A 'sub chor hain' mood of 2010

[ajtr]

A 'sub chor hain' mood of 2010​

The year 2010 has been an unusual year of scams and corruption. Despite having a clean Prime Minsiter, the nation was rocked, looted and plundered. From Raja to Kalmadi and Yeddyurappa to Ashok Chavan, the nation witnessed a saga of `official robbery' making the common man feel that every one is a thief.


Here is a list of men who made it to the top and pushed the nation to a new low:

On International Anti-Corruption Day, here is a look at how 2010 was a year of corruption and scams

Today is International Anti-Corruption Day. By resolution 58/4 of October 31, 2003, the General Assembly designated December 9 as International Anti-Corruption Day. This decision was taken in order to raise awareness of corruption and of the role of the United Nations Convention against Corruption in combating and preventing it.

2010 has been a year of scams in India - all related to corruption. Here is a list of the Rajas of corruption:

ANDIMUTHU RAJA (Now known as SPECTRUM RAJA)

The 47-year-old politician of the DMK, who represents the cool and lush-green hill town of Niligiris in Tamil Nadu in the Lok Sabha, has had a torrid year and could be crowned the Raja of Corruption of 2010.

He is accused of causing a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer in the allocation of 2G Spectrum, thumbing his nose at a helpless Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ticking off the Law Ministry and asking Cabinet colleagues to keep off the Spectrum turf.

The UPA government had been protective about Raja for over 400 days considering the delicate equation that the Congress has with an unpredictable and pushy K Karunanidhi, the patriarch of DMK. The CBI, India's premier investigative agency, kept silent even as piles of incriminating documents poured out to public domain.

It needed a hard knock by the Supreme Court for the CBI to wake up and act. By then, almost 400 days had lapsed since the scam hit the headlines. That was enough and more time for Raja to tweak, alter, fudge or destroy evidence. Little wonder that the CBI did not find incriminating documents after the high profile raid of December 8, 2010.

But the question still remains: where has all the money gone? Raja may not have actually caused a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. That was notional. But there is incriminating evidence to suggest that he made money - a huge pile of it. His wife and relatives had massive stakes in telecom companies.

The Congress-led UPA government has been opposing the constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to look into the scam. Opposition members have stonewalled proceedings in both Houses for 19 days.

But why a JPC? The JPC will comprise Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum. Now with the Supreme Court calling for details of telecom licensing dating back to 2002 and probably beyond, the whole issue has taken a new turn. With almost all parties finding that their members have had some role or the other in the telecom pie, can the JPC be effective?

The best is to leave the probe to the CBI under the supervision of the Supreme Court. The CBI by itself is not trustworthy; hence the need for a supervisory role for the Supreme Court.


SURESH KALMADI (Now known as CWG. S (S for Scam) KALMADI)

The 66-year-old Congress politician from Maharashtra's culturally rich city of Pune has had a chequered career in more than one way. He was an Indian Air Force officer and found that he could touch dizzier heights from the ground. He `flew' out of the IAF to open a fast food joint in Pune. It was here that the mercurial Sanjay Gandhi spotted him and roped him into politics. From a hanger-on, Kalmadi graduated to becoming the head of a `sports mafia' where he played poker with cronies, contractors and the corrupt.

His `crowning' moment came when he pitched for the Commonwealth Games. Some say that Kalmadi pitched for the Games because he saw the word `wealth' in between. And this is what he reportedly did; forgot the Games and made wealth. He caused a huge embarrassment of India and is alleged to have milked the exchequer to the tune of Rs 8000 crore.

Kalmadi caused a loss of Rs 5,000-8,000 crore through fraudulent means by alleged financial and administrative irregularities. And look how: In 2003, the Indian Olympic Association had pegged the costs of the games at Rs 16.2 billion. In 2010, it went up to Rs 115 billion. When other expenditures are added, the bill goes up to a whopping Rs 300 billion, making the 2010 Commonwealth Games by far the most expensive gaming event ever. All tax payers' money that went to corrupt contractors, relatives, cronies and, probably, politicians. And yet, he is an honourable man for the CBI.

And look at the irony - Kalmadi's misdeeds are being probed by the Central Vigilance Commission whose head, P J Thomas, is himself embroiled in a controversy.

Kalmadi is lucky in one way. He would have been on the centrestage of corruption, but Raja outwitted him. So the sports chief is planning his next move: hosting the Olympics!

