Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time - SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY SEVEN
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
http://basantipurtimes.blogspot.com/
07/07/2011
38 killed as train rams into bus in Uttar Pradesh
Lucknow: At least 38 people were killed and about 30 injured when an express train collided with a bus at an unmanned crossing in Uttar Pradesh's Kanshiram Nagar district early Thursday, officials said.The accident took place around 2 a.m. at an unmanned railway crossing in Thanagaon, about 250 km from here, when the Chhapra Mathura express train rammed into the bus carrying members of a wedding party on their way back home to Etah, Government Railway Police inspector Dalveer Singh told IANS.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has directed Railway Board Chairman Vinay Mittal to proceed to the accident site and asked "the commissioner of railway safety to hold an enquiry".
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) announced ex-gratia relief of Rs.2 lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased and Rs.50,000 each for seriously injured and Rs.10,000 each for simple injuries.
"While the death toll is now 38, around 30 people are still being treated in hospitals and community health centres," Kanshiram Nagar District Magistrate Selva Kumari J. told IANS.
"Most of the passengers in the bus were natives of Etah district. In order to gather more information about the victims, we are in contact with officials in Etah. A team of railway doctors is also assisting the local medical staff in treating the injured," she added.
Some railway officials from Bareilly division blamed the bus driver for the incident.
"I have ordered a separate probe at my level into the accident. As of now we cannot tell what exactly led to the incident or who was at fault. It is yet to be ascertained whether the bus driver too got killed or fled after the accident," Selva Kumar responded.
According to Kanshiram Nagar Chief Medical Officer (CMO) R.C. Pandey, four of the critically injured had been shifted to Agra for further treatment.
The state government has announced compensation of Rs.1 lakh to the family of those killed and Rs.50,000 to those grievously injured. Those with minor injuries would be given Rs.25,000, officials said.
The rail tracks that were affected following the accident have been repaired. "The route has now been cleared. We have been told that the engine of the train hit the rear portion of the bus," said an official.
There were around 80 passengers in the bus at the time of the accident.
Source: IANS
SKELETONs Tumble Down from UPA Cabinet Cupbaiord amidst the CIVIL SOCIETY Pro US Democracy Hype and LOKPAL Bill!Having submitted the status report of its ongoing probe into 2G spectrum allocation scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation will question in due course Dayanidhi Maran who resigned as Union Textiles Minister on Thursday.On the other hand,an NGO on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking CBI probe against Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal and Attorney General GE Vahanvati in connection with 2G spectrum issue.Meanwhile in Bengal, the FICCI Governement led by Super woman Mamata Banerjee includes Extra constitutional Elements of Neoliberalism and Corporate World Narayanmurthy, Sam Pitroda, Ishwar Judge Ahluwalia and so on under MONTEK Singh Ahluwalia Amit Mitra Supervision to continue the Marxist Brahaminical Policy of Market Economy and Foreign Cptital Inflow associated by Private Investing!Production System DEVASTED and Service Grwth corporate philanthrop dependent Profit oriented Economics of Exclusion and ethnic Cleansing is Full Bloom in Bengal nowadays under Super Active Brahamin Kanya CM with a Fully Inactive Subordinate Ministry Irrlevant in Governance and Policy Making. Not Enough, Mamat continues to LOOK after Indian Railway as well!Rahul Gandhi attacks Maywati, says state being run by dalals!What about Rest of India inflicted with LPG Mafia Rule merciless?Be Aware of Impending Disaster as Independent nuclear authority bill to be introduced in Parliament soon!Government has finalised the much-awaited rules of implementation of the nuclear liability law , a move that could pave way for expansion of the atomic power sector by procuring equipment from foreign suppliers.
The West Bengal government has approached Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy to become the chief mentor of its expert committee on IT.
Telecommunications expert and advisor to the Prime Minister on public information infrastructure and innovations, Sam Pitroda is set to head the committee on hardware development to be set up by the West Bengal state government to aid the industry's growth."While he has not confirmed officially, an unofficial confirmation has been received from Mr Pitroda that he be chairman of the committee on hardware industry growth in the state," said state IT secretary, Basudeb Banerjee.
Besides Pitroda, Infosys co-founder and chairman, Narayan Murthy has also been approached by the state government to be the chief mentor of the information technology (IT) sector. Murthy, however, is yet to respond to the invitation.
On July 18, when West Bengal chief minister met with investors she made it clear that information technology (IT) will be the focus of her government for the state's growth.
State IT minister, Partha Chatterjee told Business Standard, that he had been in touch with Infosys CEO, Kris Gopalakrishnan and would visit the Bangalore campus to personally extend an invitation to Murthy within the month.
"We invited a team from Infosys to visit Kolkata for investments, but since they are busy, I will travel to Bangalore and meet with Infosys and other smaller IT companies to discuss potential investments," said Chatterjee.
While four years back, the IT industry in West Bengal was spread over only 181 acres in the city, the area currently totals to 482 acres, covering localities like Rajarhat, Bantala and Nonadanga. Apart from that, it is developing new areas in places like Durgapur and Siliguri.
The IT sector in West Bengal created more than 20,000 new jobs in the state in 2010 and 15,000 in 2009. More than a lakh professionals currently work in the IT and ITeS sector in West Bengal.
Murthy, who had come to Kolkata at least twice last year, had expressed his willingness to work closely with the state government.
Days after being sworn in, the Mamata Banerjee-led government announced setting up of two advisory committees for hardware and software development in the state.
While Murthy is yet to respond to the state government request, IT and telecom expert Sam Pitroda has been nominated as the chairman of the two committees. Pitroda had also attended Mamata's swearing-in ceremony.
Murthy's Infosys had received 50 acres from the Left government last year to set up a campus in Kolkata. But it is yet to start construction there.
According to state IT department sources, software exports of almost 220 companies in West Bengal stood at Rs 7,000 crore in 2010-11. Last year, the state's IT sector maintained a growth of around 8%
07/07/2011Uttar Pradesh is run by 'dalals': Rahul Gandhi
Kirpalpur: Firing a fresh salvo at the Mayawati Government, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today said "dalals" were running Uttar Pradesh as people of the state are "divided"."You are not together. Uttar Pradesh is divided and that is why dalals (touts) are running the state," Gandhi said, addressing people in this village on the third day of his padayatra to Aligarh.
"You may not like it. But this is true. Since you are not together that is why this is happening here. Unless you unite, you will continue to suffer. Unless you don't understand what is happening, the train will not come on its track," the young Congress leader told the villagers.
Rahul began his foot march on Thursday from Sarole village in the district at 6.30 a.m. and walked about 7 km to reach here on his way to Aligarh, where he is slated to address a 'kisan mahapanchayat' on July 9.
He said he came all the way from Delhi to convey his concern to farmers and people of Uttar Pradesh. "I started my padayatra from Bhatta-Parsaul which saw the operation by the Mayawati Government on farmers in which many people were killed," he said.
"I wanted to meet you personally and hear to your problems," he told the farmers.
Gandhi told the farmers and villagers that they are being "fired upon" by police while protesting against taking their land forcibly.
Rahul said: "I have met a number of farmers so far and have not met a single one who does not want development. All farmers wish to get involved in the development process and in the progress of the state.
"Your land is pure. It is being taken away from you forcibly and they don't give adequate price," he said. "I am with you irrespective of caste. For me, everyone are human beings. I wish to help everyone and all the people of Uttar Pradesh."
Citing the example of neighbouring state of Congress-ruled Haryana, Gandhi lauded its land acquisition policy and said "farmers were happy in Haryana and there are no problems there."
"Unlike here, in Haryana there were no dharnas either as the farmers were paid market rates for their land acquired. That is not done here," he said. He also lamented that no other state has acquired as much land as done by the Uttar Pradesh government.
"No farmer is saying that we are against the building of roads of development, but we want to get involved in this development process. It is the government's duty to include all of them in this development process. Wherever I go the farmers are ready to give land but are asking for their rights," Gandhi said.
He also compared the policy of the two states while acquiring the agriculture land.
"While in Uttar Pradesh the farmer land is taken away forcibly, in Haryana farmers are paid adequate compensation, help and employment."
Source: PTI
Meanwhile,The petroleum ministry and private firms, faced with serious charges linked to favouritism and unfair gains in oil and gas exploration by the government auditor, are due to present their case next week in an exit conference linked to the audit that slammed them. Three private companies, Reliance Industries Ltd, Cairn Energy and British Gas will formally respond to the audit findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its draft report over irregularities in developing some of India's biggest oil and gas fields.
The CAG is holding an exit conference on July 12 with the petroleum ministry, which in turn has asked the three private companies to come prepared with their replies.
The ministry wrote to the three firms on June 28.
"You have already received the relevant portions of the draft audit report …and are requested to keep the replies ready and come for the meeting on 12th July, 2011," the ministry's letter said.
The CAG, in its draft report submitted to the petroleum ministry on June 7, had highlighted the apparent irregularities by the petroleum ministry and the oil regulator (Director-General of Hydrocarbons) in auditing capital costs, besides allowing concessions to leading private companies including Reliance, Cairn Energy and BG.
A former CAG official told HT that for all performance audits conducted by the CAG, an entry and exit conference is usually conducted with the audited entities.
Refuting charges that CAG did not give enough opportunities to the private operators to present their view before the auditor, the CAG on June 27 had said that "interactive meetings were held with two operators, including Reliance Industries Limited, prior to the finalisation of the draft performance audit report."
"At no stage did this office refuse any operator an opportunity to respond to observations made by us," the CAG had said.
07/07/2011
DMK chief Karunanidhi defends Maran, attacks media
Chennai: Unfazed by the charges against Dayanidhi Maran that led to his exit from the union cabinet, DMK chief M Karunanidhi today said the party would stand by him and attacked the media for the developments."Yes", was the emphatic reply given by Karunanidhi when asked by reporters whether his party would back Maran, hours after his grandnephew resigned making him the second DMK casualty after A Raja in the 2G scam.
Karunanidhi had earlier said Maran would take care of himself after his name cropped up in the 2G scam issue for allegedly forcing telecom promoter C Sivasankaran to sell his company Aircel to a Malaysian firm when he was the telecom minister in 2006.
Strongly criticising the media, Karunanidhi said, "In the whole world, especially in a country like India, the media is ruling and (it) can defame anyone. Dayanidhi Maran is no exception."
He replied in the negative when asked whether any one from the UPA Government got in touch with him ahead of Maran's resignation.
"I did not speak with (UPA Chairperson) Sonia Gandhi or any one last night," the DMK patriarch said.
"It is your imagination," he shot back when asked whether he wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Maran's resignation.
Source: PTI
Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran has submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, informed sources said Thursday, a day after the CBI alleged that he forced telecom promoter C. Sivasankaran to sell his Aircel stake to the Maxis group considered close to his family.
Maran, the second DMK leader to lose a cabinet post over the 2G telecom scam, is learnt to have submitted his resignation to the prime minister after attending what turned out to be his last cabinet meeting as a union minister, the sources said.
Maran, who resigned as Textile Minister today, will be quizzed on the allegations levelled by Sivasankaran and spectrum policy changes made during his tenure during UPA-I, the sources said.
A Preliminary Enquiry on the issue of spectrum allocation during the period 2001-07 which spans across three telecom ministers -- Pramod Mahajan, Arun Shourie and Dayanidhi Maran-- is already underway, they said.
The agency is examining financial transactions of Sun TV, owned by Maran family, and Malaysia-based Maxis. It is also looking into various aspects of takeover of Aircel by Maxis group, they said.
According to the laid down procedure, CBI registers a PE upon receiving a complaint and when anything substantial is discovered this enquiry is converted into a regular case.
Former telecom minister Arun Shourie, who held the charge between 2003-04, has already been questioned by the CBI on February 25 about the allocation of telecom airwaves during his tenure but the agency so far has not found anything against him, they said.
The agency has registered a PE against "unknown persons" on Supreme Court's directive to probe whether there was any anomaly in 'first-come-first-served' policy for spectrum allocation.
Maran left the prime minister's 7 Race Course Road residence after attending the meeting and drove back after putting in his papers, the sources said. He is believed to have had a short meeting with the prime minister.
Reading out from CBI's status report before a bench of Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly, CBI counsel KK Venugopal said Maran as telecom minister blocked grant of spectrum licences to Aircel from 2004-06.
"Inquiry has revealed that in spite of unanimous recommendation for approval of letter of intent, the then Minister for Communications and Information Technology raised objections and sought clarification on August 26, 2004, primarily to block issuance of licences," he said. During Maran's tenure as telecom minister, letters of intent were issued on April 6, 2004, to Aircel, in which C Sivasankaran had 74% stake.
Sivasankaran had alleged that the minister had pressured him to sell off his stake in Aircel to Ananda Krishnan, a close friend of the Marans. CBI said documentary evidence collected so far gave credence to the allegations raised by Sivasankaran. "The enquiries (raised by the minister) appeared to be frivolous and based on out of context grounds meant obviously to block transfer of licenses. After the file (relating to Sivasankaran) was sent to the minister, it was received with objections after 44 days with the file marked to Secretary, Telecom.
Maxis Communication, through its subsidiary Astro, allegedly invested around Rs 600 crore in Sun DTH belonging to the Sun TV Network owned by Maran's family.
Economic Times reports:
A bill towards formation of an independent nuclear regulatory authority will be introduced in ensuing monsoon session of the Parliament, minister of state at the prime minister's office V Narayanasamy said on Thursday.
The government has decided to make the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board more autonomous and independent in its decision-making, he told a conference organised by an industry body.
The new authority will be backed with a strong legal framework and address concerns in many quarters following the March 11 Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear accident in Japan, he said.
He said nuclear power generation is likely to total 30,000 million units in 2011-12. Five more reactors are under construction to generate 10,000-mw of power, Narayanasamy said. "The country is also poised for starting work on first set of reactors along coastal sites in cooperation with the United States, Russia and France," he said
"UPA II is committed to implement the ambitious nuclear energy capacity programme inspite of the criticism," Narayanasamy said.
Nearly 40% of households in India do not have electricity. Of the total 1,70,000 mw installed capacity, 65% is thermal and only 3% is generated by nuclear plants.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/independent-nuclear-authority-bill-to-be-introduced-in-parliament-soon-govt/articleshow/9138865.cms
With Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran resigning on Thursday, opposition parties demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh explain how he remained in the cabinet for so long despite allegations of involvement in the 2G scam.
"This is no great news, we are only concerned why did the prime minister had to wait so long (to take action against him)?" Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP )) leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy said.
"Why does the prime minister always condone the actions and allow tainted people to continue in the cabinet? This indicates there is a lethargic attitude on the part of the prime minister. It is as if he is saying, 'Look 7 Race Course Road falls in way to Tihar Jail , so if you are going there, or there is a chargesheet, come and have a cup of coffee with me and then submit your resignation and go to Tihar Jail'," he said.
"If this is the attitude of the prime minister, as was in case of A. Raja, it is a huge disgrace for the country," Rudy said.
Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja said the resignation had come in too late.
"He should have resigned long back as the allegations were so tenable. It is for the prime minister to answer why a person with such serious allegations against him should be in the council of ministers," he said.
The CPI member said the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had lost its credibility.
"The UPA-2 has lost its credibility with repeatedly ministers being involved in corruption cases. The prime minister owes an explanation to the nation," Raja added.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Brinda Karat said the series of graft charges against ministers was shameful.
"There are so many cases in which UPA government, Congress members and its partners are involved. I think it is a shame for the whole country," she said.
Maran submitted his resignation to the prime minister Thursday, a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI )), in its report to the Supreme Court , alleged that as the communication minister from 2004-07, he sat on the licence applications of Aircel till promoter C. Sivasankaran agreed to sell it to Malaysia-based Maxis group.
Maxis allegedly bought 74 percent stake in Aircel and the company was later allotted more telecom circles to operate in.
Maxis Communication, through its subsidiary Astro, then allegedly invested around Rs.600 crore in Sun DTH belonging to the Sun TV Network , owned by Maran's family.
A well known amateur radio operator , Dayanidhi Maran joins a growing list of top politicians and corporate honchos to be felled by the 2G spectrum scam in which DMK was further dealt a body blow with its two leaders already behind bars.
Maran is the second union minister to resign after his party colleague A Raja quit as Telecom minister in November last in connection with the scam. Raja is lodged in Tihar jail which also had DMK supremo Karunanidh's daughter Kanimozhi, a Rajya Sabha MP, among the prison inmates for their alleged involvement.
The resignation of 44-year-old Maran, a savvy politician and grand-nephew of Karunanidhi, as Union Textiles minister marked another episode that has charged both politics in Delhi and Tamil Nadu from the time a string of alleged irregularities in the telecom scam that has caused loss to the state exchequer surfaced.
At the heart of the second generation spectrum scam is the issue of 2G spectrum licenses being allocated to private telecom players at throwaway prices in 2008.
The CAG said the spectrum scam, in which Rules and procedures were flouted, has cost the government Rs. 1.76 lakh crore. Raja's successor Kapil Sibal however contends that the "notional" losses quoted are a result of erroneous calculations and insists that the actual losses are nil.
Kanimozhi has been named by the CBI as a co- conspirator with A Raja.
Former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura and Raja's former personal secretary R K Choda are also among the accused in the 2G scam.
The corporate honchos who have been allegedly involved in the scam are Shahid Usman Balwa, former Director of Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB); Sanjay Chandra, Managing Director of Unitech Ltd and Unitech Wireless; Gautam Doshi , Group MD, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group(ADAG); Hari Nair, Senior Vice-President, ADAG; Surendra Pipara, Senior Vice-President, ADAG and Reliance Telecom Ltd and Vinod Goenka, Director, Swan Telecom.
This is the second time that Maran is quitting the Union Cabinet. The first time he quit was in 2007 when the DMK decided to withdraw him from the Cabinet when he was the Telecom minister after differences cropped up within the DMK's first family.
Maran, a Lok Sabha MP from Chennai Central, made a re-entry into the Cabinet in May, 2009 after general elections but did not get his old portfolio and got the Textiles ministry.
Articulate, well-heeled, well-educated, young politician armed with impressive degrees and impressive lineage, Maran, entered national politics in 2004.
An economics graduate, he is politician, journalist and scriptwriter late Murasoli Maran's son and media baron and founder of Sun Network Kalanidhi Maran's younger brother. Murasoli Maran had been an MP for 36 years and a minister in three different governments at the Centre.
In May 2007, the DMK withdrew Maran from the Cabinet, after passing a resolution against him for "violating party discipline and tarnishing the party's image."
The action came against the backdrop of an opinion poll published in the Dinakaran, a newspaper owned by Maran's brother Kalanidhi, which said that Karunanidhi's younger son MK Stalin was more suited to succeed the father than older son MK Azhagiri or daughter Kanimozhi.
Protestors, alleged to be Azhagiri supporters, burnt down the Dinakaran office.
Maran was also the man who made talk cheap. And persuaded big companies to invest in Indian Telecom and IT. When he quit in 2007, Industry said it was disappointed.
Born on December 5, 1966 in Kumbakonam, Dayanidhi Maran had the best of education in Chennai. He schooled at Don Bosco and got a BA degree in Economics from Loyola College .
He is a well-known HAM(an Amateur Radio Operator). His HAM Radio Callsign is VU2DMK. He had his Schooling with Don Bosco, Egmore, Chennai.
CBI's decision not to charge sheet Anil Ambani, Chairman of ADAG Group, in the 2G spectrum scam was today questioned in the Supreme Court by an NGO which alleged that he was making attempts to cover up his involvement by influencing his arrested employees.
"The three persons charge sheeted are just the professional employees of the ADAG and are not the beneficiaries of this scam. The real beneficiary is Anil Ambani, who hold majority stake and is Chairman of the group companies.
"There is no possibility of an employee of the company having taken such an important decision of massive investments running into hundreds of crores of rupees," said an affidavit filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL).
CBI, which has filed two charge sheets in the 2G scam, has stated that the entire company of Swan Telecom, alleged to be the front company of Reliane Telecom, was held by ADAG companies through the funds raised by Anil Ambani controlled Reliance.
The affidavit said Gautam Doshi , Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair, who are all employees of Anil Ambani controlled Reliance in furtherance of their intention to cheat, created Swan Telecom out of funds arranged from Reliance Telecom for applying for licenses in 13 circles where Reliance Telecom did not have GSM spectrum.
They have been charge sheeted and are in judicial custody in Tihar Jail.
"But Ambani has not been charge-sheeted. ADAG has reportedly claimed that these actions were done without the knowledge of Ambani. If this was true then he should have sacked the three charge sheeted employees," the NGO said adding that instead he visited them and reportedly assured legal assistance.
The CPIL said, "he (Ambani) would have claimed to be a victim of their actions, who used Rs 1000 crore of the company money to create Swan, because of which his company has been charge-sheeted, its reputation tarnished and its stock has drastically fell."
"Instead, Ambani visits Tihar Jail to meet his three employees and assures them of all legal assistance. This was clearly an attempt to influence them so that they don't allege his involvement," it claimed.
The NGO in its application also accused DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran , who today resigned as Textile Minister and Pradeep Baijal , the then Chairperson of TRAI of abusing their official position.
"Apart from abusing his position as Telecom Minister to benefit Maxis which later invested in his family owned Sun TV, Maran also abused his position as telecom minister to divert hundreds of telephone lines of BSNL to Sun TV which were ostensibly provided to Maran for his official use.
" CBI has been investigating this case from Sept 2007 itself, but no action has been taken and apparently the investigation is still continuing," the application said while annexing a CBI report of September 11, 2007.
The NGO claimed that as minister he prevailed upon the Prime Minister to take spectrum pricing out of purview of the cabinet which later triggered the 2G scam.
"This was adversely commented upon by the CAG and Justice Shivraj Patil in their reports," it said
Referring to Baijal, the CPIL said under the TRAI Act, Chairperson TRAI has no authority whatsoever to clarify statutory recommendations through a personal letter, that too based on a telephonic conversation, written after GoM approval, Cabinet decision and issuance of UASL guidelines 2003.
"Yet Baijal as TRAI Chairperson did precisely that through his letter dated November 14, 2003. The said letter was illegal and on its basis 26 licenses were issued, 12 of which went to Tatas.
"CAG & Justice Patil have adversely commented on this action. A detailed complaint on this made by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP, to the CBI," the CPIL said adding that after his retirement, he joined corporate lobbyist Niira Radia's PR firm which had Tatas as one of its major client.
The CPIL in its application made reference of the CBI charge sheets which details the complex web of structuring that was done by the Reliance employees to hide the fact that Swan was fully a Reliance company.
Rs 43,523 cr loss due to migration policy: DoT tells JPC
The Department of Telecom on Thursday pegged at over Rs 43,500 crore losses incurred by the national exchequer due to the implementation of the migration policy during the NDA regime.
The DoT, which was asked to quantify the losses on account of the migration policy by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), told the panel that the financial implication due to the change in policy was to the tune of Rs 43,523.92 crore.
