Dear GoenkaVijay89,

My late response is because I read you post only now.

Let me repeat what I've been saying in this forum all along.

If we want to find a way to make all our people good & honest citizens internally, we're living in Utopia. This may never happen. Singapore is clean NOT because the Government there has made everyone aware of the importance of keeping the city clean, but ONLY because if anyone dirties the city, they will pay through their noses.

It has been scientifically established that, to minimize any crime, all you need to do is 2 things:
(i) Make the detection and punishment of the crime sure and swift.
(ii) Make the extent of punishment much more severe than the benefit from the crime.

For example, if someone is found to have received a bribe of Rs 10,000, give an imprisonment of, say, 3 years, and make them pay a fine of, say, 25 times the bribe (Rs 2.5 Lacs in this case). So, you make the risk higher than the return, and so most people will hesitate to take the risk. Coupled with (i) making the detection and punishment almost certain, it will minimize corruption to unbelievably low levels.

Politicians and bureaucrats know this, and they know Jan Lokpal Bill is at least somewhat in this direction. That's why they resist this. They spin the story that we should all become good citizens internally to solve the corruption problem.

And some of us, including Team Anna fall for this. Which is why we see oath taking by people that they won't give or receive bribes in Anna's rallies. How many who took the oaths, do you think, will honour their oaths? Then we'll ourselves feel sheepish that, if we would violate our own oaths when no one notices, how can we fault the politicians? So, we'll grin and bear corruption. End of story.

Corruption exists NOT because of the specific people in positions of power. It will exist EVEN IF we all were there in power. Those politicians and bureaucrats who we blame would then have been part of Anna movement. Perfect role reversal.

We should create system that makes it unattractive to be corrupt. Period.

Everyone? Thoughts?

Ganesan. :~)