Young Indians, which is an integral part of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), organised a session on “Integrity India Campaign” on 12th April, 2007 at Rabindra Sadan, Kolkata. This was their third such initiative after organising such sessions at Bangaluru and Coimbatore last year. The second session at Coimbatore had His Excellency, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, The President of India, sharing his vision on Integrity India.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam

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The campaign is being headed by Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy. The intention of the campaign is laudable. As India’s economy grows and Indian companies extend their footprint across the globe through dramatic acquisitions across a wide swathe of industries, it is galling for India to have the dubious distinction of being the most corrupt exporting nation in Transparency International’s Bribe Payers’ Index. [Source: Indian Express]

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The session began with the holy words of Swami Tattwajnananda, who defined the problem of the prevalent corruption as a “crisis of character”. He also highlighted the colonial impression left on our society as he said, “Our masters have gone, but we do not have self-respect today”. He further spoke on the significance of Dharma, Tyaga and Karma in our lives. As an action, he recommended collective responsibility to remove poverty, spreading education, orientation to values and spirituality as the necessary steps towards building integrity.

Who could have been a better person to follow than Prof. S.K Chakraborty from IIM, Calcutta? He described today’s young Indian as a “disintegrated personality”. He was very emphatic as he identified the confluence of Punya Atma (The Holy Soul), Punya Neta (The holy Leader) and Punya Adhikari (The Holy Administrator) as the prerequisite to the culmination of a complete personality. He lamented the fact that money-mindedness has been implanted in our consciousness and at the same time asserted that ethics and values don’t be in literacy or in the well-off, rather, they boil-down to conviction, He further added that Honesty is a principle and not a policy.

Mr. Anil Swarup, a bureaucrat himself, discussed the corruption prevalent in bureaucracy and stressed on the need to be aware, transparent, accessible, objective, empathetic and disciplined. His views were later supported by Mr. Adity Sharma, Associate Director, Pricewaterhouse Coopers Pvt. Ltd.

Mr. Govindarajan Suresh, Vigilance Officer, ONGC described corruption as anti-poor, anti economic development and anti-national and expounded the concept of self imposed vigilance. The last speaker was Mr. Arun Bhatacharya, Chief Information Commissioner Government of West Bengal. He provided much needed information about the right to information and procedure for getting information from the concerned departments.

The question-answer session towards the end had several pertinent questions being raised by the audience and equally insightful responses by the panel. Twelve students from Army Institute of Management Kolkata were proud to be associated with this campaign. Having such eminent speakers together on a common platform and listening to them was a valuable opportunity and undoubtedly another step towards making Integrity India Campaign a success.

[External Links: Indian Express, Government of India (Press Release), CII Online, Young Indians, Incredible India