Indian PM vows corruption crackdown after scandals
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday he was "dead serious" about cracking down on corruption, as he launched a fightback after a run of scandals that have damaged his clean image.
Mr Singh, in an extremely rare and highly defensive televised address, accepted that recent scandals had damaged the government and acknowledged that some people were now calling him a "lame duck."
"I wish to assure you and the country as a whole that our government is dead serious about bringing to book all the wrongdoers regardless of the position they might occupy," Mr Singh said.
He said he had never considered stepping down and would "stay the course," urging critics to consider India's impressive economic performance — growth will be 8.5 per cent in the year to March, he said — and growing diplomatic clout internationally.
"We should not create a situation where the country loses its sense of self-confidence," he said in one of several pleas to the media not to exaggerate the problems faced by the government.
He also addressed the problem of inflation amid growing evidence that the rising cost of living is hurting his popularity and that of his government just 18 months after their resounding re-election.
"It is certainly true that in recent months inflation and food inflation in particular have been a problem. We want to deal with it in a manner that the growth rhythm is not disturbed," he said.
By March, inflation should be down to 7.0 per cent from 8.23 per cent in January, the last month for which data is available, he said.
Mr Singh's centre-left coalition government, led by his Congress party, has been lambasted for months over the sale of mobile phone licences in 2008 at a fraction of their value.
Mr Singh has faced pressure from the opposition for an all-party probe into the scandal — a demand he is reportedly set to agree to — and has been asked to explain why he did not stop the fraud-tainted licence sales.
The telecom minister at the time, A. Raja, was arrested earlier this month and remains in police custody as investigators probe what the Indian media have dubbed India's biggest-ever corruption scandal.
The Indian Express said Mr Singh's televised press conference was "an attempt to clear the clouded air over the UPA (government) and extricate his government out of it's virtual freeze."
The Mail Today newspaper headlined its Wednesday edition "Mr Singh image in need of pronto PR magic."
"Manmohan Singh's government is straying from one mega scam into another and the ruling establishment's credibility is at an all-time low," he said
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