Indian Politics, Current Affairs, Sports, Media,blah blah...

The cases of being "misled/misguided" etc

2012-01-31T14:39:00.001+05:30

Case 1:

Yesterday in Andhra Pradesh, the Principal secretary for Home, Mr. B.P.Acharya was arrested by the CBI for his role in a scam. He was sent to a jail of which he is technically still the incharge (to suspend an officer, he/she has to be under custody for a minimum of 48 hours). Anyways, the irony aside, there are some issues that I wish to discuss here.

B.P.Acharya has been charged with "criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption". As Managing Director of the AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, he has been accused of about 20 offences - primarily saying he has "ditched" APIIC and caused immense loss and more importantly of keeping the APIIC board "in the dark".

You see, I have a problem with "in the dark" accusation. APIIC is headed by a politician. APIIC is "vested with the objective of providing industrial infrastructure through the development of industrial areas" - which means that APIIC provides land (real estate) for private developers for "industrial development". Essentially, if one is inclined, this is a money making machine - given the large tracts of real estate involved.

Now let's come to the present case. APIIC entered into an agreement with EMAAR for developing a township, golf course and convention centre. According to the deal, APIIC was to get a 26% share. This was in 2003. After YSR became the CM, one of his trusted lieutanants, Ambati Rambabu was made the chairman. Mr. B.P.Acharya, an IAS officer was made the Managing Director. After these appointments were made, some astute machinations by those in power ensured that that APIIC share dropped to 5-6%! That's right - from 26 to 6%.

Another accusation is that plots were sold at a much higher value than what was shown on paper. On paper, they were sold for Rs. 5000 per sq.yard. But money was collected to the tune of 50,000 per sq yard. And according to the CBI - " the accused collected a sum of nearly Rs.138 crore by selling the plots at inflated rates to the customers, who include several top politicians, professionals, film actors and industrialists."

Now, let's add up everything. CBI says that an IAS officer pocketed so much money by selling lands at such high rates to "top politicians" etc. In today's world of instant connectivity, are we to freaking believe that the politicians heading APIIC were clueless about this loot? CBI says the board was "kept in dark" about dilution of shares. Are we to freaking believe that in today's world of information overdrive, the board was so incompetent to not know that the shares were being diluted?

Ambati Rambabu, the chairman of APIIC was merely let off after questioning. Ambati Rambabu is now the voiceferous spokesman of YSR Congress party led by Jagan. YSR's best friend, his soul mate, K.V.P.Ramachandra Rao was merely questioned. Before making any further arguments I would like to present case 2.

Case 2:

You all must have been bored to death listening to the "illegal mining" of the Reddy brothers in Karnataka. You must have also been bored to death by news channels covering their arrest. Now, while covering their arrest - the news channels missed a minor detail. He was arrested for illegal mining in Andhra Pradesh, not Karnataka! Now, what does that mean? That means, the Andhra Pradesh government gave the Reddy brothers permission for this illegal mining. This illegal permission was given in 2005, which means YSR was the Chief Minister. It is a known thing that the families of YSR and Reddy brothers are very close. Now, which department has to give permission for this mining? Technically the central government has to agree, based on recommendations by the state government.

Congress party took up this case to serve two purposes - one is that by arresting Reddy brothers, they can cause damage to the BJP in Karanataka, and simultaneously hurt Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. Now, the Reddy brothers are arrested. Next in line should logically be the minister who recommended the grant of the lease, right?

Here's where CBI stumps you! It arrested the IAS officer incharge then. The IAS officer places the blame on the then minister of Mines, Sabita Indra Reddy (who is now the Home Minister). The IAS officer says she merely worked under the influence of the minister. CBI vehemantly disagrees with this - tells the court that the minister is not at all at fault. It tells the court the minister was "misguided" by the IAS officer. The minister goes on to say that she signed the file to "help the poor" and tells changes were made the original file she signed!

You see, YSR's close proximity to Reddy brothers had no bearing on the issued G.O. The reason YSR put up a dummy candidate like Sabita was to ensure such files get through - yet that is of no importance to this case. The IAS officer acted only in connivance with the Reddy brothers to grant them the license. And we don't even hear anything about the central government officers in this case!

So, basically again it is all the officers fault - no congress politician had anything to do with any of these scams.

Cases 3, 4, etc

The ISRO fiasco is too recent to be recounted. A blog two days back details it here. Suffice it to say that the government again said that the Scientists at the helm "misled" it. Many articles have derided this action and questioned as to how the PMO can remain in the dark.

We have also heard before that A. Raja misled the PM on 2G scam. Editor of CRI summarised it beautifully -

"PMO formidable institution with mechanism to be alerted on massive economic crimes How then people suffer lie that MMS didnt know a damn?"

It is nothing but a blatant lie that is being imposed upon us when they say that the "minister did not know", "the CM did not know", "the PM did not know". Our system is so designed that the political authority has all necessary information at their disposal. Unless the political head is extremely dumb, it is impossible not to get a hang of massive scams happening under his/her watch. Officers merely follow orders (in such cases, mostly oral I guess) in coming up with "deals" that will help the political heads. While it can be debated whether officers should blindly follow such orders, it is a travesty of justice and insult to our intelligence when officers and only officers are arrested for such massive loot scams.

Lastly, fellow tweeter and blogger asked if any English TV media covered the arrest of IAS officers. They did - here's a tweet from Rajdeep Sardesai.

Bad day for IAS: senior officer arrested in Andhra for corruption; IAS officer's wife arrested for slapping cop in B'lore

Not a word on the actual case. Ofcourse not!

PS: This blog earlier documented the massive corruption in AP, in three parts (1, 2 and 3) .

Page 1 vs page 10

2012-01-30T13:33:00.003+05:30

I was in two minds since morning, whether to debate this topic on the blog or not. But then what better place than a blog to debate it? :D. So here we go :)

Yesterday, The Hindu had a banner headline story:

I had two issues with the story. One was with the demand to not just ban the film, but the entire event too.

“The content of the seminar, like the film, is anti-India, and against the Indian Army. We will not stand for anything that divides the country. Symbiosis has agreed to cancel the film screening, and we are giving them three days' time to think about the event, too,”

I find this language very disgusting. There are many modes of protesting and bringing this issue into prominence. Surely "we are giving them three days time to think" doesn't fall into any of that category.

Also, I have been alerted on twitter that this movie was rejected by the Censor board too. If true, how is it legal to screen it anywhere? I asked this question to the Editor of The Hindu too. Waiting for response...

Second was with the headline. "Fatwa" is something that issued by the muslim clergy, not groups like ABVP. It is improper for a newspaper to mix up things like this and impose them onto the reader. I asked the editor about it too, while condemning the demand by ABVP. Diktat would have been a right word to use, in my opinion.

But this was not why I was in two minds. There was another news item in today's paper.

Today, in page 10... please mark it - in page 10 and not on page 1 - The Hindu publishes this report - "Police too didn't want film screened"

The report very clearly mentions that it was not just "right wing" groups but also the police that advised the organisers of the seminar not to screen this movie. The report does not mention if they advised so acting on any complaint filed or not. So it is difficult to conclude from the report, why the police took this step of writing to the university.

Assuming they acted on a complaint by ABVP, isn't it the police's job to counsel ABVP to protest peacefully but not threaten violence (if they did)? Assuming the police wrote to the university even before ABVP approached either of them - why did they do it?

So here's my question - Why is the ABVP "fatwa" front page news and why is the police "advise" page 10 news?

Is there an agenda at play here? Or am I missing something? It would be great if anyone of you who think otherwise, can shed some light in the comments section too...

Here's one event that prompted me to write the blog. CNN-IBN's Senior Editor Sagarika Ghose tweets this morning:

She actually thought that the film name is "Fatwa" !!! And upon correcting her, she goes on to decry the "thought police" action of ABVP. Quite obviously Sagarika Ghose hasn't read the second report, primarily because it is tucked away in the 10th page! There will be many mis-guided people like her - and that's primarily why I begin to suspect an agenda here!

That's all, your honour! : Jan 22-28

2012-01-29T08:09:00.000+05:30

1. An earlier blog here details the full sequence of the Antrix-Devas deal. Basically, Antrix Corporation (which is the commercial wing of ISRO) entered into a deal with a company called Devas Multimedia (which had many former ISRO scientists as its officers) and sold 70MHz of S-band spectrum at just Rs.1000 crores in 2005. The Hindu broke this story. At that time, the CAG even estimated the worst case loss because of this deal to be ~ Rs. 2 lakh crores too. As always, at that time, the Prime Minister said he did not know details of the deal. It didn't matter that this deal was cleared by the Cabinet and the then minister in PMO, Mr. Prithivraj Chauhan was directly incharge of the Space department. More details in the old blog here.

