Every day we read about 8% economic growth. 10% economic growth. Predictions are being made of a richer, brighter future. While in reality more than half of India doesn’t even have access to toilets. We must constitute 50% of the world’s population which defecates in the open.

Exposed, untreated excrement can kill by the million. One of the hardest-won UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is a 2015 target of halving the proportion of those without sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Even if achieved, the target would still leave some 500 million on the planet without this basic requirement for survival and dignity. As many as 79 per cent of rural and 46 per cent of urban Indians have no access to improved sanitation. Of the 40 per cent of global population (some 2.6 billion people) forced to defecate in the open, some 665 million are Indians.

Diarrhoea claims 5,000 children every day worldwide, most of them on this subcontinent. The loss in lives, work days and school attendance (particularly by girls) is estimated at $38 billion per year.

Water and sanitation are inextricably linked: without sanitation, safe water cannot remain safe. “Access” is a key word with a variety of interpretations. In planning circles, targets are set in terms of coverage. “Coverage” is normally measured by the number of latrines, hand-pumps, water pipes and sewerage systems installed. Whether these are functioning, properly used and well-maintained is quite another matter.

100,000 tons of human excrement that Indians leave each day in fields of potatoes, carrots and spinach, on banks that line rivers used for drinking and bathing and along roads jammed with scooters, trucks and pedestrians. 75 percent of the country’s surface water is contaminated by human and agricultural waste and industrial effluent.

My recent train trip in India was the six AM Shatabdi Express to Jaipur. The sun rose late on that December morning, illuminating hundreds of men squatting in the fields next to the tracks, mile after mile, their asses towards the train, pooping on the same ground hundreds of men had pooped on every single day before.

Men only. Modesty forces women to poop in the fields before sunrise, or to hold it until after the sun sets.

This is the practice across India and the sanitary ramifications are staggering. Poop is a vector for bacteria and viruses, and it attracts insects and rodents that are equally unhealthy. People poop faster than Mother Nature can degrade it, which means people who poop in the same place day after day will inevitably come into contact with festering feces. A speck of poop on a shoe gets touched by a hand that passes a glass of water to a two-year-old: that’s how disease spreads.

Why do people poop in the fields? For some, it’s because they’re ignorant of hygiene and bacteriology; for others, it’s because they’re too poor to have any other choice.

75 percent of the country’s surface water is contaminated by human and agricultural waste and industrial effluent. Everyone in Indian cities is at risk of consuming human feces, if they’re not already, the Ministry of Urban Development concluded in September. The toll on human health is grim. Every day, 1,000 children younger than 5 years old die in India from diarrhea, hepatitis- causing pathogens and other sanitation-related diseases, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Too bad that there isn’t a Nobel prize in the Dirt and Filth category. India would have added one more to its pitifully small collection of Nobel prizes. Minister of the Gandhi realm, Jairam Ramesh, said at a recent public event,“Our cities are the dirtiest cities of the world. If there is a Nobel prize for dirt and filth, India will win it, no doubt.”

One would be hard-pressed to disagree with the claim since India is indeed dirty and filthy beyond reason. It says something about the culture of the people.

For now, here’s another statistic that would not surprise anyone who has seen the real India. Any day of the week, any time of the day, you can see men urinating with their backs turned to the street.(What women do is beyond my imagination.) Look out of a train any morning and you have to avert your eyes from the hundreds of people defecating along the train tracks.

 A recent AFP news item reports that 665 million people lack toilets in India. That’s more than twice the size of the entire population of the US. In slum areas, where more than half of Mumbai lives, an average 81 people share a single toilet. In some places it rises to an eye-watering 273. Even the lowest average is still 58, according to local municipal authority figures. Unsurprisingly, it is still common to see people squatting by roads and railway tracks or along the coast, openly defecating in the city that drives India’s economy and where some of the world’s richest people live. 

