Lokpal issue tops govt agenda on corruption : PM

New Delhi: In an apparent endorsement of the civil society agitation on the Lokpal Bill issue, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said it (the agitation) had brought the issue of cleaning up of public life on top of agenda of the government’s national priorities.
“The agitation for the establishment of a Lokpal has brought the issue of cleaning up of our public life right at the top of the agenda of our national priorities,” the Prime Minister said at the biennial conference of the CBI and anti-corruption bureaux. He said the “churning over” the issue that society and the polity were witnessing today, marked by sharp differences of opinions and ardent advocacy of particular causes was “good for our country”. The tasks of ensuring transparency and accountability in the work of public authorities and of building effective mechanisms for punishing those who indulged in corrupt practices and protecting those who sought to expose wrongdoings had acquired an urgency as never before.