The government declared then that the deal with Devas will be annulled. There was confusion about that too, but that's ok because with the UPA, we are all used to such confusion. And then there was a lull period. Everyone forgot about this deal and the massive loss. Out of the blue, the government announces that the former ISRO chief, Mr. Madhavan Nair and three other top scientists of ISRO are banned from holding any more government positions! Another bizzare addition to the already long list of such decisions by UPA.

This is not to say that those 4 are absolutely not guitly. The point is we don't even know how this decision was arrived at. Dr. Madhavan Nair even told us that he was not even given a chance to respond to charges against him. This decision was as arbitrary as it can get. This deal was cleared by the Prime Ministers Office too. Were officials and the minister in-charge Prithvi Raj Chauhan sleeping then? This deal was further cleared by the Cabinet too. Was the Prime Minister and the other ministers sleeping? Many former scientists have already pointed out that this unprecendented bizzare action is an insult to the organisation as a whole. Scientists have also pointed out that this is the same Madhavan Nair to whom the government awarded Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan. With this unilateral action, the UPA government will again be dragged to the court on matters that could have been handled outside it.

If the chairman of ISRO is guilty, then why not the minister in PMO? Because the then minister, Prithvi Raj Chauhan is now the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Therefore he has to be kept out of this! If the top 4 scientists are guilty in this scam, then so is the current Chief Minister of Maharashtra. If the top 4 scientists are ineligible for holding any position in the government, then so is the CM of Maharashtra. By this logic, even this Prime Minister is not eligible to hold that post, given that the cabinet cleared the deal that was forwarded by the PMO itself!

A bigger shame is that Dr. Madhavan Nair had to file an RTI application to get details of the enquiry commission report! (Adding this link on Jan 30 - Dr. Nair says the government knew about the deal at every single step. Another of the PM's lies has been nailed.)

2. Mumbai police announce this week that they cracked the 13/7 case! I am sure most of us would be confused with this date, given the multiple attacks that happened in Mumbai. This case was about the bombings on July 13, 2011 in Mumbai which killed 26 people and injured 130. So Mumbai police come and announce that they cracked this case. Delhi police however are baffled by one of the arrests made in the case. They say that the Mumbai police have arrested one of their informers, who was leading them to a location to nab "some people". This open war between the Delhi Police and the Mumbai ATS (Anti Terrorism Squad) is yet another embarassment to the security investigations in the country. This riveting account by Toral Varia in rediff, gives a blow by blow account of how this unwanted rivalry cost us the mastermind of this 13/7 terrorist act. Please read that to understand how we screw up seemingly simple stuff :(.

3. The previous week, the Congress government in Rajashtan invented a plot to stop Salman Rushdie from coming to the Jaipur Literature fest. And since he was not able to come at all, organisers thought of having a video conference with him. Who would imagine someone would have a problem with that? But Muslim groups did not want any of that too. The Congress government was more than willing to oblige them - so guess what - even his video conference was not allowed!! However, Barkha Dutt of NDTV interviewed him and this interview was aired on NDTV. The same Muslim groups had absolutely no issue with the interview airing! One of the most prominent leaders who was opposed to Mr. Rushdie coming was Owaisi. Mr. Owaisi is a regular in NDTV studios - will he now stop going to that studio? This whole episode smacks so much of hypocrisy by many sections - the "liberals" for not calling the bluff of the Deoband and other Muslim groups; the "national media" for not calling the bluff of Congress party; the "writers" who wax eloquent on the need to fight for freedom of expression; and finally the Congress party itself.

4. Finally, there is this ad war between The Hindu and Times of India that has captured the attention of netizens and print readers alike. At first, after seeing the ads, many were pretty impressed with The Hindu's ads and were promptly decrying the TOI for its content quality. But then some folks made another interesting argument. This was about the op-ed page of both the newspapers. The Times of India gives space to ALL kinds of views in its op-ed page. The current editor of The Hindu has once worked in the Times too! The Hindu seldom gives space to views that anti-left, pro-right etc. Leave op-ed space for articles, The Hindu does not publish enough letters to the editor that are against its views! So while The Hindu wins on the basis of its overall content, it loses out on space to views. That's all, your honour!

అదన్నమాట! : జనవరి 22-28

2012-01-29T08:08:00.000+05:30

"పార్టి ని అమ్ముకున్న వాళ్ళు నాన్న గారి కాలి గోటికి కి కూడా సరి తూగారు " అని శ్రీమాన్ బాలకృష్ణ గారు చిరంజీవి ని ఉద్దేశించి ఘాటు వ్యాఖ్యలు చేసారు. గత రెండు వారాలు గా వీల ఇద్దరి మధ్య మాటల తూటాలు పేలుతూనే ఉన్నాయి. ఇది చూసే వాళ్ళకి కర్చు లేని వినోదాన్ని అందించింది. బాలకృష్ణ చిన్న పిల్లడు అని చిరంజీవి అనడం, దానికి బాలయ్య "అవును, ఆయన చాలా ఎదిగాడు" అని వ్యంగ్యాస్త్రాలు సంధించడం ప్రేక్షకులకి వినోదాన్ని ఇచ్చాయి.

ఇది ఇలా ఉండగా, బాలకృష్ణ క్రియాశీల రాజకీయాల లోకి పూర్తి గా వచ్చేసారు. 2014 ఎన్నికలల్లో పోటి చేస్తునట్లు ప్రకటించారు. అంతే కాకుండా, కృష్ణ మరియు విశాఖ జిల్లాలలో పర్యటించారు, కార్యకర్తలను ఉత్సాహ పరిచారు కూడా. బాలకృష్ణ రావడం తో కోస్తా, రాయలసీమ లో జగన్ పార్టి కి తెదేపా గట్టి పోటి ఇవ్వడానికి సిద్దం అయ్యింది. కాంగ్రెస్స్ ఎలాగో తన కొంప కొల్లేరు చేసుకుంటుంది - కాబట్టి రాబోయే ఉప ఎన్నికలల్లో పోటి కేవలం జగన్ కి తెదేపా కి ఉంటుంది.

ఉప ఎన్నికలు అంటే గుర్తు వచ్చింది అండి - మన స్పీకర్ గారు ఇంకా ఆ 17 ఎమఎల్యేలను బర్తరఫ్ చెయ్యలేదు ! ఎంత సాగాతీస్తే అంత మంచిది అని అనుకుంటునారు ఏమో! సాగాతీసేకొడ్డి నష్టపోయేది కాంగ్రెస్స్ పార్టి ఈ కదా! అదన్నమాట!

"Misuse"

2012-01-23T10:19:00.002+05:30

Barkha Dutt is again in the news. This time, threatening fellow tweeter "barbarindian" with legal action. I was reminded of one of her hypocritical actions back when the Radia tapes issue surfaced. Just thought of bringing it to your notice too.

"I do feel very upset and sorry about the fact that my name was misused/misrepresented by her in conversations with other people"

That was Barkha Dutt, responding to one of the allegations during the famous Radia tape scandal. In a response to The Hindu, she gave the above statement. She is apparently upset that Radia mis-used her name. What prompted this "mis-use"?

The long, full story is here. I will just paste three lines from her conversations with Radia here:

BARKHA: Oh God. So now what? What should I tell them? Tell me what should I tell them?

BARKHA: Okay. Let me talk to them again.

BARKHA: Theek hai, not a problem. That’s not a problem, I’ll talk to Azad---I’ll talk to Azad right after I get out of RCR

So now you see - Barkha Dutt clearly offers to pass on messages. Radia asks her to do something, she says she will get it done. Radia then has the impression that whatever she wanted got done, and therefore takes credit for getting Barkha to do it. Sounds logical till this point. And then later has the nerve to actually write saying that she is "upset and sorry" that her name was "misused" ? Again, misused how?

That's all, Your honour!: Jan.15-21

2012-01-22T09:14:00.001+05:30

1. " The problem, sources say, is that the logical order of the UID project has been back to front. " That line pretty much sums up the dire state in which the UID project is in right now. The parliamentary standing committee has recently rejected the UID bill - which effectively means the UID is defunct right now. And now they are fighting over who should be collecting biometric data! It was also strange to note that this extremely sensitive biometric data collection is being done by private agencies! And only now does the government realise the mess it is in. The Home Minister now wants to know who will be collecting this biometric data - and he has taken this matter to the Prime Minister. Our Prime Minister, as always will be clueless on this topic. We can be rest assured that the file will either gather dust in PMO or will be sent back with obscure recommendations. The UID project was started with a lot of hype and was also marketted as the solution to many evils in our society! And today, it's fate hangs in balance because of an inept government which was confused on the order of implementation!