The sharp differences between the Ministry of Finance and the Telecom Ministry on the pricing of spectrum also came to the fore at the meeting of the JPC chaired by Congress leader P C Chacko.
The Ministry of Finance, in 2006, wanted the Committee of Secretaries to discuss allocation of additional spectrum and then refer the matter to a Group of Ministers, Chacko told reporters here.
He said the Ministry of Finance had strongly favoured that pricing of spectrum should be part of the terms of reference of the GoM on the issue but the then Telecom Minister did not agree to it.
Chacko said the Union Cabinet had approved the Terms of Reference for the Group of Ministers (GoM) on allocation of additional spectrum and pricing was not in the terms of reference.
P Chidambaram was at the helm of affairs in the Ministry of Finance then, while Dayanidhi Maran was the Telecom Minister.
Maran felt that the pricing of spectrum was the prerogative of the adminstrative ministry and hence did not favour the matter among the terms of reference of the GoM, Chacko said.
Essar group involved in 2G scam: CBI tells SC
CBI today indicated involvement of Essar group in the 2G spectrum scam when it said in the Supreme Court that Loop, which got licence during the tenure of A Raja, was its front company.
The agency also questioned the role of Ministry of Corporate Affairs in giving clean chit to Essar group.
Without naming the corporate house, the agency said that it had promoted the telecom company in order to get licence and 2G spectrum during the tenure of former Telecom Minister Raja.
Giving details of financial transactions which was routed through Mauritius , Senior Advocate K K Venugopal , appearing for the CBI, submitted that the money trail clearly established the involvement of the corporate house.
"Attempts were made to project that they are not connected but slowly we are finding that they are closely involved," he said, adding "Corporate guarantee was granted by the group company".
"The lady mentioned in the list is the sister of Director of the group company and is holding the telecom company along with her husband and brother. They are partners and the telecom company is owned by the three," he said without taking their names.
The investigating agency also questioned the propriety of ministry of corporate affairs as well as others to comment on the status of relationship between Loop Telecom and Essar.
"This is unwarranted when the Supreme Court is monitoring the investigations," it said.
The ministry had communicated to the Telecom Ministry that the Ruias-led group held only 2.15 per cent stake in Loop Telecom at the time of obtaining 2G licence.
Venugopal said the legal opinion rendered by former judges to the company was forwarded to the CBI. According to this, Essar Group and Loop Telecom has no link.
He, however, clarified that the agency was in no way going to be influenced in its probe.
The bench, after going through the status report filed in the sealed cover, said that the investigating agencies probing the case should not be influenced by the comments made by others and they must bring the investigation to a logical conclusion.
"Attempts will certainly be made to sidetrack the investigation," the court said, adding "Investigation has to be taken to a logical conclusion at the earliest otherwise cover ups would cover everything."
"One ministry has taken a somersault," Venugopal said in an apparent reference to the role of Ministry of Corporate Affairs after it gave a clean chit to the group company.
Venugopal said the investigation into the scam and money trail involved in it had taken the CBI to seven foreign destinations and even the ED has secured letters rogatory seeking cooperation from Isle of Man in its probe.
Venugopal, who read out the status report, said investigation into the money trail has led the CBI to Switzerland where Swan telecom, which allegedly acted as front company for Reliance telecom, parked the money connected with the 2G scam.
It was reported that the money was related to the investment in Delphi which was helping Swan telecom.
Government finalises rules of nuclear liability law
Government has finalised the much-awaited rules of implementation of the nuclear liability law , a move that could pave way for expansion of the atomic power sector by procuring equipment from foreign suppliers.
"A PMO committee has approved the rules of implementation of the civil nuclear liability law. We will notify the rules within month," V Narayanasamy, Minister of State in the PMO told reporters here.
The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage law, passed by Parliament last year, allows the operator of a nuclear plant to seek damages from the supplier in case the nuclear incident occurs due to supply of equipment with latent and patent defects or sub-standard services.
The suppliers' liability aspect is built into the Indian law through the operator's 'right of recourse' incorporated in Article 17 (a, b and c), which has not been favourably accepted by a section of equipment suppliers and analysts.
"Sooner the better," said Arthur de Montalembert , Chairman and Managing Director of Areva India in reply to a question about when he expected the notification of the rules.
Areva, together with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), is building two 1650 MW nuclear power reactors at Jaitapur in Maharashtra.
Areva had signed the early works contract with NPCIL last year for the Jaitapur project and was awaiting the notification of rules of implementation of the liability law.
Once the rules are notified, foreign suppliers like Areva can go ahead and sign the commercial contract with NPCIL for the Jaitapur project.
Govt panel okays bill calling for mining profit share
A panel of Indian ministers on Thursday approved a new bill calling for coal miners to share a maximum 26 percent of their profits with local communities, a government source said.
The source at the mining ministry added the draft law, which now goes to cabinet for approval, also calls for other miners to give to local communities an amount equivalent to royalties.
The bill requires parliamentary approval after passing by cabinet to become a law.
The bill proposes the profit sharing formula in a bid to smooth land acquisition, a touchy issue in the countryside, where many oppose natural resources being carted away by outsiders.
While industry bodies are reconciled to sharing some profits, they have baulked at 26 percent, saying that will raise business costs too much and deter investors, a fear the government appears to be recognising.
29 JUN, 2011, 11.02PM IST,REUTERS
India plans mining licence to attract foreign investors
NEW DELHI: India's draft mining bill will offer a prospecting licence guaranteeing the holder the right to produce 100 percent of any find, as the country seeks to attract foreign money and technology to its underperforming mining sector.The bill will also create an independent regulator for the sector, Mines Secretary S. Vijay Kumar told Reuters, and should be approved by end-2012.
"There is a dire need to attract capital and attract technology," he said, adding India's mineral potential matched resource rich western Australia and southern Africa but exploration had only scratched the surface so far.
The Large Area Prospecting Licence (LAPL) proposes areas up to 5,000 square kilometres (sq km) for hunting for resources, allocated for a six-year period. Around 570,000 sq km of the 3 million sq km country has high potential for finds, he said.
"If you find the deposit, you have the mining licence and you go for mining. If you don't find the deposit, you leave empty-handed," he said, adding companies would have to hand data from the area to the government.
"It is certainly a first that you go from reconaissance straight to mining," Vijay Kumar added.
India's mining sector has only opened up fully to private investors in recent years and state-run companies have lacked the funds and expertise to probe deeper than the top 50 metres or so where its iron ore and coal reserves are found.
Global mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have only small ventures so far in the country. In Orissa state, for example, Rio Tinto has been negotiating since 1995 with the state government to develop iron ore deposits in a joint venture.
The mining bill should go to the government for approval after possibly a final meeting of a group of ministers on July 7 and could be presented in parliament in August. The bill could take a year or so to make its way through parliament.
The draft mining law also proposes foreign firms share some of their mining profits with local communities as the coalition government tries to reassure its large rural vote natural resources are not being carted away by outsiders, a resentment which Maoist rebels are tapping into in some areas.
Years of protests, sometimes violent, have delayed many projects, including South Korean steel maker POSCO's plant in Orissa state, the biggest foreign direct investment in India at $12 billion.
In addition to the new LAPL concession, the government is studying ways to bring venture capital into the sector, Vijay Kumar said, including offering tax breaks to investors and ways for Indian companies to access capital abroad.
Cabinet to decide on Wageboard recommendations next week
A decision on the recommendations of Justice Majithia Wageboards for newspapers and news agency employees is likely next week with the Union Cabinet today deciding to take it up at its next meeting.
"The issue of the wage boards for journalists and non -journalists will be taken up at the next meeting of the Cabinet next week," Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters here.
Briefing reporters on the deliberations at the Cabinet's meeting today, she said there was some discussion on the matter and it was decided that it should be taken up next week.
The panel had submitted its report to the government on December 31 last year recommending increases in the wages of the newspaper industry employees.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had met the representatives of the employees and assured them that "I will do my duty". The employees have been agitating over the "delay" in government's approval to the recommendations for past few months.
1 JUN, 2011, 03.43AM IST,ET BUREAU
PM reiterates India's commitment to nuclear power
NEW DELHI: Caught offguard by Germany's announcement that it would phase out all its nuclear power plants by 2022, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday reiterated India's commitment to nuclear power when he said that India must make use of nuclear energy to meet not just its energy needs but also its emission targets.
He made his latest assertion on the issue in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel here on Tuesday, and insisted there would be absolutely no cause of concern with the safety norms for India's reactors which, he reassured, would be world class.
Germany was constrained to take a decision on phasing out nuclear power following a thorough review of all its reactors in the wake of Fukushima disaster earlier this year. "One thing which is quite clear is that if India is to meet its emission targets, then nuclear energy along with renewable sources of energy, is a combination which we need,'' said Singh while addressing a joint press conference with Merkel.
"We will make every effort to ensure that safety norms in generation and utilisation of nuclear power are world class, but we must have the option to make use of the nuclear energy, together with the heavy reliance on coal which is inevitable for quite sometime to come in our country,'' Singh added.
While India wants to raise its nuclear power generation capacity to 20,000 MW by 2020, Singh said no firm decision had been taken yet on capacity enhancement beyond that. "Nuclear energy today accounts for only about 3% of total energy generated in our system. As of now, our capacity is less than 5,000 MW. We want to raise it to about 20,000 MW by the year 2020. Thereafter there are some projections but no firm decisions have been taken,'' he said.
The two leaders also discussed terrorism and the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan during what was the first inter-governmental meeting between their countries. "We discussed the developments in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Terrorism is a serious challenge which will have to be fought on all fronts and not selectively," said Singh.
Merkel also highlighted the importance of Afghanistan. She said it was important that Afghanistan develop an independent security architecture. Germany will be hosting the next conference on Afghanistan by the end of the year in which the issue of reconciliation process will be discussed in detail. "The Afghan President and my Government agreed on part and parcel of reconciliation in the countrya¦reconciliation of all the forces if they fulfill the conditions,'' she said. India and Germany also inked four pacts to expand their cooperation in areas relating to education, research and high-tech areas like nuclear physics.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/PM-reiterates-Indias-commitment-to-nuclear-power/articleshow/8672443.cms
7 JUL, 2011, 07.48PM IST, MAN MOHAN RAI,ET BUREAU
Rahul Gandhi attacks Maywati, says state being run by dalals
LUCKNOW: In one of his most stinging attacks on the Mayawati government, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on the third day of his foot march said that 'dalals' (touts) were running Uttar Pradesh. Stepping up his attack on Mayawati whom he had avoided commenting upon when he started his foot march on Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi said that because people were not united Uttar Pradesh was being ruled by dalals.
Addressing farmers at Kirpalpur village in Aligarh on Thursday Rahul Gandhi said that farmers land was being taken forcibly and they were given meager compensation. He told villagers that unless they united things would not change for the better for them as the state government was working not for their welfare but for the benefit of builders.
The Congress MP started the third day of his padyatra from Sarole village in Aligarh and met villagers along his route urging them to attend the kisan mahapanchayat rally in Aligarh on July 9. He had started the foot march on Tuesday from Bhatta Parsaul near Greater Noida to Agra along the Yamuna Expressway highway.
He said that farmers were willing to give land for development but wanted compensation at market rates. He said that in Haryana there was no farmers unrest on land acquisition as the policy there provided market rates for their land as well as jobs.
He told villagers that the central government would present a new Land Acquisition Bill in the coming session of the parliament which would be in the farmers interest.
He said that though Mayawati government announced a new compensation policy in UP after farmers agitations it would not benefit most farmers as it would apply with prospective effect.
Rahul Gandhi said that during his interaction with villagers many expressed the need for development and also giving up their land for acquisition but they did not want to surrender their land for the builders to make money.
He urged farmers to gather for the Maha Panchayat Rally in Aligarh on July 9, and show the state government their collective might and opinion on the states land acquisition policy.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/rahul-gandhi-attacks-maywati-says-state-being-run-by-dalals/articleshow/9139229.cms
7 JUL, 2011, 07.25PM IST,TNN
Fresh case of cheating against Sun Picture's COO Hansraj Saxena
CHENNAI: Four days after the arrest of Hansraj Saxena , chief operating officer of Sun Pictures, the Chennai city police on Thursday registered a fresh case of cheating against him. Saxena was arrested on Sunday on charges of cheating a film distributor TS Selvaraj to the tune of Rs 82.53 lakh.
Acting on the complaint of one film distributor from Salem , police made a fresh case of cheating against Saxena. As per the request of the city police, Saidapet magistrate on July 5 allowed the cops to interrogate Saxena in police custody for three days. He was again produced before the magistrate court on Thursday and was remanded in Puzhal prison.
Meanwhile, the police sought the magistrate to extend Saxena's custody to another couple of days. But the magistrate denied permission.
Sun Pictures chief financial officer Unnikrishnan on Thursday appeared before the investigation officers and submitted the money transactions for the last five years period of Sun Pictures.
Chennai police on Wednesday summoned Unnikrishnan, chief financial officer of Sun Pictures to appear before the investigation officers and asked to submit the financial documents of Sun Pictures. On Wednesday, police picked up Saxena's close aides Ayyappan and Thambidurai for questioning.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/fresh-case-of-cheating-against-sun-pictures-coo-hansraj-saxena/articleshow/9139008.cms
-
Mamata Banerjee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamata_Banerjee - Cached
-
Mamata Banerjee is the 11th and current Chief Minister of the Indian state of West Bengal. She is the first woman to hold the office and is also the ...
-
Early life and career - Political career - Nandigram protests -2009 Indian election
-
Images for mamata banerjee
-
Kum. Mamata Banerjee - Members of Parliament (Lok Sabha) - Who's ...
-
Mamata Banerjee. Constituency from which I am elected, Kolkata Dakshin. State from which I am elected, West Bengal. Political party name, All India ...
-
Detailed Profile - Kum. Mamata Banerjee - Members of Parliament ...
-
Mamata Banerjee. Constituency from which I am elected, Kolkata Dakshin ...
-
News for mamata banerjee
* The Hindu
Hindustan Times - 5 minutes ago
While making the announcement on Thursday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said 46 political prisoners would be released shortly. The government is always ...
Mangalorean.com - 21 related articles
Indian Express - 6 related articles
-
Mamata Banerjee: Latest News, Videos, Photos | Times of India
-
See Mamata Banerjee Latest News, Photos, Biography, Videos and Wallpapers. Mamata Banerjee profile on Times of India.
-
MAMATA BANERJEE | Facebook
-
MAMATA BANERJEE - join the fb page of tmc - Work Info: a:0:{} - Education Info: a:0:{} | Facebook.
-
Mamata Banerjee: Latest News, Photos and Videos
-
connect.in.com/mamta-banerjee/profile-543.html - Cached
-
Explore Profile of Mamata Banerjee at Connect.in.com, seeMamata Banerjee web of connections, news, videos, photos and post your opinions.
-
Mamata Banerjee - News, photos, topics, and quotes
-
www.daylife.com/topic/Mamata_Banerjee - Cached
-
The latest news on Mamata Banerjee, from thousands of sources worldwide. High-quality photos, articles, blog posts, quotes, and more.
-
Mamata Banerjee | Mamata Banerjee News |Mamata Banerjee Photos ...
-
www.sify.com/topics/Mamata-Banerjee.html - Cached
-
Mamata Banerjee News - Get Latest Mamata Banerjeephotos, Watch Mamata Banerjee videos, Pics, Images, Pictures, Video Clips, Mamata Banerjee Wallpapers.
-
The making of Mamata Banerjee - Hindustan Times
-
www.hindustantimes.com/...Mamata-Banerjee/Article1-686251.aspx - Cached
-
17 Apr 2011 – From a rabble rouser to a game changer on whom 90 million people pin their hopes for a new tomorrow,Mamata Banerjee has come a long way.
-
NDTV » Search » mamata banerjee
-
www.ndtv.com/search?q=mamata+banerjee - Cached
-
Loading. All; News; Photos; Videos. Video Results for mamata banerjee. Fuel price hike: Opposition, allies hit out. Jun 24, 2011. Duration: 1 min, 21 sec ...
Searches related to mamata banerjee
mamata banerjee contact details
-
"It is our heart and good intention.The magic formula for reaching this agreement is development."
-
Mamata Banerjee
Mamata reaches out to Maoists
Hindustan Times - 6 minutes ago
While making the announcement on Thursday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said 46 political prisoners would be released shortly. The government is always ...
Mamata to release 46 political prisoners -Economic Times
WB govt always ready for talks: Mamata to Maoists - Times of India
Surrender arms and talk: Mamata appeals to Maoists - Daijiworld.com
* -
Amartya Sen welcomes Mamata's move on Presidency varsity
Mangalorean.com - 39 minutes ago
Kolkata, July 7 (IANS) Nobel laureate Amartya Sen Thursday welcomed the initiatives taken by West Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee to make the ...
Sen to meet CM on Presi agenda - Times of India
-
Mamata wants NR Narayana Murthy to be WB chief mentor
Indian Express - 10 hours ago
Days after being sworn in, the Mamata Banerjee-led government announced setting up of two advisory committees for hardware and software development in the ...
Mamata wants to spruce up Sector V of Salt Lake - allvoices
-
Purnendu, govt test truce waters
Calcutta Telegraph - Sambit Saha - Arnab Ganguly - 20 hours ago
Calcutta, July 6: The Mamata Banerjeegovernment and The Chatterjee Group (TCG) have launched an effort to explore the possibility of resolving the ...
Hopes brighten for Haldia Petrochemicals - The Hindu
TCG to foray into banking sector - Business Standard
WB Govt 'open to ideas' in expediting litigation with HPL - Moneycontrol.com
* -
No land given to Infosys, Wipro at Rajarhat
Times of India - 20 hours ago
The onus of shaping the Infosys dream now lies on Mamata Banerjee and her government. ... On November 24 last year, just as Mamata Banerjee stepped up her ...
Left failed to help IT cos: Bengal govt - Indian Express
-
In new panel season, 'intellectuals' refuse Mamatajob offers
Indian Express - 21 hours ago
Many city-based intellectual have refused to be a part of the several committees formed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Poets Nirendranath Chakravarty ...
-
Railway ministry will remain with TC, says Mamata
IBNLive.com - 6 minutes ago
PTI | 11:07 PM,Jul 07,2011 Kolkata, Jul 7 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today said that the Railway ...
-
Singur MLA is farm minister
Calcutta Telegraph - 20 hours ago
The first cabinet shuffle came 47 days afterMamata Banerjee's government assumed office. Bhattacharya has been asked to take charge of the department from ...
Singur MLA gets agri portfolio - Times of India
* -
Left TUs and INTUC urge Mamata to ensure healthy TU movement
IBNLive.com - 2 hours ago
PTI | 09:07 PM,Jul 07,2011 Kolkata, July 7 (PTI) A delegation of the left trade unions and the INTUC today urged West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ...
-
Rumblings about Gorkhaland in Darjeeling again
IBNLive.com - 11 hours ago
PTI | 12:07 PM,Jul 07,2011 Chief Minister Mamata Banerjeehad said on the day of the signing of the bipartite agreement that the Darjeeling problem had been ...
Foothills tense after GJM chief's visit - Times of India
-
News archive results for mamata banerjee
Sep 3, 2008
TATA's bye bye: Mamata gets what she wants - India News - IBNLive
IBNLive.com - all 126 news articles »
Jul 19, 2010
'Some doubt over West Bengal train mishap', says Mamata Banerjee
Sify - all 191 news articles »
May 13, 2011
Mamta Banerjee will not be anti-industry: Manini Chatterjee - Cnbc ...
Moneycontrol.com - all 297 news articles »
Keep up to date with these results:
-
Create an email alert for mamata banerjee
*
http://www.anandabazar.in/
প্রবন্ধ ১... দলতন্ত্র থেকে আর এক দলতন্ত্রের পথে?
