Federal investigations bureau - Investigator - www Invest

India Activist Fasts to Call for Tougher Graft Law

17.05.12

An Indian activist began a three-day hunger strike calling for Parliament to pass a tougher version of an anti-corruption bill than the one lawmakers started debating on Tuesday.

Anna Hazare began his fast in India's business capital, Mumbai, to protest what he calls a lack of teeth for an anti-corruption watchdog that the proposed bill would create.

Hazare has called the government's anti-graft legislation an attempt to fool the country.

His previous public protests have drawn tens of thousands of people in a country where corruption is rampant and top officials are regularly embroiled in scandals even as hundreds of millions of people remain bitterly poor.

But critics say his populist campaign attempts to vilify all politicians and hold elected officials hostage.

Hazare's main complaint with the anti-graft bill now before Parliament is that the proposed corruption ombudsman would not have authority over the country's top investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation. He says the ombudsman position would be too weak without that authority.

Source: ABC News