15 November,2010 07:20 AM IST | | Hemal Ashar
With the Adarsh scam still on the radar, a new chief minister and debates simmering about what can be done now about the Adarsh building, two recent news reports bring to fore some universal truths about fraud, greed and conscience. Though this is not designed to be a consolation for the Adarsh cheats, just an indicator that cheaters move in mysterious ways.
A couple of days ago, there was an expos ufffd about some people involved in a huge scam, involving the Holocaust survivors. The reports said that for nearly six decades, a not-for-profit corporation known as The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or the Claims Conference, has been overseeing German government funds that assist Holocaust survivors.
Conning, like death, is a great leveller as elastic morals are flexible, stretching all the way across the globe
Some corrupt Claims Conference employees in its Manhattan office, along with 11 other conspirators had been charged in a decade-long scheme to defraud the organisation and swindle Holocaust victims out of $42 million.
A private law firm investigated employees' suspicions that the co-workers had approved fraudulent claims and finally when all was proven true, the world erupted in horror. News reports called the fraud, 'an affront to human decency'.
The reaction is quite similar to all the outrage swirling around the Adarsh scam with most people seething because flats meant for Kargil martyrs' widows are involved. People are asking (shades of Holocaust anger) that how come even Kargil did not prick the conscience of the fraudsters.
Another example to show that cheating has no gender, age or class, is a news report from Australian agency that talks about a new trend of students 'outsourcing' homework to their counterparts in India, Pakistan and Egypt. An increasing number of websites are offering to write essays, term papers or dissertation writing services, and Australian students are using their services, said a Sunday Herald report.
In both instances, maybe the perpetrators of the fraud were too confident about not getting caught or perhaps the fraud gave them some excitement and a feeling of 'hurray I have fooled the world', besides the obvious gains.u00a0
u00a0One teacher is reported to have said about the outsourcing homework scam as, "kids will be kids, they will always cheat. Let's correct that". People will be people, they will always cheat. Conning, like death, is a great leveller. Elastic morals are flexible, stretching all the way across the globe.
