In an India beset by kickback scandals at the highest reaches of government, and where petty bribes at police stations and motor vehicle departments are often considered a matter of course, Oommen Chandy is making an online stand.
Exxon executives will tell themselves they represent such a big company that they are immune to petty bribes at one extreme, or political attempts to strong-arm them at the other.
DealBook » Mexican Attorney General to Investigate Wal-Mart | In addition, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico made his first public comment on the Wal-Mart scandal since The New York Times broke the news last weekend, saying "it wasn't right" to do business based on petty bribes, The New York Times reports.
Calling himself "very indignant" about the case during a meeting with Mexican migrants in Houston on Wednesday evening, Mr. Calderón said "it wasn't right" to do business "based on mordidas," using the common expression for the petty bribes Mexicans pay to smooth their way through bureaucracy or extricate themselves from traffic offenses and legal scrapes.
It said that it wasn't simply the daily diet of petty bribes that hold back the economy, but the huge scams where billions of dollars are allegedly siphoned off by government and industry.
The study effectively encapsulated the transformation India's corruption problem has undergone in recent years, observing that "it is not about petty bribes any more, but scams to the tune of billions of rupees...that highlight a political/industry nexus which, if not checked, could have a far reaching impact".
However, the high-level leader does not accept petty bribes from everyday people directly.
Women commented that some health workers harassed the patients or their relatives at the facilities, asking for petty bribes, for instance, money to buy soft drinks.
In interviews across Cairo, the rebellion of youth stood as an uprising of the dispossessed, if dispossessed is the word that captures all the petty humiliations, bribes and abbreviated lives once captured in an anthemic song by the Cairene band, Downtown.
And people increasingly tell pollsters that they are fed up with having to bribe petty officials to get permits and licences.Worse still, Mr Simitis has to keep potential successors within Pasok at bay.