Commuters from Mumbai’s suburbs, and in other parts of the country, routinely see hundreds of people squatting besides the train tracks to relieve themselves. Many of them are women, who often cover their heads with their saris, thus making themselves ‘invisible’ to onlookers through the inverse logic that if I can’t see you (because my head and eyes are covered) you can’t see me. Such ‘invisible’ women are India’s open and only too visible shame.  The humiliation and degradation does not – and ought not to – attach to  those who perforce must do what they have to do without the dignity of privacy. The shame is ours that over 60 years after independence from foreign rule we continue to be a society in which more than half the total population has no recourse but to relieve themselves in the open, like animals.

Till we can draw a veil of privacy and dignity across the sight of Bharat Mata squatting to do her business, India will continue to broadcast a literally crap image of itself to the world and to ourselves, despite all the credit we lay claim to for our social and economic progress.

In the end it adds up, precisely, to a load of shit.

Reflections on India By Sean Paul Kelley

Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded The Agonist, in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America .

The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job.

Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.
I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way.

Mumbai, India ’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam , or Indonesia –and being more polluted than Medan , in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan !

One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, eminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing.

The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.

Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that.  But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia , have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does.

And the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.

Read for whatever its worth, cos as the writer says, I dont think we care (enough to change it). The collapse of our civil society has been the biggest loss. I’m sure that the Prime Minister sees all this filth all over the country, while being drived around in his motorcade.

Puja Mehta

Satyam Computer Services Limited was nationalized in January 2009 after its executive Chairman, Ramalinga Raju, confessed to overstating profits. It later emerged that more than $1.5 billion was illegally transferred from Satyam to Raju’s personally owned firms; these included a property firm, Maytas Infra Ltd as per copyright, that owned a $3 billion contract to build the Hyderabad Metro Rail system.

It appears clear that Satyam Computer Services Limited’s independent directors did not fulfill their duties. For instance, at a board meeting on December 16, 2008, to vote on a resolution to approve the acquisition of the Rajus’ property firm by Satyam Computer Services Limited at short notice, none of the independent directors questioned why only that firm was being considered for acquisition rather than any of the other property firms in the market (given the depressed state of the property market at the time, this should have been an obvious question). All the directors voted for the resolution.

The collapse of Satyam Computer Services Limited, India’s fourth-largest IT firm, shocked its clients (whose list included 185 of the Fortune 500 companies) and industry generally. It also challenged the usefulness of two pillars of Indian corporate governance laws – that listed firms employ an independent auditor and that the board should have a majority of independent directors.¹ It also raised questions about corporate governance and corruption generally in India, the scope and effectiveness of the laws on corporate governance, the scope and endemism of corporate corruption, the causes, and underlying trends.

Corruption in India is neither new nor limited in scope. India ranks 85th among the 180 countries in a recent study by Transparency International on political corruption.² The World Bank ranks India in the 25th to 50th percentile on the ability to control corruption.³

Economic corruption in India arose due to state controls of production through licenses and quotas. To gain access to licenses, corporations paid bribes. To gain access to goods and services in short supply, the public paid bribes. Thus, in the public mind, corruption, slow growth, inefficiency, and poor quality became inextricably linked.

A second source of corruption was the misuse of state power. The state has misused power in various ways. These include overstaffing public departments with favored voting groups, reallocating property rights to favored business groups and dispensing privileges in return for campaign contributions. The third source of corruption was inadequate disclosure and enforcement of corporate actions. With a few exceptions, listed companies were run as family firms that viewed their firms as hereditary fiefdoms.

India began reforming its laws from 1991. Licensing for production was eliminated in the 1991 reforms, thus solving the problem of inefficient production and short supply of goods and services.

The state has also shifted from governance by quota to independent regulation. Regulators in finance, insurance, and telecommunications, among others, have been empowered with the right to enforce global best practices and given independence from other organs of the state.

However, corruption in state patronage remains, particularly in land and civic infrastructure allocation, patronage recruitment, and election finance, despite reforms in these areas.