Like in Raja's case, nobody knows where Kalmadi has hidden all the wealth. By the time the CBI knocks at his doors, all the money, papers and public memory would have vanished.


BOOKANAKERE SIDDALINGAPPA YEDDYURAPPA
(BSY for short, though some add a U in between -- BUSY -- making money)

The 67-year-old war horse of the BJP led the saffron party to power for the first time below the Vindhyas. A religious person, Yeddyurappa got his name after the presiding deity of a Shaivite temple built by the saint Siddalingeshwara at Yediyur in Tumkur district of Karnataka. He worked as a clerk at a rice mill and later set up a hardware shop in Shimoga. He rose the hard way to become the Chief Minister of Karnataka in May 2008.

Promising a different government, Yeddyurappa lived up to his words -- his government worked only for his sons, relatives and friends. A highly superstitious and arrogant person, BSY has very few friends; that's probably why he ran out of names after favouring his sons and a son-in-law.

What did BSY do? Simple: he denotified prime land in and around Bangalore in favour of his sons B Y Raghavendra, an MP, and B Y Vijayendra and daughter Umadevi.

BSY is the only CM of India who has the ability to cry in public - just as his rival and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda can sleep on a public platform. To be fair, BSY followed the Gowda doctrine in favouring sons and daughters.

In Karnataka, nobody know who is a bigger thief as the Janata Dal (Secular - some say Sons) releases one set of documents that show large tracts of land in BSY's kitty and a day later, the CM releases a different set showing how Deve Gowda and Co, oops Sons, virtually have a kingdom in their possession.

Unlike other scams, in Karnataka there are multiple probes into BSY's land scams - one by the Lokayukta (Ombudsman) and the other by Justice Padmaraj. The CM wants a probe into all the land deals dating back to the Gowda era (in which case all the former CMs will be in a land soup), the JD(S) wants just a probe into BSY's controversial denotifications in favour of his sons.

Hush-hush: Even journalists (like the Niira Radia tape) are reportedly involved in the land scam and the CM has dusted that old file to bring the names out in the open if needed.


'ADARSH' CHAVAN & CO

The height of corruption in the case of the Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society is represented by the flats piled one above the other in Mumbai's Cuffe Parade, one of Asia's most expensive patches of real estate. It was supposed to be a building for widows of the Kargil war heroes, but the real occupants were ex-chief of the Army, senior officers of the defence forces and relatives of politicians and senior bureaucrats.

And unlike Raja or Kalmadi, many are involved in this murky deal that has been cooking for a long long time - from former chief minister Ashok Chavan to former Army chief Deepak Kapoor, defence officials, bureaucrats, politicians, their relatives and, hold your breath, a driver employed in a Nagpur-based infrastructure company, whose Managing Director is a Special Invitee to the BJP's National Executive Committee!

In the case of the Adarsh scam, almost all the former CMs of Maharashtra were involved, but Ashok Chavan was the most visible face. Fifteen minutes after US President Barack Obama left India after his first visit, the Congress booted out Chavan. With senior Congressmen, top defence officials and powerful bureaucrats involved, the Adarsh probe is going on in a sluggish pace.

The Army Chief General V K Singh, in an interview on CNN-IBN, had said: "I am extremely saddened and I think, as an institution, we have taken a beating. In a 1.3 million Army, this would be a very miniscule percentage but any incident which affects the hierarchy in the Army, it is a sad thing because it also tries to break a bonding that we have with our men. It is painful to say the least."

"I think so because nobody knows what the truth is but when it is played out this way obviously people will start saying there is something wrong. Here is a man whom we trusted, here is a person on whose order we were ready to go to battle... I think it will hurt deeply," he added.

The 31-storey building, the symbol of corruption and nepotism, now stands as a sore thumb. The water supply has been cut, power has been snapped and the structure may be demolished.

The Maharashtra government under another Chavan -- Prithviraj - has ordered a judicial probe. The defence ministry has also launched a probe.

But with so many senior officials and politicians involved, the Adarsh probe is likely to only name the guilty, but the money that changed hands may never be recorded.

An interesting year ahead.

Transparency International, an international watchdog NGO, has ranked India as 84 on the list of most corrupt nations comprising 180 countries. The cleanest countries close to scoring a perfect 10 were New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore.

At the bottom of the list of the Berlin-based NGO are Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Iraq.
Developing countries like Serbia, Burkina Faso, Peru and Ghana fared better than India by claiming 83, 79, 75 and 69 spots respectively.

