The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam
It is hard for those in Western countries to imagine what it is like to live in a corrupt state like that.Eastern Europe is like that as well. Corruption is a way of life. It starts from bribing the doctor who will deliver the baby, to bribing kindergarten teachers, to high school teachers, paying to cheat on a state exam, buying a driver's license etc, until bribing the cemetery to take make an extra spot for the deceased when the person dies.Pretty much any interaction with a state could involve bribery and corruption. From the most mundane things, like a traffic stop, to paying a bribe to get away with murder.In school I remember people who did very badly during the year often ended up miraculously get good grades on finals.  Cases of judges being paid off to exonerate criminals were common.One of the lowest of the low scam artist was an acquintance of a neighbor living next door. That person worked for a DNA testing lab. They did criminal testing as well as paternity testing. You can imagine the kind of things they were dealing with and the pain they were causing. They drove a fancy car and had a big house on the outskirts of the city -- all on a lab technician's salary.Corruption is the reason I cannot tollerate visiting that part of the world anymore. It really angers and gets to me. It is not the poverty, crime, bad infrastructure, I can handle those things, but I can't handle corruption.