To keep the people happy the government of India comes out with jokes from time to time. Yesterday's was a cracker. Seems that the government has decided to set up a committee of senior uncivil servants to examine complaints against senior uncivil servants to root out frivolous complaints. Definition of frivolous is not given. Today when a modest house in Delhi can cost in excess of Rs. 100 million a bribe of Rs. 1 million might be construed as frivolous. Everyone knows that the vast majority of civil servants ( 99.99%? ) are corrupt. The reasons are many. Money is usually collected by the lower ranks who deal directly with the public and is then divided up a chain right upto the politician in charge. If anyone is honest it breaks the chain and reduces income for everybody. Such a person is harassed, threatened or killed. Jobs of civil servants are permanent and they are never sacked, merely transferred to another department but their ingenuity is such that they can make over Rs. 9 billion from even the humble cattle fodder. Promotion is not based on merit but on length of service and such factors as sucking up to politicians, protecting fellow officers from the police and not making mistakes which means not doing anything significant thus reducing the chances of making mistakes. Laws are designed to obstruct people in anything they want to do, whether it is setting up a business, building a house or getting a passport. People have come to accept that they have to pay bribes to get anything done. It follows, therefore, that anyone with money can do anything however illegal. Thus kleptocrats have corrupted the entire population of India.