পশ্চিমবঙ্গ এক গভীর অনিশ্চিতির কবলে। গণতন্ত্রের শক্তি জোটবদ্ধ হয়ে
রাজ্যকে দলতন্ত্রের বিপরীতে গণতন্ত্রে নিয়ে যেতে পারবে কি না, সেটাই প্রশ্ন।
অসীম চট্টোপাধ্যায়
বিপুল জনাদেশ নিয়ে নির্বাচিত সরকার রাজ্যে ক্ষমতাসীন হওয়ার পর মাসাধিককাল অতিবাহিত। কোনও সরকারের মূল্যায়নের জন্য এই সময়কাল নিশ্চয়ই যথেষ্ট নয়, কিন্তু এর মধ্যেই নতুন সরকারের কর্মসূচি, অগ্রাধিকার, কর্মপদ্ধতি ও কর্মশৈলীর বৈশিষ্ট্য প্রকট হয়ে উঠেছে। তাতে এ কথা বলা যায় যে, এখনও পর্যন্ত মুখ্যমন্ত্রী ছাড়া অন্য মন্ত্রীদের ভূমিকা প্রান্তিক 'টিম গেম' অদৃশ্যপ্রায়, কিন্তু মুখ্যমন্ত্রী অতিসক্রিয়। এই কর্মশৈলীর কার্যকারিতা নিয়ে যত বিতর্কই থাক, এ কথা স্পষ্ট যে, এই সরকার নিঃসন্দেহে রাজ্য পরিচালনার এক নতুন ঘরানা চালু করেছে।
এই ঘরানার যে অভিনব বৈশিষ্ট্য নজর কেড়েছে তা হল, বিভিন্ন সরকারি দফতরে মুখ্যমন্ত্রীর হঠাৎ পরিদর্শন। এই ভাবেই তিনি 'বামফ্রন্ট আমলের ঘুঘুর বাসা' চিহ্নিত করতে চেয়েছেন। এতে যে সরকারি দফতরের আধিকারিক ও কর্মীরা সচকিত হয়ে উঠেছেন, তাতে কোনও সন্দেহ নেই। কিন্তু প্রশাসনিক শৈথিল্য ও দুর্নীতি চিহ্নিতকরণে এর কার্যকারিতা নিয়ে প্রশ্ন থেকে যায়। উদাহরণস্বরূপ, আমি বিধানগরবাসী হিসাবে বিধাননগরের কথাই বলতে পারি। এখানে মহকুমা শাসক মাত্র তিন ঘণ্টা অফিসে থাকেন। বাকি সময় তাঁর বিধাননগর পুরসভায় কাটে। প্রসঙ্গত, রাজ্যে ৬০টি পুরসভার মধ্যে একমাত্র এই ভি আই পি পুরসভাতেই মহকুমাশাসক একযোগে কার্যনির্বাহী আধিকারিক। তাঁর অনুপস্থিতিতে দলে দলে লোক ফিরে যান। নেতা-কর্মীদের সামনেই হুট করে কেটে পড়েন, এমনকী সামান্য জন্ম শংসাপত্রের মতো নিরীহ দফতরেও টাকা ছাড়া কাজ হয় না। এই কাগজ ওই কাগজ চেয়ে ফিরিয়ে দেওয়া হয়। এই সব কি হঠাৎ পরিদর্শনে চিহ্নিত করা যায়? তাই নতুন জমানাতেও সনাতন কর্মকাণ্ডের সেই ট্র্যাডিশন সমানে চলছে। কিন্তু কার্যকারিতা নিয়ে যত প্রশ্নই থাকুক, মুখ্যমন্ত্রীর এই অভিনব উদ্যোগকে মানুষজন নিঃসন্দেহে স্বাগত জানিয়েছেন।* আসলে আমাদের মুখ্যমন্ত্রী প্রথম দিন থেকেই আক্রমণাত্মক খেলছেন। আধুনিক ফুটবলে আক্রমণাত্মক খেলার জন্য আবশ্যিক হল, খেলাটা ছড়িয়ে দিয়ে মাঠটাকে বড় করে নিতে হয়। নিজের হাতে দশ দশটি দফতর রেখে দশভুজা মমতাদেবী দশ হাতে রাজ্য পরিচালনার খেলাটিকে নিঃসন্দেহে ছড়িয়ে দিয়েছেন। ফল হয়েছে এটাই যে, এখন পর্যন্ত গোল না হলেও গ্যালারির তারিফ কুড়িয়ে নিয়েছেন। প্রত্যাশিত ভাবেই মমতাদেবী আশু নির্বাচনী প্রতিশ্রুতিগুলিকেই অগ্রাধিকার দিয়েছেন। তাই পাহাড়ের সমস্যা, সিঙ্গুরে ও রাজারহাটে অনিচ্ছুকদের জমি ফেরত, জঙ্গলমহল ও রাজনৈতিক বন্দিমুক্তির বিষয়গুলি সামনে এসেছে। লক্ষণীয় যে, এখানেও মমতাদেবী সমানে আক্রমণাত্মক থেকেছেন। ক্রিকেটের পরিভাষায় বলা যায় যে আমাদের মুখ্যমন্ত্রী শুরু থেকেই ফ্রন্টফুটে ব্যাট করছেন।
আক্রমণাত্মক এই শৈলীর স্বল্পমেয়াদি সুফল অবশ্যই আছে। ভ্রমণপিপাসু বাঙালি আবার পাহাড়ে ভিড় জমিয়েছে। সিঙ্গুর ও রাজারহাটে আনন্দের বান ডেকেছে। জঙ্গলমহলে খাদ্য নিশ্চয়তার আশা দানা বেঁধেছে। এর ফলে জনমানসে এই বিশ্বাস ছড়িয়ে দেওয়া গেছে যে, অহেতুক কালহরণ বর্জন করে স্থিরপ্রতিজ্ঞ মুখ্যমন্ত্রী আশু ফলদায়ী কাজ চান। সমস্যাগুলির দ্রুত সমাধান চান। একের পর এক এই সব উদ্যোগে বামপন্থীদের দম ফেলার ফুরসত মেলেনি এবং সন্দেহ নেই, এতে তাঁরা হতোদ্যম ও কোণঠাসা হয়েছেন।
কিন্তু 'অল আউট' আক্রমণাত্মক খেলার মুশকিল হল, এতে রক্ষণে খামতি থেকে যায়। সেই খামতিটি এখন দিনে দিনে প্রকট হচ্ছে। মুখ্যমন্ত্রী পাহাড় সমস্যার অতি দ্রুত সমাধান করে ফেলেছেন। দ্বিপাক্ষিক চুক্তি স্বাক্ষর হয়ে গেছে। কিন্তু এখন দেখা যাচ্ছে যে, এর জন্য তরাই ও ডুয়ার্সে গোর্খা জনমুক্তি মোর্চার দীর্ঘ দিন প্রার্থিত অনুপ্রবেশের যে সুযোগ উন্মোচিত হয়েছে, তাতে এক দিকে আদিবাসী বিকাশ পরিষদ ও সমতলের সঙ্গে গোর্খা জনমুক্তি মোর্চার সংঘর্ষ অনিবার্য হয়েছে, অন্য দিকে প্রস্তাবিত পার্বত্য পরিষদে তরাই-ডুয়ার্সের উল্লেখ না-থাকায় গোর্খা জনমুক্তি মোর্চা নতুন করে গাঁইগুঁই শুরু করেছে। আসলে সমাধানের নামে মুখ্যমন্ত্রী এখানে একটি 'টাইম বোমা' ফেলে দিয়েছেন। যে প্রক্রিয়ায় সুবাস ঘিসিংয়ের স্থলে বিমল গুরুঙ্গ আবির্ভূত হয়েছেন, সেই প্রক্রিয়াতেই বিমল গুরুঙ্গের বদলে গোর্খাল্যান্ডের নতুন নেতার আবির্ভাবের সম্ভাবনা কোনও ক্রমেই নাকচ করা যায় না। আসলে, এক দিকে উগ্র বাঙালিয়ানা ও অন্য দিকে গোর্খা জনজাতির খুদে জাতীয়তাবাদের মোকাবিলা না-করে পাহাড়ের সমস্যার কোনও সরল সমাধান নেই।
এর থেকেও বড় হয়ে দেখা দিয়েছে 'সিঙ্গুর বিপর্যয়'। বিধানসভা অধিবেশন চলাকালীন যে অধ্যাদেশ জারি করা যায় না, এই আইন এবং প্রথা উপেক্ষা করে মুখ্যমন্ত্রী তড়িঘড়ি সিঙ্গুর অধ্যাদেশ জারি করে সিঙ্গুরে 'অনিচ্ছুক' চাষিদের জমি ফেরত দেওয়ার প্রতিশ্রুতি রক্ষার তাগিদে টাটাদের থেকে জমি ফেরত নেন। কিন্তু অচিরেই তাঁকে পিছু হঠতে হয়। বিপুল জনাদেশ এবং বিচারবিভাগের সহানুভূতিতে বলীয়ান অদম্য মুখ্যমন্ত্রী বিধানসভায় সিঙ্গুর বিল এনে রাতারাতি 'অনিচ্ছুক' চাষিদের জমি দিতে উদ্যোগী হন। সুপ্রিম কোর্টের হস্তক্ষেপে জমি বিতরণ কর্মসূচি স্থগিত হয়ে যায়।
এতে অবশ্য রাজনীতিগত ভাবে মমতাদেবীর কোনও ক্ষতি নেই। তিনি কৃষকদের জমি দিতে চেয়েছিলেন, কিন্তু টাটাদের বিরোধিতায় সে কাজ আটকে গেছে। এতে রাজনীতির দিক থেকে মমতাদেবীর লাভই হবে। কিন্তু আইনি প্রশ্নে সিঙ্গুর বিল আটকে যাওয়ার সম্ভাবনা প্রবল। তৃণমূল কংগ্রেসের আইনজীবীরা যা-ই বলুন, স্পষ্টতই হাই কোর্টের রায়ের আগে সর্বোচ্চ আদালত এই পর্যায়ে মূল মামলায় হস্তক্ষেপ করছেন না। মূল মামলায় সুপ্রিম কোর্ট হস্তক্ষেপের সিদ্ধান্ত নিলে সিঙ্গুরে 'অনিচ্ছুক' কৃষকদের জমি ফেরত পাওয়ার আশা বিশ বাঁও জলের তলায় চলে যাবে।
কিন্তু এর থেকেও গুরুত্বপূর্ণ হল ইচ্ছুক-অনিচ্ছুক কৃষকের প্রশ্ন। এই প্রশ্ন সামনে এলে কৃষক বনাম কৃষক বিভাজনের দায় মমতাদেবীকে নিতে হবে। এই সেই প্রশ্ন, যার জন্য আমরা মমতাদেবীর সিঙ্গুর আন্দোলন থেকে সরে যেতে বাধ্য হই। এই আন্দোলনের আদি পর্ব থেকেই আমরা ছিলাম, ২৪ সেপ্টেম্বর সিঙ্গুরে বিডিও অফিসে আমি নিজে ছিলাম, মমতাদেবীর সঙ্গে জোর করে আমাদের আটকে তাঁর বাড়ির সামনে ছেড়ে দেওয়া হয়, মমতাদেবীর অনশন সত্ত্বেও আমরা শামিল ছিলাম। সিঙ্গুর আন্দোলন ছিল শিল্পায়নের জন্য বলপূর্বক বহুফসলি জমি অধিগ্রহণের বিরুদ্ধে। ইচ্ছুক-অনিচ্ছুক বিভাজন করে আসলে অধিগ্রহণ মেনে নিয়ে অনিচ্ছুকদের জমি আদায়ের প্রশ্ন নির্ধারক হয়ে ওঠে। সে দিনও আমরা তা মেনে নিতে পারিনি, আজও পারি না। কোনও সন্দেহ নেই যে, কৃষক বিভাজনের এই পথ সিঙ্গুর আন্দোলনের মৃত্যুবাণ হবে। আপাতদৃষ্টিতে সুপ্রিম কোর্টের রায় মমতাদেবীর বিরুদ্ধে গেছে বলে মনে হলেও আসলে এই রায়ের ফলে তিনি বেঁচে গেছেন। অন্যথায় 'অনিচ্ছুক'দের জমি ফেরত দেওয়ার প্রক্রিয়ায় সিঙ্গুরে তো বটেই, সারা রাজ্যে গৃহযুদ্ধ হতে পারত।
জঙ্গলমহল ও রাজনৈতিক বন্দিমুক্তির প্রশ্নে মমতাদেবী ব্যাকফুটে যেতে বাধ্য হয়েছেন। স্পষ্ট হয়ে উঠেছে যে, উন্নয়নের প্যাকেজ দিয়ে মাওবাদীদের তুষ্ট করা যাবে না, কারণ তাঁরা চান রাজনৈতিক ক্ষমতা। তাই এখন যৌথ বাহিনী প্রত্যাহারের বদলে তাদের স্থায়ী ঘাঁটি বসানোর আয়োজন চলছে। রাজনৈতিক বন্দিদের নিঃশর্ত মুক্তির প্রশ্নে মুখ্যমন্ত্রী ১৯৭৭ সালে বামফ্রন্ট প্রদর্শিত পথে হাঁটতে রাজি নন। প্রতিটি কেস ধরে পর্যালোচনা করার জন্য 'রিভিউ কমিটি' গঠিত হয়েছে। এই ছাঁকনির বিরুদ্ধে মানবাধিকার সংগঠনগুলি এবং মাওবাদীরা সরব। কিন্তু এই সবের ফলে মমতাদেবীর জনসমর্থন কমে গেছে মনে করলে ভুল হবে। মানুষ ভাবছেন যে, তিনি চেষ্টা করছেন, কিন্তু পেরে উঠছেন না। বরং এ সব প্রশ্নে বামফ্রন্ট আরও কোণঠাসা হয়েছে।
অন্য দিকে, তৃণমূল কংগ্রেসের অন্ধ সি পি এম-বিরোধিতা অব্যাহত রয়েছে, বরং তেজী হয়েছে। বেআইনি অস্ত্র উদ্ধারের নামে বাম নিপীড়ন চলছে। গ্রামাঞ্চলে মুচলেকা এবং জরিমানা ছাড়া বামপন্থীদের টিকে থাকাই দায়। রাজনৈতিক পালাবদলের ফলে পুলিশ প্রশাসন রং বদলে ফেলেছে, পুলিশ এ সব নিয়ে অভিযোগ নিতেই রাজি নয়। বর্গা উচ্ছেদ শুরু হয়েছে, খেতমজুরদের বসিয়ে দেওয়া হচ্ছে, বানভাসিদের ত্রাণের ব্যবস্থা নেই। আরও মারাত্মক হল সংবাদমাধ্যমের নীরবতা অধিকাংশই এ সব ব্যাপারে নীরব থাকা শ্রেয় এবং নিরাপদ ভাবছেন।
এ বিষয়ে কোনও সন্দেহ নেই যে, বামফ্রন্টের সমর্থনভিত্তি ধসে গেছে। গত নির্বাচনে যে ১ কোটি ৯৫ লক্ষ ভোট ছিল, তা এখন ৭০ লক্ষে নেমেছে। এর মধ্যে ছোট একটা অংশ টি এম সি'তে যোগ দিয়েছেন, অধিকাংশই বসে গিয়েছেন। অবস্থা এমনই যে, সামনের পঞ্চায়েত নির্বাচনে অর্ধেক আসনে বাম প্রার্থী জোটানো দায় হবে। এই অবস্থা অব্যাহত থাকলে রাজ্যে বামপন্থীরা নিঃসন্দেহে প্রান্তিক শক্তিতে পরিণত হবে। তৃণমূল নেতারা এখনই স্বপ্ন দেখছেন, ২০১৪ সালের লোকসভা নির্বাচন হবে কংগ্রেস ও তৃণমূল কংগ্রেসের মধ্যে, যেখানে তাঁরা ৩৯-৪০টি আসন পাবেন, কংগ্রেস পাবে দু'তিনটি, বামপন্থীরা খাতা খুলতে পারবেন না।
রাজ্যের পরিস্থিতি উদ্বেগজনক। মুখ্যমন্ত্রী আছেন, কিন্তু কোনও 'টিম গেম' নেই, অন্য মন্ত্রীরা কাঠপুতলিমাত্র। সচিব ও অন্য আধিকারিকরা তটস্থ। বিধানসভা অধিবেশন চলাকালীন ক্যামেরার সামনে মুখ্যমন্ত্রী অধ্যাদেশ জারি করছেন, পাশে দাঁড়িয়ে আছেন মুখ্যসচিব, তিনি বলতে পারছেন না যে, সংসদীয় গণতন্ত্রে এ জিনিস চলে না!
আসলে পশ্চিমবঙ্গ দাঁড়িয়ে আছে এক খাদের কিনারায়। এখান থেকে গণতন্ত্রের শক্তি জোটবদ্ধ হয়ে রাজ্যকে দলতন্ত্রের বিপরীতে গণতন্ত্রে নিয়ে যাবে, অন্যথায় দলতন্ত্রের বদলে নতুন দলতন্ত্রের অপশক্তি রাজ্যকে স্বৈরতন্ত্রের রথে অনিবার্য ভাবে জুতে দেবে।
http://www.anandabazar.in/7edit3.html
Govt to move SC on armed SPOs judgement
Thursday, July 07, 2011, 22:02
Tags:Government, Move SC, SPO Judgement 112 Dinesh Sharma
New Delhi: The central government is all set to move the Supreme Court to seek a review of its judgement terming as unconstitutional the practice of using special police officers or SPOs to fight the naxals in Chattisgarh, as per Zee News sources.
While terming the practice of arming the tribals by the state government in its fight against the naxals as 'unconstitutional', the Supreme Court had ordered the disbanding of tribals.
According to sources, a process in this respect has already been started by the Home Ministry. It has been reported that consultations are on with the Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam and other stake holders including the head of police organisations which were affected by militancy and insurgency.
It has also been learnt that the centre will hold a meeting of chief ministers of various states who are fighting the menace of Naxalism, militancy and insurgency. The meeting will also discuss the apex court's judgement on Salwa Judum and decide on the future course of action.
The Centre will also examine the order in context of the bearing the order will have on the SPOs in J&K as well many north-eastern states.
The government sources defended the role of SPOs and said that involving local population was well enshrined in the Police Act and their engagement in operations was helpful in busting various terror and Naxal modules.
While ordering the disbanding of SPOs on July 5, the Supreme Court had directed the central government to 'forthwith' cease to provide funds for the recruitment of SPOs against the Maoists groups.
The court has also directed the central government to file a compliance report regarding its order within six weeks.
SPOs are recruited by the state government mostly from the local tribal youth population to fight insurgency. According to the government and the police, the SPOs help in providing human intelligence to the security forces.
The Supreme Court had criticised support and funding of SPOs in campaigns like Koya Commandos and Salwa Judum, an armed civilian vigilante group whose numbers have gone up from 3,000 to 6,500 within a year.
The SPOs were being provided arms training and were used to help the state police and paramilitary forces in entering the dense jungles of Bastar, a hotbed of naxal activities.
They were also being paid a monthly emolument of Rs 2,000 by the state government.
The Chhattisgarh government had expressed concern that disbanding and disarming SPOs would be detrimental to the anti-Naxal operations. It had also said that to recruit and train regular policemen would take not less than a year.
With PTI inputs
http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/govt-to-move-sc-on-armed-spos-judgement_718186.html
Complex oil industry regulations scare foreign investors away
G. SRINIVASAN
SHARE · PRINT · T+
Government's ways of approving deals between oil companies are dilatory
NEW DELHI, JULY 7:
The belated and conditional approval accorded to the Cairn-Vedanta deal with the government asking both the overseas partners to accord relief to the national oil company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation on the issue of royalty, besides asking Cairn-India to recant the arbitration petition in international courts against the payment of a cess, raises several valid questions in the minds of investors keen on acquiring energy-related assets in India.
First, the UPA Government took 10 months to give the conditional nod after Cairn Energy announced the sale of a maximum of 51 per cent stake in Cairn India to London-listed Vedanta Group, putting paid to prospective investors eyeing any such acquisition in future India. This is further being borne out by the dilatory procedure in the approval of BP-Reliance Industries deal, the largest ever single foreign direct investment in India.
POLICY OF TINKERING
Second, the move to approve the Cairn-Vedanta deal with riders by the Government — the obligations on royalty payments must perforce be reworked — raises the question of the sanctity of production-sharing contracts companies entered into with the Government and explorers according to the New Licensing Exploration Policy, which had already seen eight rounds of bidding.
This policy of tinkering aside, there are also disconcerting developments on the oil exploration and production front.
In order to attract foreign investors and provide a level playing field, the Government had set up regulators for upstream and downstream segments in the hydrocarbon industry. While the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) was to regulate upstream industry, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board was to take care of downstream business activities.
But, says a Delhi-based energy consultant Mr P. Balkrishna, that the functioning of both the boards was disappointing is revealed by the registration of a formal case by the CBI against the former DGH, Mr V.K. Sibal, and five of his erstwhile colleagues for hatching a plot to bestow favours on an American oil exploration company, GX Technology, for surveying a chunk of the country's sedimentary basin.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, with a remit to safeguard the interests of consumers and entities engaged in specified activities and to promote competitive markets for products, has been locked in a turf war with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Its members were feuding with one another even while the Board itself fought legal challenges to its decisions. So much so, the court had also barred Mr B.S. Negi, one of the members of the Board, from taking part in deliberations on any application.
REGULATORY FIASCO
Nowhere the regulatory agencies in the crucial oil and natural gas industry have been faced with teething troubles as in India, particularly when its energy security is brittle and dependence on import substantial. There are laws which overlap, impeding investors to decode which one would prevail in the event of a dispute.
The Mines (Amendment) Bill 2011, which though primarily meant to keep pace with changes at work places in the mining sector so as to effectively manage safety and health risks to workers, expands mining to incorporate any excavation including borings, oil wells and accessory crude-conditioning plants, including pipes conveying mineral oil within oilfields.
There is also a legislation predating the Mines Act 1952, called Oilfields (Regulation & Development) Act 1948, which was over the years revised with rules, the latest in June 2008. Mines under this Act meant any excavation for the purpose of searching for or obtaining mineral oils and includes oil wells. This Act, too, defines 'relevant waters' to include territorial waters, contiguous zones, the continental shelf and the economic zone of India.
It also encompasses Petroleum & Natural Gas (Safety in Offshore Operations) Rules 2008. Between these two Acts, there is another one, namely, the Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone and other Maritime Zones Act 1976, which lays claims to all operations in these areas.
To compound the confusion further, the proposed amendments to the Indian Mines Act 1952 would be over and above the rules already notified by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry and would be 'consistent with them'. Any investor would get torn among these disparate laws when it comes to the brass-tacks, only to be running from pillar to post in complying with the diverse set of an enlarging legislative maze.
Even as there is a set of legislations overlapping in a high-risk area like oil exploration, the rules governing blow-out preventers in oil wells remain a disturbingly grey area.
While the Oil Industry Safety Directorate has a superior set of standards which remains a draft and has not yet been notified, albeit being in line with the latest technological challenges, there is also the Directorate General of Mines Safety which had its own design requirements, a couple of decades older, for blow-outs.
This raises a valid query about which safety standards would come into play in the event of a blow-out like the one that occurred in July 2005 in Bombay High, endangering safety aspects, experts warn.
geeyes@thehindu.co.in
Keywords: Complex oil industry regulations, foreign investors, Petroleum, energy-related assets
ITU contest for Internet TV apps
2G: CBI to provide transcripts of Radia tapes to accused
Mobile Number Portability requests surge 24% in May
MARG listed among India's top 500 companies 2010
Exports of coir, products hit record high
NSL Sugars buys Maharashtra plant
Nuclear regulator Bill in monsoon session
Tech Mahindra bags Microsoft contract
SBI to seek govt nod for rights issue this month
Aided by base effect, food inflation dips to 7-week lowVegetables, pulses down; fuel inflation eases despite index rising 4% »
Related: Food inflation eases on cheaper vegetables, pulses
Related: Inflation poses a major challenge for Indian economy, says Pranab
Sensex regains 19K level on easing food inflation
The BSE benchmark Sensex today spurted by over 350 points to regain the 19,000 mark after more than two months as investors purchased blue-chips, led by Reliance Industries, on easing food i... »
Related: India Inc raises less capital; shifts to foreign borrowings
Related: Market may see relief rally on talk of reforms
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/
7 JUL, 2011, 10.21AM IST, SANJAY K SINGH,ET BUREAU
Murli Deora tried to pre-empt probe into Essar-Loop case: CBI to SC
NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation has complained to the Supreme Court that Company Affairs Minister Murli Deora's department attempted to "preempt investigations" into the Essar-Loop association case. CBI's charge prompted the court to direct it to ignore the opinion given by the ministry. Deora is in the eye of a storm over a CAG report on oil exploration in the Krishna-Godavari Basin.
In the latest status report on the 2G spectrum scandal, CBI drew the attention of the court to the April 2, 2011, opinion of the ministry, giving a clean chit to the Essar saying that Loop Telecom was not its associate.
Essar, according to CBI, used the "shadow of Khaitans (owners of Loop Telecom)" to obtain 21 UAS licences during the stint of A Raja as telecom minister. Essar was already a major player in the mobile sector and this could have barred it from applying for fresh licences.
As a fallout of the latest twist, the CBI will now try to verify the authenticity of the April 2, 2011, opinion rendered by the MCA. It will also find out why the ministry came to a different conclusion, when it had used a similar yardstick earlier to conclude that Swan Telecom was an associate of Reliance Telecom.
EDITORS PICK
-
2G scam: CBI's stand on Ambani questioned; Maran, Baijal abused ranks
-
Sun TV shares down after Dayanidhi Maran quits as textiles minister
RELATED ARTICLES
- Corporate affairs ministry biased towards Essar-Loop: CBI
- Essar group involved in 2G scam: CBI tells SC
- CBI to examine Mauritius docs on flow of funds
- 2G case: CBI examining fresh set of documents of Essar-Loop
- Loop Telecom tries to stay out of CBI chargesheet
CBI counsel KK Venugopal told a bench comprising Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly that the shareholding pattern in Loop was changed just two days before the allotment of 2G licences in 2008. Venugopal rubbished Loop's claim that investment by Ruias was done only in non-convertible debentures and it could not be treated as an equity investment.
