International Anti-Corruption Watchdog and Citizen’s Coalition against Corruption Team up on a Transformational Agenda for India

The roots of this convention emerged last year and represents a systematic convergence of a well-curated line-up of international and national domain experts, youth voices, business visionaries, politicians, bureaucrats and grassroots development specialists. Key topics of the summit to be dialogued iclude:

 

• Can we re-invent our democratic form of governance? Do we need to intrinsically shift our existing mental models of what constitutes good leadership and governance?

• Youth and Rural Voices in re-imagining India 

• Empowering civil society coalitions against corruption

• Significance of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) treaty ratification to recover illicit financial flows stemming from coruption

• Success stories of asset recovery efforts in other geographies....what does India need to have in place to effect stolen asset recovery successfully?

 

In an informal survey of citizen sentiments in the wake of recent corruption woes, a recurring and dominant tone emerged -- why is there a deficit of human will and determination to tackle the cancerous menace at its root, with unabated momentum? In a country of over 1 billion people bestowed with a democratic voice, is our collective voice so muted as to let the league of the corrupt determine the destiny of the nation and its people?

 

When corruption is endemic and entrenched in a system, the foundational mechanisms that form the fabric of the system that breeds inefficiency and dysfunctionality needs re-evaluation and re-invention. "Eradicating corruption requires a new political culture. Politics as a profitable business, for private gain at public cost should end. It is time we, the people, reclaim the republic that has been stolen from us”, says Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, Member of the Legislative Assembly, Andhra Pradesh. 

 

“Free and fair elections are the foundations of democracy and the gateway to trusted elected leadership. We need innovative mechanisms to maintain integrity in the process. Empowering the electorate to make informed choices ought be the cornerstone of our electoral process”, according to Dr. S.Y. Quraishi, Chief Election Commissioner of India.

 

“With India at the crossroads of emerging as a global power, straddled with the reality of wide social disparity and injustice, we must accept the need to inject and implement disruptive innovations in the socio-political landscape with a sense of radical urgency and collaborative momentum”, said Kavitha Kannan, curator of the Summit and a strategy consultant affiliated with the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University. “Cutting-edge innovation is about ‘hybrid strategy’ – a new discipline that melds the best approaches from business strategy, social sciences and engineering design – while creating something new and transformational", said Kingshuk Das, scheduled speaker at the Summit and Senior Strategist at Jump Associates, San Francisco who will keynote a session on how design thinking has tremendous potential as a tool for transformational agendas. 

 

With a well-curated line-up of international and national domain experts, youth voices, business visionaries, politicians, bureaucrats and grassroots development specialists, the Summit promised to be 2 days of inspiring talks, actionable ideas and aspirational forums. The Summit will featured speakers and panel discussions that ignited the collective re-imagination of India – an India where its economic/social/cultural prowess & glory rise from foundations of truth,  justice, freedom and fairness for all. Featured speakers are experts from the UN, World Bank, SHERPA (France), and citizen luminaries like Arun Maira, S.Y. Quraishi, Aruna Roy, Gurcharan Das and more who will engage in interactive sessions with the audience.

 

5th Pillar is a grass-roots citizens’ initiative founded with a mission to enable and empower every citizen to seek transparency and accountability in governance. 

 

 

Contact: for more details of the outcome of the summit here below: 

 

Anupama Jha

Executive Director

Transparency International lndia

+ 91 9818429292

http://www.transparencyindia.org/

 

Vijay Anand

Founder-President

5th Pillar

+ 91 9840618948

http://india.5thpillar.org/