“The sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countryside and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable […]
Amid a spate of corruption scandals in India, glimmers of political change may have shone forth last week from what until a few years ago was the most unlikeliest of places.
This month was the biannual International Anti-Corruption Conference, which took place this year in Bangkok. The conference is an opportunity for a large portion of the world’s people who are thinking about corruption to get together, share ideas, learn what’s new, and of course schmooze (a bit). The theme of the conference this year was […]
The timing could not have been more perfect. A new report by Global Financial Integrity about Illicit Financial Flows from India comes as the perfect topping on the 2G spectrum scam, the Adarsh Housing Scam and the Commonwealth Games. According to the report, India lost approximately $213 billion in illicit financial flows from the country […]
This past Tuesday marked the annual release of the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Transparency International’s opportunity to name and shame all over the world. This year, as in most years, there were few surprises: the index is actually designed to favor stability over dramatic changes in order not to unduly punish countries that experience an […]
Zainab Jeewanjee reports on Pervez Musharraf’s planned return to Pakistani politics. With the launch of the All Pakistan Muslim League, Jeewanjee discusses Musharraff’s liberal policies in hindsight and comparison to his opposition and political change seems imminent in the country.
Last week the United Nations held a summit on the Millennium Development Goals. This is a set of venerable aims laid out in 2000 and intended to be accomplished by 2015. They include things like improving gender equality and ending extreme poverty. While some people indeed treat them as something to strive for, the goals […]
Corruption in the police force is commonplace in countries with high levels of petty bribery. In Georgia, the solution was to fire the entire traffic police force and rehire through objective procedures. In neighboring Armenia – where the government is either more gradualist or less committed, depending on your viewpoint – the Achilles project is […]
As newspapers continue their steady financial decline and the press is criticized for everything from false news reports to jeopardizing national security, those of us who live in the comfort of a democracy may start to say, Who needs them? There are plenty of blogs to fill the gap, and as tech-savvy critical thinkers trained […]
A day after India celebrates the 141st birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the man who led a non-violent struggle against the British rule, India will showcase her continued nominal ties with the British Empire by hosting the Commonwealth Games (CWG). However, the 2010 CWG have become more an arena of political wrangling and administrative corruption […]
In October 2008 I attended the International Anti-Corruption Conference. On a bus from the hotel to a reception, I sat next to someone named Julian Assange. At the time, I did not know who he was. He told me he worked for a group called Wikileaks, which was not a wiki but rather a website […]
Every year Transparency International ranks nearly all countries in the world in its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). In 2009 the United States ranked a respectable 19 out of 180. But within the United States there is considerable variation. Anyone who follows national news might make their own U.S. Corruption Perceptions Index, with the sheer size […]
Mobile phones have already transformed life in developing countries. They have brought phone service to remote areas that had little hope of ever seeing landlines. They have also had major economic benefits for so-called micro-entrepreneurs, helping them with everything from establishing mobile barbershops to determining the best time to bring goods to market. And now […]
As the US watches the growing disaster from the BP oil spill unfold, it seems appropriate to take a look at what has happened in the wake of other modern industrial disasters. Unfortunately, the developments of this week illustrate that justice is not always served in the aftermath. Twenty five years after a chemical gas […]
