India anti-graft fight at tipping point: Campaigners

NEW DELHI, Nov 15 (AFP): India is approaching a tipping point in tackling corruption, campaigners say, with a former government minister on trial and hope of tougher new laws to tackle top level graft. The threat from corruption to India's emerging status on the world stage -- and how to tackle it -- was a recurring theme among senior business leaders and policymakers at a two-day conference that ended in Mumbai on November 14. India's richest man Mukesh Ambani talked of the urgent need to improve governance while the incoming Confederation of Indian Industry president, Adi Godrej, said successfully fighting the problem could boost foreign investment. But whichever way the issue is framed, doing nothing was no longer an option for India as it seeks a more prominent role in world affairs, said Huguette Labelle, head of global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International. "Something can be done. The issue is will it be done?" she told AFP on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit. "But hopefully there's a point of no return at this stage." This year has been a watershed for India in tackling bribery and corruption, which has been described as endemic in society and blights the daily lives of millions. Last week, former telecoms minister A. Raja and top executives went on trial over the sale of mobile phone licences to favoured firms at cut-down rates that is thought to have cost India's treasury up to $40 billion in lost revenue. Officials in charge of last year's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi are also facing trial after claims of wide scale graft at the event, which was dogged by chronic delays and complaints of shoddy infrastructure and poor organisation. Both contributed to a wave of popular anger that culminated in nationwide protests in support of social activist Anna Hazare, who went on hunger strike to demand amendments to new government anti-corruption legislation. Hazare and his supporters are now waiting to see whether parliament agrees to their demands to create an independent ombudsman with powers to investigate the prime minister, top officials and the judiciary. The 74-year-old has threatened another hunger strike if the bill does not become law by the end of the winter session of parliament on December 21. With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government tainted by a series of scandals, Labelle said that being seen to be tough on tackling corruption and getting its own house in order will be vital for New Delhi. "What will be important for the government is to ensure that its laws are implemented and enforced," she added. "I don't think that one can be complacent and say that it's business as usual. It will be very important for India to take this seriously, as I presume they are." Transparency International said 54 percent of Indians had to pay a bribe last year to receive basic services -- well above the Asia-Pacific average of 31 percent and the 49 percent globally. "To me, it's an indicator that corruption is high and it's important for society, government and business to get together and fix it," said Labelle. Labelle said India needed to tackle the problem before it was too late. "When a country gets totally destabilised by a population -- a revolution -- you don't know where it's going to end, when it's going to end and you lose years of development," she added. "So, it's much better to do it in an orderly but timely way." There are signs that many Indians have grasped the nettle over corruption. Prominent business leaders have written to the government, calling for action against "galloping corruption", saying that constant demands for kickbacks and cash threatened economic growth. Labelle said movements like Hazare's were "useful" to spread awareness and force change but business must also play a role, becoming more transparent and using technology to cut opportunities for graft. "As India opens up to the world, it can't shy away from if it wants to be a global player," she said. An earlier FT report by James Lamont and James Fontanella-Khan in Mumbai adds: Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, has called for a generational change in the country's gerontocratic leadership, and urged the government to move faster to implement reforms that would help meet its young population's economic ambitions. "We've had a mystery [in India] where we think that [important] jobs can only be done by 60-years-old plus [people] . . . I think we're now fast moving to say that our 40-year-olds can take more responsibility and can perform better," Mr Ambani, 54, told business leaders and policymakers at the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit in Mumbai. He added that moving towards leadership [that] reflects our demographics, should be a top priority for the country. The tycoon's call for younger leadership comes as 41-year old Rahul Gandhi prepares to take greater responsibility in India's ruling Congress party from his ailing mother Sonia, the party president, and as the country's economy recedes from much-wanted double digit growth. Many political analysts are expecting an imminent transition of power in which Mr Gandhi -- the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty -- takes a more visible role after the treatment of his 64-year old mother for an unknown illness in the US over the summer. Some expect him to take the party's presidency before crucial elections in Uttar Pradesh next year. About 70 per cent of India's 1.2bn people are under 35. Mr Ambani's call to "align leadership with demographics" is an appeal for greater dynamism in Asia's third-largest economy at a time when the administration of Manmohan Singh, the 79-year old prime minister, is flagging. The opposition Bharatiya Janata party is led by the 83-year-old L.K. Advani. Likewise, some of its leading businesses, such as the Tata Group, are led by septuagenarians. One of the top complaints of Mumbai industrialists, alongside high domestic borrowing costs, is paralysis in India's parliament and bureaucracy after a slew of embarrassing high-profile corruption scandals. Mr Singh and his top economic team were absent from the WEF, viewed as a key investment showcase held this year for the first time in India's financial capital. Previously, Mr Singh has used the event to sell his country's prospects to foreign investors. Janmejaya Sinha, the chairman of the Boston Consulting Grou in the Asia-Pacific region, said "the government's record in addressing the big issues is abysmal". "The issues are ethical not economic, but we keep saying it is an economic problem," he said about New Delhi's failure to push through improvements in education, healthcare and power. The chairman of Reliance Industries, India's largest family-controlled conglomerate by market capitalisation, emphasised that it was essential for the government to speed up reform to meet the demands of the fast growing private sector. "The reality is that India is a land of a billion opportunities and not of a billion problems," Mr Ambani said.