 

[ajtr]

Aam aadmi vs sab chor​

Make a roll call of the key members of this Cabinet and you wouldn't think they could preside over one of the most corrupt governments in India's history. The prime minister is sometimes attacked by the opposition for being weak, fence-sitting, and once, famously, he was even called "nikamma" or rather some milder English equivalent (inept), but not even his worst enemy would ever call him corrupt. You could say pretty much the same for the finance, home and defence ministers. So the four most important men in the cabinet are entirely clean. And yet, if you held an opinion poll, a vast majority would say corruption is India's biggest challenge today. There are multiple scams breaking in the media every morning. And if you scan the regional media, you will find many more surfacing in the states.

So how can a government with such clean, efficient and experienced people at the top land itself in such a mess? At a time when the economy is booming, the internal situation is stable and external environment so promising, the last thing India needs is this bitter mood of "sab chor hain". How accurate the generalisation is we can debate in better times. But as they say in business, never fight with the customer or the market. In a democracy, the people, the voters, are your customers. And if they are so furious, and so readily inclined to believe that everybody is a thief, that every deal is a scam, you cannot wish it away as some seasonal virus.

Somebody has obviously got something very wrong somewhere. Three things, however, are clear. One, that while the top leaders of this cabinet and the Congress party are individually clean, they have failed to exercise adequate control over the system. Two, that for too long have they erred—and gravely so—in casually and lazily personalising the issue of corruption. So blame telecom on Raja (and use the alibi of that horrible expression, coalition dharma), CWG on Kalmadi and Adarsh on Chavan. Three, and this is the most serious one, that they have failed to keep pace with changes in a reform-charged economy. Consequently, politics, governance and regulation have fallen way behind business and the market, resulting in the rise of an entirely new system of rent-seeking. And a new generation of kleptocracy which has its roots in politics, bureaucracy and private enterprise.

The scams of today are fundamentally different from those of the past in that almost all have something to do with the government/private sector interface. In the past, scandals were all about government purchases and contracts and, as economic reform began, the stock market (which saw one each under Congress and BJP watch, Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh, respectively). Government purchases became less of a story because of reform. Even the key PSUs became listed companies and therefore had to become a lot more transparent. The reason we have run one of the cleanest stock markets in the world for a decade now is simply the correctives that followed the two scams, with the strengthening of SEBI as such a powerful and autonomous regulator and unrelenting prosecution of the scamsters. But the failure of the same reformers to prepare the system for challenges that would have inevitably followed is intellectual as well as one of a lack of political will.

Over the past few years, almost all scandals have involved misuse, or a widely believed allegation of misuse, of discretionary powers by the government, either for old-fashioned rent-seeking, or its new child, crony-capitalism. What has happened with telecom is only the most brazen example of both, and has given India a bad name globally, particularly because this is such a sunrise industry and one of the greatest post-reform success stories of India, along with IT, followed by automobiles and aviation. Whatever happens domestically, damage to India's international reputation will be humongous as the scandal now takes some of the largest global telecom players in its sweep. Meanwhile, under the same dispensation, the government's own telecom companies have been systematically destroyed. One of these (BSNL) has been denied a public listing on the most specious of arguments but understandably on the most obvious of motives (to keep the ministry's grip over its contracts and largesse). Public listing brings transparency and diminishes discretion, and those are the last things you want when you so crave cronyism and rent. Kapil Sibal has thus been handed a challenge bigger, and more urgent, than even HRD. You would only hope the excuse of "coalition dharma" is not used again to hand this portfolio back to the DMK. No government can survive for three-and-a-half years after dumping so much credibility and, even if it does, it can forget about getting re-elected.