2. And we now discuss yet another monumental goof up by this UPA government. The army chief, General V.K.Singh, has approached the Supreme Court of India, challenging the government's order that his date of birth was in 1950 and not in 1951. Briefly, the controversy is this - "The General, when applying for admission to the NDA, has stated, incorrectly, that his YoB is 1950, when it should be written as 1951. This is a matter of record.

Now, his matriculation certificate clearly states his YoB as 1951. This should have been taken into record in the Army, after due verification. Perhaps, also with an explanation from the officer.

What has apparently happened is that in one Branch of the Army, the Military’s Secretary’s (MS) Branch, the YoB is recorded as 1950, in the other, the Adjutant General’s (AG) Branch, it is recorded as 1951. There has no reconciliation between these two Branches. The MS Branch is responsible for processing all matters regarding promotions/postings. The AG’s Branch is responsible for all other matters on Personnel Administration, ie Recruiting, Pay, Pensions, Welfare, etc "

This article on Centre Right India captures all sides of the arguments. The above summary has also been picked up from an excellent comment in the same blog. So essentially, every single document other that UPSC form shows 1951 as the year of birth. As per the article on CRI, the issue again came to the fore in 2006. In 2008, the general (then Lt. General) was asked to accept 1950 as his year of birth and was given 24 hours to comply. The UPA government knew all along that this controversy was brewing. Yet, it choose to do nothing. As with all crises, it chose to wait and watch. And then it continued to watch as this boiled into a bigger controversy. The general has apparently told the government that he is ready to retire in May, but the government has to accept 1951 as his year of birth. As always, the controversy brews. I guess there is no need to tell the kind of impact this whole thing will have on the morale of the Army. Amidst all this, defence minister, A.K.Anthony feels "sorry and sad" it seems!

3. Campaigning for elections in 5 states has picked up full steam. All parties are busy with candidate selections, campaign planning etc. English media is busy talking about Rahul Gandhi and BJP for most of the time. Very little time is being devoted to SP and BSP in UP. No time is being devoted on these channels for elections in other states. If you watch them, you'd be shocked to know that 4 other states are going to elections along with UP! Accusations of nepotism are flying thick in Punjab. There have been cartoons that say "Congress family wants votes to oust Akali family :D". Manipur seems to be going the congress way, given the disarray in the opposition there. Goa's government seems to be mired in real estate corruption deals, so for now looks like it's going to be ousted. Anyways, for now, let's just wait and watch the campaigning by all parties. If possible, we will discuss more on these elections in another blogpost later.

4. Jaipur Literary festival. Essentially this "festival" is a conglomeration of various authors from around India and the world. All of them come together and discuss/talk issues. Salman Rushdie was invited to come too. As always, Deoband demanded that he not be allowed. The Congress party, in tune with its muslim appeasement policy, immediately advises Salman rushdie not to come. He doesn't come. Deoband hailed it as a "victory for democracy". And to protest against this whole mindless objection, some authors read from his banned book "The Satanic Verses". Now since the book is banned, it is illegal to have a copy of that book and more so, to read from it in a public forum! So one of the reader, tweets saying "On advice, I have left India". This is the pathetic state in which the government handled this whole issue.

5. And to end on a fully lighter note. Pakistan finds itself in a crisis again. Nothing new in that. The Army is unhappy with the government. The government is unhappy with the Army. The Supreme Court even summoned the Prime Minister. And the drama continues to play out repeatedly. No reprieve in sight for this self-made crisis! That's all, your honour!

అదన్నమాట! : జనవరి 15-21

2012-01-22T09:13:00.003+05:30

ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారు డిల్లి వెళ్ళరు అండి. వెళ్ళిన రోజూ దాదాపు రెండు గంటలు ఘులాం నబి ఆజాద్ గారితో చర్చించారు. మరుసటి రోజూ మళ్ళి ఒక గంటనర్ర చర్చించారు. ఆ తరువాత సోనియా గాంధి తో ఇంకో గంట పైగా చర్చించారు. ఇన్ని గంటలు చర్చిస్తే ఏదో అయ్యిపోతుంది అని ఊహించాం. జరిగింది ఏంటి మరి ? - ఒకప్పటి చిరంజీవి పార్టీ కి సంభందించిన ఇద్దర్ని మంత్రివర్గం లోకి తీసుకున్నారు. శంకర్ రావు గారిని తప్పించారు! ఇంతే!

బొత్స గారు కూడా డిల్లి వెళ్ళరు. ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారి తో కాకుండా, ఆయన వేరు గా మాట్లాడారు ఆజాద్ గారితో. ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారు ఏమో మంత్రివర్గ పూర్తి ప్రక్షాళన చేద్దాం అనుకుని వెళ్ళరు. బొత్స గారు దానికి వ్యతిరేకం అంట. అందుకే ఈ సారి బొత్స గారు గెలిచినట్టు వార్తల్లో రాసారు. బొత్స గారు యధాప్రకారం గా ఈ వార్తలని ఖండించారు అనుకోండి.

అయితే, ఇక్కడ మనం చర్చిన్చోకవాల్సిన విషయం ఇంకోటి ఉంది అండి. చిరంజీవి గారు ఒకప్పుడు నడిపిన పీఆర్పీ కి చెందినా శ్రీ ఘంట శ్రీనివాస్ గారు, శ్రీ సి. రామచంద్రయ్య గారు మంత్రులు గా ప్రమాణ స్వీకారం చేసారు. వీరు ఇద్దరు 2009 వరకు తెలుగు దేశం సభ్యులు, ముఖ్యులు కూడా. వీళ్ళు ఏమి చిరంజీవి వల్ల పైకి వచ్చిన వాళ్ళు కాదు. చిరంజీవి తపపెట్టిన సామజిక న్యాయం వీళ్ళ వల్ల ఏ మాత్రం రాదు. చిరంజీవి కాంగ్రెస్స్ లోకి కలిసాక, ఆ పార్టి కే వోటు వెయ్యాలి అండి - బెదిరించి వేరే పార్టి కి వోటు వేసే అంత సీన్ లేదు ఆయనకి. రెండు మంత్రి పడవలు ఇస్తే తీసుకోవడం తప్పించి పెద్దగా చేసేది ఏమి లేదు. ఈ శాఖలు వద్దు, ఆ శాఖలు కావాలి అని మారాం చెయ్యడం చాల విడ్డురంగా ఉంది.

ఏదైతే ఎం - చిరంజీవి గారిని నమ్ముకున్న వారికి చెడు అనుభవాలే మిగిలాయి. ఎప్పటి నుంచో ఆరి తేరిన నాయకులు ఇద్దరు మంత్రులు అయ్యారు. అదన్నమాట!

That's all, Your Honour!: Jan 1-7

2012-01-08T09:01:00.000+05:30

1. A lot of political activity has taken place in Andhra Pradesh (yep, AP, not UP :) ) this week. The Chief Minister has become an expert at making tall claims about his programs. Infact, I am pretty sure he spends more money on advertisements than on the actual schemes itself! One of the schemes he tom tomed was "Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu". Leave the opposition parties and the cynics, his own ministers were clueless about this scheme. State Congress chief picked up a fight with the CM too, about this scheme. The CM promised 1 lakh private sector jobs by December. He also said the PM will give out all these letters in December. The PM hasn't come yet, but the CM's office released a statement saying about 1,01,000 jobs have been created! The Hindu carried this report which detailed how even the "youth" are confused what this scheme is about!

Amidst this confusion, party incharge Ghulam Nabi Azad came to Hyderabad to chair the first meeting of the newly formed "co-ordination committee". Entire regional media was agog with reports on how the CM was cornered by the panel members. The deputy CM is miffed that he is being sidelined and is not being consulted. Same complaint by the PCC chief. Same complaint by many other leaders. If this does not signify dissent, then what does?

Meanwhile, the plan is to increase current charges and increase the number of power holidays from 5 to 12 days a month for industries. And to add to these woes, two tragedies struck the state. 19 people died after they drank illegal hooch. Just 2 days after this, 24 people were taken ill in another district. These tragedies bought to the fore, the massive liquor "mafia" in the state. This article in The Hindu is a must read, to understand how this syndicate works in the state.

And the assembly Speaker finally broke his silence. Remember the no-confidence motion in the assembly last month? 16 Congress MLAs voted against the government. As is his trademark, the Speaker tells us he will try to close this case before the budget session! This has been the gameplan of the Congress always - delay every problem to the maximum possible extent! And then rue the indecision.

Lastly, the Obulapuram Mining case continues to haunt the government. The IAS officer who signed the file has been sent back to jail. As expected, the minister in charge at that time, Sabita Reddy is not even an accused in the case - she is just a witness (and is now the Home Minister of the state)!

