Lower house passes anti-graft bill in India

• The bill goes next to the upper house of parliament
• In Mumbai, activist Anna Hazare launches another hunger strike, arguing the bill is too weak
• The bill is meant to create a new anti-corruption watchdog
• Many Indians are fed up with government corruption

New Delhi (CNN) -- Drama unfolded on two fronts of India's battle against corruption Tuesday night.

In the capital, New Delhi, lawmakers jostled for hours in a marathon session before the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, passed a landmark bill that would create an independent anti-graft watchdog agency.

Meanwhile in Mumbai, Anna Hazare, the elderly crusader who brought the corruption issue to the fore, defiantly kept to a hunger strike to protest the weakness of the proposed legislation, despite falling ill.

The proposed legislation still must be approved in the Rajya Sabha or upper house, where the ruling Congress Party's alliance does not have a majority.

However, if some opposition lawmakers walk out, as they did during debate Tuesday, the government stands a chance of getting the bill turned into law.

Since April, Hazare and his supporters, as well as opposition leaders, have attacked the ruling Congress Party for its corruption scandals and demanded a Lokpal, or citizen ombudsmen to address graft issues.

They were able to get a bill introduced in parliament but said it falls short of adequately empowering the watchdog agency.

Supporters of the frail Hazare urged him to call off his fast, which he said would last as long as parliament debated the Lokpal Bill. Tuesday night, ambulances arrived at the Mumbai commercial complex where Hazare was staging his fast, ready to transport him to a hospital.

Shazia Ilmi, a member of Hazare's team of activists, told CNN's sister network CNN-IBN that Hazare, 74, had not been feeling well since the morning and that he was running a high fever.

And all across the world's largest democracy, people were glued to intense media coverage of what amounted to a showdown on the hottest issue this year.

"There are some very special moments in the life of a nation. This is one such moment," said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the debate on the bill.

"Others can persuade and have their voices heard," he said, alluding to Hazare. "But the decision must rest with us. ... We have seen how public anger has manifested itself in the last one year. Let us, therefore, endorse this bill as proposed."

But opposition leaders said Singh was leading a corrupt party -- Congress's reputation has been marred by scandal -- that had put forth a weak anti-graft bill.

Ultimately, the lower house passed an amended bill that keeps the armed forces under the Lokpal and allows state governments to control state-level anti-corruption agencies. It requires two-thirds of the nine-member Lokpal to approve an inquiry against the prime minister, instead of the three-quarters that was originally proposed.

However, the lawmakers rejected a part of the bill that would have amended the constitution to make the Lokpal a constitutional entity.

In a new Transparency International survey published last week, 64% of Indians said they paid a bribe to police, the highest corruption rate of any institution. And less than a quarter thought their government's efforts to fight corruption were effective.

One point of contention in the proposed legislation is that it excludes the Central Bureau of Investigation from the purview of the Lokpal.

Hazare appeared on stage in front of a large crowd Tuesday as supporters made speeches.

He had ended his last hunger strike, which lasted 12 days, at the end of August -- a day after parliament resolved to accept his demands to establish the Lokpal.

At the time, the activist described the lawmakers' decision as a "people's victory."

But Hazare has since expressed doubts about the substance of the legislation that parliament will eventually pass. He set out his concerns in a letter addressed to Singh made available on the website of his movement, India Against Corruption.

In the letter, dated December 17, Hazare said he is worried the anti-corruption wing of the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's main investigative police agency, will not come under the control of the new Lokpal.

"Without an investigative agency, what is the purpose of Lokpal?" Hazare wrote. "It's better we don't have such a Lokpal."

Corruption has been a part of daily life in India for many years. But it was a series of high-profile scandals that rocked the current administration and investor confidence in Asia's third-largest economy.

In April, a former government minister in India was among a dozen defendants charged in a multibillion-dollar telecom scandal.

Andimuthu Raja, a former telecommunication minister, is accused of being involved in a scheme involving the underselling of cell phone licenses at the height of India's lucrative telecom boom.

Police have questioned several high-profile executives in connection with the suspected below-price sale of radiowaves in 2008. Politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate officials linked to the probe have denied any wrongdoing.

Investigators are also probing complaints of financial malfeasance in the Commonwealth Games that India hosted in October last year.

Several politicians, military officials, and bureaucrats have also been the subjects of a separate inquiry for allegedly taking apartments meant for war widows.