Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, devoted much of his annual independence day address on Monday to his administration’s fight against corruption in an effort to reverse eroding support for his Congress party-led coalition.
Mr Singh largely avoided mention of India’s rising place in the world in his speech to the nation delivered from the battlements of Delhi’s Red Fort. Instead, he focused on an issue that has dominated national debate over the past year as scams involving the telecoms sector, the Commonwealth Games and the military have rocked public confidence.
The 79-year-old premier’s strong emphasis on corruption is a tacit sign of the concern his party has over vociferous anti-corruption campaigns led by the Hindu nationalist opposition Bharatiya Janata party, and by social activists.
A prominent activist, meanwhile, said he would resume a hunger strike to pressure the government into toughening anti-corruption legislation it introduced in Parliament.
Singh made his comments from the ramparts of a 17th century fort in a speech marking the 64th anniversary of India's independence from British rule.
The government has been beset by scandals over the murky sale of cellphone licenses and the hosting of last year's Commonwealth Games, which together lost the country as much as $40 billion, according to government auditors.
For two weeks, Parliament has been paralyzed by anti-corruption protests, stalling crucial legislation.
Rights activist Anna Hazare announced he will resume his hunger strike on Tuesday to pressure the government into enacting stronger legislation for an anti-corruption watchdog.
On Monday, police in Delhi denied Hazare permission for his hunger strike, but supporters said they will fast anyway and risk arrest.
Hazare ended a four-day hunger strike in April after the government set up a committee to draft the anti-corruption legislation. The committee includes Hazare and other nonelected activists.
Last month Hazare said that after a series of meetings with government representatives he has concluded they are not serious about acting on the issue.
Hazare and his supporters have been demanding that Singh, lawmakers and top judges should be included in the purview of the watchdog. The government's current draft of the law does not include the prime minister and the judiciary.
Hazare's movement has tapped into deep public anger against corruption and his last hunger strike drew tens of thousands of supporters.
Singh said in his speech that only Parliament could decide on the anti-corruption legislation.
He said those who don't agree with the bill should debate it but "not resort to hunger strikes and fasts unto death.
London - Britain must confront its "slow-motion moral collapse" Prime Minister David Cameron declared Monday, following four days of riots that left five people dead, thousands facing criminal charges and at least 200 million pounds ($326 million) in property losses.
Cameron said his coalition government would outline new policies designed to tackle a culture of laziness, irresponsibility and selfishness which he believes fueled Britain's unrest.
He also pledged to toughen rhetoric from ministers and officials, who he claimed had too often had shied away from promoting strong moral standards.
His government would no longer be timid in discussing family breakdown or poor parenting, or in criticizing those who fail to set a good example to their community.
"This has been a wake-up call for our country. Social problems that have been festering for decades have exploded in our face," Cameron told an audience at a youth center in Witney, his Parliamentary district in southern England.
"Just as people last week wanted criminals robustly confronted on our street, so they want to see these social problems taken on and defeated," he said.
Cameron insisted that racial tensions, poverty and the government's austerity program -- much of which is yet to bite -- were not the motivations for the riots across London and other major cities.
Criminality and a lack of personal responsibility were at the roots of the disorder, Cameron said, pledging that the government would intervene to help 120,000 of the country's most troubled families before the 2015 national election.
Behind him, the wall bore a graffiti-style mural centered on characters wearing the kind of hoods and masks associated with those widely seen on television ransacking shops last week.
More than 2,800 people have been arrested since a protest over a fatal shooting by police on August 4 prompted rioting and looting in the poor north London area of Tottenham. That spread across the capital and sparked violence in other English cities.
Cameron, who returned from holiday abroad last week after days of unrest, is seeking to tap into widespread public anger over the protests. They came 15 months after he took office at the head of a center-right coalition committed to cuts in welfare and other spending that critics say will hit the poor.
"This has been a wake-up call for our country. Social problems that have been festering for decades have exploded in our face," said Cameron, who also faces criticism for plans to cut police spending and for his management of the crisis.
"Now, just as people wanted criminals robustly confronted on our street, so they want to see these problems taken on and defeated. Our security fightback must be matched by a social fightback."
The stakes are high for Cameron. Any repeat of last week's lawlessness, in which shops were smashed up and set on fire and five people were killed in related violence, will sap public confidence in his government.
However, analysts say Cameron, a 44-year-old former public relations executive from a wealthy establishment background, could benefit politically if he provides the tough law and order response some voters are seeking.
