Corruption Tirade

Sometimes the level of corruption in this country just annoys me to absolutely no end. I honestly and truly believe that until they fix this corruption problem that India will never be able to truly be a player with other major power countries. I mean I know that lots of politicians are corrupt but here everyone at every level of government is corrupt.
How bad can it really be, you are asking? Well, while here I have had to apply for my Indian equivalent of an SSN (SIN for Canadians) so I filled out the form and paid the fee and then waited and waited. Nothing, apparently they lost the form. So I filled out the form again and paid the fee and waited. I then found out the application was rejected because my passport has my middle name but my proof of address doesn't so they couldn't be sure that I was the same person. Odd since I'm the only Alison I've come across in India, who knew there were so many that I could be faking it?
So I filled out the form again with a different proof of address with my middle name and paid the fee and waited. This form was rejected because my signature wasn't "in the box". See there is a box for your signature and this box has a line in it so I signed on the line - which was wrong. No one could explain why there was a line if you aren't supposed to sign on it so clearly it was just a fake reason to reject me.
So finally I refused to deal with it and made my rather incompetent accountant fix it. So he filled out the form and the company paid the fee and I signed not on the line and then he brought the form in. Yesterday I got my card with the number. The difference this time? Apparently some extra cash was slipped to the guy at the counter who processes the form.
That is 100% India. 3 times I did everything exactly correct and they came up with bogus reasons to reject me for something they are legally required to do just because they wanted a bribe. Drives me insane. I mean really, how on earth do they expect anyone to take any government worker seriously if a desk clerk requires a bribe to do their job?
The worst part is that absolutely no one here thinks that this is weird or wrong, it just is the way.
Grrrrrrr, so annoying.
So that is my quick tirade on corruption for the day. I feel better having gotten that out.