Washington, Nov. 6: The maximum noise over the Volcker report may have risen in India but others have beaten the Manmohan Singh government to the draw in trying to get to the root of the issue.

In fact, till it made up its mind on a probe, the choice before the Indian government was stark: should it follow the example of democratic governments and free societies, which have taken the findings seriously and ordered follow-up action against their citizens and companies accused of wrongdoing?

Or should it emulate one-party states, tin-pot dictators, fringe groups and terrorist front organisations, which have opted to carry on as before as if Volcker’s findings are water off the ducks’ back?

In Stuttgart, Germany, state prosecutors are opening formal investigations against top domestic companies which figure in the oil-for-food scandal to determine if any of them violated local law.

Several German corporate giants, such as Siemens and Daimler Chrysler, have been accused in the Volcker report of making contributions to the $1.8-billion fortune amassed by Saddam Hussein by abusing the UN-managed humanitarian aid program for Iraq.

Some German companies, such as, medical equipment manufacturer Fresenius Medical Care, have decided to make a clean breast of their actions and admit to paying kickbacks to the Baathist regime.

In the UK, the Serious Fraud Office and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs are examining whether anyone in Britain broke the law in supplying goods to Iraq under the oil-for-food programme, the Sunday Times reported today.

Meanwhile, British MP George Galloway, who figures prominently in the Volcker report, has been referred by a US Senate Committee to judicial authorities here after the panel concluded that there was “probable cause” to believe that Galloway lied in sworn testimony at a Congressional hearing on Iraq in May this year.

In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard has personally committed to look into charges that the Australian Wheat Board paid $221 million in kickbacks to Baghdad from mid-1999 till 2003.

These payments were allegedly disguised as transport costs and after-sales service costs and were paid through a transport front company set up in Jordan.

Even Jordan, a Hashemite monarchy, has agreed under intense international pressure to probe companies and individuals which made illegal payments to Iraq.

If Jordanian bank documents are eventually released, they will conclusively throw light on any violations of Indian foreign exchange rules by those named in the Volcker report.

Swift action by Swiss authorities in already fining an unidentified Geneva-based oil-trading company $40,000 for paying kickbacks to Iraq may turn out to be just a trickle before the flood of information to come out of Switzerland.

There are fears that if that happens, India may witness a repetition of the Bofors allegations and court actions in Switzerland, which dragged down Rajiv Gandhi’s government and dragged on even after his death.

At the other end of spectrum are examples, which Manmohan Singh may be loath to emulate.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov trashed the UN inquiry, claiming that many of the documents cited by Volcker in his report contained “fake signatures of Russian officials”.

In addition to the mercurial Russian nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Russia’s Communist Party is cited as a beneficiary of the UN relief programme in Iraq.

The party’s chief, Gennady Zyuganov, declared that Volcker’s report was “the largest-scale forgery in recent history”. There is little surprise here that India’s communist parties have decided to defend Natwar Singh.

A Malaysian company, Mastek, paid the single largest bribe of $10 million to Saddam and the Volcker report names two relatives of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. But New Straits Times, Malaysia's leading newspaper, has not even mentioned that they are Badawi’s relatives.

Similarly, in Indonesia, where corruption is almost an article of faith, former President Megawati Soekarnoputri’s name figures as a beneficiary, but Indonesians couldn’t care less.

Nor does the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus or Myanmar’s Minister of Forests, both cited by Volcker.

There is considerable amusement here that Natwar Singh has said in his defence that New Zealand rejected the Volcker report.

It now turns out that Auckland’s rejection was because the Taurus Group, a beneficiary of the scam, was mistakenly publicised by The Economist as a New Zealand firm. It turns out to be Swiss, instead, and the British magazine has corrected its report.

New Zealand’s newly-appointed foreign minister Winston Peters has said that he would thoroughly probe allegations by Volcker against his country.