He said CBI has traced the money trail from one company to the other just before the grant of UAS licences to show that they are interconnected. Venugopal also said it was unethical on the part of former chief justice of India VN Khare to give an opinion on this issue at a time when the apex court was monitoring the investigations into the 2G scam .
The bench at this juncture said in a scam of this magnitude, "there is bound to be attempts to sidetrack the investigations. But, CBI has to go by the law. Simply ignore it ( the opinion)." Venugopal also apprised the bench about its investigations and said it will complete its 2G investigations by August 31.
India's Richest Temple in Kerala
Check out the most wealthy Hindu temples
Sree Padmanabhanaswamy Kovil has emerged as the wealthiest temple in the country after the secret vaults were opened recently, overtaking the Venkateswara temple at Tirupati. Here are some of the wealthiest temples in the country.- Court, commando cover for Kerala's temple
- After Paris and Rome, a Louvre in Kerala?
- Estimated wealth of some centres of faith
- Interesting details on the treasure trove
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Murli-Deora-tried-to-pre-empt-probe-into-Essar-Loop-case-CBI-to-SC/articleshow/9131456.cms
Court halts land takeover in Uttar Pradesh district
LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court on Thursday stalled acquisition proceedings for some 200 hectares of land spread across 10 villages in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr district.
The order came on a petition moved by about 200 of the 2,700 farmers affected by a government acquisition order of 1999. The land was acquired for industrialisation.
Though the government had issued the order some 22 years ago, the farmers complained that most of them had not received any compensation so far.
Taking serious note of the issue, a bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice Rananjay Singh ruled 'status quo' on the land that happened to be still in the possession of the farmers.
"The court order has come as a boon for the farmers whose fate was dangling on the fence because of inaction on the part of the government," farmers' counsel Saurabh Basu told IANS over telephone from Allahabad.
7 JUL, 2011, 09.10AM IST, DHANANJAY MAHAPATRA,TNN
SC scraps 6 Noida Extention projects leaving flat owners in despair
NEW DELHI: The dream house of thousands of middle class families attracted by glossy brochures and reasonable rates took a knock with the Supreme Court on Wednesday upholding the cancellation of a huge tract of land allotted by the Greater Noida Authority in Shahberi village in Noida Extension to developers.
A bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly severely criticized the Greater Noida Authority for colluding with developers to illegally change land use from industrial to residential and imposed costs of Rs 10 lakh. The money will be spent to assist poor litigants in the apex court.
RELATED ARTICLES
- Farmers celebrate SC verdict; some open to selling land directly at higher rates
- SC quashes land buy in Greater Noida
- Home buyers worried over court order on land in Greater Noida
- SC upholds HC ruling against acquisition of Greater Noida land
- 15,000 hectares acquired in Greater Noida using urgency clause since 1991
While the court's decision to set aside the land acquisition puts the projects in jeopardy, its strong remarks against the manner in which land was acquired for developers at the cost of farmers will provide ammunition to Congress and other opponents of UP chief minister Mayawati who has raised the pitch on land acquisition.
The court's decision to set aside the land acquisition will mean the projects are now scrapped. The court strongly felt the state government has indulged in a malafide use of its powers for "urgent" land acquisition to benefit developers rather than serving any public purpose.
Dismissing appeals filed by developers and the Greater Noida Authority, the court said there was no error in the Allahabad high court order cancelling the takeover of agricultural land in Shahberi village, a majority of whose residents opposed the acquisition.
The high court had said it was a "colourable exercise of executive power" unsustainable under the Land Acquisition Act.
BRICKBAT VERDICT
SC bench criticizes Greater Noida Authority for colluding with developers to change land use from industrial to residential Authority went on to transfer the land to builders even before Uttar Pradesh govt approved change in land use Agricultural land acquired from Shahberi village for residential use even though 60% of total land acquired for industrial township remained unused Seven builders - Amrapali, Mahagun, Supertech, Gulshan Homes, Panchsheel, Auracity and Buland Buildtech - affected by verdict
RIL in News
Oil Ministry backs BP's stake buy in RIL
The oil ministry has backed BP's $7.2 bn deal to buy stakes in RIL's 23 oil and gas blocks, paving the way for approval of the landmark deal.- Mukesh Ambani planning to sell RGTIL biz
- BP to aid RIL in oil and gas hunt at KG-D6
- How the cabinet reshuffle cost RIL dear
- CBI wants Oil Min to take expert help in RIL
- CAG: Powers to check on petroleum profits
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/SC-scraps-6-Noida-Extention-projects-leaving-flat-owners-in-despair/articleshow/9133429.cms
25 MAY, 2011, 01.25PM IST,PTI
CWG Scam: Delhi Govt approves response to Shunglu Committee report
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Government today approved its response to the Shunglu Committee report, rejecting all the findings of the panel which pointed out to alleged bunglings in Commonwealth Games projects.
"The Cabinet has approved the report prepared by the three-member committee. We are giving paragraph-wise response to the Shunglu Committee's findings. It will be sent to the Home Ministry in the next two-three days," Dikshit said emerging from a Cabinet meeting.
RELATED ARTICLES
- CWG Scam: MHA reviewing Shiela's reply on Shunglu committee report
- CWG Scam: Delhi Govt sends response to Shunglu charges
- Commonwealth Games scam: Delhi cabinet trashes Shunglu panel findings
- CWG Scam: Delhi govt to send Shunglu panel findings' response to Home Min
- Can't punish on Shunglu report,probe findings first:Delhi govt
Officials said the government has rejected all the findings of the Prime Minister-appointed committee putting strong arguments trashing the report.
Dikshit said the response from MCD and NDMC against whom the Shunglu panel had also levelled allegations will be sent along with the government's response to the Home Ministry.
"We have received responses from MCD and NDMC and we will forward their responses also along with ours," she said.
Asked about the content, Dikshit refused to divulge details.
The response came in the backdrop of the Home Ministry asking the city government to explain its position on the PM-appointed committee's report.
The Home Ministry had last month sent the report of the Shunglu Committee to Delhi Government, asking it to file a detailed response to the findings within a month.
Besides holding various agencies including the PWD responsible for irregularities, the Shunglu Committee had blamed Dikshit for alleged bunglings in various Games projects.
The city government, which already rejected the findings of the panel as a "product of paranoia", had sent a brief report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last month, trashing the report.
In the brief report, the government had rejected almost all the findings of the panel and instead accused it of deliberately choosing to adopt a logic of "convenience" in finding corruption in every policy and every tender of the government.
The city government has already asked officials whose names figure in the Shunglu Committee report to submit their response in writing to the government.
The Shunglu Committee has submitted six reports on broadcasting, Games Village, city infrastructure, Games venues, Organising Committee and Main Report -- Organisation and Conduct of CWG 2010.
The report on city infrastructure was referred to the Home Ministry by the PMO for appropriate action on the queries raised by the Shunglu panel in works done by the city government-controlled departments.
The administration of Delhi, being the Union Territory, comes under the control of the Home Ministry.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/CWG-Scam-Delhi-Govt-approves-response-to-Shunglu-Committee-report/articleshow/8567791.cms
Land Acquisition
Land acquisition means legal acquisition of land by the government (central or state) or government agency for some public purpose (like educational institute, hospitals etc.) from the individual landowner(s) by paying a fixed compensation. Be it Mayawati's invocation of 'emergency powers' to acquire land in Greater Noida or Tata-Singur land issue, or the latest, POSCO's project halted at Jagatsinghpur demanding enhanced compensation to land losers... Isn't it time that government change its decades old Act of Land Acquisition?
07 July 2011 Last updated at 22:26 GMT
Latest Articles on Land Acquisition
Rahul promises 'pro-farmer' Land Acquisition Bill
Rahul Gandhi who has taken on UP government on the land acquisition issue, promised the farmers that the Land Acquisition Bill will be in their favour...
Rotis on charpai, night in open: Rahul strikes a chord
Rahul Gandhi continued his footmarch through Mayawati's backyard on Wednesday, wading through surging crowds of farmers and touching an emotional chor...
Farmers celebrate SC verdict; some open to selling land directly at higher rates
Villagers celebrated the news by bursting fire crackers and distributing sweets. At several choupals in the village, the young and the old alike dance...
More Articles about Land Acquisition
07 Jul:
SC scraps 6 Noida Extention projects l...
07 Jul:
Rahul may not be allowed to carry forw...
06 Jul:
Rahul Gandhi continues his march, govt...
06 Jul:
Home buyers worried over court order o...
06 Jul:
SC upholds HC ruling against acquisiti...
06 Jul:
Want land for hotels on G Noida Expres...
06 Jul:
States using colonial land acquisition...
06 Jul:
SC overturns Maya decision on Noida ho...
05 Jul:
State biggest land grabber: Supreme Co...
05 Jul:
Congress seeks probe into Videocon's l...
01 Jul:
New land acquisition law must seek to ...
30 Jun:
Singur land: Calcutta HC directs West ...
30 Jun:
Land acquisition, insurance top reform...
30 Jun:
Dr Manmohan Singh should now make refo...
30 Jun:
Supreme Court stops Mamata Banerjee fr...
29 Jun:
Congress to hold kisan mahapanchayat i...
29 Jun:
SC asks West Bengal govt not to return...
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/fullcover.cms?keyword=Land_Acquisition
UID Cards
Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) rolls out one of the most ambitious and innovative projects, UID Cards, in next few days. Its chairperson, Nandan Nilekani says UID won't be a proof of citizenship but will effectively verify a person's identitiy. Overly emphasized, will UID (Aadhar) live up to its exaggerated image? Read our extensive coverage.
07 July 2011 Last updated at 22:58 GMT
Latest Articles on UID Cards
Nilekani panel wants cap on subsidized LPG for households
The Nandan Nilekani-headed task force set up to work out modalities for direct transfer of subsidy has suggested a cap on consumption of subsidized LP...
UIDAI ties up with Dept. of Post to expedite enrollment process
UIDAI is joining hands with Department of Posts (DoP) to launch its ambitious enrollment project with the help of over 5,000 post offices across the c...
UIDAI: Nandan Nilekani plans to create an 'Apple or Google-like' ecosystem for Aadhaar
Already, the Reserve Bank of India and the ministry of finance have issued guidelines to banks to use Aadhaar as an identifier.
More Articles about UID Cards
17 Jun:
Unique ID project set to meet target: ...
15 Jun:
BOI launches UID enrolment project
06 Jun:
Cost-benefit analysis of UID necessary...
09 May:
How to get your Unique Identification ...
27 Mar:
Unique ID numbers to half the populati...
15 Feb:
Team Nilekani to shape model for direc...
13 Jan:
UIDAI rolls out 10 lakh 'Aadhaar' numb...
11 Nov:
Visa for payment solution using UIDAI ...
04 Oct:
UID scheme: Biometric system will rule...
02 Oct:
Financial Inclusion to be linked with ...
01 Oct:
Nilekani, bankers discuss ways to achi...
01 Oct:
UID, a great piece of reform
30 Sep:
Aadhaar lights up Tembhli, 10 tribals ...
29 Sep:
PM, Sonia praise Nilekani for UID proj...
29 Sep:
Sonia is my 'Aadhaar', says first UID ...
29 Sep:
PM Manmohan Singh launches Unique Iden...
29 Sep:
PM to launch Unique Identification Num...
Spectrum Scam
The Public Accounts Committee(PAC), which has been pressing ahead with its schedule of summoning corporates, lobbyists, journalists, and senior bureaucrats, has decided to finalise its report by this month-end.
07 July 2011 Last updated at 22:47 GMT
Latest Articles on Spectrum Scam
2G scam: CBI's stand on Ambani questioned; Maran, Baijal abused ranks
ADAG has claimed that actions were done without Ambani's knowledge. If this was true then he should have sacked 3 employees," the NGO said.
Dayanidhi Maran joins growing list to be consumed by 2G scam
A well known amateur radio operator, Dayanidhi Maran joins a growing list of top politicians and corporate honchos to be felled by the 2G spectrum sca...
2G Spectrum scam: Explain Dayanidhi Maran fiasco, opposition to PM Manmohan Singh
Oposition parties demanded that PM explain how Dayanidhi Maran remained in the cabinet for so long despite allegations of involvement in the 2G scam.
More Articles about Spectrum Scam
07 Jul:
Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran resi...
07 Jul:
Murli Deora tried to pre-empt probe in...
07 Jul:
CBI to Send LRs to Switzerland and Bri...
06 Jul:
Essar group involved in 2G scam: CBI t...
06 Jul:
Maran in dock: Demands for his ouster ...
06 Jul:
2G scam: JPC to quiz former telecom se...
06 Jul:
Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran under...
06 Jul:
2G scam: JPC to start quizzing telecom...
06 Jul:
Hearing of charges in 2G case may begi...
05 Jul:
2G case: HC raps CBI for incomplete me...
05 Jul:
Former Telecom Secy to appear before J...
04 Jul:
Tata entitled to 2G spectrum for Delhi...
01 Jul:
Have powers to go into 2G, profit-shar...
30 Jun:
2G scam: CBI to send AIIMS team to pro...
30 Jun:
2G spectrum scam: TRAI examining recom...
29 Jun:
2G spectrum scam: HC dismisses PIL aga...
29 Jun:
Congress & allies thwart PAC Chairman ...
Lokpal Bill
The Lokpal Bill has been presented 'eight times' in the parliament but never been passed. It was far from public conciousness, not many knew what it was about, until, Anna Hazare took up the cause. Will the monsoon session see any progress? Only time will tell.
07 July 2011 Last updated at 22:47 GMT
Latest Articles on Lokpal Bill
Hazare's version of Lokpal bill unacceptable: Kapil Sibal
Union minister and a key member of the Lokpal bill drafting committee Kapil Sibal said that Team Hazare's version of the legislation was unacceptable,...
Corruption in India: Tripura to soon appoint a Lokayukta
Tripura would soon appoint a Lokayukta (ombudsman) to check corruption among public functionaries and maintain transparency in governance.
Govt not committed to any timeline to clear Lokpal Bill
The government feels the final shape of the anti-corruption law will be influenced by deliberations of the standing committee it is referred to.
More Articles about Lokpal Bill
05 Jul:
PM should have only limited immunity, ...
05 Jul:
PM should have only limited immunity, ...
05 Jul:
PM should be under Lokpal: BJP
04 Jul:
Home Ministry writes to Delhi Lokayukt...
04 Jul:
BJP in favour of bringing PM under Lok...
04 Jul:
PM should come under Lokpal's ambit: R...
04 Jul:
Govt confident of introducing Lokpal B...
04 Jul:
All-party meet on Lokpal unique and wi...
04 Jul:
Will follow parliamentary procedures o...
04 Jul:
Govt draft worse than 'jokepal', says ...
04 Jul:
All parties pledge to back 'strong' Lo...
04 Jul:
Reconcile Lokpal drafts, opposition to...
03 Jul:
All-party meet agrees on strong Lokpal...
03 Jul:
Lokpal bill: All-party meeting ends
03 Jul:
Lokpal will have to work within framew...
03 Jul:
Lokpal bill in monsoon session: PM
03 Jul:
CPI asks government to bring its versi...
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/fullcover.cms?keyword=Lokpal_Bill
07/07/2011
Maran's abrupt end as minister, second time over
New Delhi: Better known as the corporate face of the DMK, 44-year-old Dayanidhi Maran, grand nephew of its chief M. Karunanidhi, may not have entered politics if his father had not died in 2003.
He was comfortably ensconced in his family's enterprise, which has interests in a wide variety of areas including a bouquet of television channels, programming, direct-to-home satellite service, films and now even an airline after buying SpiceJet.
But destiny had something different in store for Dayanidhi, a two-term member of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, representing the prestigious Central Chennai constituency in the Tamil Nadu capital.
After father Murasoli Maran died in 2003, Karunanidhi himself wanted his millionaire grand nephew to enter politics.
Thanks to this patronage, the young Maran became a minister -- that too with a cabinet rank -- in his very first term as a lawmaker.
It was during his tenure as communications minister between May 26, 2004 and May 13, 2007 that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) now says there were questionable actions by him which eventually led to his exit from the cabinet Thursday.
This was the second time, though, that Dayanidhi had to resign from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet.
In 2007, a family row with the Karunanidhis over the contents of an opinion poll published in a newspaper suddenly soured relations between the Maran brothers and the Karunanidhi family.
The "Dinakaran" said the opinion poll showed that M.K. Stalin, the younger son of Karunanidhi, was better suited over his older son M.K. Azhagiri -- or for that matter his daughter Kanimozhi -- to succeed as the DMK chief.
Workers allegedly close to Azhagiri vandalized the properties from which Dinakaran operated. Without mincing words, Karunanidhi called the report mischevous and said it had hurt the party's image.
Dayanidhi had to quit.
His close equation with United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who had become rather fond of this modern and media savvy politician, could not save him.
Dayanidhi did his schooling from the natty Don Bosco school in Chennai, graduated in economics from the Loyola College in the same city, and has a doting wife, Priya, a son, Karan, and a daughter, Divya.
But his extended family links perhaps did him in, again.
The Sun TV group, though, has officially communicated that the younger Maran does not own a single share in any of these firms. The enterprise is run by his elder brother Kalanidhi.
According to the CBI, Dayanidhi allegedly created a situation forcing a non-resident entrepreneur, Sivasankaran, to sell his stake in his telecom company Aircel to Malaysia's Maxis group.
Maxis, considered close to the Marans, allegedly bought 74 percent stake in Aircel after which it was allotted more circles to operate its telecom services in the country.
Maxis also allegedly invested around Rs.600 crore in Sun's DTH project.
All these were being alleged in whispers earlier. But when the CBI told this to the apex court, Dayanidhi's days as minister were limited. His party chief too did not waste time, asking Maran to quit -- again.
Already, two of Dayanidhi's party colleagues -- his successor in the communications ministry A. Raja and Rajya Sabha member and Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi -- have been arrested for their alleged roles in the second generation (2G) spectrum case.
Dayanidhi has maintained that he has done no wrong and he never mixed his political and family (read corporate) interests. An avid shooter, his shot at innocence this time will be decided in a legal and not a family court.
Source: IANS
07/07/2011
CBI to supply Radia tape transcripts to 2G scam accused
New Delhi: The CBI on Thursday told a Delhi court that it will supply to the 2G scam case accused by July 12 the transcripts of tapped telephonic talk of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia with various people.
"We will supply Niira Radia's tape by July 12," CBI prosecutor A.K. Singh told Special CBI Judge O.P. Saini. The agency told the court that it will also be supplying some additional documents to the accused on July 12.
The development comes in the wake of some of the accused submitting to the court that the CBI was not providing them the transcripts of Radia's conversation, despite she having been made a key prosecution witness in the case with her statements to the CBI often referring to those conversations.
Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd, named as an accused in the scam, had on Wednesday told the court that the CBI should supply to them all the documents, which it has filed in the court along with the charge sheet, so that they could respond.
The counsel for other accused also pointed out to the court that the CBI is withholding from them some of the documents which they have filed in the court.
The CBI, however, had countered these allegations saying there are some documents on which they have not relied upon and thus the accused were not supplied the copies of such documents.
Source: PTI -
The politics of neoliberalism in India
Ganesh Lal is co-author, with David Whitehouse and Dina Roy, of "India, Pakistan and the question of Kashmir" in ISR 24 (July-August 2002).
GL: India has now seen about 15 years of neoliberalism, with the reforms that began in 1988. Could you give us a balance sheet of neoliberalism in India? How has it been able to survive for 15 years, while countries like Indonesia and Argentina have experienced catastrophic meltdowns?
AV: The absence of capital account convertibility (1) in India prevented the Indian economy from suffering the kind of damage that East Asia suffered, and Argentina of course is very much tied to the dollar economy. But if you want to assess the Indian economy, then you can do it in two ways: You can use the criteria that the pro-liberalizers themselves have set, or you can use other criteria.
The pro-liberalizers predicted two things: first, a dramatic breakthrough in growth rates, and second, a steady decline in the fiscal deficit. According to their own criteria, there has not been that dramatic a breakthrough at all. The average growth rate of the Indian economy since 1991 is approximately the same as that of the 1980s, averaging around 5.7—5.8 percent. This puts India among the top 10 fast-growing countries, but as an indicator of some dramatic new change, this is misleading, because we saw similar growth in the 1980s.
As far as the fiscal deficit is concerned, we've seen a huge failure. There's been no steady decline, and the fiscal deficit has hovered around 4.7—7 percent. The problem, however, is never really the fiscal deficit, but the revenue deficit. With neoliberal economics, you don't tax the rich and the wealthy-in fact you have to go in the other direction-hence a growing revenue deficit. Another reason for the revenue deficit is that in the last six years we've had the fastest rate of growth in military expenditure in the history of India since independence in 1947, much faster than any five-year period even before and after the wars in 1965 and 1971.
The neoliberals always insist on cutting the fiscal deficit because they want to reduce capital expenditure by the state. This has been a big mistake in the Indian context because it is based on a premise that is deeply flawed, particularly with respect to developing economies. The premise is to let the private sector take the burden of investment, while public-sector investment is seen as a drain on the role of the private sector. But in countries like India and other developing economies, and I suspect also in the advanced economies, public-sector investment on infrastructure crowds in, i.e. brings in private-sector investment.
So the fact that you had an attempt to reduce public-sector investment, combined with the attempt to increase the revenues on the capital account by reckless privatization sales means that the real problem-that of the revenue deficit-has not been tackled.
But there are other criteria that we can use to assess the state of the Indian economy: the question of poverty, inequality and jobs. The capitalists are not concerned about poverty and inequality; they are just concerned about the conditions under which they can reproduce capital.
We don't have accurate statistics as far as poverty levels are concerned. Because of changes in statistical methods, the statistics have been messed up, and we don't have reliable estimates. I won't go into the details of the changes in methodology, but what is clear is that there has been relatively jobless growth. Job expansion is much lower than what it was in the eighties. We have increased inequality between urban and rural populations, between the rich and poor, and between the advanced and the more backward states. Poverty has gone down overall, but not at the same pace as in the eighties, and it is still quite high-about a third of the population. This poverty level of course is the bare nutritional minimum, and doesn't account for a whole series of other dimensions which should be taken into account when referring to poverty, such as education, healthcare, housing and sanitation.
Around the world, the reality is that neoliberalism does not bring an expansion of high productivity-and therefore high-wage-jobs. There is a larger problem here. It is now clear that information technology, or what is called the fourth technological revolution, cannot do what the first three technological revolutions could do. With earlier technological revolutions, you had adeepening of capital, but you ultimately had a wideningof capital as well, so that the jobs lost as a result of capital deepening were compensated for by the expansion of capital and the expansion of higher productivity jobs overall.
Today, you don't have that. Even as services become more important, apart from a small layer of services at the top, most service jobs are low-productivity, low-wage jobs. In India you still have 65 percent of the population living in the countryside. Agriculture, as it opens up to the world market, is going to have to face competition from subsidized agriculture in the advanced countries, and this will create huge problems. When you combine the fact that there hasn't been an expansion of jobs, that there is increasing inequality, that agricultural prices for those who have to buy food has risen, then there is no justification for the claim that there is a significant decline of poverty, let alone any of the other factors.