Let's look beyond telecom. Each major scandal the UPA has faced has stemmed from misuse of discretionary powers by its ministers, either to make money, or to favour cronies or fellow travellers. From petroleum, to mining leases, coal linkages, almost all the major scandals that create today's "sab chor hain" mood have resulted from the fact that impartial, autonomous and modern regulation has failed to keep pace with the reform and growth of our economy. Free markets cannot survive without equally free and wise regulators. That is where the UPA's record has been so shoddy. Raja is not the only one to have undermined his (telecom) regulators. The petroleum ministry has systematically decimated its own. Civil aviation has only talked of a regulator for six years now without a step taken in that direction. For how long can higher education, which is becoming a big business now, be left to be "regulated" by the UGC and AICTE and MCI? There is so much discretion left with the environment ministry that in the past it was widely known that some of its residents pretty much had tariff cards for clearances. That, mercifully, is not the situation now. But this kind of discretionary power leaves scope for enormous whimsicality as well as corruption, and transparent, autonomous regulators, often talked about, are nowhere on the horizon. And where is the real estate regulator without which there is no protection of the rights of the emerging new middle class that is betting its future so bravely to borrow and buy its proud new homes, and without which the property business cannot come out in the transparent domain, with the emergence of modern price-discovery and liquidity mechanisms like REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts)? You know why all politicians, particularly at the state level, love discretionary powers over land so much. But so was the case with industrial licensing and Manmohan Singh dismantled that. Why has he not been able to do so with property now?

These scandals could ruin this government, and, most unfortunately, the prime minister's name. But he has been in that place before, and knows what needs to be done. He needs a new 100-day project now to institutionalise all these regulators and take away his key economic and resource ministries' discretionary powers. They will protest, particularly those manning what can be aptly described as ATM ministries: you shove the card, cash starts dropping out of the slot. He also needs to abolish ministries which are built as pure ATMs, like Steel and Coal, as these are also anachronisms in a reformed economy. It won't be easy, but it won't be as tough as the nuclear deal, particularly when public support for a clean-up is guaranteed. If he doesn't, he will see the clock firmly set back on his own reform under his own charge. Surely, that's not the Manmohan Singh legacy that Manmohan Singh would like.

 

[ajtr]

Corruption - A way of life in India​

A. Raja and others accused in the 2G spectrum “scam” have tended to be rescued somewhat by the complexity of the nature of the scam. But with the CAG reported to be talking of lakhs of crores and with 3G now on its way, it’s becoming a little easier to contextualise and comprehend the Raja case. So, with the Tamil Nadu assembly elections merely months away, how could “corruption” play out?

Last November, five Rajasthan state MLAs, in a rare display of bipartisan bonhomie from both the Congress and the BJP, blocked the Alwar highway, to protest against government and civil society efforts to audit the NREGA payments. An FIR was lodged against the MLAs, but the audit was made very difficult. Popular support was whipped up by sarpanchs against the auditors, by saying that the auditors were on their way to stall NREGA in the district, which is what they said would happen if irregularities were found. Citizens, apprehensive that whatever little was coming their way could also stop, were thereby brought on the side of the anti-audit wave. It's illustrative of why India, at a popular level, has sometimes demonstrated a politically ambivalent attitude to "corruption" as an issue.

The first corruption scandal to find its way to the floor of Parliament in 1958 was the scam of LIC buying selective shares, to rescue certain dodgy companies, not to benefit the corporation or the general public. It was raised in Parliament forcefully by Feroze Gandhi, the then PM's son-in-law, and politically secured the scalp of the finance minister. More importantly, a 24-day public inquiry by Justice M.C. Chagla established the malpractice and laid down new rules.

Over time, all parties that have held power at the Centre have had to bear the brunt of "scams" (Bofors, hawala, fodder, Taj corridor, petrol pump allotments, urea, Tehelka tapes, to name a few) that resulted in political banishing of the players involved, but otherwise little movement in bringing the matter to an appropriate close, let alone recovering public money.

Bofors was the one exception -- as the opposition parties rallied together with accusations of a kickback at the top rungs of government. That almost marked the apogee of the curve of public outrage over perceived wrongdoing -- ever since, nationally at least, corruption has not been seen as a political factor in itself.

As the Indian economy has opened up in the last couple of decades, some explained corruption as a carryover from the licence-permit-raj. As Jitendra Singh, a professor at Wharton, puts it, it was "a kind of shadowy market" which, in the absence of free-pricing mechanisms, encouraged backroom deals. However, with continued malpractices, we will have to look for a better explanation; corruption is no longer acceptable as an "Indian way" of doing things, the dark side of the much-admired jugaad. It's fascinating to recall how a Congress leader from Himachal Pradesh, Sukh Ram (also accused in a telecom scam), caused a record number of days of stalled business in Parliament in the '90s, but then went on to win elections with the telephone as his election symbol!

Of course, corruption galls the Indian public. But then, how does one explain a popular leader like Lalu Prasad winning despite being continuously berated for his alleged role in the fodder scam? One view is that as governments continue to exercise a powerful hold on the mind of the public as bearers of deliverance, that faith is not matched by a genuine expectation of getting anything. So, given the poor track record of public money reaching those it is marked out for, any improvement in that situation is such a pleasant surprise for those who are recipients that they refuse to take cognisance of "corruption", as defined by better-off voters.

