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From Our Own Correspondent: India, the USA and Iran

India, the USA and Iran

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, India, the USA and Iran

Pascale Harter presents personal insights and analysis from Mark Tully and Daniel Nasaw.

Personal insight from writers around the world, presented by Pascale Harter. Mark Tully gauges how serious the Indian public is about fighting corruption; Daniel Nasaw finds learning Farsi's not easy.

Insight, wit and analysis from correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world, presented by Pascale Harter. In this edition:

Has India's anti-corruption campaign lost impetus?

Last year, two public fasts by two very different activists - Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev - seemed to have galvanised India's middle class into action against corruption. But more recent protests have  drawn far smaller crowds and less vocal support.  So is it likely that the Indian government will revert to past habits - and simply accept corruption as an inevitable part of life? 

That view goes back at least three thousand years to the political theorist Chanakya, known as the Indian Machiavelli. He said “Just as it’s impossible not to taste honey or poison when it’s on the tip of the tongue so it’s impossible for a government servant not to eat up at least a bit of the King’s revenue.” The BBC's Mark Tully reflects on how much steam there is left in the anti-corruption movement.


The Farsi and the furious

Daniel Nasaw is an American - and so's his partner Layla. But like nearly half a million others in the USA, her family has roots in Iran. After Layla's grandmother, a twinkly grandmother from Tehran, made one joke too many at his expense - and in a language he couldn't follow - Daniel determined to get to grips with the intricacies of her mother tongue. But as he tells us, there's many an embarassing pitfall on the road to Farsi fluency.

(Image: Baba Ramdev  waves to supporters through a window in a bus on the day of his arrest by police as he tried to march towards Parliament in New Delhi on August 13, 2012. Credit: AFP / Getty Images)

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