In summary, it appears that while Indian laws are better than in most developing countries, corruption is rampant due to the forces of patronage and lax enforcement. It is widespread enough to be considered endemic. The Satyam Computer Services Limited episode is symptomatic of a wider problem rather than a one-off.

A recent issue of Outlook had a cover story on Koda, the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, who is alleged to have looted Rs 4,000 crore from the state. A related article in the magazine was on all the scams that have taken place in India and how little we seem to care about all those stories on corruption.

The Reddy brothers, YSR’s family, Koda, Raja – these are just the latest additions. They are the tip of the iceberg. For the record, all of them get away with the loot, and continue to be in positions of influence. Indeed, I cannot think of a single politician who has put behind bars for corruption.

This is a cancer that is not restricted to any particular political party. It infects the whole system. An honest politician has become an oxymoron.

Politics has become a way – and perhaps the only way in India today – to amass unimaginable wealth in the shortest possible of time. Of course, entry to the club is becoming increasingly difficult because politicians have realised that getting one or more of their offsprings into politics is the surest way of ensuring the ill-gotten wealth stays. The façade of ‘youth’ is being used to legitimise power and money procured by dubious means.

We, the voters of the country, are as much to blame. We don’t demand accountability. We keep voting back to power the same folks who keep ripping us off. And in all this, we stay a poor country – waiting forever for the date with destiny.

Rajendra Shekhawat campaigning in Amravati, where his parents once held elected office. His opponents belittle any suggestion that his family did not orchestrate his candidacy and call him a carpetbagger

Rajendra Shekhawat, nicely polished in a pressed white shirt and neatly parted hair, his face sunburned from campaigning in the south Indian sun, says he is running for office as a common man. His pink cheeks suggest otherwise, though, since common men in India usually toil outdoors without requiring sunscreen.

Another clue is the elephant in every room in which he campaigns in this city in the state of Maharashtra: Mom. She is Pratibha Patil, the president of India.

“I’m not using my parents’ name at all,” Mr. Shekhawat, 42, stated in an upstairs office in his parents’ home, which he is indisputably using as a campaign headquarters. “I’m running on my own. But for sure, being in a political family for so many years does help me, and gives me easy accessibility for doing the work of the people.”

Democracy is built on the oft-tarnished ideal that any man or woman can get elected, but in India, home to the world’s biggest democracy, it helps to be part of a political family. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, scions of the governing Congress Party, is India’s version of the Kennedys. But other political dynasties, large and small, have proliferated so rapidly that many analysts believe nepotism is corroding the political system.

India’s chaotic politics can sometimes seem democratic to a fault: the election cycle rarely pauses and the country has roughly 1,050 registered national and regional political parties. But most of the major parties, including the majority Congress Party, are internally undemocratic; there are no primaries and party leaders discourage public dissent. Party bosses select candidates and have shown an increasing tendency to select their own relatives.

Here in Amravati, the decision by Congress Party leaders to run Mr. Shekhawat for Tuesday’s elections in Maharashtra State has provoked an angry backlash. He is running for a state assembly seat in the same district where his parents once held elected office. But to put him there, Congress leaders pushed aside Mr. Sunil Deshmukh, a former radiologist and two-term Congress incumbent with broad local support. Leaders offered Mr. Deshmukh the chance to run elsewhere, but he rebelled and is seeking his own seat as an independent.

“This is a fight against injustice,” declared Mr. Deshmukh, warming to his role as political insurgent. “If he is defeated, that will send a very strong message to all parties, no? If the person is only the son or daughter or a nephew of an important person, you can’t just thrust him on the people.”

Across India, political families are entrenched at every level of government and politics. At least nine of the 32 members of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet either descended from political families or have children seeking or holding office. Parliament is littered with political families; a recent study found that 31 of the 58 women elected had a husband, brother, father or father-in-law in politics.

