A whistleblower clerk in the Lakhimpur health department was murdered turning the spotlight back on the rural health fund scam in UP, which left a trail of four previous deaths.

Mahendra Kumar Sharma 52, went missing Feb 7, just days after the CBI questioned the chief medical officer of Lakhimpur. Sharma's body was found in a pool of blood with injuries to his head and face. Investigators believe he may have been killed in connection with the scam as the post-mortem report confirmed he was strangled.

Both the Congress and BJP slammed the Mayawati government, accusing it of collusion. They accused the Mayawati government of misusing funds meant for improving health facilities in the state.

Some weeks before he was killed Sharma wrote to the CMP about miscreants who broke into a file cabinet and took away important documents related to the department. His family accused senior officers of subjecting him to extreme mental torture.

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Speaking at the inauguration of the first interpol global programme on anti-corruption and asset recovery, CBI director A P Singh said Indians are the largest depositors in banks abroad with an estimated $500 billion in illegal money stashed in tax havens such as Mauritius, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, the British Virgin Islands, etc. Indians are also the largest depositors in Swiss Banks.

53 percent of the countries said to be the least corrupt by the Transparency International Index are offshore tax havens, where most of the corrupt money goes.

He explained that there is a lack of political will in the leading tax havens to part with information, as they are aware of the extent to which their economies have become geared to the flow of illegal capital from the poorer countries.

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has commenced an in-house investigation into pay-off allegations about a $100 million 2007 contract when Praful Patel was union civil aviation minister.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) approached the probe agency through diplomatic channels to inform them of the scandal and allegations made against Canadian NRI businessman Nazir Karigar, who said he paid a bribe of $250,000 to a Patel aide. The issue concerns a 2006 tender floated by Air India for computerised passenger face recognition biometrics systems.

Karigar who at the time represented CrypoMetrics, claimed he met Patel through former Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor and paid the bribe to the minister's aide to push the contract in favour of his company.

After internal objections by Air India and the civil aviation ministry, the contract was scrapped. Recently the CBI asked the Canadian authorities for a statement from Karigar who was prosecuted by Toronto authorities that sources say would help the CBI with their inquiries.

The scandal came to light after the Canadian Globe newspaper named Patel as an intended beneficiary of the bribe. Patel who rubbished the charges as baseless and preposterous is now the Indian heavy industries minister.

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Speaking to chief secretaries from state governments at a conference in Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said his government has moved forward substantially in tackling corruption, but it has a long way to go.

PM Singh also said he is confident a strong anti-corruption bill will still pass in parliament even though it unfortunately failed in the upper house in December. The bill proposes setting up an independent ombudsman, or Lokpal.

The government has been dogged by several corruption scandals and a recent survey said corruption has cost billions of dollars and threatens to derail growth.

Speaking on growth in the country, PM Singh said the reduced projection of 7-7.5% is due to the continuing uncertainty in the global economy and the need for monetary tightening to curb inflation.

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Suddam Sanab, a sub-inspector at a police station in Mumbai has been caught on camera demanding Rs.25,000 from Dr. Fayzan Khan, threatening that otherwise he would frame Fayzan in a counterfeit currency case and brand him a terrorist.

Fayzan said last April he was arrested after he was found in possession of two counterfeit notes, and when he went to meet Sanab recently he was hit with the bribe ultimatum and told he would be accused of a connection with a terrorist called Zarrar, whom he did not know.

Fayzan approached the Anti Corruption Bureau who instructed him to set up Sanab, but the ACB did not help him raise the money for the bribe and the case faded into hibernation. The ACB when questioned said the bribe amount demanded was too much for them to arrange.

Finally Fayzan wrote a complaint to two police commissioners hoping he would get a response.

For his part Sub-inspector Sanab says Rayzan in fact offered him the money to back-pedal and slow down on his case.

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