Inaugurating the district chapter of the Youth Against Corruption here on Wednesday, speakers urged youth to work for social change.
Social worker with the Vivekananda Youth Movement Mysore, R. Balasubramaniam, said that although everyone had heard of the Rs. 1,800 crore mining scam, no one had heard of the Public Distribution System scam which was similar in scale. He said that this was because there were no big names involved.
He said that there was a need for a value-based society. There was no need of a citizen who merely voted every five years and went back home and did nothing. Despite six years of the existence of the Right to Information, there were not enough people demanding information from public officials to find out what happened to the various schemes and the money released for those schemes by the government. What is needed is participatory democracy and not merely representative democracy, Mr. Balasubramaniam said.
Mr. Balasubramaniam said that Hong Kong was highly corrupt before the introduction of a Commissioner Against Corruption, who cleaned up the administration in around a decade.
YAC State convenor Suvrath Kumar said that it was not often that people got a chance to participate in “revolutions” that could change the country.
Mr. Kumar said the youth had the power to bring about change.