2. Meanwhile, the election commission has announced elections for five states, about 10 days back. UP, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Punjab will go to elections in February. Needless to say, all eyes are on the election in UP. The english media seems to have placed all its bets on Rahul Gandhi. Various surveys are projecting various results too. Mayawati has sacked some ministers from the cabinet. This week's hot political story is that some of these ministers are joining in BJP. Parties and media picked on the BJP for this decision - specifically for inducting Babu Singh Kushwaha into the party. The BJP has specifically attacked Kushwaha when he was the minister. Mindful of the OBC votes he might bring in, the BJP took a u-turn and inducted him into the party. After a minor backlash, the party has announced that he will not be given a ticket. Kushwaha has written to Nitin Gadkari asking him to put his membership on hold till he is absolved of charges. CBI raided the offices of Kushwaha the very next day after he joined BJP. While the CBI continues to dance to the tunes of the Congress party, the next few weeks are going to see some high voltage political action.

3. If you think that BSP, SP, BJP, Congress, RLD are the only parties fighting the elections in UP, you are mistaken. The Election Commission should also be added to the list. The EC has ordered that all statues of Maywati and elephants (BSP symbol) should be covered with cloth. Apparently the statues will influence the voter it seems. This decision is absurd at many levels, but in my view is an insult to the voter. That's all, your honour!

అదన్నమాట!: జనవరి 1-7

2012-01-08T09:00:00.000+05:30

ముందుంది మరింత మంచి కాలం అని మన ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారు ఆ మధ్య సెలవు ఇచ్చారు కదండీ. ఈ వారం పరిశ్రమలకు ఒక వారం ప్రకటించింది ప్రబుత్వం. ఇప్పుడు నెలలో 5 రోజులు పరిశ్రమలకు కరంట్ ఇవ్వటం లేదు. ఇక మీదట నెలలో 12 రోజులు ఇవ్వరు అంట! ఇది ఇలా ఉండగా, కరంట్ చార్జీలు కూడా పెంచుతున్నారు అంట.

రాష్ట్రంకి ఘులాం నబి ఆజాద్ గారు వచ్చారు. పార్టి కి ప్రభుత్వానికి సమంవయం పెంచడానికి వచ్చారు అంట. ఇది అదును గా తీసుకుని, రాష్ట్ర కాంగ్రెస్స్ నేతలు అంతా ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారి ఏక పక్ష పని తీరు మీద అసహనం వ్యక్త పరిచారు. ఆజాద్ గారు అన్ని విన్నారు.. వెళ్ళిపోయారు! సాక్షాతూ ఉప-ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారు కూడా తన గోడు చెప్పుకునారు అంట. మన సంగతి ఏమో కాని, ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారి "కాలం" మాత్రం అస్సలు బాలేనట్టు గా ఉంది !

ఇది ఇలా ఉండగా, స్పీకర్ గారు ఏమో ఇంకా 17 ఎమ్యెల్యేలు మీద ఎలాంటి చర్యలు తీసుకోలేదు. త్వరలో తీసుకుంటారు అంట. అదన్నమాట!

Lokpal: TV "debate" versus Parliament debate

2012-01-02T10:22:00.001+05:30

Take a look at the below snapshot.

That snapshot is of a TV "debate" on CNN-IBN. I am sure other channels would have had such a cluttered format too. So this is not just specific to CNN-IBN.

8 people. 19 minutes. Each argument overlapping another. In these 8 people, we don't see the anchor. Add him/her and you get 9 people in a "debate" for 19 minutes. On an average, 2.11 minutes per person.

Contrast this to the actual debate in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The above snapshot was before the debate in RS, but even the LS debate would suffice for now.

The full uncorrected debate text in LS is here. From pages 7256 to 7474. A total of 218 pages of debate. And the debate was for about 11 hours. Yeah, 11 hours.

The full uncorrected debate text in RS is here. From pages 10 to 509 (with disruptions). A total of ~500 pages. And more than 12 hours.

But our TV media wants to "debate" such serious issues in 20 minutes. With 8-10 members. And what's even more saddening is that folks forget the detailed stance of parties in the parliament debates - instead pick up one liners (that are often disrupted too!) as official party lines. What a pity!

That's all, your honour: Dec.25-31

2012-01-01T18:58:00.002+05:30

1. Did you know that Srinivasa Ramanujan ran away from his house at the age of 18? And more interestingly, his father wrote a letter to The Hindu giving details, so that if anyone finds him, they can report it! This letter was carried out by The Hindu last week and it was a very pleasant surprise. Take a look at the letter here. Also, The Hindu carried out a special supplement on Ramanujan and about the growth of maths in India, career opportunities in India etc. The supplement was very enlightening with even photographs of inscriptions showing old numbers. This year is being celebrated as the National year of Mathematics, commemorating the 125th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan. Hope that more and more students will get interested in mathematics in the coming years :) . The only sore point in the whole celebrations was a speech by Kapil Sibal. Another empty promise by him - exam centric system to go. How? Please don't ask how - Sibal can only talk pompously!

2. The Lokpal bill continues to dominate the political discussions in the country. I will write in some more detail later about how the ruling party cheated people at every stage of the bill. Last week, the bill was passed in Lok Sabha but the game changing idea of Rahul Gandhi - to give Lokpal a constitutional status was defeated in the Lok Sabha. An earlier blog gives details of that session. Next stop was Rajya Sabha. The bill was tabled only on wednesday evening in the house, and it took up discussion only thursday. Even the ally of the congress, Trinamool Congress was very unhappy about this bill. The opposition too was deeply disappointed with this bill. A total of 187 amendments were moved by TMC and the opposition parties. The government realised late into the night that the session has to end at 12am, and since there was no time, the bill was to be deferred. Opposition parties said they were ready to sit through the night, but the government said they need time to go over the 187 amendments. After a shameful ruckus orchestrated by the ruling party in the presence of the Prime Minister, the house was adjourned sine die. The Lokpal bill debate now moves on to the next session. More drama awaits us in the budget session

3. Meanwhile, the congress government in AP is spending more on ads than on actual schemes in Andhra Pradesh. And after telling us that "a year later, the state is even better", the government is now increasing power tariffs in the state. An expected increase in revenue is about Rs. 5000 crores from this increase. This is just one amongst a big list of burdenous policy of this government! And the year just began - dreaded to think what lies ahead for us!

అదన్నమాట! : డిసంబర్ 25-31

2012-01-01T18:54:00.002+05:30

"ముందుంది మరింత మంచి కాలం" అని మన ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారు తెగ చెప్పెసుకున్తునారు అండి. కేవలం 2-12 గంటల కరంట్ కొత్త ఉంది రాష్ట్రం లో.... కాని "ముందుంది మరింత మంచి కాలం" లెండి. ఇప్పుడు ఏమో కరంట్ చార్జీలు పెంచుతారు అంట. కేవలం 5000 కోట్లు వస్తాయి ఈ పెంపు తో. అయిన సరే, "ముందు ఉంది మరింత మంచి కాలం". డిసెంబర్ నెలలో లక్ష ఉద్యోగాలకి ప్రధాన మంత్రి గారు వచ్చి మరీ ఇస్తారు అని చెప్పారు. జనవరి వచ్చింది. ఉద్యోగాలు వచ్చాయో లేదో తెలిదు, ప్రధాన మంత్రి వస్తారో లేదో తెలిదు. అయిన సరే "ముందుంది మరింత మంచి కాలం" ! ఇలా చెప్పుకుంటూ పొతే చాలానే ఉంటాయి లెండి ... ప్రస్తుతానికి ఇక్కడితో ఆపెస్తా. అదన్నమాట!

Devil in detail - Part 2 - Lokpal bill in Lok Sabha

2011-12-28T11:09:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, the UPA government introduced the Lok Pal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011 and the Constitution (116th Amendment) Bill, 2011

After the minister introduced the bill, leader of opposition, Sushma Swaraj rose to speak. At around the 42nd minute, she was making some calculations needed for a constitutional amendment. This was in the context of 2/3rd of 50% total strength. She arrived at the figure of a minimum of 182 members have to agree.

Leader of the house, Pranab Mukherjee stood up at this point of time. At around the 43rd minute, he clarified that a minimum of 275 votes are needed for a constitutional bill to be passed. Minimum 275. Sushma Swaraj said she stands corrected and proceeded with her speech.

Let's quickly see what the rule book says.

Constitution Amendment Bills have to be passed in each House of Parliament by a special majority ie. by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of the House “present and voting”.

It effectively means that atleast 273 members have to support the bill, and on top of that 2/3rd of those who are present in the house should support the bill. Only then can the constitution be amended.