Cameron has taken a hard line in rhetoric. His speech on Monday talked of the dangers of indiscipline in schools and family breakdown, succor to traditional Conservatives who feel their young leader has been too liberal on social issues.
At Witney Ecumenical Youth Trust, where Cameron gave his speech, young people stressed the importance of organizations like theirs -- a charity which relies on donations and which almost closed a few months ago.
They fear government cuts, which have meant local councils cutting back on services like youth centers and care for the elderly, could exacerbate social problems.
"If they try to close this place down, there will be a riot," said 19-year-old Jesse Day, who felt the Trust's facilities had helped keep him out of prison. "I would have been banged up by now if it wasn't for them. It's my family."
Opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband said the government had to help young people who felt they would face tougher lives than their parents or grandparents.
"Are issues like education and skills, youth services, youth unemployment, important for diverting people away from gangs, criminality, the wrong path? Yes. They matter," Miliband said in a speech at the London state school where he was educated.
Miliband said a lack of morality was not confined to a "feral underclass" but had also been displayed by risk-taking bankers, legislators who fiddled their expenses and newspaper reporters who hacked into telephones for stories -- all major topics of debate in Britain in the past couple of years.
"When we talk about the sick behavior of those without power, let's also talk about the sick behavior of those with it," he said.
It was a line echoed by Cameron. Politicians are conscious that voters, disillusioned by what many see as a failure to punish bankers they hold responsible for the financial crisis, could take unkindly to being lectured by politicians, many of whom were also embroiled in a 2009 expenses abuse scandal.
Cynicism toward those in power has been further fueled by a phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper, which exposed a cozy relationship between British politicians, the press and police.
A series of blasts and gunshots ripped across Iraq on Monday, killing at least 60 people in a day of bloodshed that indicated the nation's security forces may be overwhelmed by insurgents as American soldiers withdraw later this year.
Baghdad— A series of blasts and gunshots ripped across Iraq on Monday, killing at least 60 people in a day of bloodshed that indicated the nation's security forces may be overwhelmed by insurgents as American soldiers withdraw later this year.
The sprawling attacks, including suicide bombers, car explosions and gunmen, struck from north to south throughout the morning in what appeared to be part of a coordinated plan. Soldiers, policemen and market shoppers were targeted in Najaf, Kut, Baghdad, Baqouba and other provinces.
It was one of the most vicious days in months and struck in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan. The deadliest attack was in Kut when an explosion whirled through a market place. As onlookers gathered minutes later a car bomb detonated, killing at least 33 people and injuring 77, according to a security official.
In Diyala province, a series of car bombs and shootings left 14 people dead in a region known for Al Qaeda fighters. In Najaf, a suicide bomber detonated and five minutes later a parked car exploded near a police building, killing two police officers and four civilians. Five security officers and a counterterrorism chief were killed in suicide bombings in Tikrit.
Gunfire and explosions echoed through the capital. A car bomb exploded near a motorcade carrying an official from the Higher Education Ministry, killing one passerby and wounding seven police and civilians. Al Arabiya TV reported that a curfew had been imposed on several regions.
Iraq is debating whether or not to ask a small contingent of U.S. forces to stay past the deadline, but no official request has been made yet, U.S. officials have said.
The day’s worst violence happened in Kut, a large city in central Iraq about 150 miles from Baghdad. Insurgents detonated a bomb at about 8:30 a.m. in a crowded area near a jewelry market, according to Dhiaa Al Deen Al Aabudi, the city’s health director. About 10 minutes later, a car bomb detonated in the same place. In all 34 people were killed and about 70 injured, some critically.
In Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, 13 people, including four Iraqi army officers, were killed in a string of car bombs, explosives and shootings. A police official there said he believed the commanders of the group Sons of Iraq were targeted by insurgents.
Elsewhere, at least two were killed in a series of car bombings in Baghdad, and eight died in attacks on police facilities in Najaf and Karbala. Nine people died in Tikrit after two suicide bombings there, including one by a man dressed in a traffic police uniform who blew himself up at the main gate of the city’s counter-terrorism facility.
In Kirkuk, where a car bomb and an motorcycle rigged with explosives exploded outside a church Monday, killing one, the provincial governor, Najmaldin Karim, called on American troops to stay in the country past the deadline.
Special correspondents Asaad Majeed in Baghdad, Sa’ad Sarhan in Najaf, Othman Almukhtar in Anbar province and Hassan Alshimmari in Diyala province contributed to this report.
