Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
laws, and lack of punishments'. This 'creates an environment where corrupt behaviour has
become more a norm rather than an exception'. Discretion, they say, is 'the power to judge
what is to receive priority', which can involve the power to veto or delay, or to approve and
sanction, or maybe both.
2
'On big ticket corruption, the problem is that whatever you do, you will never be able to
tiates 'big ticket' corruption with large-scale bribes and projects from 'small ticket', which
is due to shortages in many services that include health, education and electricity and water
supplies and even banking services and access to aid schemes, especially for the poor.
Corruption stories fill the headlines of newspapers almost every day, tumbling out one
after another, with each story edging earlier ones out of the public gaze. In the few weeks
that I wrote the first draft of this chapter, the news was dominated by a surge of scandals
that illustrated the range and frequency of scams. The minister for railways resigned over
bribe allegations. There were long-running stories on coal mining and telecommunication
scams that stretched to the prime minister's desk. There were more developments in a dra-
matic cricket match-fixing scandal in the glitzy IPL with political, business and other links
that included a leading family-controlled company based in Tamil Nadu. A $500m penalty
was levied by US authorities on a top pharmaceutical business for falsifying drug research
results and other malpractices. The Bharatiya Janata Party's state government in Karnataka
was voted out of power after five corruption-riddled years, and a former Uttar Pradesh
state government was accused of large-scale draining of funds allocated for construction
of a chief minister's egotistical monuments. The son of a former chief minister in Andhra
Pradesh was refused bail after a year in jail during investigations of massive graft and ex-
tortion led by him and his late father.
The coal and telecom scandals involved a nexus of politicians and companies that fixed
and fiddled contracts and licences, and were especially shocking because the government
tolerated them, even when they were being widely talked about. The cricket and pharma-
ceutical scandals were significant because they pulled down icons of what were unwisely
dubbed the 'India Shining' years of the 2000s when the country was riding high on strong
economic growth. Corruption in the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh had dragged
down the international reputation of their capital cities, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, which
led India's information technology boom in the 2000s. All the unfolding sagas illustrated
the malpractices that lay behind much of that growth in the mining, communications and
manufacturing industries, showing how weak the foundations of modern India were.
Corruption happens in all types of societies; India is not alone in this. Its impact varies
according to market forces and political systems. In some countries - China, for example
- it has eaten into the structure of government, but it does boost economic development
because bribes paid to a minister or a city mayor usually generate official approvals and