Now, let's see what happened at the end of the day, yesterday.

The Constitution amendment bill (116th Amendment), 2011 was put up for vote. 251 members voted for it. The official strength of the ruling coalition is 277. After some complicated mathematical operations, we see that 26 members of the ruling coalition were missing (in which there were congress MPs too!). This government could not get the minimum required support for passing this bill, and yet is going on the overdrive to blame the BJP for "not wanting a strong Lokpal".

Let's get into a few details in a short while. Before that, another important piece of information.

For the past 6-8 months, Lokpal and Lokayukta was the most debated bill everywhere. Normally reticent working class also took to streets demanding a strong lokpal (though they had no idea on the details). Government, led by Kapil Sibal, screamed on top of their voice saying "Parliament is supreme."

Yesterday, the Lokpal bill was passed by voice vote. Some members demanded "division of votes" for some of their amendments. The government's numbers were only in the range of 247-251. SP, BSP, AIADMK walked out of the house because they did not like the bill and their "demands were not met". Walking out meant that the government can get this through technically.

BJP, JD(U), SS, CPI, CPI(M) were outrightly opposing this Lokpal bill. We still don't know what TMC was thinking. Either way, a bill that captured the imagination of so many did not even have the support of 50% of the total strength of the house. Not even 273 members supported this bill - and we are witness to the headline today - "Lokpal bill passed".

And media screams - "History made".

Rhetorical arguments for congress is that "BJP is against Lokpal", "Opposition is against Lokpal". Wrong. They are against this version of the Lokpal.

Sonia Gandhi apparently said that:

BJP's asli chehra dekha hamne.this despite their commitment for constitutional status for #lokpal in standing committee

Sushma Swaraj in her speech yesterday said that the Standing committee explicitly said there should be no reservations in Lokpal. The Sonia Gandhi led government brings in this bogus of reservations in a constitutional body, and then when the opposition cries foul with this version, rhetoric flows and media laps it up? 50% reservation in a constitutional body? What next? Reservation in EC, CAG etc? Whom are we really fooling here?

Members from the opposition articulated their objections and reservations in good detail yesterday. They went into specifics as to why they were objecting to this version of the Lokpal bill. Subjects like minority reservations, federal structure ( here too, Kapil Sibal painted a picture that the opposition was against strong Lokayukta which was not the case!), composition, selection, removal, even age limit was discussed!

Meanwhile, what is this fuss about giving it a constitutional status? Primarily because this was Rahul Gandhi's "game changing" idea, the government lapped it up. From the limited discussion on twitter, looks like the only advantage of having such a status is that disbanding the institution will be difficult. Either way, this is purely mis-management by the Sonia Gandhi led government. Like Sushma Swaraj said, the government's aim seems to have been to bring some version of the bill, somehow get it passed and say "We passed the bill".

That's exactly what happened yesterday. This version of the Lokpal bill did not even get the "ayes" of 50% of the total strength of Lok Sabha. This rhetorical bluff of "opposition not supporting" is getting nauseating to hear.

Finally our media.

A division of votes is necessary to even introduce a constitutional amendment bill. Same voting rule applies here too. A minimum of 273 and 2/3rd of those present in the house will have to agree. Yesterday, 321 members agreed for the bill to be introduced in the house. Just for introduction. CNN-IBN journalist Pallavi Ghosh was thrilled.

Rahul's as desired constitutional amendment bill passed

Only to realise that the vote was just for introduction. Each clause of the bill had to be voted upon. And then the true numbers came out. And then she says:

Rahul's dream shattered: no constitutional status to lokpal..govt blames bjp..politics begins

Within the hour, the media went from bill passed to bill shattered. And the politics begins!

Central govt.'s favours to UP in one month...

2011-12-26T06:52:00.000+05:30

#Telugu newspaper eenadu has published the list of projects/benefits showered on UP in the last one month, by the Rahul Gandhi driven central government.

Am translating the article here, for the benefit of the non-telugu reading audience.

Nov.19 - a special package announced for the weavers of the state by the Union textiles minister.
Nov.24 - a Central agricultural university to be set up in Jhansi, Bundelkhand to assist the agriculturally backward Bundelkhand region. University to be named after Rani Jhansi.
Nov. 22 - A ministerial sub-committee was formed to study the prevention of "brain fever" deaths in about 14 districts in the Gorakhpur region. Many deaths are reported every year, but it is only this year that such a committee was set-up keeping an eye on the elections.
Dec.17 - In the presence of Rahul Gandhi, Vayalar Ravi announced the setting up of a Rajiv Gandhi Aviation university in Furstaganj, Rai Baireily. Rai Baireily is represented by Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha
Dec.18 - RLD leader Ajit Singh inducted as Civil Aviation minister into the union Cabinet. This move was necessiated keeping in the mind the large influence of Jat voters in western Uttar Pradesh
Dec.22 - To woo the muslim vote bank that was tilting towards Mulayam, centre takes an urgent decision to award a 4.5% reservation in education/jobs for muslims.
Dec. 23 - Union Minister for steel, Beni Prasad Verma announces the setting up of a joint venture steel factory near Barabanki and Lakhimpurkheri. He signs an agreement to this effect in Lucknow. He further announces that similar ventures will come up at Jhansi, Hordoi and Mirzapur districts.
Dec. 23 - National status has been granted to the Sarayunpur Yojana and Sarada Sahayak irrigation projects. As part of this grant, Rs. 3124 crores have been released to these two projects. It is mandated that only one project at a time can be granted this status, but with Rahul Gandhi's influence, two projects have been given national status.
The food security bill is being introduced in Parliament with the Uttar Pradesh elections in mind.

Some personal observations (some made in the local media too)

The aviation university granted to Sonia's constituency was expected to be set-up at the old Hyderabad airport. Most of the infrastructure needed in already present at this airport. As always, Andhra Pradesh, despite sending the largest number of Congress MPs, gets sidelined. And not a whimper of protest by our MPs here.
AP government wants the central government to declare the Polavaram and Pranahita-Chevalla irrigation projects as "national projects". Only then will their works be speeded up. These project files are gathering dust with the central government, whilst out of the blue, 2 projects in UP are showered with Rs. 3124 crores. Perhaps we will get our national status sometime in Dec. 2013 too. All will hail Sonia and Rahul then.
It was neither surprising nor shocking to see that the English TV media and print media have not covered this largesse of the central government. No such list has been prepared by any channel. They are all busy hyping up Rahul Gandhi as the only saviour of Uttar Pradesh.

Am now bracing up for "Rahul takes on Mayawati" headlines in the media everyday till Feb.28 (that's when elections end in UP).

The devil is in the detail - Food Security Bill

2011-12-21T09:52:00.001+05:30

The tax payer is the most abused person in the country.

Earn money, pay tax. Buy a vehicle, pay road tax. Buy an ice-cream, pay service tax. On all these taxes, pay more tax for "education cess". Get "fringe benefit" from your company, pay tax. If you give "fringe benefit" to employees, pay tax. And on top of your corporate tax, pay more tax for "education cess". Register your house, pay tax. Invest money, pay tax on returns from that investment. Buy goods, pay Value added tax. Buy liquor, pay tax. Essentially, pay tax when you earn and spend. For 2010-2011, the money earned by the government of India from various kinds of taxes is Rs. 7,46,65,10,00,000/- only. Approximately Seven lakh crores.

But the moment the tax payer actually wants better roads for which he is paying money, s/he is derided. How shameless of you to demand from an already over-burdened, over-worked government to make proper use of your money? The moment a tax payer wants to know where exactly the "education cess" is going, lectures are reeled out on how the payee is out of touch with reality and how s/he should travel to the villages to know how bad the education system is.

TV channels shout from the roof-top - "tax payer's money being wasted", but when the "tax payer" actually comments on current affairs/politics, s/he is immediately labelled saying, "but you don't vote". Actually it works two ways - if you are not familiar with current affairs, you are derided. If you are familiar, then you are derided too!

Rupees Seven lakh crores is what the tax payer gives the government and then s/he has to face the question - "What is it that you are doing for the country?" Embarrassing, no? Even more embarassing, when you are just expected to pay and not lament/comment on how it is being spent!

And that's precisely what this rant is going to be. I have serious issues with how the money is being ~~spent~~.abused. And because I make a contribution (though minuscule percentage) to that large tax treasury, I am taking the freedom here to vent out my complaints. And yeah, I do vote. And I did not vote for the Congress, so please to spare me the "you voted for this government, so live with it" argument.