The trend is even more glaring at the state level. In Maharashtra, analysts estimate that 30 or more party candidates running this month are from political families. The state’s chief minister, the top executive post, is the son of a former chief minister. This is also the case in two other states while the Congress Party is strongly considering replacing the late chief minister of Andhra Pradesh with his son.

“It has gotten into the DNA of the Indian political system,” said Jagdeep Chhokar, a founding member of the Association for Democratic Reform in New Delhi. “To control the workings of the party, the leader depends on trusted people. And one of the traditions of Indian culture is that you trust family members more than outsiders.”

Indian politics have a high turnover rate and voting blocs can be defined by region, religion, caste or community. Yet analysts say Indian voters favor a familiar family pedigree, partly because of a cultural reverence for the family and because of habits in some regions that trace back centuries. Several of the royal families who ruled over feudal states have today evolved into political families.

Modern India’s political marketplace is so crowded with parties and candidates that the “brand” of a familiar family name can bring an advantage, several analysts say. And the closed nature of political parties often perpetuates the dynastic problem; in several cases, rebels who broke from one party have formed their own and installed relatives around them.

Few political families are eager to step away from the power and lucre of office. In the state of Haryana, which has several local political dynasties, a recent study concluded that incumbents running for re-election had increased their personal wealth, on average, by 388 percent during their five years in office.

“Every political family these days is keen to keep someone in the field,” said Suhas Palshikar, who teaches politics at Pune University in Maharashtra. “Lots of resources are involved. Lots of networks are involved. And to put it crudely, a lot of money is involved.”

Mrs. Patil, 74, the Indian president, has less than three years remaining in her term. The position of president is largely ceremonial, with real power invested in the prime minister and his cabinet, though the presidency does command deference. Mrs. Patil’s press officer said the president had not been involved in her son’s candidacy but that the son, like anyone, has a constitutional right to seek office.

Her son’s opponents belittle any suggestion that his family did not orchestrate his candidacy and call him a carpetbagger who has spent much of his life away from Amravati, returning only in the past year after his political ambitions had been kindled.

“His only asset is his mom,” said Dr. Pradeep Shingore, 56, a cardiologist who is the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for the seat. “Politics is being used as ancestral property.”

On a cloudless morning in one of the city’s slums, the incumbent, Mr. Deshmukh, led supporters on a padyatra, or foot march, a ritual in Indian politicking. Sprinkled in the crowd were the mayor and 20 other local officials from the Congress Party who are defiantly supporting him.

“People are very angry,” said Ashok Dongre, the mayor. “These families are not good for democracy because the common person, the party worker in the field, should be encouraged to go for higher positions. If you do not do that, how will the party succeed?”

Many observers consider Mr. Deshmukh the favorite in the race, though he faces practical obstacles. Every candidate on the ballot is accompanied by a party symbol, which provides a guide for illiterate rural voters. The Congress symbol, an open hand, is iconic in India. But as an independent, Mr. Deshmukh had no symbol; after considering choices offered by the election bureau, he decided upon an image of a television.

“He has come to seek your blessing!” a campaign worker shouted in the slum as others waved banners with the television image. “His symbol is television! Tee-vee! Tee-vee! Tee-vee!”

For his part, Mr. Shekhawat, the president’s son, brushes aside criticism of his candidacy. He is making his first run for office after working for an educational institute controlled by his family and has spent more than a decade working inside the Congress Party. He says Mr. Deshmukh has failed to promote development projects adequately and accuses him of the political sin of disloyalty.

“This kind of defiance shows indiscipline,” Mr. Shekhawat said. “Nobody is above the party. Nobody.”

Nepotism presents an especially complicated question for the Congress Party and the Gandhi dynasty. Rahul Gandhi, the presumptive heir to the party, has been visiting poor villages while promoting the idea of making the party more open and internally democratic. As part of his tour, Mr. Gandhi appeared Friday in Amravati for a rally with local Congress candidates.

On the stage with him was the president’s son.

