12 Asian LEADER
15 Jan - 28 Jan 2014
India anti-corruption hotline
overwhelmed by calls
A
n anti-corruption hotline launched by the
Indian capital’s new
graft-busting
government
was overwhelmed by thousands of calls on its first day,
with the city’s top politician
saying the response exceeded “all expectations.”
India’s corruption fighter
and newly elected Delhi
chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the graft hotline
aimed at stopping rampant
corruption among bureaucrats received 3,904 calls in
the first seven hours of operation Last Thursday.
“We congratulate the people of Delhi. Everyone has
become an anti-corruption
‘sting’ operator,” the leader
of the Aam Aadmi (Com-
mon Man) Party, told reporters.
The number of callers “exceeded all expectations”, he
added.
“This will make corrupt
people fearful of taking a
bribe,” he added.
Indians routinely complain they are forced to pay
bribes to obtain everything
from marriage certificates,
driving licences to death
certificates.
The hotline, open from
8am to 10pm, counsels people what to do if any government official asks for a bribe
to do his duty.
Kejriwal said the hotline
centre could handle just
824 of the calls on Thursday
and it would double staff
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the graft hotline
aimed at stopping rampant corruption among bureaucrats
received 3,904 calls in the first seven hours of operation
to 30 to handle the flood of
callers.
Critics have said they fear
the anti-corruption activ-
ism being encouraged by
the new state government
could descend into a form
of vigilantism.
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The symbol of the rookie
party, founded just a year
ago, is a broom — to sweep
away India’s endemic culture of corruption and bribery.
Kejriwal has told citizens
to record conversations with
corrupt bureaucrats and use
the recordings as “proof” to
complain to the anti-corruption squad.
As a result of the calls, “we
carried out ‘stings’ in 38 cases. We are confident of the
results,” he said.
“Everyone has a phone
and can send you to prison,” Kejriwal said in a warning to bribe-seeking bureaucrats.
Bangladesh editor jailed for
seven years over Israel visit
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The Mail Today newspaper reported Friday that
sales of spy-cams and other
surveillance equipment had
surged as citizens looked
to trap corrupt officials on
camera.
Kejriwal’s performance is
being closely watched, with
some saying his party’s advent could mark the start of
a bigger movement to break
the grip of the two main
parties, Congress, and the
Bharatiya Janata Party, on
national politics.
The Aam Aadmi Party
plans to contest seats in
the general elections due in
a few months after its success in the Delhi state polls
in which it routed the scandal-tainted Congress party
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Bangladesh court Thursday
jailed a newspaper editor
for seven years for trying to
travel to Israel more than a decade
ago to speak about a rise in Islamic
militancy.
Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury,
48 (pictured), who edits the Weekly
Blitz newspaper, was found guilty
of harming the country’s interests
through his articles
as well as trying to
make a banned trip
to Israel, said prosecutor Shah Alam
Talukder.
The verdict in the
capital of the Muslim-majority nation
came amid mounting
criticism of the government’s muzzling
of dissenting voices,
and after a bloodsoaked general election boycotted by
the opposition and dismissed as a
farce.
The ruling also came just a day
after another