The picture below is a hoarding near the Jubilee Hills junction in Hyderabad. It talks about the boon to the poor - Rs.1/kg rice scheme. Apologies for the angle at which it was taken - we were on a bike and could not stop for a better angle. Nevertheless, I marked in red the important point in the hoarding, which when translated reads thus:

"7.5 crore poor people will benefit"

See now I have a problem with this number. The census of 2011 puts the population of AP at 8.46 crores. Doing some complicated math, we can conclude that the AP government has classified a meagre 88.65% of it's population as "poor". The civil supplies minister also announced that about 25 lakh applications for a white ration card are pending. And because the Chief Minister does not want "anyone to sleep with hunger", he reduced the cost of rice from a whopping Rs.2/kg to Rs.1/Kg !

I sincerely apologise if my understanding is wrong, but shouldn't any self respecting government do more to bring people out of poverty than to push them into poverty? Is it wrong to expect that the policies of the government should enable more poor people to become self sufficient and grow along with the economy? But gee - how insensitive can I get? I, the salaried class, the luxuried class - have the guts to mock the meagre 88.62% poor and their capacity to pay? How arrogant of me to actually contribute money for schemes like this and yet question their ~~sanctity~~ stupidity!

And then came along the National Food Security bill. This time, I did not want to be arrogant, ill-informed, ignorant etc. And right at that point of time, much to my staggering good luck, the Editorial Director of NDTV tweets:

"Incredible to hear Amartya Sen,Jean Dreze explain lucidly &eloquently, why India cant afford NOT to have a Food Security bill.9:30pm,Sunday"

So now I eagerly wait for Sunday to come. Now, I know that all my insensitive doubts about this massively expensive food security bill will be cleared by the panel of experts. And at the beginning of the show, the scroll reads:

"More children die in India at birth than in Bangladesh and Nepal."

Well, given that the population of India is much much more than Bangladesh and Nepal put together, wouldn't the actual number of children dying also be more? But we digress. The show begins, and for about 15 minutes, no concrete statistics are put out. No numbers whatsoever. The eternal rhetoric of the need to feed the poor etc goes on. And then a comment by a man from Gorakhpur. This man has a genuine complaint about nutrition in food and also the need to tackle deadly diseases like encephalitis. And the discussion veers towards health care, which has no connection to the Food security bill.

What the man wanted was proper health care, which is a perfectly genuine demand and I bet no tax payer in this country will object if the government chooses to spend on health care. The show moved on to corruption, economy blah blah, that I lost interest. I did not know anything new after the 20 minutes that I watched it. On top of this, one of the journalist on the show thinks that the food bill "guarantees free ration"!

So, I made one more attempt. PRS Legislative site had put up the draft of the food security bill.

Every person belonging to priority households and general households,.. shall be entitled to receive every month from the State Government,.. such quantity of foodgrains at such prices as may be specified in Schedule I .

The current Public Distribution System classifies card holders into three categories.

Above Poverty Line
Below Poverty Line
AAY - Antyodaya Anna Yojana.

AAY identifies 1.5 crore poorest of the poor families in the country. And then gives them rice at Rs.3/kg and wheat at Rs.2/kg (35kgs per family). 1.5 crore poorest of the poor families means about 6-8 crore people in the country, which is about 6% of the population.

This was in the year 2000. In the year 2011, the central government wants to increase this 5% to 46% rural and 28% urban "poor people". Is this progress? Is this what we have reduced "aam aadmi" to?

Anyways, the devil always lies in the detail. 7kgs of "foodgrain" per person. Foodgrain is defined as " rice, wheat or coarse grains or any combination thereof ". So therefore a four member family has to come up with a combination of its needs. Let's do some complicated math.

Currently, various states (with the exception of visionary states like AP) give rice at Rs.3.50-Rs.5.50 range to BPL families. Assuming a four member family gets 21 kg of rice at Rs. 3 instead of Rs.5.50/-, they are saving a whopping 21*2.50 = Rs. 52.50 per month. Wheat is sold at Rs.7 a kg in AP. Assuming that is the national average - there's a further saving of 7*5= Rs.35. A total of Rs.87.50 per month per family. Is our country in such dire straits that 46% of our rural population are thrilled at the prospect of saving about 3 rupees per day? Is it is not a grave setback that we are actually encouraging them to entitlements like this, and giving them false hope that this price will remain low for a long time?

The next small detail - Rs.1/kg for coarse grains.

The average shelf life of coarse grains is limited, making them unsuitable for long-term storage and distribution under PDS. The inclusion of coarse cereals under PDS cannot be taken up as a national level programme since there is no standard variety of coarse grain. However, initiatives on the part of state governments catering to the needs of specific localities are possible.

No, those above observations are not by those wretched tax payers. It is an observation made by the planning commission, in it's 10th Five Year plan (2002-2007). Just about 10 years ago, the planning commission observed that coarse grains cannot be distributed through PDS. But this is 2011, which means another five year plan has come up. Take a look at the PDS section in 11th five year plan. No mention at all about the coarse grains. None.

So now we have no plan on how to store and distribute the grains, but we have a bill which wants to distribute this at Rs.1/kg to 46% rural population and 28% urban population.

A small complication here. The bill limits the subsidy to "upto 75% of rural and 50% urban population". What about my state, Andhra Pradesh then? We have a meagre 88.6% people... :(

Now, let's take a look at the burden on the government for this hare-brained scheme. The picture of the hoarding is another example. The burden for giving rice at Rs.1/kg to 7.5 crore people is Rs.2600 crore. According to the current Food bill, it looks like about 75 crore people are the intended beneficiaries. So after doing some complicated math, we arrive at a conservative estimate of ~Rs. 26,000 crore per year. And this is with respect to subsidy on one food grain. A conservative estimate of subsidy on three foodgrains can be put at Rs. 50,000 crore. Where will this money come from, year over year? Remember the tax payer?

Phew!

Did you think the the bill is done? No, more is yet to come. "Nutritional food to children from 6 months to 6 years, every day, free of charge." and "Nutritional food as part of mid-day meals for children from 6-14 years, except on school holidays". Remember the "education cess" you pay on top of all those taxes? The mid-day meal is partly funded through that cess. And now we have to feed children upto 6 years too. So we will need more money. Any guesses from where it will come?

The best part of this bill is yet to come:

"In case of failure to supply the entitled quantities of foodgrains or meal ... such persons shall be entitled to receive food security allowance from the concerned State Government,... as may be prescribed by the Central Government."

So there you go - these people will be paid money if they cannot be given food grains. And it has not yet been decided how much! So we have no clarity on how we will distribute coarse grains and how much money will be given in case of failure to distribute. Now obviously, you can't give them 52 rupees in lieu of the 21kg rice they are entitled to. The amount will be atleast 3 times - which means you dole out Rs.150 per family. And more importantly, central government will decide how much the state government will pay - can there be a bigger incursion on the federal freedom? Ohh no wait - this provision will enable Rahul Gandhi to go into opposition ruled states and say "Your state govt. is not spending the money our central govt. is giving".

The Food security bill also provides for nutritional food for pregnant women and lactating mothers. While this aspect is appreciable given the number of deaths at birth, the argument that many of us are trying to make is that such schemes have to reach those who are in actual need of it. Not this "One size, fits all" category. This bill also gives a provision for feeding destitute and starving people, two meals a day.

So we now have a conservative estimate of Rs.50,000 crores plus no estimates on nutritional food, meals for destitute and on the money to be disbursed. We also have no clue on the guidelines to identify this 75%, 46%, 50%, and 28% population. Some well meaning folks peg the bill at about 2,00,000 crores too. Official estimates vary from Rs. 22,000 crores to Rs. 1,15,000 crores. From the contrived logic of this blogpost, we can atleast conclude that the 22,000 crore number is a total myth!

So what is the solution?

Revitalisation of Agriculture
Procurement, Storage and Movement related interventions
Reforms in TPDS

No no, those are not my ideas. In the last 2 pages of the bill, the drafters have enlightened us with this supreme gyan. The think we have to invest more in agriculture infrastructure. Man, where would we have been without such brilliant guidance.

Unfortunately, that dreaded state of Gujarat shows us the solution. They have already done these exact same things the drafters of this bill think should be done. Since it is a sin to emulate anything that happens in Gujarat, I guess we will be stuck with rhetorical bills like these only.

Thankfully, Chief Ministers like Jayalalitha and Narendra Modi have already objected to the bill saying it infringes upon the economic freedom of the states. Jayalalitha also is believed to have said that this bill creates a lot of confusion too. As we can see above, a mere look at the provisions is throwing up so many combinations, no wonder leaders feel this is confused.

At a time, when we should be talking of progress, we seem to be taking pride in the exact opposite. There are many basic questions that arise out of schemes like NREGA, FSB etc. Even members of Parliament are complaining about the ill-effects of schemes like NREGA and yet we do not want to take any corrective measure whatsoever.

