CVC drafts national anti-corruption document recommending action by government, judiciary, media etc.

THE Central Vigilance Commission has formulated a draft anti-corruption strategy that will become a dynamic process with an in-built mechanism of an annual review. Named as National Anti Corruption Strategy or NACS, the policy document recommends a set of action to be taken by the government and a set of action by the political entities, judiciary, media, citizens, private sector and civil society organizations. The proposed policy aims at conscious reshaping of the country’s national integrity system.

Meanwhile, CVC is organizing a seminar in New Delhi on Thursday on “Empowering Citizens to Combat Corruption” on the occasion of the international anti-corruption day which is celebrated on December 9 every year. PJ Thomas, Central Vigilance Commissioner will deliver the inaugural address. On this occasion, the project “VIGEYE” will be launched which is a more user-friendly platform for interface between the CVC and those citizens who are harassed by corruption.

India has recently witnessed a series of scams including the Commonwealth Games scam and 2G Spectrum Scam. Supreme Court has also taken up a PIL challenging the appointment of PJ Thomas, the head of the anti-corruption watchdog CVC, as a two decades old case has been haunting him.

Action and Appointments

a) Government has nominated M Shashidhar Reddy, presently a member of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) as Vice Chairman of NDMA. Dr Muzaffar Ahmad, former Director, Health Services, Jammu and Kashmir has been appointed as a member of NDMA.

b) Eight envoys presented their credentials to the President of India Pratibha Devisingh Patil at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday. The envoys were Oleksandr D. Shevchenko, the ambassador of Ukraine, Dembo Badjie, the high commissioner of Gambia, Mrs Khadija Radman Mohamed Gahnem, the ambassador of Yemen, Stewart Beck, the high commissioner of Canada, Dr Ali Abd-al-Aziz al-Isawi, the ambassador of Libya, Dr Samuel Kaveto Mbambo, the high commissioner of Namibia, Peep Jahilo, the ambassador of Estonia and Lucio Amati, the ambassador of San Marino.

c) The government has disclosed grants-in-aid provided by Central Government to Sanskriti school. According to a reply to a Parliament question, grants-in-aid provided by Central Government was Rs 1.87 crore in 2007-08, whereas it was Rs 92.3 lakh in 2008-09. However, no grants were made in 2009-10 and during the first eight months of the current fiscal. In Sanskriti, 60 percent seats are reserved for the wards of civil services including the defence cadre and allied services, 15 percent for the wards of the economically weaker sections and 5 percent for the wards of the staff.