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There are three types of corruption that readily springs to mind and it is necessary to distinguish them from each other for effective remedies like diseases.
   1. Systemic corruption. This is the most virulent one. The whole country runs on personal contacts. Whether you want a business contract, a government permit, or anything else from any official quarter including hospital admission, school admission, etc. you cannot get it unless you yourself are powerful or know someone influential. This is even if you fulfil all the requirements and are prepared to pay the prescribed fees. This is the bane of our country and our times and is at the root of systemic corruption. Of course, in a country where many people are illiterate and require the services of a scribe to write even a simple letter or petition, agency or influential contacts thrive. The remedies therefore are widespread education for the public at large and for every government department, office, or semi-government offices or institutions, or the NGOs to have properly approved ‘office procedures’ like ISO 9000 standard and regular audit to ensure compliance with these procedures and reporting of any violation for remedial or punitive action. There must also be proper information and complaint avenues in every institution and office. Moving towards a cashless society where banks will not allow cash withdrawals over say a few thousand taka without acceptable recorded explanation in a form, but where all large payments can only be transacted by cheques or plastic cards will also curb the influence of black money and
   corruption.
   Adherence to rule of law in the form of regulations and correct procedures within a stipulated time for all interested parties must be the norm and the connection with agents or contacts must be discouraged, or even penalised. Principles must be put before close relatives and friends or people with money.
   2. Impromptu or chance corruption. An example is say where a traffic police takes some money and let go a traffic rules offender. It is difficult to eradicate such corruption; however, movement towards a cashless society and wider education of all public and law enforcing agencies will reduce this. Vigilance by the ACC or ‘police internal affairs’ must be exercised so that this type of impromptu corruption does not lead to systemic corruption, for instance say where a large transport company keeps the police happy by regular payments.
   3. Fraud or extortion by people in power which is wrongly termed corruption. The present cases against Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina are examples. Falsely implicating an innocent person in a criminal case (by say a police officer) and then extorting money to drop his/her name is another simple example. Procedures by the ACC, like wealth statements (computerised year on year like tax returns) from such persons or police officers of sub-inspector rank and above and other civilian and judicial officers of similar rank are the indicated remedies. Move towards a cashless society will also help.
   There may be many other kinds of real corruption or wrongly termed corruption in our society but it is necessary to clearly identify and distinguish each of them for proper diagnosis and effective remedy. An overall confused term like ‘corruption’ and trying to find its remedy is no better than trying to find a cure for ‘disease’ without knowing anything more.
   Engineer Shafi Ahmed
   London, UK

By some definition, the United Nations (UN) is an international organisation established in October 1945 by the five permanent members of the Security Council –– China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States and by a majority of the other 46 countries. The declared aims of the UN are to prevent war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, to provide an instrument for international law, to promote social and economic development, to improve living standards and fight diseases, and to offer freedom for all nations.
   On the other side, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) is a private institution which is not directly part of the structure of government, but relies significantly on funding from governments, individual donors, foundations, corporations. NGOs are not legal entities under international law, as states are (except the International Committee of the Red Cross).
   Every day, dozens of NGOs are being founded; currently, there are more than five million (5,000,000) NGOs around the world, and only one UN. Looking at the list of NGOs it is observed that since the mid-nineties, the number of NGOs has been rapidly increasing. Why millions of NGOs now? The rapid increase could be explained with the numerous wars that were fought prior to this period, that aided in creating poverty, refugees, neglect of human rights, abuse of women’s and children’s rights, health and environmental problems, economical and political depression, among others.
   There are many speculations concerning NGOs being tools of a domestic or foreign governments, private donors, corporations, organised crime, all of which to protect their interest in some interest areas. There are also allegations that NGOs are used for money laundering, as spy centres, for drug smuggling, trafficking, and even as tools for destabilising countries, among others. It is unclear if all these are true or not, but one question arises from it. How many individuals would give somebody or someone millions of dollars without asking anything in return?
   Unfortunately, there are numerous NGOs that are confirming these speculations and even ones whose founders found good ways of making money and drying up government budgets. However, there are a great number of good and incorrupt NGOs which were willing to make a change and really help someone.
   Subsequently, what can we expect in the future from the UN and the NGOs?
   Regrettably, it looks like the budget of the UN is decreasing. Member states are late with payments, some members have big debts, and this generally affects the UN body.
   Meanwhile, the budgets of the NGOs are growing, with no debts and delay in donor payments. With more media attention devoted to NGOs, increasingly now, governments are counting on NGOs more than on the UN, and if this trend continues, then NGOs will eventually replace the UN on the international stage, and, maybe, eventually come to power in some countries. Currently, we are witnessing a silent war among NGOs for leading positions in the international system, the end result of which cannot be predicted immediately, but it is obvious –– there are too many hungry sharks in the sea. If we look through calculations: five million NGOs multiplied by ten people in every organisation, we come up to the number of 50 million people working in NGOs worldwide, and the number is likely to grow.
   It would be out of place to say that the UN is a perfect organisation; we all know about manipulations of the UN system by some countries to get their will prevail, and because of that and many other things, the UN lost much of its respect on the international stage. Still, the UN is an international organisation, it has been helping and still helps people around the world; it was established for noble reasons to represent all nations equally and fairly, and it is expected that it will live up to its responsibilities and continue to do so.
   Ivan Simic
   Belgrade, Serbia