Saturday 12 November 2011

Apparently the Government can Bribe

All of us have heard about police informers. I do not know whether these people can be considered to be "employed" by the police in the usual sense of the term. Apparently the income tax department also depends on informants to unearth information to conduct raids. Now this article says that some informants are disgruntled people. It clearly mentions that the funds used are secret and the IT department has to part with money to get information. Now the secrecy is justified. If I rat out a powerful real estate developer for tax evasion I do not want him to know that it was I who exposed him. 

However to my mind this entire practice seems suspiciously close to bribery. So is it ok if the government bribes its own citizens for a "good" cause? The irony is that these bribes are used for unearthing black money! So if these funds are secret, what are they, black or white? I am not saying what the government is doing is wrong. It is being pragmatic. However I just want to point out the irony. Also, the government keeps spouting Mahatma Gandhi's name often. I wonder what his take would have been on this classic case of the ends justifying the means.

This is entirely(?) unrelated, but what is Robert Vadra's name doing on the list of people exempt from frisking at airports? Does anyone know the logic?

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