India, Corruption, Land Records, Technology Fix

Indian program to computerize land records shows technology’s limits - The Washington Post: " . . . land ownership has long been controlled by corrupt bureaucrats beholden to powerful land mafias that dispossessed the downtrodden and spawned millions of disputes. In Karnataka, 10,000 village accountants presided over piles of stapled, crossed-out, erased and rewritten documents that had been revised so often it was nearly impossible to trace back how land was transferred — or stolen. Wealthy families routinely took land documents as collateral for usurious loans to the poor, Puttappa said. Upon default, they took the land, often illegally. Even if the loan was repaid, many would trick illiterate debtors into putting their thumbprints on sale documents they couldn’t read, she said. “You couldn’t even fight in the courts, because you didn’t have the records,” Puttappa said."

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