So the 5.7—5.8 percent growth rate has not brought the kinds of benefits that it was expected to, and now you have the liberalizers talking about an 8 percent growth rate, which is almost unattainable and certainly unsustainable over a period of 10 or 20 years. The ecological consequences of this growth pattern will be a disaster. And the neoliberals still cling to this model despite its deeper ecological implications, utterly disregarding the fact that even at its best this is a model that dramatically increases inequality.
This means that neoliberal economics has to be accompanied by neoliberal politics-a politics that justifies these inequalities, which undermines any meaningful notion of deepening democracy. In the 1960s and 1970s it was taken for granted that you had to go beyond just civic liberties. You had to deepen democracy by reducing inequalities of wealth and income. Now the ideology is that of a rising tide lifting all boats. But some boats sink, some may rise a few inches, while others rise by meters.
GL: The boats that rise a few meters: What about them? We hear stories about the expanding middle class in India, which is supposed to be providing a consumer base, which in turn will be the engine of growth.
AV: You are refering to the 150 or 200 million who are misleadingly referred to as an Indian middle class. I say "misleadingly" in the sense that in the US and elsewhere, the middle class is more or less a median category, which serves as a crucial social buffer for those who are rich and powerful against those below. So someone like Clinton can talk about a "middle-class bill of rights," or a "middle-class tax cut."
But in India, you're not talking about a median category, but about the top 10—15 percent. Statistically, there is a problem here, because in many advanced countries you can assess the quantitative size of the middle class through tax records, but in India, where only a small percent of the population pays taxes, you have to make very crude and rough estimates based on expenditure, which can never be very accurate.
Now it is true that this 15 percent have seen a considerable expansion of their wealth and income. This category has been the principal beneficiary of all forms of development. Even in the Nehruvian period,(2) whatever the complaints of the middle classes, they benefited more than any other class in Indian society. But there is a very large layer at the bottom of this middle class, which is not prosperous. There is a deeper insecurity within this middle class because there is no big buffer between it and the pressure from the huge and more impoverished sections below, [an insecurity] that helps sustain the popularity of reactionary, right-wing parties like the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party].
Recognizing this doesn't mean that we should exaggerate the extent to which the middle class has benefited. There is a good way of judging this. Take for instance, the market for consumer durables. While there is a huge market for consumer durables that reaches beyond the middle class, like watches and bicycles, this is not the case for refrigerators or washing machines or cars. In India today, an optimistic estimate for car production in India is around one million a year. Japan, on the other hand, in recession, produces more than a million cars a month. So we must maintain a sense of proportion: We're talking about a 150-million-strong middle class, but a million cars a year in production. This has indeed grown from the 1980s, when it was about 100,000 cars a year, but the growth hasn't been that dramatic in proportion to the size of this class.
The character of Indian exports-marine products, gems, leather goods, textiles, agricultural products-has remained unchanged, except for one area of course: software production. But even here, India is on the lower end of software production, and with growing competition from the Chinese, the rate of growth even in this sector cannot be sustained for long. The same holds for telemarketing call centers. India has become an important place for call centers, but this will shift if other countries begin to offer lower wage-rates.
The health of any economy, especially of continent-size economies like India's, has to be judged by internal resources -high savings rates, high domestic investment, infrastructure, etc.-supplemented by foreign direct investment (FDI). You cannot see FDI as a magic wand. In fact, India receives less FDI than Thailand and Malaysia, leave alone China.
GL: You said that neoliberal economics has to be sustained by neoliberal politics. Tell us something about the rise of Hindu fundamentalism, both in its domestic setting and in the international context.
AV: The BJP came to national prominence in 1992, with the demolition of the Babri Masjid.3 But it only came to power in 1996, and then only for 13 days. There has been something like an "insurgency of élites," as some have called it, an insecurity that has created a milieu that is very receptive to the BJP's message of belligerent aggressive nationalism. This nationalism is also connected to a certain sense of internationalism-the idea that India must "stand tall and take its place as a world power," and so on. The BJP has been saying this for decades, but it is only recently that it has been able to find an audience for it. The reason for this new receptivity is the decline of the Congress [Party].(4)
The BJP came in with a message of building national strength, and the bourgeoisie, which obviously wants to expand, generally felt more mature and confident enough to open up the markets. But they would have wanted to be more cautious about it. The integration of the Indian economy into the world market is not turning out quite the way the bourgeoisie would have hoped. But they are now willing to settle for it. So for instance, in 1991, a section of the Indian bourgeoisie, the "Bombay club," suggested that we should try to emulate the Korean model of having large national chaebols[state-protected, private conglomerates] and so on, because the bourgeoisie still needs to be supported and protected.
But that has been abandoned now. A large part of the Indian bourgeoisie is now prepared to settle for rentierstatus, and to collaborate with foreign capital. Politically, there is a growing sense among the Indian bourgeoisie that American political and strategic dominance can't be challenged, and although they would like to see it tamed, it is out of their hands. So they are willing to settle for the best they can get, by trying to become more important regionally and internationally through greater collaboration with the US
So politically, the BJP's line of seeking to forge a strong alliance with the US is looked upon favorably by the Indian bourgeoisie. The catch is that the US also needs Pakistan as an ally, which creates a set of particular tensions with India. The general thinking of this particular BJP government is that in the long run, the relationship of the US with Pakistan is an aberration and that we should put a great deal of our strategic eggs into the US basket. They also want to present India as a future counter-weight against the Chinese.
The importance of India to the US is three-fold. First, it is one of 10 countries that are marked for takeover by foreign capital; not necessarily just American capital, but foreign capital. The Indian bourgeoisie thinks that it can find its own place within this, by finding a niche within a rather large world market. Second, the US wants client regimes that will support its policies abroad, especially in the general region of client states, and in this the BJP has gone along with it. Third, the US needs regimes that have domestic stability. This is possibly the one area about which the US might have some misgivings, in terms of the potential for instability under a Hindutva (5) regime. But apart from this, the US looks upon the BJP government quite favorably, as a government that is most committed to a strong alliance with the US and determined to carry on with neoliberal globalization.
GL: You mentioned the Congress Party and its decline as one of the factors that led to the rise of the BJP. The Congress had historically been identified with what is known as the "Nehruvian legacy" of centrist and social-democratic policies. Why did it begin to bury that legacy?
AV: The Congress began to shift to the right in the 1980s, both economically and politically. Historically it had always come to power on a centrist program, reflecting its varied social base, including the lower sections of Indian society. For decades, the leaders of Muslims, tribals and dalits (6) -often known as the "core minorities"-had been content to act as brokers for the Congress Party, delivering votes to the party while extending their own networks of patronage.
Contrary to what many commentators think, the rise of the New Right is not what causes the decline of the old social-democratic left or center, rather it is the other way around, both here and worldwide. This is similar to the rise of Reaganism and Thatcherism in the eighties.
The 1960s and 1970s saw alternatives to the Congress emerging at the state level, thanks to the growing volatility among the poorer sections of society. This instability forced the Congress to look to other sources for its support, but to this day it hasn't figured out either its program or what are its most reliable bases. As it shifted to the right, it sought to consolidate its new mass base among the Indian middle class.
The rise of the BJP is preceded by the decline of the Congress. Since the 1970s, three non-Congress centrist-type parties have come to power, but they were unable to hold onto power for a full term. Interspersed within this period, the Congress did come to power again, but for the first time in its history as a minority government. It is only after this experience of various centrist failures that the BJP is able to come to power in 1996, although it is unable to hold onto power for more than 13 days. Then the BJP finally takes power in 1998 in a coalition government.
As a result of the Congress's decline, two forces benefited. First, there were forces in the north connected to caste politics. Second, the emergence of the right-wing and reactionary elements like the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh].(7) The BJP actually moved forward by building the most significant mass movement since independence; a reactionary mass movement (which demolished the Babri Masjid) that is extremely successful. As a result, it has succeeded in shifting the center of gravity of politics to the right.
The Congress is a party today that is bereft of any clear ideas, and is pursuing a softer version of Hindutva. On key questions-foreign policy, the bomb, neoliberalism-it has no clear idea of a different program than that of the BJP. While the BJP's fortunes might go up and down, politics as a whole are being pulled to the right. For the bourgeoisie, it doesn't really matter who's in power, except that the BJP might be somewhat unstable because of its aggressive Hindutva, but overall, it doesn't really matter since their material interests will anyway be served.
GL: Arundhati Roy writes that for the governments of India and Pakistan, Kashmir is not a problem; it is a perennially spectacular solution.(8) What role does Kashmir play in the geopolitics of the subcontinent?
AV: I can understand what Arundhati says, because when you have two religious-extremist forces, Kashmir is a very convenient running sore which perpetuates communal sentiments (9) and nationalist sentiments in both countries.
But the problem for Pakistan is more serious. First, Pakistan's dismemberment in 1971 trashed the two-nation theory.(10) So what should its national identity be based on? Second, Pakistan hasn't had a sustained functioning democracy. The army has played and continues to play a key role in Pakistani society. For the army to justify its crucial role in Pakistani politics, it has to maintain anti-Indian sentiments, and Kashmir is a convenient "solution" in this sense.
This is not necessarily the case in India. In India we cannot see the perpetuation of the Kashmir problem as simply a "convenient solution." Most people in India, except for a small section among the RSS and Hindutvaforces, would be happy if the Kashmir issue were resolved along the existing Line of Control [LOC]. (11)
The continuing dispute with Pakistan is seen by the Indian bourgeoisie as something that does not allow India to be recognized as the regional hegemon in India. They see the relationship between India and Pakistan as deeply irritating, and they too would like to see a solution along the existing LOC. Second, after Pokhran [the site of India's nuclear tests in 1998], this is undoubtedly seen as a tension-filled area. Third, with the rise of religious extremism and fundamentalism, there is the rise of forces that believe that the only solution to the problem is the collapse of Pakistan itself. Their long-term perspective is that Pakistan is a "failed state" that cannot last, and that its collapse will benefit India because, among other things, the US will come to recognize India as the most reliable ally in this part of the world.
Two things make the resolution of the Kashmir issue more complicated. First, it seems that Jammu and Ladakh (12) no longer want to be part of an independent Kashmir. Second, you now have a third player in the game, which is unfortunately not the people of Kashmir, but the United States. The US has begun to think of the kind of outcome it wants in Kashmir that would benefit its wider and longer-term strategic objectives in Central Asia. Since 1998, the issue of Kashmir has become "Americanized," as the US has become the more important player, particularly with the danger of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. And after 2001, the US, for the first time in its history, has a military-political emplacement in Central Asia. So they might push for some kind of Bosnia-type solution. This is not a certainty, but it is clear that the future of Kashmir will be tied up with and not easily separated from the future objectives of the United States.
GL: It seems that in many ways the Indian Left has stumbled on the question of Kashmir, and has been unable to put forward a coherent alternative.
AV: Yes, the weak point of the Indian Left is that the one thing they can be outflanked on is the question of nationalism. Despite their criticism of the mobilization of troops along the India-Pakistan border last year, they have always been scared of being labeled "anti-national." Their desire to speak in terms of "national unity and integrity" has prevented them from respecting Leninist principles of self-determination with regard to Kashmir, the northeast and Sri Lanka as well.(13) So they haven't been able to propose innovative or more democratic solutions.
On the other hand, I would not agree either with those who dismiss nationalism, even progressive nationalism, out of hand. In the long run we want a world free of capitalism. But we have no way of being internationalist today without at the same time being some kind of nationalist. An increasingly globalized capitalism has clearly learned how to use the nation-state; in fact, you wouldn't have neoliberal globalization if it weren't for the manipulation and use of nation-states. Even as we remain socialists and internationalists, we cannot have a one-sided and unbalanced rejection of nationalism. Iraq and Palestine are the two most important political weak points of the US empire, and here the struggle for progressive nationalism is very relevant.
GL: Can you describe the nature of the broader left in India? What is the significance of the World Social Forum (WSF) being held in India for the Indian Left and, more broadly, for the global justice movement?
AV: It seems to me that the decision by the WSF organizers to shift it from Brazil to India has to do with the idea that the WSF, which has had too much of a Latin-American and European face, must shift to another part of the developing world in order to generate a stronger and more global movement. There was some thought about holding it in Africa or some other part of the world, but for various reasons India was chosen. Hopefully, there will be an African Social Forum as well at some point.
At the last WSF, something very important happened: The anti-globalization movement and the movement against US imperialism came together for the first time. This will be reinforced in Mumbai. The United States is now correctly seen as the most important driver of the neoliberal globalization program. The US is also seen as the driving force of the new imperialism. So the coming together of these two strands at the last WSF, and their consolidation this time around is a very important thing.
During the last great movement against imperialism, during the Vietnam War, we didn't see the kind of international coordination that we are seeing now. Back then, we had some degree of continental coordination in Europe, but these were by and large nationally based movements. February 15, 2003 was an international day of action, something we've never seen before, and the next big international day of action will likely be March 20, 2004.
For groups like Jubilee 2000 and others in the global justice movement, this is an excellent opportunity to come together with the antiwar movements and begin serious coordination.
The Left in India has historically been prisoner to the "big development" program. Given their history of alignment with the Soviet model of development, they might have been critical of capitalism, but adopted an ecologically insensitive program of development.
But recently, the parties of the Indian Left have moved away from a degree of hostility toward the different social movements in India and toward a degree of accommodation to them. Some of the biggest social movements in India, for instance the Narmada Bachao Andolan, (14) have not only raised questions about neoliberal globalization but about the whole pattern of economic development. The Left has recognized that younger people today around the world are not drawn toward party formations, but find their energies in a range of activities. So if the Left is to make its voice heard, it has to intervene in these spaces. I was delighted to see at the last WSF that so many of the participants were under 30 years of age. We have to develop new forms of networking and organizing accordingly. The WSF is one very important dimension of this development.
GL: Sections of the Indian Left have attacked the WSF for its ties to NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and for their sources of funding. What do you think about these criticisms?
AV: My opinion is that many of their criticisms about the WSF, about some of the participants, the sources of funding and so on, are quite legitimate and well-taken. Unfortunately, they are being, in my view, sectarian. There is no reason why they cannot participate within the WSF while at the same time maintaining their criticisms of it. They don't recognize that the WSF is a space in which there will necessarily be various tendencies.
The WSF should not simply become a global pep-rally, which is certainly part of its purpose, nor should it be a huge jamboree, where people sell their respective political wares, although this is useful, too. The WSF has to be a space where various activists forge practical links, and learn how to practicallybegin to work together: that is the most important thing that can come out of it. This is, I think, the main reason for holding the WSF in the first place.
GL: What role do parties play in the current formations of the broad left worldwide?
AV: At the WSF, you don't participate as the representative of a party. The WSF is, as I said before, a space that is open to various tendencies. But of course parties remain crucially important today.
Progressive politics can only succeed if we are able to unite the politics of the universal with the politics of the particular. We all have our own particular grievances and particular struggles, but succeeding in those particular struggles is only possible in the long run if they are connected with a politics of the universal. We have to recognize that our particular struggles are connected to a collective struggle against neoliberalism and against imperialism.
Another way of thinking about this is that nation-states still remain the most important political units on the world stage, and therefore national political parties remain crucially important, even though they have to find ways of being internationalist in their outlook.
We have to connect these struggles, and the organizational form that has embodied the connection between the politics of the universal and the particular has always been the party. The party has been therefore the most historically important embodiment of the combination of the universal and the particular.
Notes
1. Capital account convertibility is the ability to convert one currency into another, for example, rupees into dollars. Until now the Indian government has retained controls over its financial markets, contrary to the IMF-inspired trend toward greater capital account liberalization.
2. Jawaharlal Nehru was India's first prime minister following independence from British rule, serving from 1948 to his death in 1964.
3. The BJP, currently the leader of India's ruling coalition, is an electoral party that belongs to a family of Hindu nationalist organizations called the Sangh Parivar. Other groups in the Sangh range from militant defenders of religious orthodoxy to fascist street gangs. Sangh members, including India's current foreign minister, L.K. Advani, led the destruction of the Babri mosque (masjid) in 1992-and sparked riots that killed nearly 3,000 Muslims. The 16th-century mosque supposedly stood on the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram, and the Sangh Parivar has since sought to construct a Hindu temple on the mosque's ruins.
4. The Indian National Congress or Congress Party, founded in 1885, was the leading force in the independence movement. It assumed control of the national government when India achieved independence in 1947, and ruled almost without interruption until 1996.
5. According to the doctrine of Hindutva ("Hindu-ness"), Hinduism is the only authentic expression of Indian nationality.
6. "Dalit" is a collective term for India's oppressed lower castes, including the untouchables.
7. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the National Voluntary Service, one of the main Hindu communalist organizations. See endnote 9 for more on communalism. Several leading BJP members have active ties to the RSS, which has a record of physical attacks on Muslims.
8. Arundhati Roy, War Talk (Boston: South End Press, 2003), p. 35.
9. Communalism is a political trend dating from the late 19th century that takes India's religious groups (or "communities") as the natural components of political life. Communalists thus seek political mobilization along religious lines, with high-caste Hindus and wealthy Muslims as the "natural" leaders-and members of other religious groups as the "natural" antagonists.
10. In 1971, West Pakistan seceded to form the independent nation of Bangladesh. The "two-nations theory" was one of the founding ideologies of the pro-Pakistan segment of the Indian Muslim League under British rule. According to this theory, the only solution to Hindu-Muslim tensions was to create an independent, Muslim nation in the form of Pakistan. Bangladesh's formation in 1971 gave the lie to this theory by showing that Muslims did not form a homogenous community looking for a single Muslim nation-state.
11. The Line of Control was established after the 1965 India-Pakistan war and represents the de facto demarcation of Indian-held and Pakistani-held territory in the region of Jammu and Kashmir. See Dina Roy, Ganesh Lal and David Whitehouse, "India, Pakistan and the question of Kashmir," ISR 24, July/August 2002.
12. The Indian-controlled state of Jammu and Kashmir has three administrative regions. The vale of Kashmir is that it has the largest population and is predominantly Muslim. In Jammu, the majority is Hindu. In Ladakh, most people are Buddhists.
13. Several secessionist insurgencies have raged in the northeast states of Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram for decades, with entire regions and provinces held under tight military control by the Indian government. In Sri Lanka, the Tamil minority, which has been disenfranchised and discriminated against by the Sinhala-dominated government, has been demanding some form of autonomy, if not independence, since at least the early 1970s.
14. The Save Narmada Movement is a grassroots movement involving peasants, tribals and dalits displaced or soon to be displaced by the construction of a series of dams along the Narmada River. See Arundhati Roy,Power Politics(Boston: South End Press, 2001).
--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
Weekend Edition
November 26 / 27, 2005
Net Worth of India's Billionaires Soars
See, Neoliberalism Really Works!
By P. SAINATH
FIRST THE good news. Well, good news for someone, anyway. The collective net worth of 311 Indian billionaires is now Rs.3.64 trillion. This is up 71 per cent from last year, when it was a paltry Rs.2.13 trillion. The tribe has also grown. It now includes 133 new entrants who just months ago were merely millionaires. The daily newspaper that tracks this elite club (Business Standard, November 9, 2005) puts it simply: "India's billionaires have never had it so good."
Some hundreds of millions might never have had it so bad either. So just before we pop the corks on those bottles, have a look at the news from the nation's farm households. There are millions of those, not 311. The average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of farm households across India was Rs.503 in 2003. [At the current rate of just under 44 rupees to the US dollar, that's about $11.50. Editors.] That is just about Rs.75 above the rural poverty line. And it is an average across regions and classes and income groups. So even this dismal figure hides huge inequities.
A big chunk of those households are below the poverty line. Millions of them deeply below it. The Rs.503 figure--awful in itself--is derived from an average that clubs States such as Kerala (MPCE Rs.901) and Punjab (Rs.828). And those like Orissa (Rs.342), Jharkhand (Rs.353), Chhattisgarh (Rs.379), and Bihar (Rs.404). Note that in those four regions, even the State-wide average is well below the poverty line. More than a fifth of households in these States and Madhya Pradesh had an MPCE equal to or less than Rs.225.
The numbers are from the National Sample Survey Organization's "Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers." This survey was done in 2003 as part of the NSSO's 59th round. The official press note tells us that "such a survey has been conducted for the first time in the history of the NSSO."
Even if we take the national figure of Rs.503, the picture is quite bad. For one thing, this clubs huge zamindars and tiny landholders together. So the average, again, misleads. For another, over 55 per cent of this is spending on food. Clothing, footwear, fuel, and light take close to 18 per cent.
Health spending is double that on education. The average household spends less than Rs.17 a month per capita on education. It spends over Rs.34 a month on health. Also remember, the Rs.503 figure is for people owning some land, large or small. How bad would the picture be for the millions of landless?
Even for the landed, if such a great share is grabbed by food, clothing, and health, it leaves little for anything else. That is why (also NSSO data) just six per cent of rural homes have telephones. And that is mainly amongst those with an MPCE of over Rs.950, a lot of which are non-farm households. It is also why we need to postpone the joy over the spread of the Net for a bit. PCs with Net connections almost do not exist in rural India. Just about 0.6 per cent of rural households have a computer.
But back to the farm. The MPCE of farm households is less than that of the non-farm homes by close to 10 per cent. The average for all rural households is Rs.554. Which means the non-farm groups are able to spend more. And this is the case with both food and non-food items.
Another vital fact. These numbers are about consumer expenditure. They do not and cannot tell us how much of this spending was based on incurring debt. Yet we do know from even the flawed data that exists that farm debt is on the rise. And quite steeply. The NSSO seems to underestimate private moneylender debt. Yet it shows that nearly half of all farm households are in debt. In 1991, that figure was 26 per cent. (See BusinessLine, August 30, 2005.)
Take Maharashtra. The State ranks third in wealth in the country. But income from agriculture has declined. Bank credit to the farm sector is dismal. Most farmers are forced to turn to private moneylenders. Over 55 per cent of the State's farm households are in debt. That figure would be a lot worse if we looked at, say, Vidharbha. This season has seen a debt-related suicide by a farmer in the region every so many hours. It should also not surprise us that in Andhra Pradesh where farm suicides were at their worst, "four fifths of surveyed farmers were in debt."
The data from the NSSO survey on farm spending once again points to the link between poverty and family size. The average household size for farmers was 5.5 at the all-India level. But in those with an MPCE equal to or less than Rs.225, the number goes up to 6.9. On the other hand, households with an MPCE of more than Rs.950 were much smaller. Their average size was 4.1. Broadly, the better off the household, the fewer its members. In the NSSO survey, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh logged the highest average household size of 6.1. The poor tend to have larger families. That is their insurance against higher mortality. Particularly against infant mortality. The logic of "more hands to work" cannot be wished away.
