Ambedkar Action Alert: Fwd: Change: The 5Th Pillar News Letter

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <newsletter@5thpillar.org>
Date: Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 6:18 PM
Subject: Change: The 5Th Pillar News Letter
To: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com

September 1st, 2010

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Honest I.A.S Officer Harassed by T.N. Government

Mr. Umashankar, I.A.S officer has repeatedly attempted to expose corruption rampant in the government only to be transferred from one post to another by the officials he was trying to expose. He is an e-governance specialist and as District Officer, made Thiruvarur the first E-district in India in 1999. In 2000, "The Week" magazine called him the "Man who can change people's lives by means of good governance"

Mr. Umashankar was first appointed the Union Public Service Commission, Tamil Nadu in 1990, then the Additional Collector and Project Officer, District Rural Development Agency, Madurai in 1996. He exposed a scam involving civil development contracts, and was promptly transferred to another department. As Joint Vigilance Comissioner, he recommended action against former Chief Minister, ministers, senior IAS officers and bureaucrats. In May 2006, Mr. Umashankar was posted

The Long-Awaited Whistleblowers' Act

The long-awaited bill to safeguard whistleblowers was finally introduced in the Lok Sabha on the 26th of August, 2010. The Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosures Bill 2010 seeks to set up a regular mechanism to encourage whistleblowers to expose corruptions by public servants or commission of a criminal offence.

The bill was introduced by Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. "It has been felt that the persons who report the corruption or willful misuse of power or willful misuse of discretion, which causes demonstrable loss to the Government or commission of a criminal offence by a public servant need statutory protection as protection given to them by the Resolution of the Government of India would not suffice," said Chavan.

Upcoming Events Calendar

. Lecture on Corruption and RTI Act.
02.09.2010. Location: at SRM University,
Kattankolathur, Chennai.

. RTI Training for Railway Police Force.
02.09.10 at 4 PM at Yelagiri Hills, Vellore Dt.

. RTI Training at Chennai Office.
02.09.2010 and 09.09.2010 at 4 PM.
All are welcome.

To register your names for the FREE
training, call 9445164555 or 044 6527
3056 or email info@5thpillar.org.

. RTI Training at Coimbatore Office.
03.09.2010 and 10.09.2010 at 4:30 PM.
All are welcome.

To register your names for the FREE
training, call 94438 41602 or email
cbe@5thpillar.org.

Please note current address: 15 Sreji
Apartment, East Periyasamy Road,
Road, R.S. Puram, CBE-2. Near
Brindavan Lodge and Priya Kunj Hall.

. Public Meeting on Freedom From Corruption.
11.09.2010 from 4:00-7:00 PM. Organized by
5th Pillar and the JCI Madurai Pandyan.

. FFC and RTI Training for Students
13.09.2010 from 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM and 1:30
to 3:00 PM at Sourashtra College, Madurai.

Our Work Continues...

A "Freedom from Corruption" campaign was conducted by 5th Pillar at the Sastra University in Thanjavur. Mr. Vijay Anand addressed the Law students who would be the next generation of policy makers and legal analysts. He emphasized the use of the RTI Act to address the delayed services and to redress anomalies in many departments. Several provoking questions were brought up and discussed with the students. The introduction of the Zero Rupee Note, a novel tool adopted by 5th Pillar to combat corruption paved the way to an interesting discussion about how the officials react when they are rebutted with Zero currency. Mr. Anand listed examples of how the Zero Rupee Note has aided the public to get their services without having to pay an extra fee. Zero Rupee Notes were distributed to all the participants and a pledge was taken to neither accept nor give bribes.

Global Integrity Report Results By Category

The following graph shows the strength of oversight and regulation in combating corruption for various countries in the world. Some factors include auditing, taxes, customs, transparency of state-owned enterprises, and business licensing requirements. The data comes from the Global Integrity Report, which synthesizes data on government corruption around the world. To see more data from the Global Integrity Report, go to http://report.globalintegrity.org/globalindex/charts.cfm.