India is still perceived to be one of the most corrupt countries by the transparency international in its annual corruption
perceptions.
India has been ranked 84th in the list of 180 countries in terms of public-sector corruption, which is perceived to be highly corrupt.
While releasing the list of naming and shaming the world’s most corrupt countries, the international watchdog has for the first time recommended that tax havens like Switzerland and Liechtenstein should do away with the secrecy in banking laws.

“Corrupt money must not find safe haven. It is time to put an end to secrecy in banking laws,” said the Berlin-based group’s head Huguette Labelle.

The bottom five nations were Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Iraq, while the cleanest countries with ranking close to perfect 10 were New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore.

This year developing countries like Serbia, Burkina Faso, Peru and Ghana fared better than India by claiming 83, 79, 75 and 69 spots respectively.

China scored 3.6 on the scale, thereby indicating slightly better position than India in terms of perception of corrupt countries.

In neighbouring countries, Nepal was at 143rd position much below India, Pakistan scored 2.4 claiming 139th position along with Bangladesh while Sri Lanka scored 3.1 and stood at 97th position.

Nearly half of the countries have scored three or less on the scale of zero (perceived to be most corrupt) to 10 (perceived to be least corrupt) showing that corruption is rampant across the world. The index prepared by the voluntary group used 13 different expert and business surveys.

“Transparency international has found that strong correlation between corruption and poverty continued to exist, jeopardising the global fight against poverty and threatening to derail the UN Millennium Development Goals,” Admiral (retd. R H Tahiliani, Chairman of Transparency International India said in a statement.

“”"BANGALORE: The worst nightmare of working parents entrusting the care of their children to nannies became a reality for a city couple recently. As soon as they would kiss their little one goodbye, the nanny would feed him and get him ready – for a day of begging on the streets of Bangalore. Instead of milk, the baby was fed sedatives; instead of the clothes carefully put out by his parents, she would dress him up in rags. The modus operandi was simple – she would hand the seven-month-old baby to beggars for Rs 100 a day and lie back at her employers’ home, watch soaps and feed herself to her heart’s content. And this was not an `ayah’ picked up by hearsay reference, she came duly recruited by an employment agency, considered a safe option. The horrifying story was revealed when the child’s mother – who works for an MNC – returned home early one day. She found the nanny sitting in front of the TV but the baby was missing. Taken aback, she confronted the nanny who then confessed that she had been sending the baby for begging for the past three weeks. It’s only then that the parents realized why their son was drowsy and inactive in the evenings – he was being sedated everyday but for weekends when the parents would be home. Strangely, though, the couple have so far not lodged a police complaint. “The parents want to remain anonymous and don’t want to even talk about it,” a source said. They are said to be planning to move abroad. It isn’t clear whether this incident has forced them to take this step, but it would be hardly surprising if they wish to leave this nightmare behind. According to State Children Commission officials, a suo motu case will be filed against the nanny. “We are trying to track the family and get more details about the crime and the nanny. As beggary is a punishable offence, stringent action will be taken against the culprit. The commission will meet on Friday to decide on the course of action. “”"

Suicide is now seen much more as a sociological problem than one relating to an individual.

This phenomenon is growing in India with the latest figures showing a 28 per cent jump over the past 10 years.

In 1997, 95,829 people committed suicide and by 2007 the number of persons taking their own lives went up to 122,637, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

The NCRB says Maharashtra, followed by West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, registered consistently higher numbers of suicidal deaths over the past few years and accounted for 10 per cent or more of the total suicides reported in the country during 2005-07.

Puducherry reported the highest rate of suicide in 2007 (48.6 per 100,000 people) followed by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (38.5) while the all-India rate was 10.8 in 2007 compared to 10.5 during 2006.

Family problems and illnesses were two major factors in this, accounting for more than 22 per cent of the suicides during the years 2005-07. In 35 per cent of the cases, people took poison, while 32 per cent hanged themselves.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), suicide is now seen in South East Asia as a major public health problem. “Cumulative research, media reports and anecdotal evidence over the past three decades reveal that suicides are an emerging epidemic the world over.”