Limited as the NSSO data are, they still throw up a different picture from the glory days' vision of the private surveys coming out of Delhi. Mostly crawling out of the bottomless data-on-demand pit of the capital's "think tanks." These surveys in turn get the rah rah treatment from a media dying to show how good the "reform years" have been. In one case, a daily crowed that "Bharat-matches-India-in-bang-for-buck." This was so over the top that even the gung-ho authors of the survey the daily was quoting felt compelled to write a piece saying "Don't romanticize the village."
Well, also do not romanticize the growing gap between rich and poor. And do not celebrate gross inequality either.
When many households have an MPCE of less than Rs.225, you really need to think of how people live. On what it is that they live. What can you spend on if the most you can spend is, on average, Rs.8 a day? And if close to 80 per cent of what you spend is on food, clothing and footwear, what else could you possibly buy?
Contrast that with a year in which 133 people joined the billionaires' club. Taking its membership from 178 to 311. (The collective net worth of this Club was computed byBusiness Standard on "the basis of average market prices for promoters' stocks in August 2005.") On their joint net worth of Rs.3.64 trillion you could run the current rural employment program for many years. Or, if we take the yearly returns on that net worth to be around eight per cent, then their joint annual income from it would be over Rs.290 billion. Or nearly Rs.800 million each day. On just that, you could every year run a bigger employment programme than anything the Government is bound to now. It could also make a massive difference to the health, housing, and education budgets.
The point though, is that at the other end of the spectrum, the sector that still employs the largest number of Indians is in deep trouble. Obscene levels of inequality stare this society in the face. And there seems to be little concern over this at the top, though some over there know things are bad. Even Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar says in interviews and press briefings that "the Indian farmer is facing a serious crisis."
It is very hard for those who have been plugging the glorious impact of the reforms to accept this. It undermines their religion. For years now, rural Indians have been viewed as just so many buyers of consumer goods. So we have one interviewer trying repeatedly to get Mr. Pawar to say that things are much better than they are. But the Minister, who took a long time to accept it himself, did not oblige. Mr. Pawar told him the idea that the farmers' living standards have gone down is "100 per cent correct." He also says--surprise, surprise--"the farming community has been ignored in this country. And especially so over the last eight to ten years."
Mr. Pawar also tells his interviewer: "You will be surprised. In the budgetary provision, not more than two per cent money has been allocated for agriculture. [Though that is] where more than 65 per cent of the population works."
That the Government he belongs to tries to apply as a solution that which is the problem is another story. The effects of its approach will make things worse on many fronts in this sector. But maybe we can at least hope for a little less fantasy and a little more focus on the farmer in the media.
P. Sainath is the rural affairs editor of The Hindu (where this piece initially ran) and the author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought. He can be reached at:psainath@vsnl.com.
November 26 / 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
How the Democrats Undercut John Murtha
November 25, 2005
David Price
How US Anthropologists Planned "Race-Specific" Weapons Against the Japanese
Brian McKenna
Will Bush Miss the Next Bhopal?
Jeff Halper
Peretz or Bust?
Ray McGovern
Will the US Seize the Opportunity for Troop Withdrawal?
Leigh Saavedra
Thanksgiving at Camp Casey
Ingmar Lee
How Have the Mighty Fallen?
Website of the Day
Saving Cathedral Grove
November 24, 2005
James Petras
How to Think About War and Peace
Bob Shirley
Thanksgiving Torture: What the Puritans Fled
Mike Fox
Torture Survivors Speak for Themselves
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Adrift? Perhaps. A Draft? Never!
Greg Moses
Thanksgiving Delayed: TX High Court Blesses Inequality
Alexander Cockburn
Turkeys in the Larger Scheme of Things
November 23, 2005
Ramzy Baroud
The Great Gaza Border Deal: What Does It Mean?
Mike Whitney
Bush, Padilla and Thomas More
Stan Cox
Red, White and Blue Dawn: What a Bad Hollywood Film Can Teach Americans About Life Under Occupation
Linda S. Heard
Targeting Al Jazeera
November 22, 2005
Kevin Gray / Mike Hersh
Maxine Waters, the Real Leader of the Anti-War Caucus
Ralph Nader
What Do Dems Stand For?
Michael Donnelly
The "Vetting" of Bernard Kerik
Mike Ferner
The CIA's "Torture Taxi" in the Spotlight
Pierre Tristam
The Justice Deficit
Marshall Auerback
Bush's "Compassionate Conservativism": Neither Compassionate Nor Conservative
Website of the Day
I Don't Like Geldof
November 21, 2005
Mike Marqusee
Clinton's Hypocrisies on Iraq
Josh Frank
Democratic Hawks: the Avian Flu of the Antiwar Movement
Mike Whitney
Hugo Chavez vs. the King of Vacations
Norman Solomon
Getting Out of Iraq
Russ Baker
Woodward's Weakness
Robert Jensen
A National Day of Atonement
Paul Craig Roberts
Lies and Official Secrets
November 19 / 20, 2005
Fred Gardner
The Raid on MendoHealing
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
The House GOP Has Done a Heinous Thing: Stop Playing Politics; Get the Troops Out Now
Ron Jacobs
A Pathetic Congress: If It Walks and Talks Like a Withdrawal Resolution, Why Won't You Vote For It?
David Vest
The Politics of Surrender: It's as American as Robert E. Lee
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Condi Rice's Disdain for the Civil Rights Movement
John R. Bomar
Staying the Course on "Freedom's Frontier": a Vietnam Vet on Iraq
John Ross
The Dragon Flies High, But Not Over Mexico
Phillip Cryan
Colombia: "Political Kidnapping" and Murder in Cauca
Dave Lindorff
RIP In These Times
Dick J. Reavis
The Future of the Daily Press
Jeremy Scahill
Vegetarian Between Meals: This War Can't Be Stopped by a Loyal Opposition
Dan Wright
Cleaning Up Alaska's Scan Bay
John Stanton
Scowcroft Talks Turkey; Edmounds Fights Fascism
St. Clair / Vest / Walker
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones: Rarities
Dr. Susan Block
Our Night of Weimar Love
Poets Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford, Harley and Louise
November 18, 2005
Michael Neumann
The Palestinians and the Party Line
Dave Lindorff
Murtha and the L Word
Michael Donnelly
Black November 15
Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer
Uncrucify Them
Don Monkerud
A Decent Workplace
Tom Kerr
Grant Clemency to Tookie Williams
Trish Schuh
Faking the Case Against Syria
November 17, 2005
John Walsh
A Fractured Anti-War Movement
Rep. John Murtha
Iraq Must Be Freed from the US Occupation
Brian J. Foley
We Are All In GITMO Now
CounterPunch News Service
Guardian Apologizes to Chomsky; Publishes Total Retraction of Brockes' Slurs
Dave Lindorff
In Post-Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians
Mark T. Harris
Coming Out in an Up-and-Coming Sport
Cockburn / St. Clair
From Reporter to Courtier: the Decline of Bob Woodward
November 16, 2005
Noam Chomsky
Putting Out the Englightenment
Dave Lindorff
Shake and Bake: Pentagon Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah
Evelyn Pringle
Laurie Mylroie's War
Sam Husseini
Trying to Look a Female Suicide Bomber in the Eye
Pierre Tristam
Toturers' Theater
Greg Bates
Waffling Alito Charms DiFi
Farrah Hassen
Moustapha AkkadDavid Lean of the Middle East Killed in Amman Blast
Bill Christison
Evidence Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars
Website of the Day
Violent Oscillations
November 15, 2005
Todd Chretien
My Evening in the No Spin Zone; Or Why Bill O'Reilly Hates San Francisco
Leah Caldwell
Death of the Jailhouse Press
Frederick Hudson
Rosa's Wreath: Miss Parks and Robert Williams
Harry Browne
Bush-Linked Judge Bows Out: Another Mistrial in Irish Ploughshares Case
Jason Leopold
Secret CIA Testimony: Iraq Posed No Threat
Ingmar Lee
Logging Lackies vs. Canada's Most Endangered Species
Diana Barahona
Showdown on the Silver Coast
Tom Andre
New Orleans, Two Months Later
Website of the Weekend
Ernest Crichlow: 1914-2005
November 14, 2005
Diana Johnstone
The Origins of the Guardian's Attack on Chomsky
Paul Craig Roberts
Power Over All: Unlimited Detentions and the End of Habeas Corpus
Conn Hallinan
Provoking Syria: Cambodia All Over Again?
Joshua Frank
Off She Goes: Hillary in Israel
Christopher Reed
The Persistence of Racism in Koizumi's Japan
November 11 / 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
First the Lying, Then the Pardons
Gwyneth Leech
Cross Connections: a Painter Reimagines the Passion of Christ in the Wake of Abu Ghraib
Elmas Mallo
Chillin' in the Blazin' Texas Sun: Inside the Texas Prison System
Michael Neumann
The Rebel King of Bluegrass: Jimmy Martin, an Appreciation
Saul Landau
Leakgate: the Screenplay
Sam Husseini
Bush and Zarqawi Bomb Because We Let Them
Brian Cloughley
Sleaze, Deceit and Torture
Ron Jacobs
Rep. McGovern's Withdrawal Resolution: a Step in the Right Direction?
Lila Rajiva
Dover Bitch: the Curses of Pat Robertson
Michael Donnelly
Hypocrisy Watch
Joe Allen
Murder in El Salvador: Who Killed Gilberto Soto?
Roland Sheppard
Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Justin E.H. Smith
Another Monkey Trial?
Ben Tripp
The Cost of War
St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Jones, Louise, Ford, Smith, Albert and Engel
Website of the Weekend
Iraq Vets and Against the War Need Your Help!
November 10, 2005
Peterside, Ogon, Watts and Zalik
Delta Blues Again: Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10 Years Gone
Pat Williams
Will Alito Cost the Republicans the Senate?
Steve Higgs
Bush Crony Targets Indiana's Forests: 400% Hike in Logging
Jimmy Massey
Is Ron Harris Telling the Truth?
Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Insanity Takes Over
Anthony Newkirk
Syria in the Crosshairs
Lawrence R. Velvel
Why Did Libby Lie?
Website of the Day
Imperial Margarine
November 9, 2005
Gary Leupp
The Niger Deception / Plame Affair: an Incomplete Chronology
Tariq Ali
Blair Defeated on Terror Laws
Chris Floyd
The Philosopher's Stone
Elaine Cassel
The Shocking Trial of an American Citizen: the Case of Ahmed Abu Ali
Joshua Frank
Sen. Max Baucus's NASCAR Pay Day
Alison Weir
Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You Give Israel a Pass?
Diana Johnstone
Rage in the Banlieue
November 8, 2005
Paul Craig Roberts
Still No Jobs
Roger Burbach
Bush v. Chavez: the Imperial President Meets the Bolivarian Democrat
Ron Jacobs
An Interview with Behzad Yaghmaian on the Paris Uprising
Ralph Nader
"The Worst Marketed Disease on the Planet"
Jim McGrath
Voter Beware: a Cautionary Tale for Election Day
David Bloom
McCain, Israel and Torture: Setting the Record Straight
Stan Goff
Jimmy Massey, Ron Harris, and Ambush Journalism
November 7, 2005
Dick Reavis
The Origins of Mr. Danger
Jason Leopold
Cheney and the Cover Up: the Vice President Lied
Dave Lindorff
What Country was Bush Talking About?
Eli Stephens
A Tale of Two Generals: the Lies of Colin Powell
David Swanson
The Bush-Cheney Ethics Refresher Course: a Syllabus
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview Stan Goff
Matt Reichel
Paris Uprising: a Rebellion in Real Time
Naima Bouteldja
Paris is Burning
Jeff Halper
Israel as an Extension of American Empire
Website of the Day
Dispatches from Paris
November 5 / 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Storm Over Brockes' Fakery: Guardian Fabricates Chomsky Quotes
Lawrence R. Velvel
Lying, Law Schools and Executive Power: What Senators Should Ask Alito
Diana Johnstone
Srebrenica: a Response to Certain Criticisms of My Essay
Roosa / Nevins
The Mass Killlings in Indonesia, 40 Years Later
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Missing the Bus: When Conscience Bows to Calculation
John Ross
The Zapatistas' Otra Campaign for Mexico's Presidential Elections
Mike Whitney
Globalizing Sadism: the United States of Torture
Mark Engler
Will Big Business Turn On Bush?: the Economic Nightmare Unfolds
Juliano Mer-Khamis
They Shoot at Children, Too
Ron Jacobs
When Gen. Westmoreland Visited
Jill S. Farrell
Bird Flu and the Posse Comitatus Act
Missy Comley Beattie
Trent Lott's Untroubled Sleep
Mitchel Cohen
People of the Dome, Revisited
Evelyn J. Pringle
Bush-Cheney and Big Oil's Big Summer
Reza Fiyouzat
Signs of Life or Last Gasp? Structural Problems in the Democratic Party
Charles Sullivan
When Courage Fails: a White Southerner on Rosa Parks
Zachary Richard
Return to Louisiana
Ben Tripp
Beginning of the End? Don't Start Cheering Just Yet
St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
November 4, 2005
Jeffrey St. Clair
Blood on the Tundra, Betrayal in the Rotunda: Losing ANWR
Dave Lindorff
A Majority Now Favors Impeachment: If He Lied, He Must Be Tried
Phillip Cryan
Crackdown in Colombia
Christopher Brauchli
Katrina and Tax Breaks for the Very Rich
William S. Lind
Exit Strategy: You Can't Stay the Course in a Lost War
Daryl G. Kimball
Of Madmen and Nukes
George Beres
Laurels for Negroponte?
Peter Montague
Why We Can't Prevent Cancer
November 3, 2005
James Petras
The Libby Affair and the Internal War
Saul Landau
Torn Families and Shot Down Planes: a Cuba Story
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
An Occurrence at Gretna Bridge
Michael Dickinson
Bang! Bang! You're Deaf! Sonic Weapons Over Palestine
Joshua Frank
Sham Behind Closed Doors
Remi Kanazi
Dancing with Perseverance
Reza Fiyouzat
Taxation or Racketeering?
Website of the Day
CIA Leak Investigation: Bigger Fish, Deeper Water?
November 2, 2005
Cockburn / St. Clair
Holy Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad
Robert Oscar Lopez
Saving Rosa Parks from American Hypocrisy
John Walsh
The Philosophy of Mendacity: From Leo Strauss to Scooter Libby
Brian J. Foley
Why Most Americans Don't Care About Gitmo (and Why They Should)
Ramzy Baroud
Rolling Back Syria
M. Junaid Alam
What Moral Values?
Todd Chretien
Judgment Day for the Governator
Bruce K. Gagnon
The Democrats' Slap Happy Day
Website of the Day
Hands Off Dave!
November 1, 2005
Ron Jacobs
An Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart
Gary Leupp
The Plame Affair Leads to Rome
John Ross
Days of the Dead on the Border
Bill Quigley
Why Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town?
Joseph Nevins
From a Boundary of Death to One of Life
Dave Lindorff
Thinking About Impeachment
Linda S. Heard
Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN?
Heather Gray
Thank You, Mrs. Parks
Michael Dickinson
To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond
Jeffrey St. Clair
Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off
October 31, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Libby's Lies
Mark Weisbrot
Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed
Mike Whitney
Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald
Norman Solomon
After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself
Farooq Sulehria
Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns
Nicole Colson
Scapegoating Immigrants
Madis Senner
Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights
Paul Craig Roberts
Scooter and the Neocons
October 29 / 30, 2005
Cockburn / St. Clair
The Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies?
Peter Linebaugh
The Wedges of Hephaestus
Tim Wise
Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media
John Chuckman
Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words
Steven Higgs
Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland
Brian Cloughley
The Fifth Afghan War
M. Shahid Alam
Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness
Nikki Robinson
Crack Down at Kent State
Ralph Nader
Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives
Joe DeRaymond
Requiem for Bethlehem Steel?
Joshua Frank
Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter?
Laura Santina
Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder?
Fred Gardner
Death of an Organizer
Michael Dickinson
Insult Your Country
Ron Jacobs
Autumn in America
Dr. Susan Block
Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting
Vanessa S. Jones
Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair
Website of the Weekend
Red State Update
October 28, 2005
Jared Bernstein
Inflation Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record
Virginia Tilley
Embracing the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine
Phil Gasper
The Race to Execute Tookie Williams
Jennifer Matsui
It's Mardi Graft Time!
Manual Garcia, Jr.
Is the US Really Against Torture?
Monica Benderman
In the Name of Justice
Jason Leopold
Fitzgerald Focuses on the Forgeries
Dave Lindorff
Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials
Otober 27, 2005
Saul Landau
The Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War
Stuart Hodkinson
Bono and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't!
Ingmar Lee
Stop the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq
Lila Rajiva
License to Bill: Gates Does India
Ilan Pappe
The Last Moment of Hope
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Waiting for Fitzgerald
Michael Donnelly
Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury
Ron Jacobs
Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo
Cockburn / St. Clair
White House in Meltdown
October 26, 2005
Kathy Kelly
For Whom They Toll
Gary Leupp
Dialectics of the Plame Affair
Mike Marqusee
Empire of Denial
Eric Ruder
War Crimes in Afghanistan
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation
Joshua Frank
Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
The Legacy of Rosa Parks
Website of the Day
Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index
October 25, 2005
Paul Craig Roberts
Condi and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President?
Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn
Attack on the Palestine Hotel
Conn Hallinan
Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Pulling the Court Strings
Jackie Corr
Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros
Robert Day
Talk to Strangers
John Sugg
Judith Miller and Me
October 24, 2005
Dave Lindorff
Revoke Judy Miller's Pulitzer
Michael Donnelly
Shades of Iran/contra
Patrick Cockburn
A Nation Stands on Trial
Mike Whitney
Apres Rove
Norman Solomon
Iraq is Not Vietnam, But...
Bill and Kathleen Christison
US Foreign Policy and Palestine
October 22 / 23, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
When Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller
Billy Sothern
Letter from the Circle Bar, New Orleans
Saul Landau
Bush, an Assessment
Ralph Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers
Behrooz Ghamari
Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve?
Brian Cloughley
Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory?
Diana Barahona
Venezuela's National Workers' Union
Fred Gardner
Dershowitzed!
Lee Sustar
What the War on Terror is Really About
Patrick Cockburn
Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer
Laura Carlsen
Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake
James Petras
China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness
Joshua Frank
Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them?
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Disasters are Us
Michelle Bollinger
When Abortion Was Illegal
Missy Comley Beattie
CSI: Iraq
Kona Lowell
Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun
Ben Tripp
Tanks for the Memories
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of the Day
Indictment Watch
October 21, 2005
Dave Lindorff
The Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy
Winslow T. Wheeler
Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense Budget
Col. Dan Smith
The Destruction of the National Guard
Norman Solomon
Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph
Madis Senner
Abusing Katrina
Michael Donnelly
Richard Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots
October 20, 2005
Dave Lindorff
Impeachment Comes to NYC
Ray McGovern
16 Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost
Jeremy Brecher /
Brendan Smith
Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right?
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court
Kevin Zeese
Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed?
Ross Eisenbrey
Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment
Randy Shields
James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton
Justine Davidson
Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory
After Lucas Cranach
Judy and Holofernes
Joe Allen
The Scandalous History of the Red Cross
Liberalism in India
Part of a series on |
Liberalism |
---|
Liberalism portal |
This article gives an overview of liberalism in India.
Contents[hide] |
[edit]A history of Liberalism in India
[edit]1757 – 1947: The effect of British liberal ideas
The strengthening of British influence in Bengal with the battle of Plassey in 1757 coincided with significant developments of thought in England (John Locke in the 1680s, Adam Smith with his monumental book in 1776, and Edmund Burke) and in the USA (Thomas Jefferson,John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, among others). The English language came to India in 1603 in Akbar's time but there was then no pressing economic reason for Indian people to learn English. It was only after the consolidation of Bengal by Robert Clive and the extension of the East India Company into the Indian political landscape, that the demand for learning English began to grow. By 1835, Indians were paying serious money to be taught English, as it gave them job openings in the Company. As Thomas Babington Macaulay noted in his famous Minute: "the natives" had become "desirous to be taught English" and were no longer "desirous to be taught Sanscrit or Arabic". Further, those who wished to, seemed to picked up English very well: "it is unusual to find, even in the literary circles of the Continent, any foreigner who can express himself in English with so much facility and correctness as we find in many Hindoos." (see the Minute at [1]).
Those who learnt English quickly became aware of its literature, including the rapid evolution of Western political thought. This greater awareness of the advances in freedom laid the seeds for the demand for self-rule.
While people like Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) were beginning to articulate elements of these political arguments, no one was in a position to explore and articulate new insights. However they did catch up with key liberal ideas and began implementing some of these advances thought through their new demands for greater freedom in India. While the West was firmly embedding its new political institutions, or contesting the growing forces of socialism (which had overpowered parts of the feudal and aristocratic West), the Indian intelligentsia was grappling with the challenge of the first major task ahead of it, namely independence.
As well as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, other contributors to political thought on freedom in 19th century India included Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917), Mahadeo Govind Ranade (1842-1901), Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915) and Pherozeshah Mehta (1845-1915). Theory led to an independence movement in India. Gandhi demonstrated through a humane, non-violent, and dignified protest, that all humans were equal and should be treated equally, including their being given the opportunity to govern themselves. This was a major advance in the theory and practice of freedom and can be argued to have had a major effect in ending the age of imperialism and the age of racial discrimination.
Nehru, who was very well-educated and fully aware of the history of liberalism, seems to have had surprisingly little faith in an individual's ability to think and take responsibility for himself or herself. Nehru did not emphasise the importance of each individual undertaking self reflection and choosing among ethical alternatives. Possibly, in his view, making these ethical choices was too difficult for the common man. He definitely believed that these choices were best directed through state level dictates laid down by governing elites. Through planning. In any event, he veered toward collectivist and socialist thinking where decision making power is concentrated in the state. Decentralisation, where power and freedom vests with people at the lowest levels, was anathema to Nehru. He stated in his Autobiography : "socialism is ... for me not merely an economic doctrine which I favour; it is a vital creed which I hold with all my head and heart." Indian industrialists (with their Bombay Plan) also sided with Nehru on a socialist pattern based on the Russian 5-year plan model.
Despite the environment in which socialist thought was flourishing, India was fortunate to enjoy at least a few liberties even before independence. The advances made in political institutions in England as a result of liberalism were imported and embedded into India over the decades by British rulers. Things like the right of assembly and protest under reasonable circumstances, the right to property, and freedom of expression ─ with a relatively free press, became a part and parcel of Indian political landscape before independence.
[edit]Post independence liberalism
The 1949 Indian Constitution gave to Indians some of the liberal rights that the British and Americans had come to expect by then. In addition, India extended franchise to everyone: all adults had the right to vote in the Indian Republic. That was earlier than even mostdeveloped countries had provided to their citizens at that time.
But on most political issues, India adopted Nehru's socialist model, that included a significant dilution in property rights, among others. The government entered businesses as its primary activity, to help it achieve the 'commanding heights of the economy.' Government factories sprung up quickly and began churning out shirts, watches, fridges, scooters, bicycles, milk, bread, and cheese.