Corruption Perception Index

Recent Activities

August 1, 2010: 5th Pillar Awareness campaign and RTI training session was conducted at the Farmers Association Hall, Mettur Road, Erode. http://5thpillar.blogspot.com/2010/08/5th-pillars-rti-campaign-at-erode.html

August 1, 2010: Retired employees Association of Cuddalore invited 5th Pillar to address them at their monthly meeting at the Pensioners Hall at Cuddalore. http://5thpillar.blogspot.com/2010/08/5th-pillar-addresses-rti-to-retired.html

August 12, 2010: 5th Pillar took part in the protest organized by the Makkal Sakthi Katchi against the wrongful suspension of Mr. C.Umasankar IAS. http://5thpillar.blogspot.com/2010/08/5th-pillar-supports-makkal-sakthi.html

August 15, 2010: 5th Pillar awareness campaign was conducted at the Independence Day celebration in Los Angeles. http://5thpillar.blogspot.com/2010/08/5th-pillar-takes-part-in-independence.html

August 16, 2010: Freedom from Corruption campaign at Paramakudi Government Arts college.

August 16, 2010: Initiation of Paramakudi chapter by District Collector of Ramnad. http://5thpillar.blogspot.com/2010/08/5th-pillar-paramakudi-chapter-was.html

August 17, 2010: .Freedom from Corruption. campaign was conducted at Sourashtra college for men in the morning and in the afternoon at the women's college. http://5thpillar.blogspot.com/2010/08/president-of-5th-pillar-mr-vijay-anand.html

August 17, 2010: .Freedom from Corruption. campaign was conducted at the Sourashtra chamber of commerce in Madurai. http://5thpillar.blogspot.com/2010/08/mr-vijayanand-speaks-at-sourashtra.html

August 18, 2010: .Freedom from Corruption. campaign at Sastra University in Thanjavur. http://5thpillar.blogspot.com/2010/08/mr-vijay-anand-addresses-law-students.html

August 21, 2010: Mr. Vijay Anand, President of 5th Pillar, was invited as a guest speaker at the TEDx conference held at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh.

August 24, 2010: In the .Freedom from Corruption. campaign organized by 5th Pillar, at SSN Engineering college in Chennai. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmtfxT1jyy0&feature=player_embedded

August 31, 2010: Freedom from Corruption campaign at the 4 day event, Aaruush10 organized by SRM College of Engineering, Chennai. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGDdbtP64lk&feature=email

Electronic Voting Machines (EVM's) Are Not Secure

A story that has caught the attention of the world media in the past few weeks involves the arrest of Hari Prasad, a software engineer, on charges of stealing an electronic voting machine from Mumbai. Prasad was working on behalf of VeTA (Citizens for Verifiability, Transparency and Accountability in Elections), as part of a three-member global team that sought to prove that EVM's are extremely easy to hack and tamper with. The Election Commission had challenged the public to prove that EVM's can be hacked soon after the national elections last year. However, they refused to provide the NGO in question with one of their 1.3 million EVM's for testing. An anonymous source provided Hari and his collaborators with a machine and Hari was arrested on Saturday, soon after he gave a live demonstration of how EVMs could be pre-programmed to favour one candidate or party. "This is a ca se where the police action is obviously politically motivated. It is an attempt to intimidate us," Halderman, one of Hari's international collaborators, is reported to have said. Although EVM's might have been state of the art technology when they were invented in the 1980s, they are far from being so now. And in a country in which millions of people have software expertise, the ease with which an EVM may be tampered with is undeniable.

CONTACT INFORMATION

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Publisher and Editor in Chief: Vijay Anand Managing Editor: Anita Roychowdhury

Contributing Authors: Anitha Ramalingam, Puneet Anand, Srimathi Sridhar, A. Subramani, and Shobila Kali

Copyright © 2010 by 5th Pillar

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