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> One autorick-shaw driver was pulled over by a policeman in the middle of the night who said he could go if he was "taken care of". The driver gave him the not

> One autorick-shaw driver was pulled over by a policeman in the middle of the night who said he could go if he was "taken care of". The driver gave him the note instead. The policeman was shocked but smiled and let him go. Too good to be true. On another note, what people usually do (when they are asked a bribe) is to notify the vigilance officer. The vigilance department provides marked original currency notes powdered with Phenolphthalein. Once the official accepts the bribe, the vigilance enters the office and arrests the official who took the bribe red handed (literally). But there are ways to circumvent this by depositing the bribe indirectly to the guy(proxy) who sells tea outside the govt. office from whom the govt official later collects it from.

cryptozeus 7y ago
It is too good to be true, police would have smashed him just out of ego
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fellellor 7y ago
  Only if you want to see the worst in people. The bribe accepting police is also, in many cases, not doing this out of malice. Police financing in India is pretty fucked up, and I find it surprising how we have a functioning society with such underfinanced and overworked police, even in the well to do urban areas. Anyways if you are the police in that situation, it makes much more sense to let the "activist" sort of guy, who has gone to the trouble of procuring such notes, go away and just wait for the next sucker to show up. Creating a scene which will definitely get you attention, and fired/suspended is a more stupider course of action.
  - pm90 7y ago
    > how we have a functioning society with such underfinanced and overworked police, even in the well to do urban areas. The answer is that we don't. If we did have better functioning police systems, you would see a lot more growth in a lot of Indian cities. The biggest cities escape the tyranny of local powers simply because people living in these cities accumulate vast financial resources to essentially circumvent Government services (e.g. you will see private guards everywhere, gangs running protection rackets that try to ensure that "Justice" is served etc.). This lack of basic government services and infrastructure can be crippling, especially to businesses and people looking to make long term investments.
    - gowld 7y ago
      Interesting, India reads like a libertarian paradise. I'd expect it to be an economic powershi.
      - icelancer 7y ago
        It's literally the opposite of that. Corrupt government is still the presence of a government/state.
        pm90 7y ago
        Right, the Government gets in your way (Bribes, red tape for everything etc.) in every step instead of staying out of it, because they have every intention to extract maximal resources through corrupt means. While this may not have been the intention of the Government polity (indeed, the corrupt wealth isn't reflected in tax receipts, but a flourishing black market) it is what ends up happening.
  - kamaal 7y ago
    >>Police financing in India is pretty fucked up, and I find it surprising how we have a functioning society with such underfinanced and overworked police, even in the well to do urban areas. Sorry sir, but this is plain wrong. Only two months back I was stopped by the police for 'fast driving', this is around a corner while I was turning at may be 10 kmph, in fact he just waved his hand in front of me. Irony be damned, it still qualified as 'fast driving' in his rule book- Which I translated as Why do you argue, just give me the money! He asked for 200. I had no change, so he removed a bundle of notes to give me the change. From what I saw I estimated a good 2 lac worth cash in his pockets. There were three such men, so I guess their Sunday afternoon collection was close to 6 lacs. This is just in one corner, on one day, in an after noon. These people extort 100s of crores this way everyday. There was a thread on Twitter a while back, where a women journalist reported she had CCTV camera footage where a constable was caught stealing her Honda Activa in the night, in uniform. Police several times in provides information to robbers in a area, if a family is out of the town, while the robbers steal they guard the home and protect while the robbers do their job. They also provide transport and logistics support in share for the theft. Last decade when the Lokayukta of Karnataka was fairly active, they released a photograph of recovered jewelry from a raid from a inspectors home, a man came forward and reported that the jewelry in the photograph had ornaments stolen from his home a few years back. Beat that. I hear your ordinary everyday circle inspector these days is worth a few hundred crores. They work hand-in-glove with liquor, land and drug mafia. This ain't even police, this is more like legalized mafia with unlimited powers and no accountability. These people are not underfunded, these some of the most richest people in India currently. Their earnings are only behind politicians.
