Prez, PM call for determined efforts to combat corruption

NEW DELHI: President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tonight spoke of corruption posing a "grave challenge" terming it as cancer and wanted government departments at all levels to be purged of this evil.

Asserting that the external situation was benign and favourable while the challenges were "at home", Singh also wanted political parties to refrain from pursuing "divisive agendas". The parties should not weaken the society and nation by dividing people on narrow caste, communal, linguistic and regional lines, he said.

Patil and Singh were speaking at a function in the Central Hall of Parliament to mark the 60th anniversary of country's independence.

Singh said it is essential that the delivery systems of the government, at all levels, are more efficient and purged of corruption for all the benefits of development to reach the poor.

"The cancer of corruption must be extinguished if democracy and development have to have a real meaning for our people," Singh said.

Echoing his views, Patil said "corruption today poses a grave challenge to our system and it is time that the nation begins to determinedly combat this menace."

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee utilised the function to voice concern over some troubling signs of deterioration of standards in the country. "It is imperative to remove the distortions and deficiencies that have crept into our democratic structures and concomitant systems."

Vice President Hamid Ali Ansari in his first public function after assuming office said " Balkanisation of the mind" needed to be checked to promote Indianness among people.