Indian culture at it's best

This culture is also reflected in the peverted practice of religions in
India with selfish pujas, priest thugs, mindless rituals. This applies to
all religions - hinduism, islam and christianity in India.

Western culture is much better.

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The Hidden Scourge | Taxing the Poor
Where a Cuddle With Your Baby Requires a Bribe

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By CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: August 30, 2005
BANGALORE, India - Just as the painful ordeal of childbirth finally ended
and Nesam Velankanni waited for a nurse to lay her squalling newborn on her
chest, the maternity hospital's ritual of extortion began.
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Namas Bhojani for The New York Times
Nesam Velankanni had to pay to see her daughter, Arokya, at her birth 16
months ago in Bangalore, India. She has an older daughter, Ruby, 6.
THE HIDDEN SCOURGE
Articles in this series examine the impact of corruption on democracy and
economic development around the world.


The Hidden Scourge: Wrestling With Corruption

The Hidden Scourge | Russia: Pervasive Corruption in Russia Is 'Just Called
Business' (August 13, 2005)
The Hidden Scourge: Unending Graft Is Threatening Latin America (July 30,
2005)
The Hidden Scourge | Wrestling With Corruption: Africa Tackles Graft, With
Billions in Aid in Play (July 6, 2005)

Namas Bhojani for The New York Times
At the Austin Town Maternity Home in Bangalore, it is common for nurses to
demand bribes to bring newborns to their mothers.
Before she even glimpsed her baby, she said, a nurse whisked the infant away
and an attendant demanded a bribe. If you want to see your child, families
are told, the price is $12 for a boy and $7 for a girl, a lot of money for
slum dwellers scraping by on a dollar a day. The practice is common here in
the city, surveys confirm.
Mrs. Velankanni was penniless, and her mother-in-law had to pawn gold
earrings that had been a precious marriage gift so she could give the money
to the attendant, or ayah. Mrs. Velankanni, a migrant to Bangalore who had
been unprepared for the demand, wept in frustration.
"The ayah told my mother-in-law to pay up fast because the night duty doctor
was leaving at 8 a.m. and wanted a share," she recalled.
The grand thefts of rulers may be more infamous, but the bitter experience
of petty corruption, less apparent but no less invidious, is an everyday
trial for millions of poor people across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Increasingly, it is being recognized as a major obstacle to economic
development, robbing the impoverished of already measly incomes and
corroding the public services they desperately need.
The bribes vary from place to place and in the services affected, but
stretch from cradle to grave, according to surveys and anticorruption
investigators. People pay to give birth, and to collect their loved ones'
bodies from mortuaries, and for everything in between: garbage collection,
clean water, medicines, admission to public schools. Even policemen double
as shakedown artists.
Such petty bribery acts as a hidden regressive tax, according to research
financed by the World Bank Institute, the bank's educational and research
arm. In Zambia, for example, poor people paid 17 percent of their incomes in
bribes for medical care, while the middle class paid only 3 percent. The
comparable figures for Paraguay were 7 percent for the poor and only 1
percent for the middle class.


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