WHO says those who commit suicide give early indications of doing so. In India, 10-20 per cent of those who died this way had seen a physician a few days before taking the step.

Psychological counsellor Neera Jain said: “The disintegration of the joint family has removed the support system for the individual at times of emotional and psychological crisis.”

The president of the International Association of Suicide Prevention (IASP), Brian Mishara, said: “More than a million people worldwide die by suicide each year.”

Mishara says that 60 per cent of suicides now occur in Asia, with China, India and Japan accounting for 40 per cent. “Timely corrections of mental health issues and healthy lifestyles can be part of a multi-pronged approach,” said Dr Sameer Malhotra, head, division of psychiatry and psychotherapy, Fortis Hospital.

S.K. Chaturvedi, head of the department of psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, said, “We encourage them to share their problems and feelings with us, and try to assess their situations.

Sometimes if we find that the patient is at great risk of committing suicide, we admit them in the hospital.”

NIMHANS sees nearly 500 people with emotional, sexual and social problems daily, he said.

One thing is certain: this form of death is the most difficult one to prevent.

NEW DELHI – Twenty five years after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, those who lost their family members have not given up hope of getting justice, and are pinning their hopes on the court hearing the case against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler.

“We are left with only one hope of getting justice and that is from the court. We are praying to god that court should help us in punishing the guilty. The last 25 years was a terrible experience for all of us, said Amrit Singh Lovely, a resident of Tilak Vihar in west Delhi.

He said some of the victims’ families will protest outside the court Saturday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had, at the last hearing, said the witnesses, who deposed about the alleged role of Tytler in the anti-Sikh riots, were “not reliable”.

Additional CBI public prosecutor submitted before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Pandit that the two witnesses, Surinder Singh – who died recently – and Jasbir Singh, were unreliable as they have contradicted their statements on various occasions.

Citing the case of Surinder, who had deposed against Tytler, the CBI counsel said Surinder, in his first affidavit before the Nanavati Commission in January 2002, had stated that Tytler along with others had attacked Gurdwara Pul Bangash in north Delhi and killed Thakur Singh and Badal Singh. But in another affidavit in August 2002, Surinder had denied Tytler’s role, he added.

The probe agency will Saturday continue its argument on the version given by Jasbir Singh.

Jasbir too claimed to be witness to the Nov 1, 1984, incident when a mob had set on fire the gurdwara, killing three people.

The CBI had last month during the hearing also placed before the court audio visual evidence showing that Tytler was near the body of assassinated prime minister Indira Gandhi at the time of the incident.

CBI, which had April 2 sought to close the case against Tytler claiming there wasn’t sufficient evidence against him, had questioned the jurisdiction of a magisterial court and sought the matter to be transferred to a sessions court.

The court, however, was not convinced with the CBI’s arguments and decided to hear the closure report.

Over 3,000 Sikhs were killed in the riots in various cities following the assassination of Indira Gandhi on Oct 31, 1984.

Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has topped the corruption chart with about 4,300 cases.

It is followed by Delhi government, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Delhi Police.

There are about 457 corruption related cases against the Delhi government employees including 137 from Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

The DDA and Delhi Police where 305 and 133 officials respectively were facing corruption cases. Interestingly, 18 senior DDA officials have retired without their probe been completed.

According to MCD’s Vigilance department, as many as 4,299 cases were pending against 3,350 officials. Out of the registered cases, 1,435 cases were by anti- corruption branch of the Delhi Government, Police and CBI whereas 2,877 such cases were registered by its own vigilance wing.

The Delhi Police said that various criminal cases against 133 personnel were pending against serving officials since Jan 2008.

The cases were pending against eight inspectors, 12 sub inspectors, 18 assistant sub inspectors, 28 head constables and 67 constables.