There is also a perception that corruption is so spread across the political spectrum that it ceases to be a way of separating the parties at election time. But for all the apparent disappearance of corruption as a political issue, the electorate has a clear "sense" of how it assesses its representatives, a sense of what they stand for and how connected they are to the voters' issues. This operates as much for leaders as it does for parties. Also, the DMK should know, in Tamil Nadu, being stuck with a label for big scams can be tricky in the end, if it creates an image that alienates it from its populist moorings. Ironically, Jayalalithaa, now in opposition for a long time, was at the receiving end for inappropriate deals and a scathing tirade by the Supreme Court -- and the DMK, after all, was masterful in casting her as a self-absorbed politician. The SC, as recently as March, ordered the resumption of a trial against her on charges of misappropriation of funds of more than Rs 66 crore between 1991 and 1996, when she was chief minister.

The openness of both the AIADMK and DMK to changing alliances with national parties too came to the fore when Jayalalithaa, in an extraordinary parody of the situation, offered support to the Congress. By doing so openly, she cleverly ensured that the Congress too is drawn into the list comprising those resisting Raja's dismissal.

No one is bringing up allegations about Jayalalithaa at this stage and she has been allowed to have a go at the DMK. This reveals an interesting aspect of how corruption is generally perceived in politics. Once leaders are defeated for being corrupt, as Jayalalithaa was, they are seen to have atoned and the electorate almost squares with the candidates.

And it is this popular perception that UPA-II needs to manage too. The NDA took years to recognise why it had lost in 2004, and if the shining India blather was part of that loss. With the DMK defensive for the first time in 15 years and the Tamil Nadu polls in less than six months, the political fallout will be interesting.

 

[ajtr]

Sau mein se 99 be-iman fir bhi mera bharat mahan.....................

 

[Mani2020]

Sau mein se 99 be-iman fir bhi mera bharat mahan.....................

lol now get ready for a life time bashing by your indian fellows

as they are getting ready to call you fake indian,who changed his flags to take a stance against india

i'll not blame them that much as everyone in this region grow up with same mentality .everyone who take a stance against bad policies of state is labelled as Pakistani/Pro-Pakistani vice versa .

Thats why we have most corrupt leaders in India and Pakistan because they know when somebody can stand against their policies people will tag him as a fake national or a supporter of enemy state

Bad Luck

 

[BackStabber]

Sau mein se 99 be-iman fir bhi mera bharat mahan.....................

May be sau mein se 99 beiman, But i am happy to see that you chose to be the lone 1

May we get many more like you to really make our bharat mahaan

---------- Post added at 01:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 PM ----------

lol now get ready for a life time bashing by your indian fellows

as they are getting ready to call you fake indian,who changed his flags to take a stance against india

i'll not blame them that much as everyone in this region grow up with same mentality .everyone who take a stance against bad policies of state is labelled as Pakistani/Pro-Pakistani vice versa .

Thats why we have most corrupt leaders in India and Pakistan because they know when somebody can stand against their policies people will tag him as a fake national or a supporter of enemy state

Bad Luck

We have proven and rest our case

its a personal choice

 

[twoplustwoisfour]

Sau mein se 99 be-iman fir bhi mera bharat mahan.....................

Prove it.

There are more than 1 Billion Indians. Prove that at least 990 Million Indians are 'be-iman'. Otherwise, this will classify as another troll by ajtr

 

[dekho]

lol now get ready for a life time bashing by your indian fellows

as they are getting ready to call you fake indian,who changed his flags to take a stance against india

i'll not blame them that much as everyone in this region grow up with same mentality .everyone who take a stance against bad policies of state is labelled as Pakistani/Pro-Pakistani vice versa .

Thats why we have most corrupt leaders in India and Pakistan because they know when somebody can stand against their policies people will tag him as a fake national or a supporter of enemy state

Bad Luck

No, we will not bash anyone in this thread.

I won't bash anyone for bieng anti-india or pro-pakistani. However i would expect from such person to contribute to his society and fellow citizents and together we will make our nation flourish.

Corruption is everywhere. Actually I am happy that these corrupted people get exposed by our vigilant media with the support of public. This is a positive step and it will reduce corruption in the country.