While Rajaji and Masani, and economists like B.R. Shenoy advocate the greater freedom, they were unable to over-ride the Indian fascination with socialism.
Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari, the second Governor-General of India, and a Bharat Ratna, was a close colleague of Nehru during the independence movement. But soon after independence he quickly began to see the risks to India of letting Nehru's fervour with socialism go unchallenged. Despite having fought for independence by Nehru's side, and without regard for his own advanced age (Rajaji was 80 by then), Rajaji decided to act to block Nehru's onslaught on freedom. He formed the Freedom (Swatantra) Party, to oppose Nehru's policies.
For the next 14 years till his death in 1972 he waged a battle with Nehru's Congress to advance freedom. But as Nehru was extremely popular at that time, and also had the resources of the government at his command, Rajaji's was inevitably a losing battle. He wrote about his Party in 1960:
"The Swatantra Party stands for the protection of the individual citizen against the increasing trespasses of the State. It is an answer to the challenge of the so-called Socialism of the Indian Congress party. It is founded on the conviction that social justice and welfare can be attained through the fostering of individual interest and individual enterprise in all fields better than through State ownership and Government control. It is based on the truth that bureaucratic management leads to loss of incentive and waste of resources. When the State trespasses beyond what is legitimately within its province, it just hands over the management from those who are interested in frugal and efficient management to bureaucracy which is untrained and uninterested except in its own survival.
- "The Swatantra Party is founded on the claim that individual citizens should be free to hold their property and carry on their professions freely and through binding mutual agreements among themselves and that the State should assist and encourage in every possible way the individual in this freedom, but not seek to replace him."
Rajaji's opposition arguably helped India minimize the excesses of socialism. His party held 44 seats in Parliament in the Fourth Lok Sabha(1967-71). Swatantra was also part of the opposition to the Nath Pai Bill that advocated primacy for the Directive Principles of State Policy over Fundamental Rights. There were many other occasions when Swatantra acted as the voice of reason in a very unreasonable time. Making use of the free press and democracy, Swatantra pressed on for freedom, regardless of the difficulties it faced, but ran out of steam in 1973.
Since then, many new thinkers such as S.Raju, Sharad Joshi, Barun Mitra, Parth Shah, Gurcharan Das, Sauvik Chakraverti, and many others have emerged on the Indian liberal scene, contributing to the debate on freedom in India, and advancing classical liberalism.
[edit]Liberalism in Indian Politics
The Indian National Congress, the flag-ship of Indian Independence Movement, was founded by liberal nationalist, like Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Almost the entire leadership of the Congress till mid-1920s was liberal in its stance. Sometime in the 1920s, the Congress leadership was taken over by socialists like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose, forcing liberals to move into a separate platform. Gandhi however retained liberal leanings and never supported socialism. He was opposed to government taking over ownership of property. He wanted to bring responsible business (trusteeship) and local self-government.
After Independence, Swatantra Party was founded as India's Liberal Party in 1959. It was founded by Rajaji, but merged with B.K.D. led by Charan Singh. It has been India's only genuinely liberal political group so far, with a large number of seats in Parliament. This effort ended in 1973.
In January 2004 Indian liberals attempted to revive the spirit of the Swatantra Party by forming the Swantantra Bharat Party (SBP). SBP now has one seat in Parliament, namely of its President, Sharad Joshi.
A minor but distinctly liberal effort, the Liberal Party of India (LPI), based on economic and political liberalism, was floated in 12 April 2005 independent to the Swatantra Bharat Party. The need for a separate party arose over a significant difference of opinion regarding the level of transparency needed in a liberal party. However, LPI wound up within a few months given only a few active members.
The Lok Satta Party launched in 2006 claims to be rooted in liberalism, but its strategy and policies are awaited.
The Jago Party launched in 2008 is a serious political party based on principles of liberalism and it openly supports free market economy for India. It contested on 17 seats in Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and got around 0.5% votes.
In the meanwhile, Indians are able to take advantage of economic liberalism now on offer from a number of 'mainstream' parties, which, however, are not grounded in philosophical liberalism.
[edit]Liberalism in Indian Economy
After Independence, India adopted the Socialist model of development. This led to creation of Licence Raj, the elaborate licences, regulations and the accompanying red tape that were required to set up business in India.
The economic liberalisation of 1991, initiated by then Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and his finance minister Manmohan Singh in response to a balance-of-payments crisis, did away with the Licence Raj and ended many public monopolies, allowing automatic approval offoreign direct investment in many sectors.
Since 1990, India has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the developing world; during this period, the economy has grown constantly with only a few major setbacks. This has been accompanied by increases in life expectancy, literacy rates and food security. However, India had also shown fast growth in 1980's while its rating in the Economic Freedom of Nations (EFN) had actually fallen. Agriculture which still employs 60% people had shown faster growth in the 1980s than the 1990s. In fact, post-liberalization, the productivity growth in agriculture has fallen behind the growth in population.
[edit]List of liberal organisations in India
[edit]Political Parties
This is a list of both past and present political parties with liberal views.
- National Liberal Federation of India (1919-1945)
- Swatantra Party (1959-1973)
- Swatantra Bharat Party (1994- - )
- Liberal Party of India (2005-2005)
- Swatantra Gokhale Party (2004- - )
- Lok Satta Party (2006- - )
[edit]Other liberal organisations
- Centre for Civil Society
- Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (website)
- Freedom First (website)
- Freedom Team of India (website)
- India Policy Institute (website)
- Indian Liberal Group (website)
- Janaagraha (website)
- Liberty Institute
- Manushi
- Praja Foundation
- Shetkari Sangathana
[edit]Prominent Indian Liberals
Pre-Independence
Swatantra Party
Swatantra Bharat Party
- Sharad Joshi
Liberal Party of India
Lok Satta Party
Contemporary Indian Liberals
- Jagdish Bhagwati
- Deepak Lal
- Parth J. Shah, Founder President, Centre for Civil Society, New Delhi.
- Madhu Kishwar, Founder, Manushi
- S.V. Raju, President, Indian Liberal Group
- Surjeet Bhalla
- Shekhar Gupta
[edit]Documents and Articles
- 21 Principles of the Swatantra Party. The 21 Principles Word document. From The Swatantra Party – Victory in Defeat. Rajaji Foundation, 2002.
- Ray T. Smith, The Role of India's "Liberals" In The Nationalist Movement, 1915-1947 Word document 103 KB (from Asian Survey, Vol 8 (7) June 1968, pp.607-24)
- H.R. Pasricha, The Swatantra Party – Victory in Defeat. Rajaji Foundation, 2002.
- Minoo Masani, On the Swatantra Party Word document (from 'Freedom and Dissent' published by Democratic Research Service– permission obtained)
- Rajmohan Gandhi, War Against the status quo (Essay on C. Rajagopalachari and the Swatantra Party).
- C.R. Narasimhan, Chapter 14: The last years Word document – from "Rajagopalachari. A Biography" by (son of Rajaji). Radiant Publishers, 1993.
- S.V. Raju (1974) (on the death of the Swatantra Party), The Notional Alternative, Freedom First, Sept. 1974
- Howard L. Erdman, India's Swatantra Party (from Public Affairs Vol 36, Issue 4, Winter 1963-1964, pp. 394-410)
- Gurcharan Das
- Parth Shah
- Wanted: a Liberal Party
- Evolution of Liberalism in India, Liberal Times, Volume X / No.4 2002
- Sanjeev Sabhlok, Victory of India Party and the IndiaPolicy effort since April 1998
- Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan (Lok Satta), Political Parties and Indian Democracy. Delivered as the Narla Memorial Endowment Lecture on December 1, 1998
[edit]See also
[edit]External links
|
-
Alternative Radio : P. Sainath : Neoliberalism &India's Farm Crisis
Under the dictums of neoliberalism, sometimes called globalization, India has opened its agricultural sector to foreign, mostly U.S. imports. ...
-
Neoliberalism and Hunger in India | Stuffed and Starved
8 Aug 2007 – Neoliberalism and Hunger in India. While I was writing Stuffed and Starved some of the most thoughtful and incisive analyses I came across ...
-
The Success & Failure of Neoliberalism – C P Chandrasekhar « India ...
The Success & Failure of Neoliberalism – C P Chandrasekhar. December 11, 2010 3:19 pm; Focus, India and the World · no comments. THE crisis in the eurozone ...-
Nandigram: neoliberal policies hit rock inIndia|1Dec07|Socialist ...
1 Dec 2007 – Neoliberalism in India has hit a road block. Projects for corporate expansion, economic restructuring and land seizure, backed by armed ...
- [PDF]
POVERTY AND NEO-LIBERALISM
www.networkideas.org/featart/jan2007/neo-liberalism.pdfFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
by U PATNAIK - Cited by 17 - Related articles
POVERTY AND NEO-LIBERALISM IN INDIA. By. UTSA PATNAIK. Centre for Economic Studies and Planning,. Jawaharlal Nehru University. New Delhi -110 067 ...
-
Neoliberalism, Primitive Accumulation and Politics in India ...
aakarbooks.com/.../neoliberalism-primitive-accumulation-and-politi... - CachedOn the whole, this volume surveys the concrete political experience of neoliberalism in India – in terms of political forces, laws and regular 'exceptional' ...
-
Amazon.com: The Making of Neoliberal India: Nationalism, Gender ...
www.amazon.com › Books › History › Asia - Cached"Rupal Oza conceptualizes the "contentious debates overIndia's identity" in the 1990s through an examination of three distinct but related phenomena: ...
-
Amazon.com: Gender and Neoliberalism in India: The All India ...
www.amazon.com › ... › Social Sciences › Gender Studies- CachedThis book explores how one socialist women's organization based in India has ... -
Global Salon Breakfast: Neoliberalism and India'sFarm Crisis ...
Global Salon Breakfast: Neoliberalism and India's Farm Crisis. Share · Public Event ... 6)Global Salon Breakfast:Neoliberalism and India's Farm Crisis ...
- [PDF]
'Geostrategic Neoliberalism' and India's New Neighbourhood Policy:
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
India's new neighbourhood policy of 'geostrategic neoliberalism', which ... ILA / CEPA / geostrategic neoliberalism / India / Sri Lanka / realist/ ...
-
Alternative Economic Survey, India: Two Decades of Neoliberalism
The Alternative Economic Survey, India: Two Decades ofNeoliberalism, sixteenth in the series, attempts to clear the mist of disinformation and falsehood ...
-
Popular neoliberalism? « Rethinking Democracy: Political Change in ...
rethinkingdemocracy.wordpress.com/2010/.../popular-neoliberalism...- Cached28 Apr 2010 – Clearly discrimination still exists and Dalits continue to be hugely over-represented amongst India's poor. His commitment to neoliberalism ...
-
Radical Notes - Neoliberalism and Primitive Accumulation in India
7 Feb 2007 – Joomla - the dynamic portal engine and content management system.
-
N. R. Narayana Murthy
N. R. Narayana Murthy | |
---|---|
Speaking at Horasis Global China Business Meeting 2006 | |
Born | August 20, 1946 Shidlaghatta, Kolar, Karnataka, India |
Alma mater | University of Mysore IIT Kanpur |
Occupation | Chairman of Infosys Technologies |
Salary | $50,000 USD (Infosys) |
Net worth | $2 billion (2011)[1] |
Spouse | Sudha Murthy |
Children | 2[2] |
Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy (Kannada: ನಾಗವಾರ ರಾಮರಾಯ ನಾರಾಯಣ ಮೂರ್ತಿ) better known as N. R. Narayana Murthy, is an Indian industrialist and software engineer. He is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Infosys Technologies Limited.
Contents[hide] |
[edit]Early life
Born into a Kannada Madhwa Brahmin family in Mysore, India on August 20, 1946, in Sidlaghatta near Muddenahalli, Murthy graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from theNational Institute of Engineering, University of Mysore in 1967 after attending government school. He received his master's degree from IIT Kanpur in 1969.
[edit]Career
His first position was at IIM Ahmedabad as chief systems programmer[3] where he worked on a time-sharing system and designed and implemented a BASIC interpreter for ECIL (Electronics Corporation of India Limited).
After IIM Ahmedabad, he joined Patni Computer Systems in Pune. Before moving to Mumbai, Murthy met his wife Sudha Murthy in Pune who at the time was an engineer working at Tata Engineering and Locomotive Co. Ltd. (Telco, now known as Tata Motors) in Pune.
Murthy founded Infosys in 1981 in Pune with an initial capital of US $250, most of which was borrowed from his wife Sudha Murty. At its inception, he invited six other engineers to join the company. Murthy served as the founder CEO of Infosys for 21 years, and was succeeded by co-founder Nandan Nilekani in March 2002. At Infosys he articulated, designed and implemented the Global Delivery Model which has become the foundation for the huge success in IT services outsourcing from India. He also lead the company through several key decisions including its listing on the Indian stock exchange and on the NASDAQ.
He served as chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies from 1992 to 1994.[4]
In August 2004, TIME listed him under "Global Tech Influentials" as one of the ten leaders who are helping shape the future of technology.[citation needed] In November 2006, TIME again voted him as one of the Asians who have brought about revolutionary changes in Asia in the last 60 years.[citation needed]
Murthy retired from his executive position at Infosys on 20 August 2006. However, he continues as the Chairman Emeritus of the Board.[5]
Murthy started a new venture capital fund called Catamaran Venture Fund with the money he got by selling 800,000 Infosys shares worth 174 crores.[citation needed] Sudha Murthy also gave him 430 crores, which she got by selling quarter of her 1.6% stake in Infosys.[citation needed]
[edit]Board memberships
Murthy serves as an independent director on the boards of HSBC, DBS Bank and Unilever. He also serves on the boards of the Ford Foundation, UN Foundation, Indo-British Partnership, and NDTV.
He is a member of the Advisory Boards and Councils of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Corporate Governance initiative at theHarvard Business School, the Indian School of Business, Cornell University committee on academic affairs, the committee on alumni affairs and development at Yale University, the William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business, and theUniversity of Tokyo's President's Council.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of INSEAD, the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania,Singapore Management University, Asian Institute of Management (AIM), the Board of Members of School of Management at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Asia Business Council and Business Advisory Council of Great Lakes Institute of Management and International Institute of Information Technology - Bangalore.
He also serves as a British Telecommunications.
[edit]Personal life
His wife, Sudha Murthy (née Kulkarni), is an Indian social worker and accomplished author. She is known for her philanthropic work through the Infosys Foundation. Her sister, Jayashree Despande is wife of enterpreneur and founder of US-based Sycamore Networks, Gururaj Deshpande.
They have two children - Rohan and Akshata. Rohan is married to Venu Srinivasan's (of TVS motors) daughter Lakshmi Venu. Akshata Murthy is married to Rishi Sunak.
Murthy is the brother-in-law of serial entrepreneur Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande[6] and the uncle of former NASSCOM Chairman and MphasiSchief Jerry Rao.
[edit]Awards and honours
Year | Name | Awarding organization | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | IEEE Honorary Membership | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. | [7] |
2010 | Foreign Associate Member | United States National Academy of Engineering. | [8] |
2008 | Padma Vibhushan | President of India. | |
2008 | Officer of the Legion of Honor | Government of France. | [9] |
2007 | Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) | Government of United Kingdom. | [10] |
2007 | IEEE Ernst Weber Engineering Leadership Recognition | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. | [11] |
2003 | Asia's Businessmen of the Year | Fortune magazine. | |
2003 | Indo-French Forum Medal | Indo-French Forum. | |
2003 | World Entrepreneur of the Year | Ernst and Young. | |
2001 | Wharton Business School Dean's Medal | University of Pennsylvania. | |
2001 | Max Schmidheiny Liberty Prize | Switzerland. | |
2001 | Nikkei Asia Prize | Nikkei Inc. | |
2000 | Padma Shri | President of India. | |
1998 | Distinguished Alumnus Award | Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. | |
1996 | JRD Corporate Leadership Award | All India Management Association (AIMA). |
- 2006: In May 2006, Narayana Murthy has, for the fifth year running, emerged the most admired business leader of India in a study conducted by Brand-comm, a leading Brand Consulting, Advertising and PR firm
- 2005: In December 2005, Narayana Murthy was voted as the 7th most admired CEO/Chairman in the world in a global study conducted by Burson-Marsteller with the Economist Intelligence Unit [1]. The Economist ranked him 8th among the top 15 most admired global leaders (2005). He was ranked 28th among the world's most-respected business leaders by the Financial Times (2005). He topped the Economic Times Corporate Dossier list of India's most powerful CEOs for two consecutive years – 2004 and 2005.
- 2001: He was named by TIME / CNN as one of the twenty-five, most influential global executives, a group selected for their lasting influence in creating new industries and reshaping markets.
- 1999: BusinessWeek named him one of the nine entrepreneurs of the year and he was also featured in the BusinessWeek's 'The Stars of Asia' (for three successive years - 1998, 1999 and 2000).
[edit]Books
- A Better India, A Better World, Penguin Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-670-08283-4
[edit]Quotes
- "Our assets walk out of the door each evening. We have to make sure that they come back the next morning." [2]
- "Performance leads to recognition. Recognition brings respect. Respect enhances power. Humility and grace in one's moments of power enhances dignity of an organisation," [3]
- "The real power of money is the power to give it away." [4]
- "In God we trust, everybody else bring data to the table." [5]
- "Progress is often equal to the difference between mind and mindset." [6]
- "I want Infosys to be a place where people of different genders, nationalities, races and religious beliefs work together in an environment of intense competition but utmost harmony, courtesy and dignity to add more and more value to our customers day after day." [7]
- "A clear conscience is the softest pillow in the world." [8]
- "A plausible impossibility is better than a convincing possibility." [9]
- "When in doubt, disclose." [10]
[edit]References
- ^ Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/profile/nr-narayana-murthy.
- ^ India Today 2005 Power List
- ^ 485 Interview with N.R. Narayana Murthy
- ^ "Past Chairmen". NASSCOM website. 2 March 2010. Retrieved 1 April 2011.
- ^ Non-Executive Chairman - MSN Report
- ^ Venkatesha Babu (December 18, 2009). "Gururaj Deshpande - The serial entrepreneur". Mint (HT Media Ltd). Retrieved March 22, 2011.
- ^ "IEEE Honorary Membership Recipients". IEEE. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
- ^ "NAE Members Directory - Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy". NAE. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
- ^ "Naryanamurthy receive highest civilian honour of France". The Times of India. Retrieved 2008-01-26.
- ^ "British Honorary Awards".
- ^ "IEEE Ernst Weber Engineering Leadership Recognition Recipients". IEEE. Retrieved November 20, 2010.
[edit]External links
- Narayan Murthy's speech at NYC
- Profile on Infosys.com
- Profile on Karnataka.com
- Interviewed by Gartner Fellow
- Narayana Murthy bids adieu to Infosys
- The Legacy of Infosys Narayana Murthy
Sam Pitroda
Sam Pitroda | |
---|---|
Sam Pitroda | |
Born | 4 May 1942 Titlagarh, Orissa, India |
Residence | Delhi, India |
Nationality | Indian |
Alma mater | Maharaja Sayajirao University Illinois Institute of Technology |
Occupation | Telecom engineer, inventor, development guru, entrepreneur |
Employer | Advisor to the Prime Minister |
Known for | Communication revolution |
Title | Innovator |
Religion | Hinduism |
Children | 2 |
Website | |
[1] Sam Pitroda |
Sam Pitroda (born 4 May 1942, in Titlagarh, Orissa) (Real name Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda) is an inventor, entrepreneur and policymaker. Currently Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations, he is also widely considered to have been responsible for India's communications revolution.[1] As Advisor, he will be looking into creating information infrastructure for enhancing delivery of services to the citizens in various areas and will also be working on creating a roadmap for a 'Decade of Innovation' in India.
He has served as Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission (2005–2008), a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister of India, set up to give policy recommendations for improving knowledge related institutions and infrastructure in the country. During its term, the National Knowledge Commission submitted around 300 recommendations on 27 focus areas covering a range of aspects of the knowledge paradigm. Mr. Pitroda holds around 100 key technology patents, has been involved in several start ups, and lectures extensively around the world.
He is also the founder & CEO of C-SAM, Inc. The company maintains its headquarters in Chicago with offices in London, Tokyo , Mumbai and Vadodara. Following the development of core technologies in the U.S. and Europe, C-SAM's development centers in India now focus on innovation, customization and cost effective deployment for its customers.
He has also served as an advisor to the United Nations and in 1992, his biography Sam Pitroda: A Biography was published and became the bestseller on the The Economic Timeslist for five weeks.
As technology Advisor to the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi in the 1984s, Mr. Pitroda not only heralded the telecom revolution in India, but also made a strong case for using technology for the benefit and betterment of society through several missions on telecommunications, literacy, dairy, water, immunization, oilseeds etc.. He has continued to redefine the role technology can play in a society like India by linking it to better delivery of services for the underprivileged in the country.
Mr Pitroda has lived mainly in Chicago, Illinois since 1964 with his wife and two children. .[2]
Contents[hide] |
[edit]Early life
Born in Titlagarh, Orissa, India. His parents hailed from Gujarat and migrated to Orissa. They were deeply influenced by Gandhi and his philosophy and consequently, he and his brother were sent to Gujarat to imbibe Gandhian philosophy. He completed his schooling from Vallabh Vidyanagar in Gujarat and completed his Masters in Physics and Electronics from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara . After completing his Masters in Physics he went to the US and obtained a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology(IIT) in Chicago. In 2010, he received an Honorary degree from University of Illinois at Chicago.
[edit]Career
[edit]Early career
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s Sam Pitroda was involved in cutting edge technology research work in telecommunications and hand-held computing. He is widely regarded as one of the earliest pioneers of hand-held computing because of his invention of the Electronic Diary in 1975.
In 1974, Sam Pitroda founded a company, Wescom Switching which was one of the first digital switching companies in the world. He developed a revolutionary new system called 580 DSS switch, which he spent nearly four years perfecting. Thus, in 1978, it was released to the world and it became an instant hit becoming one of the most successful systems in the market. Wescom was eventually acquired byRockwell International, where Pitroda became the Vice President. During his four decades as an engineer, Mr. Pitroda has filed scores of patents in telecommunications. The latest set of patents relate to mobile phone based transaction technology [3][4] which cover the entire spectrum of transactions, both financial and non-financial, via mobile phones.
In 1983, he also designed his own computer-themed card game called Compucards which used binary numbers instead of decimal (1, 2, 4, 8...) had a computer bug as the joker. The equivalent of a king in a regular deck of cards was the 'Programmer' that bore an uncanny resemblance to Pitroda himself. Through the 1990s Mr. Pitroda explored the world of mobile phone transaction technology and telecom developments in emerging markets.
A widely traveled man, Mr. Pitroda is a much sought after speaker at top international events. Mr. Pitroda divides his time between Chicago and Delhi..
[edit]Government service
In 1984, Mr. Pitroda was invited to return to India by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. On his return, he started the Center for Development of Telematics C-DOT, an autonomous telecom R&D organization. He had previously become a naturalized US citizen, and renounced his US citizenship to take Indian citizenship again in order to work in the Government. [2] In 1987, he became advisor to Mrs. Gandhi's successor, Rajiv Gandhi and was responsible for shaping India's foreign and domestic telecommunications policies.
