India activist rejects graft law

29 July 2011 Last updated at 04:18 GMT Anti-graft activist Anna Hazare had undertaken a fast in April Indian activist Anna Hazare has rejected a proposed new anti-corruption law which has been approved by the government.

Mr Hazare said the Jan Lokpal (Citizen's Ombudsman) Bill was a "cruel joke". He said he would go on hunger strike from 16 August in protest.

The government has refused to include the prime minister and senior judiciary under the purview of the ombudsman.

India has recently been hit by a string of high-profile corruption scandals.

Civil society members, led by Mr Hazare, have been pushing the government for a strong ombudsman that will have the power to investigate corruption charges against the prime minister, senior judges and MPs, among others.

On Thursday, the government approved a draft of the law which allows citizens to to approach the ombudsman with complaints against federal ministers and bureaucrats, who are protected under India's present anti-graft laws.

But campaigners led by Mr Hazare and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have criticised the government's decision to keep the prime minister and senior judges out of the proposed law.

"If a prime minister does something corrupt to save his seat and there is no investigation into the corruption, then what does this mean?" BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad said.

Mr Hazare, who went on a hunger strike in April to protest against government inaction on corruption, said the proposed law was "unconstitutional".

But federal Law Minister Salman Khurshid said the government had accepted most of the points raised by the civil society members in framing the proposed law.

Some of the recent corruption scandals to have rocked India include a multi-billion dollar alleged telecoms scam, alleged financial malpractices in connection with the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games and allegations that houses for war widows were diverted to civil servants.

Critics of the government say that recent scandals point to a pervasive culture of corruption in Mr Singh's administration - adding to the difficulties of a politician once seen as India's most honest.

A recent survey said corruption in India cost billions of dollars and threatened to derail growth.

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India minister 'quits over graft'

7 July 2011 Last updated at 10:26 GMT Mr Maran has denied allegations of corruption Indian Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran has resigned following allegations of involvement in the country's biggest corruption scandal, media reports say.

Mr Maran, who belongs to a key ally of the governing Congress party, is the second minister to be embroiled in the scandal over telecoms licences.

His DMK party colleague, former telecoms minister Andimuthu Raja, is already in jail on corruption charges.

The multi-billion dollar scandal has badly hurt the government's reputation.

India may have lost as much as $39bn in revenue, a sum equivalent to the annual defence budget, the state auditor has said.

Mr Maran is being investigated as part of a broader probe into wrongdoing over a decade.

He has denied allegations that he coerced the founder of the mobile phone firm Aircel to sell off his stake to a firm favoured by the minister.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's second term in office has been hit by a series of corruption scandals that have triggered public anger and paralysed policymaking, diverting the government's attention from stimulating India's flagging economy.

Damaged reputation

Mr Maran left the telecommunications ministry in 2007 to be succeeded by Mr Raja and was until Thursday the country's textiles minister.

India is the fastest growing mobile phone market

Prosecutors have already charged Mr Raja with fraud and forgery in a separate scandal related to the 2008 sale of cellular licences.

That sale, conducted on a first-come, first-served basis, netted India only 124bn rupees ($2.7bn), causing the government to lose billions of dollars in potential revenue.

In May another senior member of the Tamil Nadu-based DMK party to be implicated in the scandal was arrested.

Kanimozhi - a member of parliament and the daughter of the state's former chief minister M Karunanidhi - denies conspiracy and bribery allegations in relation to the alleged mis-selling of the telecoms licences.

Several top company executives have also been arrested in connection with the so-called 2G case.

The government has been hit by a series of corruption allegations in recent months.

These include a parliamentary cash-for-votes scandal, the resignation of the head of the country's anti-corruption watchdog after he himself was accused of wrongdoing and alleged financial irregularities at last year's Commonwealth Games.

India has the world's fastest growing mobile phone market, with about half a billion subscribers.

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