We need better debates. We need better dissemination of information. Not mere rhetoric or random observations like this. Thankfully, the bill will not immediately become law. It has to be introduced in Parliament, then has to go to standing committee and then will come back to the Cabinet. That buys us atleast 3 months.

Ohh and before I forget, can you imagine the scope of corruption in such a hare-brained scheme? Can you imagine the amount of pilferage? Can you imagine the clamour for being classified in that 75%? Can you imagine the loss to the exchequer when there will be a food grain shortage and money disbursement will start? And in case you forgot, you fund that exchequer. Your money will be abused, and you will just remain a mute spectator.

The tax payer is the most abused person in our country.

"It is a bill that guarantees..."

2011-12-19T09:55:00.002+05:30

A very quick post. Just to share the awesome in-depth understanding that some TV journos have. This time, from NDTV.

Sonia Singh runs a weekly show, "Your Call" on NDTV. Last week, the topic was about the Right to Food Bill (we will talk in detail about this bill later).

The Indian media likes to show that the people of this country are ignorant on many matters. So NDTV interviews a whopping 3 people to ask them if they know about the Right to Food bill.

And while asking the third person - the knowledgeable NDTV reporter asks " Do you know anything about the Right to Food bill. It is a bill that guarantees an individual the right to free ration".

A reporter who is woefully ignorant of the "Right to food bill" is asking citizens of this country whether they "know anything at all" about this bill. And NDTV plays the video; the anchor then sports a smirk and goes to ask a Nobel Laureate "what is your immediate reaction?". To those unsuspecting citizens, Right to Food bill doesn't give "free ration". It gives subsidized ration. More details later.

Hail Indian Media.

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/your-call/your-call-with-amartya-sen-and-jean-derez/218809?pfrom=home-topstories

Listen from 4:55 - 5:00 and laugh your hearts out!

Update on Dec.21 - I sent a mail and Sonia Singh replied.

The reporter made a mistake, we have informed him and corrected it on the show repeat. Not sure about the smirky smile, will try to correct that as well. Thank you for pointing it out.

I replied back asking her for the updated video and also why they were judgmental in the show. No reply on that yet.

Rahul Dravid's speech

2011-12-15T10:38:00.001+05:30

There were many times I wondered what will be going through the mind of players when they are idle on the field :). And yesterday, I got my answer. And I can vouch that it cannot get any better than this. Rahul Dravid's speech at the Bradman Oration was making rounds, and at the end of the speech he had this to say:

"Before I conclude, I also want to talk brieﬂy about an experience I have often had over the course of my career. It is not to do with individuals or incidents, but one I believe is important to share.

I have sometimes found myself in the middle of a big game, standing at slip or even at the non-strikers end and suddenly realised that everything else has vanished.

At that moment, all that exists is the contest and the very real sense of the joy that comes from playing the game.It is an almost meditative experience where you reconnect with the game just like you did years ago, when you ﬁrst began. When you hit your ﬁrst boundary, took the ﬁrst catch, scored your ﬁrst century, or were involved in a big victory.

It lasts for a very ﬂeeting passage of time, but it is a very precious instant and every cricketer should hang on to it."

Actually I am doing great injustice to his fascinating speech by just quoting his conclusion right at the beginning itself. But since it answered one of the basic questions I had in my mind, I wanted to mention it first :).

We all know the greatness of the player called Rahul Dravid. His record speaks for itself. 36 centuries, 13,000 test runs, 10,000 ODI runs (that too in a format he is accused of being slow!!) is a record that many cannot achieve even in their dreams! However, this speech he delivered yesterday gave us an insight into his brilliant thoughts about the game and what greats like him think about it.

First, he talks about the inspiring stories of cricketers who come from remote places and gives a short glimpse into the team's dressing room and tells us that 15 different languages could be spoken in that one room. While all of us were deriding the impact of television, he explains to us how it played a major role in taking the game to the masses and erasing the "princely" tag attached to it forever. And he also explains how the increase in revenue helped stabilise the life of many cricketers (international and first class).

The striking aspect is his positive tone throught the speech. We have heard the cacophony on TV studios and instant judgements by journalists on whether test cricket is "dying" etc. Rahul Dravid devotes an entire section in his speech to talking about this aspect. We heard it from TV "experts" before, but when he says there is too much cricket and hence a spectator-fatigue, it is time for concerned authorities to sit up and take note. And I liked the way he talks about how the audience at the stadium is very important to the player, and why the audience is not just about generating revenue. It gave me delight to hear him say that a cheering crowd amplifies their resolve to perform well. And I particularly feel good because me along with friends went to watch a test match recently and cheered our throats out :).

His thoughts about the future of the cricket needs to be taken seriously. We need to hear more from the likes of Dravid, Kumble, Sachin, Laxman etc on this game. Not from Arun Lal and Sanjay Manjrekar!

Right at the beginning, he derides how loosely the words "war", "battle" are used when referring to cricket, which at the end of the day is a sport and not a battlefield. This speech should also make the media realise how fallacious their usage of such words is. He was speaking at their National War Memorial and had this to say:

This building, however, recognises the men and women who lived out the words – war, battle, ﬁght - for real and then gave it all up for their country, their lives left incomplete, futures extinguished

How true, and how dignified of him to actually make a mention of this and bring the media back home to it's feet.

Also notice how he says "Cricketing world will watch" instead of saying "World will watch". After all, cricket is actively played in just 9 countries. But then as usual our media won't learn right? Their headline - "World will watch India-Australia series" !

Anyways, let's not digress :). This entire speech here, is a must read for all cricket lovers. It has honesty written all over it. It gives us a glimpse of the thought process of a man who has given Indian cricket a lot of treasure. After he retires, am sure we will come up with many "Is X the next Dravid" when X scores a couple of centuries at No. 3 position in tests. But we, who have been fortunate to have seen him exhibit his art, know there will be no other Dravid. Thank you Rahul Dravid :)

"Perform or perish" !!!

2011-12-14T10:21:00.000+05:30

Message to ministers: perform or perish

Thus screams the byline of this new report that is titled : "Enough is enough, Manmohan wants to pump in purpose". After we have seen how ministers disregard his sagely advices, are we to really believe that Dr. Manmohan Singh actually means his message "perform or perish"? By that yardstick, the first person who has to perish is the Prime Minister himself!

The 51% FDI in retail decision is being talked about a lot. It is also being talked about as if this is THE policy reform that will cure all our ills. And as usual, the blame is being passed on to the opposition for stalling a "reform" measure thereby bringing in immeasurable misery upon the country. If there is anyone to be blamed for this fiasco, it is the Prime Minister himself. In the two press conferences that he was asked about reform process, he mentioned only GST and never once mentioned FDI. He knew there are deep divisions within allies and the congress party itself, yet made sure it went through the cabinet in a jiffy. Leave the opposition parties aside, this bill was put on hold because the allies and members of Congress party were against 51% FDI in retail. If the Prime Minister is so incompetent to rein in his own allies, why blame the opposition for "policy paralysis"?

The news report mentions that the "thrust areas" vary from social spending to infrastructure development to administrative reforms to anti-corruption to North-east to what not! Basically, this encompasses the whole gamut of issues currently at hand. In each of these areas, the government performance has been dismal by any standard. And it has dawned upon the leader of the country that he has to "review" these areas on a monthly basis.

An economy in distress needs direction from an "economist" Prime Minister, but here we are - jumping with joy that the Prime Minister has decided to "review" certain "thrust areas" on a monthly basis. Even one step upwards from the abyss this government is in, is being celebrated as if a whole new dawn is upon us. If Manmohan wants to "pump in purpose", he needs to lead, not review. But then, we are asking for too much from this Prime Minister who is a perfect example of the famous quote "there go my people, I have to find out where they are going so that I can lead them".

Our right to write

2011-12-08T11:32:00.001+05:30

The following article was written for a newspaper - Postnoon. Pasting it below :)

Let's assume for a moment that Kapil Sibal's idea will get converted into law. The law says social websites to block material that is deemed “threatening, abusive, harassing, blasphemous, objectionable, defamatory, … or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever.” Here's the first basic question - who will decide whether something is abusive, objectionable blah blah?

Let's further assume that the genius in Mr. Kapil Sibal came up with a satisfactory answer to our first question. The next question is this - who is next? By the same logic, will factionist and mafia movies be banned? Shouldn't those soap operas on TV be banned for being abusive etc? Better yet, what about the "debates" on news channels which qualify for the adjectives above?