    - frosted-flakes 7y ago
      What are lacs and crores?
      - jogjayr 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore
      - 7y ago
  - brianfen 7y ago
    > I find it surprising how we have a functioning society with such underfinanced and overworked police, even in the well to do urban areas. At the risk of being downvoted, I feel compelled to offer a foreigner's perspective here. As a foreigner who has lived in Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai for 2 to 6 months many times, I have to agree with the other commenter that I did not find a functioning society. Things I saw during my visits: - Cops refusing to file a report after a theft. - No medical or police help during accidents. It's up to the untrained passers-by to administer some form of first aid and take an injured person to medical care facility. - Motorcycle riders driving on sidewalks. - Cars driving on the wrong side of the road. - Drivers not yielding to pedestrians at crosswalks. - Tuk-tuks refusing rides in gross violation of government regulations. - Damage and pilferage of public property in Indian Railways. - Eunuchs extorting money from unsuspecting people in broad daylight. Some of these things are not exceptions but the rule. This does not consititute a functioning society per my expectations and standard of living. This is a total breakdown of law, order, civility, decency, and courtesy in society.
    - kamaal 7y ago
      >>Some of these things are not exceptions but the rule. You could be downvoted, the real reason is so many Indians don't even think this is anything wrong. Globalization has presented an opportunity for Indians like me to travel abroad and see how well the systems work outside. For a lot of Indians, something like this is invisible. Often the exposure is to infrastructure seen through Hollywood movies or these days, YouTube. The 3 years or so I spent in Bay Area,CA literally floored my mind. Things as simple as getting a California State Identity card without bribes, to VTA drivers saying Good morning. Trains run on time, parks are kept clean. People pay taxes, police doesn't ask for bribes, people cleaning up after their dogs in parks. I have even seen emergency services arrive in like minutes in case of accidents in places like Sunnyvale. Heck when I was there the Santa Clara County was doing some water harvesting project for millions. That's like a small residential area equivalent in Bangalore, the scale and audacity of ambition itself was shocking to me. The contrast being, a place like Koramangala in Bangalore, would probably debate to death to a get a leaf composter and instead burn the leaves and pollute the air around.
- guru4consulting 7y ago
  But it's true because I have seen it in action and spoke to real people benefiting from it. I volunteered for 5th Pillar from 2007 to around 2014 or so. It mostly works because more often the police don't prefer to mess with anyone who might be associated with any group (political party or activist or religious or anything else). You would even see cars often hoisting a flag from a political party or some organization. Some people wear dress (dhoti) that are lined with their party's flag to indicate that they are affiliated with that political party. The police (especially the traffic cops on the roads) have enough problems and want to prey on only the weakest ones, hence better not to mess with someone who could potentially fight back, bring some media attention and worse, transfer them to a remote place.
ComputerGuru 7y ago
In many countries the official currency for bribes is a recharge/top-off card for mobile phone calling credit. You forget it on the seat or the counter and oops.
m463 7y ago
I was wondering if there was a way to "tag" the serial numbers on a note used to pay a bribe, then track it's movement. But your proxy scheme shows it's been thought of.