In 1987 during his tenure as advisor to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi , Mr. Pitroda headed six technology missions related to telecommunications, water, literacy, immunization, dairy and oilseeds. He is also the founder and first chairman of India's Telecom Commission.
Mr Pitroda has been responsible for shaping India's foreign and domestic telecommunications policies. He is largely considered to be responsible for the telecommunication revolution in India and specifically, the ubiquitous, yellow-signed Public Call Offices (PCO) that quickly brought cheap and easy domestic and international public telephones all over the country.
In the 1990s Sam Pitroda returned to Chicago to manage his business interests. When the United Progressive Alliance government came to power following the 2004 General Elections, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh invited him to head the National Knowledge Commission of India.
In July 2009, the Government of India invited Mr. Sam Pitroda to head an expert committee on ICT in Railways. In October 2009, Sam Pitroda was appointed as Advisor to PM of India (Dr. Manmohan Singh) on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations with the rank of Cabinet Minister.
In August 2010 , Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the setting up of a National Innovation Council,[5] headed by Sam Pitroda, with special focus on micro, small and medium enterprises for 2010-20.[6]
[edit]Awards
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) conferred the World Telecommunication and Information Society Award to Mr. Sam Pitroda in Geneva on 17th May 2011. He was awarded in recognition of his dedication to promoting Information, communication and technology as a means of providing a better life for humanity and social and economic empowerment. He is the first Indian to receive this prestigious award.
Sambalpur University honored Mr. Pitroda with D.Sc. on its 23rd convocation on 14 July 2010.
Mr. Pitroda received the Rajiv Gandhi "Global Indian" award in 2009.
Mr. Pitroda was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2009 by the Government of India for his contribution to Science and Engineering.
Mr. Pitroda was awarded the Skoch Challenger Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 for ushering in the telecom and IT revolution in India.
Andhra University honored Mr. Pitroda with D.Sc in 2008.
Mr. Pitroda was awarded the Dataquest IT Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.
[edit]Felicitations
He was also felicitated on 31 March 2009 by Akhila Bharatiya Viswakarma Mahasabha (ABVM) for service to the viswakarma community, in the presence of Chief Minister of Delhi, Smt. Shiela Dixit, and President of ABVM, Chedilal Sharma. In 2008, Pitroda was elected as World Prominent Leader by the World Network of Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs WNYLE
[edit]Other contributions
In 1993, Mr. Pitroda helped establish[7] the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT)[8] near Bangalore in India. At present, he is a Governing Council Member. The aim of the foundation is to make full use of India's rich and diverse traditional medicinal knowledge. Pitroda also serves on the IIT International Board of Overseers.
[edit]References
- ^ http://sampitroda.com/trib.htm
- ^ http://sampitroda.com/trib.htm
- ^ http://www.c-sam.com
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sam_Pitroda&action=edit&editintro=Template:BLP_editintrow.sampitroda.com
- ^ http://innovationcouncil.gov.in/
- ^ http://www.deccanherald.com/content/29270/pitroda-appointed-adviser-pm.html
- ^ http://www.pharmabiz.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=18996§ionid=17
- ^ http://www.frlht.org
[edit]External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sam Pitroda |
- Sam Pitroda: The Telecom Maverick
- 2003 Interview on Sify.com
- C-Sam Innovation Case Study from IIT Institute of Design
- Review of CompuCards
- Knowledge Commission Chairman-Sam Pitroda
- Reprint of Chicago Tribune Article on July 9th, 2007
- Interview with Mint Newspaper
- Pitroda now sets sights on creating public information infrastructure
2G spectrum scam
To comply with Wikipedia's guidelines, the introduction of this article may need to be rewritten. Please discuss this issue on the talk page and read the layout guide to make sure the section will be inclusive of all essential details. (April 2011) |
This article may require cleaning up to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions. (April 2011) (Consider using more specific clean up instructions.) |
The 2G spectrum scam in India involved the issue of 122 licenses by the ruling Congress-led UPA alliance[1] of the 2G spectrum to 85 companies[1] including many new telecom companies with little or no experience in the telecom sector at a price set in the year 2001.
The scam involved allegations regarding
- the under pricing of the 2G spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications which resulted in a heavy loss to the exchequer, and
- the illegal manipulation of the spectrum allocation process to favour select companies
The issue came to light after the auction of airwaves for 3G services which amounted to 67,719 crore (US$15.1 billion) to the exchequer[2]. A report submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General based on the money collected from 3G licenses estimated that the loss to the exchequer due to under pricing of the 2G spectrum was 176,379 crore (US$39.33 billion)[3].
The scam came to public notice when the Supreme Court of India took Subramaniam Swamy's complaints on record [With Case type:Writ Petition (Civil),Case No:10, Year:2011][4].
[edit]Civil Servants, Politicians and Corporations Involved in scam
All the accused have been booked under sections 120(B) (criminal conspiracy), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 109 (abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence, and where no express provision is made for its punishment) of the Indian Penal Code.[5]
[edit]Politicians, Ministers and Parliamentarians involved
- Andimuthu Raja, Union Cabinet Minister for Communications and Information Technology : The Comptroller and Auditor General holds Raja personally responsible for the sale of 2G spectrum at 2001 rates in 2008, resulting in the previously mentioned loss of up to Rs. 1.76 lakh crores (US$40 billion) to the national exchequer.[6] In August, 2010, evidence was submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) showing that Raja had personally signed and approved the majority of the questionable allocations.[7]
- Kanimozhi Aravindhan, Member of Rajya Sabha : On April 25, 2011 Kanimozhi was named as a co-conspirator in the supplementary chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the 2G spectrum case. The chargesheet submitted before the Supreme Court establishes how Rs 200 crore connected with the scam traveled from a partnership firm of businessman Shahid Balwa of Swan Telecom to the Karunanidhi family-owned Kalaignar TV.[5] She has been charged with section 7 and 11 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The sections deal with acceptance of alleged gratification.[8]
[edit]Bureaucrats involved
- Siddhartha Behura, Civil Servant (IAS officer of 1973 batch UP cadre) : He was the Telecom secretary who served in the DOT at the time of the 2G allocation.
- Pradip Baijal, Civil Servant (IAS officer of 1966 batch MP cadre) : He is alleged to have recommended policies that favored certain Telecom companies when he was heading the TRAI. Post retirement, Baijal joined Noesis, a consulting firm.[9][10] Raja has made references to Baijal's decisions in 2003 as the basis for his decisions in 2008; something which has been attacked by Arun Shourie and several media pundits. The houses and offices of the bureaucrat were recently[when?] visited by the Central Bureau of Investigation as part of their investigations.[11] However, Baijal is expected to get a clean chit in this issue [12]
- R K Chandolia, Civil Servant (IES officer of 1984 batch cadre) : He was private secretary of Raja during UPA-I when the licences were awarded. When Raja became the Telecom Minister once again in UPA-II, Chandolia had been promoted to the Joint Secretary rank. Raja re-designated him Economic Adviser, that gave him the charge of all important policy-related work. Chandolia interacted with all the licensees. It is said that it was Chandolia who, from DDG-access services A K Srivastava's room, had handed out letters of intent to representatives of various companies.[13]
[edit]Corporations involved
- Allianz Infra[14]
- Aircel
- Dishnet Wireless
- Loop Mobile
- Sistema Shyam Mobile (MTS) – Sistema Mobile Russia
- Reliance Communications
- S Tel
- Swan Telecom
- Tata Tele Services
- Unitech Group
- Videocon Telecommunications Limited
- Vodafone Essar
- Virgin Mobile India
[edit]Corporate personalities involved
- Anil Ambani - Reliance Group (ADAG)[15] -
- Ratan Tata
- Shahid Balwa - Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB)
- Vinod Goenka - Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB)
- Venugopal Dhoot - Videocon Group
- Prashant Ruia - Essar Group
- Sanjay Chandra, Managing Director of Unitech Ltd and Unitech Wireless
All of them have either been questioned by the CBI or are prospective suspects in the scam.
[edit]Media persons and lobbyists involved
- Nira Radia, a former airline entrepreneur turned corporate lobbyist whose conversations with politicians and corporate entities were recorded by the government authorities. The contents were later leaked by unknown parties creating the Nira Radia tapes controversy
[edit]Possible Politicans, Ministers and Parlimentarians involved
- Dayanidhi Maran, former Union Cabinet Minister for Textiles : The main allegation revealed by Tehelka magazine and followed up in several other reports, is that Maran forced C Sivasankaran, owner of Aircel, to sell the telecom company to Maran's Malaysia-based friend T Ananda Krishnan in 2006. The reports allege that Maran deliberately delayed issuing spectrum licenses to Aircel's sister concern, Dishnet Wireless, when it was owned by Sivasankaran. He issued the licenses soon after it changed hands to Ananda Krishnan who owns Maxis.[16]
- P. Chidambaram, current Union Cabinet Minister for Home Affairs : Subramaniam Swamy states that when the 2g Spectrum rate was finalised, P.Chidambaram was the finance minister of India and he had a major role in deciding the spectrum price with A.Raja. Subramaniam alleges that Chidambaram had received kickbacks and undervalued the spectrum cost.[17]
[edit]Petitioners to 2g scam
- Subramaniam Swamy, activist lawyer and politician, whose letters to the Prime Minister demanding action and affidavits and cases in the Supreme Court brought the issue into the public limelight.
- Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a journalist who was one among the very first to write on the irregularities in the awarding of 2G spectrum allocation by the Telecom Ministry. He is also one of the petitioners in the 2G PIL currently being heard in the Supreme court.[18]
- Prashant Bhushan, on behalf of the Centre for Public Interest Litigation.
- Anil Kumar, on behalf of the civil society organisationTelecom Watchdog
- Others:Several eminent people like former chief election commissioners J.M. Lyngdoh, T.S. Krishnamurthy and N. Gopalaswami and former central vigilance commissioner (CVC) P. Shankar are also petitioners in the suits filed by civil society groups.[14]
[edit]Loss to Exchequer
The Controller and Auditor General of India used three different methods to assess the presumptive loss to the exchequer resulting from not auctioning 2G spectrum.[19]
The first method was based on the fact that S Tel, one of the licensees, explicitly offered to pay significantly higher license fees for the spectrum. Based on the fees offered by S Tel, the CAG estimated the loss to the exchequer at 67,364 crore (US$15.02 billion)
The second method was based on the price recovered by the 3G auction in 2010. The CAG reasoned that since 2G is really 2.75G (EDGE), its price should be comparable to that of 3G licenses. Based on this method, the CAG estimated the loss to the exchequer to be 176,000 crore (US$39.25 billion)
The third method was based on the fact that some of the licensees received FDI in the form of equity, shortly after the spectrum allocation. The CAG reasoned that this equity infusion was entirely due to the value of the allocated spectrum; this can be construed as re-sale of the spectrum by the licensee, and hence was a valid basis for assessing loss to the exchequer. Based on this method, the CAG estimated the loss to the exchequer to be anywhere between 57,666 crore (US$12.86 billion) (based on Etisalat's investment in Swan Telecom) and 69,626 crore (US$15.53 billion) (based on Telenor's investment in Unitech).
For its part, the Congress-party led government has publicly defended itself on this count and Kapil Sibal, who replaced A. Raja as the communication minister, has refuted the CAG reasoning.[20] He has also justified his government's decision not to auction 2G spectrum as being in line with the policy guidelines laid down by the 10th Five-Year Plan.[21][22]
[edit]Relationship between media and government
Media sources such as OPEN and Outlook reported that Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi knew that corporate lobbyist Nira Radia was influencing the decisions of A. Raja.[23] The critics alleged that Dutt and Sanghvi knew about corruption between the government and the media industry, supported this corrupt activity, and suppressed news reporting the discovery of the corruption.[23]
[edit]Ratan Tata petitions over leak
The tapes leaked to the public include conversations between Nira Radia and Ratan Tata. Tata petitioned the government to acknowledge his right to privacy and demanded accountability for the leak, with the Minister for Home Affairs, CBI, Indian Income Tax Department, theDepartment of Telecommunication, and the Department of Information Technology as respondents in the petition.[24]
On April 4, 2011 Indian Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC)questioned Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia regarding their roles in 2G Scam.[25]
[edit]Response to scam
In early November 2010 Telecom Minister A Raja resigned.
In mid November the controller Vinod Rai issued show-cause notices to Unitech, S Tel, Loop Mobile, Datacom (Videocon), and Etisalat to respond to his assertion that all of the 85 licenses granted to these companies did not have the up-front capital required at the time of the application and were in other ways illegal.[26] Some media sources have speculated that these companies will receive large fines but not have their licenses revoked, as they are currently providing some consumer service.[26]
In response to the various allegations, the Govt of India has replaced the then incumbent Telecom minister, A. Raja with Kapil Sibal who has taken up this charge in addition to being the Union minister for Human Resources Development.Mr Sibal contends that the "notional" losses quoted are a result of erroneous calculations and insists that the actual losses are nil.[20][21]
The CBI conducted raids on Raja and four other telecom officials - former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja's personal secretary R K Chandolia, member telecom K Sridhar and DoT deputy director general A K Srivastava on 8 December 2010.Kanimozhi, DMK MP and Karunanidhi's daughter, was arrested and sent to Tihar jail by a Delhi court which dismissed her bail plea in the 2G spectrum scam, saying there was a possibility of witnesses being influenced considering the "magnitude" of the crime..[27]
[edit]Arrests and Chargesheets
On February 2, 2011, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested former Telecommunications Union Minister Andimuthu Raja. The CBI also arrested R.K. Chandolia, Raja's personal aide, and Siddharth Behura, the former Telecom Secretary.[28][29] Both Raja and Chandolia are heard in conversation with Niira Radia in the released Radia tapes.
On February 8, 2011, the CBI arrested Mumbai based Dynamix Balwas (DB) group managing director Shahid Usman Balwa in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam. The CBI has evidence from the Income Tax department that Shahid Usman Balwa, considered close to Raja, was instrumental in channelling the kickbacks allegedly received by the former telecom minister.[30]
On March 29, 2011, in Delhi, the CBI arrested Asif Balwa (younger brother of the arrested former Managing Director of DB-Etisalat Group,Shahid Balwa) and Rajeev Agarwal for their alleged involvement in money transfer to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's (DMK) Kalaignar TVchannel.[31]
On April 2, 2011, the CBI filed its first 80,000 page chargesheet in the 2G spectrum scam before a Special Court in Delhi naming nine individuals and three companies. It said the wrongful acts of the accused deprived the government exchequer of possible revenues amounting to INR Rs 30,985 crore (USD $ 6,983,322,233). The accused include the following individuals:[32]
- Andimuthu Raja, former Telecom minister
- Siddharth Behura, former Telecom Secretary
- R.K. Choda, Raja's former personal secretary
- Shahid Usman Balwa, former Director of Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB)
- Sanjay Chandra, Managing Director of Unitech Ltd and Unitech Wireless
- Gautam Doshi, Group MD, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
- Hari Nair, Senior Vice-President, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
- Surendra Pipara, Senior Vice-President, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and Reliance Telecom Ltd
- Vinod Goenka, Director, Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB)
The three companies named are:
In the first chargesheet, the CBI had named lobbyist Niira Radia and 124 others as witnesses.
On 25 April 2011, in its second chargesheet in the scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named five more accused individuals:[33]
- Kanimozhi - Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (DMK) and daughter of Tamil Nadu ex-Chief Minister M Karunanidhi
- Sharad Kumar of Kalaignar TV
- Karim Morani of Cineyug Films
- Asif Balwa of Kusegaon Realty
- Rajiv B Agarwal of Kusegaon Realty
On 20 May, 2011, Special CBI Judge O P Saini of the Delhi court ordered the arrest of DMK Member of Parliament Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV Managing Director Sharad Kumar after rejecting their bail pleas in the 2G spectrum case.[34]
[edit]P.A.C. (Public Accounts Committee)
Public Accounts Committee, a 21-member committee, with chairman as Murli Manmohar Joshi, was formed to investigate, independent of other committees like JPC. The chairman submitted a draft report on 2G scam to Lok Sabha Speaker on Saturday 30-04-2011, and insisted that it be tabled in the Parliament. UPA members' claimed that the report had been "rejected", and 11 MPs of same committee(majority out of 21) had "rejected" the report - which was termed as "unconstitutional" by MM Joshi pointing out that such a possibility does not exist till the report is "read" by members and "discussed" para by para. Defending his action of calling witnesses from diverse fields in connection with the 2G scam probe, Joshi said it was the duty of the PAC to "trace and examine the way the money of common man is spent". He alleged that on 28-04-2011, during the last meeting of the committee, ministers passed on "chits" and called up PAC members to speak and behave in a particular manner; that said trouble started when a decision was taken to call top officials of the PMO, Cabinet Secretary, Attorney General and CBI director for questioning. A minister reportedly commented that the PAC draft report will be thrown in the dustbin, to which the chairman regretted and questioned if Parliament's proposals and then Supreme Court orders would be given the same treatment.[35]
[edit]Impact on stock markets
The first casualty in Stock Markets once Raja was arrested was DB Realty.[36] 20% fall in the stock prices of DB Realty. Sun TV had its shares fall by 10%.[37] Sun TV COO refused the allegations. Swan Telecom Chief Balwa was arrested on Feb 8 [38] and this led to rumours of links with Anil Ambani's Reliance ADAG and it led to 20% fall of his stocks . Its reported that nearly 2 Billion USD was eroded from his stocks .[39] Spicejet stocks went down after reports of investigation on Maran's recent takeover of Spicejet .[40]
[edit]See also
- 2010 housing loan scam in India
- Adarsh Housing Society Scam
- Commonwealth games scam
- Indian political scandals
- Belekeri port scam
- Corruption Perceptions Index
- Rent seeking
- Jan Lokpal Bill
[edit]References
- ^ a b "Subramanian Swamy moves SC for cancellation of 2G spectrum licences". The TImes of India. 2010-05-19. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ^ "3G spectrum auction: Government collects Rs6,77,190 crore booty". DNA. 2010-05-19. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ^ "CPM demands A Raja's resignation". The Times of India. 2010-11-05. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
- ^ "Case Number". Courtnic.nic.in. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ a b "Accused have been booked under sections". The Hindustan Times. 2011-04-25. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
- ^ Singh, Shalini (28 October 2009). "BJP takes on Raja over telecom spectrum scam". Times of India. Retrieved 2009-11-08.
- ^ Joseph, Josy (August 30, 2010). "CAG draft report nails Raja role in 2G scam". The Times Of India.
- ^ "DMK takes a hit, Kanimozhi charged and summoned".Hindustan Times. April 25, 2011.
- ^ http://www.taratv.com/top_story.php?task=full&newsid=2151
- ^ "Taming the retired". The Hindu Business Line. 2010-12-17. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ CBI conducts raids; swoops on DMK associates, Niira Radia & Pradip Baijalhttp://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/CBI-conducts-raids-swoops-on-DMK-associates-Niira-Radia--Pradip-Baijal/articleshow/7108883.cms
- ^ Relief for Baijal http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/cbi-to-question-kanimozhi-in-2g-scam-relief-for-baijal-sources-88698
- ^ "Who is R K Chandolia?". Ndtv.com. 2011-02-02. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ a b "Government, 11 telecom firms get court notice on 2G spectrum". Sify.com. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ http://www.hindustantimes.com/2G-spectrum-scam-Anil-Ambani-is-now-a-suspect/Article1-663738.aspx
- ^ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dayanidhi-Maran-likely-to-be-dropped-in-next-Cabinet-reshuffle/articleshow/8991552.cms Dayanidhi Maran: 2g Scam
- ^ http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/2g-scam-chidambaram-as-guilty-as-raja-claims-subramanian-swamy/1/141805.html 2G scam: Chidambaram as guilty as Raja, claims Subramanian Swamy
- ^ "2G scam: Why I filed a PIL against the telecom minister - Rediff.com Business". Business.rediff.com. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ "Performance Audit Report on the Issue of Licenses and Allocation of 2G Spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications, Chapter 5". Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
- ^ a b "Offence as Defence". Frontline. 2011-01-07.
- ^ a b "2G scam: No public loss to exchequer, says Kapil Sibal". MoneyControl.com. 2011-01-11.
- ^ "Tenth Five Year Plan, 2002-2007". Planning Commission. 2002-12-21.
- ^ a b Amol Sharma (1 Dec 2010). "Wait a Minute, What Exactly Is Barkha Dutt Accused of?". IndiaRealTime. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
- ^ "Government orders probe into leaking of Niira Radia tapes".The Economic Times. 29 Nov 2010. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
- ^ PAC Quizzes Niira Radia, Rattan Tata in 2G Scam Probehttp://abclive.in/invetigative-news/political-investigation/161-pac-niira-radia-rattan-tata-2g-scam-probe-.html
- ^ a b Joji Thomas Philip (18 Nov 2010). "2G scam: Govt to pull up five telcos". The Economic Times. The Times Group.
- ^ "2G spectrum scam: CBI raids residences of A Raja - The Times of India". Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. 2010-12-08. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ "CBI arrests ex-telecoms min A.Raja over graft". Reuters India. 2 February 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
- ^ PTI, Feb 2, 2011, 07.41pm IST (2011-02-02). "2G spectrum scam: Former telecom minister A Raja arrested - The Times of India". Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ "CBI arrests DB group MD Shahid Balwa in 2G scam". Hindustan Times. 9 February 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
- ^ "CBI arrests Balwa's brother and another". Chennai, India: The Hindu. 30 March 2011. Retrieved 30 March 2011.
- ^ "CBI charges Raja, 8 others and 3 companies in 2G case". The Hindu Business Line. 2 April 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
- ^ "Kanimozhi charged with conspiracy in 2G scam by CBI". The Economic Times. 25 April 2011. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
- ^ "2G scam: Kanimozhi in Tihar Jail after court rejects bail plea". The Indian Express. 20 May 2011. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
- ^ http://www.rediff.com/news/report/reports-2g-rejection-unconstitutional-joshi/20110430.htm
- ^ "When DB Realty ended up dialling the wrong no - Money - DNA". Dnaindia.com. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ "2G scam: The DB Realty-DMK puzzle - Rediff.com Business". Rediff.com. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ 10 Feb, 2011, 03.50AM IST,ET Bureau (2010-07-23). "Arrest of Balwa may trip DB Realty's rapid rise - The Economic Times". Economictimes.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ "Day after DB Realty chief's arrest, ADAG scrips tank". Indianexpress.com. 2010-11-05. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
- ^ Chowdhury, Anirban. "SpiceJet Denies Maran Buy Under Investigation - WSJ.com". Online.wsj.com. Retrieved 2011-02-11.
[edit]External links
- Tehelka's January 2011 infographic explaining the scam
- CAG Performance Audit report on the issue of Licenses and allocation of spectrum
- The Real Story About 2G Scam
|
No comments:
Post a Comment