven’ around in high security. The policeman you see constitutes the total extent of the security.
Current Events
An Astounding Scandal …
Even By India’s Terrible Standards
EDITORIAL, The New York Times
On Thursday, July 9, 2015, India’s Supreme Court ordered the country’s Central Bureau of Investigation to examine a corruption scandal of astounding proportions, even by India’s terrible standards.
It has been dubbed the “Vyapam scam” after the acronym for an examination board in the state of Madhya Pradesh that has a lot to say about who gets government jobs and coveted slots in medical schools. The scam involves bribes paid by students to get the high marks needed for these slots. Some of this illicit money was channeled into political campaigns, or so it is suspected.
Simmering for nearly a decade, the scam was catapulted into public view by the suspicious death on July 4, 2015 of the television journalist Akshay Singh. He reportedly began foaming at the mouth after sipping tea while interviewing the family of a student involved in the scam who was found dead.
According to an official count, about two dozen people connected in some way with the scam have mysteriously died. Some 2,000 others have been arrested since the state opened an investigation in 2013. They are mostly low-level figures -- students who paid bribes, brighter students who took exams in their place and exam administrators.
The new investigation should shed much-needed light on how the funds were used and who benefited. But the sordid tale is yet another startling example of the way corruption corrodes India’s politics.
In this case, the public has also been put at risk by unqualified doctors and other professionals whose main asset was their ability to bribe their way into school or a government job.
The scam can only dishearten voters who voted last year to elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party in the belief that he would end corruption.
But the Vyapam scam comes on the heels of another scandal that exploded last month dubbed “Lalitgate” involving India’s profitable professional cricket association.
Both scandals have taken place in states governed by the ruling BJP.
Mr. Modi has remained studiously silent on both affairs ...
He needs to speak out against these scandals now. He must also ensure that the Central Bureau of Investigation remains free of government interference and that whistle-blowers, witnesses and journalists working on corruption cases are protected.
[The above is an extract, courtesy: The New York Times]
July 13, 2015
Conversation about this article
1: Kiran Kaur (Chicago, Illinois, USA), July 13, 2015, 6:01 PM.
They bribe their way into obtaining degrees, then they bribe their way into become IAS, IPS, IFS officers who constitute the top bureaucracy of the country -- its all-pervasive administration and tax collectors, policing, foreign service. The judiciary, the schools and colleges and universities, the hospitals, the religious hierarchies -- nothing is out-of-bounds! With the thoroughly corrupt politicians leading the way, it is most convenient for them that this is so. Everyone is thus most conveniently pliable and malleable. Good luck to the foolish investors from around the globe lining up to get in for the 'action' in India. It's like jumping into a pool of piranhas for a cool-off. You'd be lucky if you get out alive, with limbs or no limbs.
2: AJ Singh (San Francisco, California, USA), July 13, 2015, 7:40 PM.
Why preserve the truth when it can be conveniently disposed off?
3: Kaala Singh (Punjab), July 14, 2015, 1:54 AM.
They pay to get the exam papers leaked and with those "engineers" India produces in droves, they hope to become an economic superpower. Come on guys, your engineers and scientists won't end your total dependence on the likes of the US and Israel anytime soon!
4: Jagjit Singh (Hong Kong), July 14, 2015, 2:29 AM.
No matter what, India will remain the same for another 100 years or more unless and until its law of the jungle is not controlled.
5: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), July 14, 2015, 9:30 PM.
India can't even produce a bag of noodles, forget about producing world class graduates.
6: Arjan Singh (USA), July 14, 2015, 10:35 PM.
We as a community need to learn from such incidents and realize that we too in India have been afflicted by this virulent disease of organized scams. A good example is the conviction of Punjab Public Service Commission chairman Ravinder Paul Singh Sidhu and his accomplices in the cash-for-jobs scam earlier this year. We must be vigilant and protect ourselves from this culture of corruption, even though it is nearly impossible to do so in the current Indian society.
7: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), July 15, 2015, 8:22 AM.
Now do Sikhs understand why we are taught not to have anything to do with Hindu and Muslim rituals and superstitions?
8: Kulvinder Jit Kaur (Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada), July 15, 2015, 6:10 PM.
The whole system is corrupt from A to Z. Singapore's government cleaned their system. So did some other countries but the means have to be severe. It can be done. AAP is trying to correct this deep-rooted mess in India but they are a minority in a sea of totally corrupted majority.