cryptozeus 7y ago

It is too good to be true, police would have smashed him just out of ego

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
fellellor 7y ago
Only if you want to see the worst in people. The bribe accepting police is also, in many cases, not doing this out of malice. Police financing in India is pretty fucked up, and I find it surprising how we have a functioning society with such underfinanced and overworked police, even in the well to do urban areas. Anyways if you are the police in that situation, it makes much more sense to let the "activist" sort of guy, who has gone to the trouble of procuring such notes, go away and just wait for the next sucker to show up. Creating a scene which will definitely get you attention, and fired/suspended is a more stupider course of action.
- pm90 7y ago
  > how we have a functioning society with such underfinanced and overworked police, even in the well to do urban areas. The answer is that we don't. If we did have better functioning police systems, you would see a lot more growth in a lot of Indian cities. The biggest cities escape the tyranny of local powers simply because people living in these cities accumulate vast financial resources to essentially circumvent Government services (e.g. you will see private guards everywhere, gangs running protection rackets that try to ensure that "Justice" is served etc.). This lack of basic government services and infrastructure can be crippling, especially to businesses and people looking to make long term investments.
  - gowld 7y ago
    Interesting, India reads like a libertarian paradise. I'd expect it to be an economic powershi.
    - icelancer 7y ago
      It's literally the opposite of that. Corrupt government is still the presence of a government/state.
      - pm90 7y ago
        Right, the Government gets in your way (Bribes, red tape for everything etc.) in every step instead of staying out of it, because they have every intention to extract maximal resources through corrupt means. While this may not have been the intention of the Government polity (indeed, the corrupt wealth isn't reflected in tax receipts, but a flourishing black market) it is what ends up happening.
- kamaal 7y ago
  >>Police financing in India is pretty fucked up, and I find it surprising how we have a functioning society with such underfinanced and overworked police, even in the well to do urban areas. Sorry sir, but this is plain wrong. Only two months back I was stopped by the police for 'fast driving', this is around a corner while I was turning at may be 10 kmph, in fact he just waved his hand in front of me. Irony be damned, it still qualified as 'fast driving' in his rule book- Which I translated as Why do you argue, just give me the money! He asked for 200. I had no change, so he removed a bundle of notes to give me the change. From what I saw I estimated a good 2 lac worth cash in his pockets. There were three such men, so I guess their Sunday afternoon collection was close to 6 lacs. This is just in one corner, on one day, in an after noon. These people extort 100s of crores this way everyday. There was a thread on Twitter a while back, where a women journalist reported she had CCTV camera footage where a constable was caught stealing her Honda Activa in the night, in uniform. Police several times in provides information to robbers in a area, if a family is out of the town, while the robbers steal they guard the home and protect while the robbers do their job. They also provide transport and logistics support in share for the theft. Last decade when the Lokayukta of Karnataka was fairly active, they released a photograph of recovered jewelry from a raid from a inspectors home, a man came forward and reported that the jewelry in the photograph had ornaments stolen from his home a few years back. Beat that. I hear your ordinary everyday circle inspector these days is worth a few hundred crores. They work hand-in-glove with liquor, land and drug mafia. This ain't even police, this is more like legalized mafia with unlimited powers and no accountability. These people are not underfunded, these some of the most richest people in India currently. Their earnings are only behind politicians.
  - frosted-flakes 7y ago
    What are lacs and crores?
    - jogjayr 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore
    - 7y ago
- brianfen 7y ago
  > I find it surprising how we have a functioning society with such underfinanced and overworked police, even in the well to do urban areas. At the risk of being downvoted, I feel compelled to offer a foreigner's perspective here. As a foreigner who has lived in Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai for 2 to 6 months many times, I have to agree with the other commenter that I did not find a functioning society. Things I saw during my visits: - Cops refusing to file a report after a theft. - No medical or police help during accidents. It's up to the untrained passers-by to administer some form of first aid and take an injured person to medical care facility. - Motorcycle riders driving on sidewalks. - Cars driving on the wrong side of the road. - Drivers not yielding to pedestrians at crosswalks. - Tuk-tuks refusing rides in gross violation of government regulations. - Damage and pilferage of public property in Indian Railways. - Eunuchs extorting money from unsuspecting people in broad daylight. Some of these things are not exceptions but the rule. This does not consititute a functioning society per my expectations and standard of living. This is a total breakdown of law, order, civility, decency, and courtesy in society.
  - kamaal 7y ago
    >>Some of these things are not exceptions but the rule. You could be downvoted, the real reason is so many Indians don't even think this is anything wrong. Globalization has presented an opportunity for Indians like me to travel abroad and see how well the systems work outside. For a lot of Indians, something like this is invisible. Often the exposure is to infrastructure seen through Hollywood movies or these days, YouTube. The 3 years or so I spent in Bay Area,CA literally floored my mind. Things as simple as getting a California State Identity card without bribes, to VTA drivers saying Good morning. Trains run on time, parks are kept clean. People pay taxes, police doesn't ask for bribes, people cleaning up after their dogs in parks. I have even seen emergency services arrive in like minutes in case of accidents in places like Sunnyvale. Heck when I was there the Santa Clara County was doing some water harvesting project for millions. That's like a small residential area equivalent in Bangalore, the scale and audacity of ambition itself was shocking to me. The contrast being, a place like Koramangala in Bangalore, would probably debate to death to a get a leaf composter and instead burn the leaves and pollute the air around.
guru4consulting 7y ago
But it's true because I have seen it in action and spoke to real people benefiting from it. I volunteered for 5th Pillar from 2007 to around 2014 or so. It mostly works because more often the police don't prefer to mess with anyone who might be associated with any group (political party or activist or religious or anything else). You would even see cars often hoisting a flag from a political party or some organization. Some people wear dress (dhoti) that are lined with their party's flag to indicate that they are affiliated with that political party. The police (especially the traffic cops on the roads) have enough problems and want to prey on only the weakest ones, hence better not to mess with someone who could potentially fight back, bring some media attention and worse, transfer them to a remote place.

ComputerGuru 7y ago

In many countries the official currency for bribes is a recharge/top-off card for mobile phone calling credit. You forget it on the seat or the counter and oops.

m463 7y ago

I was wondering if there was a way to "tag" the serial numbers on a note used to pay a bribe, then track it's movement. But your proxy scheme shows it's been thought of.