However these questions arising from mere assumptions are not the reason why Kapil Sibal's idea is a joke. As lofty as it may sound, it is a joke because it steals from you, one of your basic freedoms - the freedom of expression. The government wants to first read what you wish to express, and then decide if it is appropriate or not for your neighbour or the citizen of Uzbekistan to read it. It actually doesn't matter that social websites do provide for a "report spam" or "block" button. It also doesn't matter that some websites actually remove "objectionable" content after getting complaints. It also doesn't matter that it is practically impossible to pre-screen everything that gets posted.

What has logic got to do with anything as long as the government is unable to comprehend that ordinary citizens like you and me found a platform to criticize and have the gall to do so openly without any fear? And this is no exaggeration because a Google Transparency report says that the government wanted it to remove 255 items citing "government criticism" as the reason. Such actions are as despicable as banning books and movies merely because they might hurt a few. It is also a sad reflection of an inefficient system when a minister who is entrusted with the responsibility of reforming and running our education system gets busy with stealing our rights. Even worse if he is doing this to deflect attention from more pressing issues.

As HRD minister, Kapil Sibal said - No more X board exams! Students are still writing those exams. As Telecom Minister, he said there is "zero loss" in the 2G scam. We know how big a lie that is. Here's hoping that his third attempt at his "15 minute fame" also meets its natural death! After all, it's about our right to write, right? :)

Arun Shourie and AP Assembly...

2011-12-06T13:51:00.001+05:30

I think two incidents defined the no-confidence motion that was debated in the AP Assembly yesterday.

1. TRS MLA Harish Rao was speaking on the Rs.1/kg rice scheme. He was mentioning how the government slyly cut down on the sugar and kerosene quota of the ration card holder while reducing the price of rice. He said that only half kg of sugar and less than 4 litres of kerosene was subsidized right now. Because of the reduction in this quota, the ration card holder is burdened by about Rs.30 more than before. At this point of time, the minister of legislative affairs, D. Sridhar babu rises. He gets all combative, demands that he be heard immediately. He then shouts "why are you keeping on repeating "only half kg sugar, only half kg sugar"".

Listening to his tone and looking at his posture, one expected that Harish Rao gave out wrong information and the minister is out to refute it strongly. The minister starts of by saying that government is spending about Rs.800 per person on subsidies for 7 1/2 crore people of the state. And then asks the opposition only "Why did we reduce sugar quota? You have been ministers. You know how it works. It depends on productivity, and on how much we get from the centre. These are administrative decisions" So all that combativeness was to merely agree with the observation that sugar quota has been cut. Later he went to explain why Kerosene quota has been cut. And then launched the rhetoric - we reduced the price of rise from Rs.2/kg to Rs.1/kg .... and so on. the first 6 minutes of this video here captures it all.

Harish Rao got up after the minister's reply and thanked him for acknowledging that quota of other items have been cut. Am sure the minister would have rued accepting that fact on the floor of the assembly. If he kept quiet, people would have just thought this was another rant by the opposition.

2. At around midnight, the CM stood up to reply. He first got into some rhetoric, and then into statistics. At one point, he says that the Leader of Opposition quoted false figures from a CAG report. He wondered how Mr. Naidu cannot even read documents and come well prepared. Mr. Naidu rose, and told the CM the full book name (it's a CAG annual report for 2010-2011), then gives the page number and then quotes the figures again. The figure is about bloated expenditure for irrigation projects. Some 27,000 crores. CM says, no no... main issue is that the report is talking about projects from 40 years. Mr. Naidu again refutes saying that he is quoting about projects that started after 2004, and CAG gives yearly reports, not 40 year old reports. At 3:58 in this video, the CM tells the opposition "When we quote, maybe there is some printing mistake. Please check the book". That was the answer from the leader of the state - "Maybe there is a printing mistake".

I quoted the above two examples just to show how good the governance is actually in Andhra Pradesh. Ministers believe that being combative and throwing in the pro-poor card is the logical answer for actual logical questions posed by the opposition. Almost all the ministers who replied resorted to more rhetoric than facts. The latest fad of the government - Rajiv Yuvakiranalu came under criticism from the ruling party ministers themselves only. This happened last week, and in the assembly yesterday, ministers themselves said they will rectify shortcomings. How they will rectify shortcomings in a program that is yet to be launched is beyond comprehension. The CM already announced that about 1 lakh jobs will be given out in December. He had no answer to how the training is happening for these people.

The CM had no answer on the 2-12 hour power cuts. On crop holiday, he said loans upto 1 lakh are being given interest free to farmers if they pay back within an year. How fair is to expect a farmer who hasn't grown a crop because of wrong policies, to repay a fresh loan in one year?

The quality of the debate reflected the political situation in the state. The TDP was continously harping on the hardships faced by the farmer, in an attempt to gain a pro-farmer image. Though their arguments were laced with many official statistics, the strength of their arguments was often lost in the rhetorical din of the ruling party members. Newspapers in the morning highlighted the personal duel between the CM and opposition leader; between the PCC Chief and the opposition leader; between the PCC chief and YSR's widow etc. The TRS spoke more about their feelings on injustice to Telangana. YSR Congress leader spoke about how this government is screwing up the state. Congress party members lost no opportunity to thank and praise Sonia Gandhi/Rahul Gandhi.

The political significance of yesterday's debate cannot be lost. Jagan Mohan Reddy famously said he has the numbers to bring down the government. Clearly he does not have the numbers now. However, without PRP's support (the merger is not yet legally done), the congress is in a minority. If all those Congress MLAs who voted for the no-confidence motion are disqualified, then the by-elections will be very interesting to watch. Since Chandrababu Naidu accepted Jagan's challenge to place a no-confidence motion, the only loser from this whole episode is Jagan. The real challenge for Congress will be to win the 17 seats that will go to bye-elections. That said, the Telangana issue has been dominating the political scenario of AP so much, that all other issues just take a back seat.

The dramatic drop in the levels of debate and discourse in AP politics for the past 7 years in very depressing. Facts are giving way to fiction. Two previous blogs here and here have documented the dramatic fall in actual governance in Andhra Pradesh. Within no time, it is saddening to write another blog rueing the depressing fall in public discourse.

Do you want further proof of the fall? Minister Sridhar babu brings in Arun Shourie into the debate. In his attempt to discredit BJP floor leader Kishen Reddy, the minister says "From which party is Mr. Kishen Reddy from? From which party? From that party whose member Mr. Arun Shourie wrote a book criticizing the father of Indian constitution. Worshipping false gods." You need more proof?

"A year later, the state is even better..." ?

2011-11-28T10:04:00.007+05:30

The first picture is a huge hoarding in Hyderabad congratulating the CM, Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy for his overwhelmingly successful rule for the last one year. The second picture is an advertisement in The Hindu on November 25th, 2011 (and ofcourse this same ad was there in all newspaper) telling us that "A year later, the state is still better..."

One day later, on November 26th, 2011, a news item titled "No power for villages during daytime" was published. Excerpts below:

"The AP Transco and the distribution companies have decided to continue the present 12-hour power cut (6 a.m. to 6 p.m) in rural areas till the middle of next year,..."

"AP Transco CMD Ajay Jain said the cut now would be implemented for two hours in Hyderabad and other such cities; four hours in district headquarters; six hours in municipalities and; eight hours in mandals"

"If any village gets supply for one or two hours during daytime now, it may be by mistake of the field staff."

And ofcourse the main worry is the implementation of Rajiv-internet something.

"Rajiv-Internet-Village facility launched amidst much fanfare at many villages a couple of years ago will be operational only between 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. when the staff will leave the premises after office-hours"

So let's now revisit, "A year later, the state is even better..." now, shall we?

Like mentioned above, what use is a "internet facility" if there is no power? Of what use will be a SHG that thrives on power, if you cannot ensure it electricity? What about the farmer - where will he get the power from? Leave the 12 hours in villages for now... what about all those small industries in mandal headquarters, municipalities etc? They now have to shell out more money for generators? No power for 4-8 hours for the next six months (and for the past 3-4 months). A state that reels under such massive power cuts for more than half year is supposed to be doing "better"?

When was the last time one heard of a 12 hour power-cut in villages, 8 hours in mandals, 6 hours in municipalities, 4 hours in district headquarters, and 2 hours in cities?

And mind you, the 2 hours in cities is a misnomer. The famed Hitech City area of Hyderabad experiences 4 hour power cuts. There are many such areas that experience these long power cuts and we are to believe that the "A year later, the state is even better..." ?

Ok, leave power cuts for now. Let's talk about those in power. In July, there was this sudden spurt of resignations by Telangana MLAs from the region. The list included 11 ministers including the Home Minister of the state. Obviously the resignation of ministers was not accepted (and of most MLAs too) but the ministers refused to go the secretariat. For about two weeks, they didn't clear any files. And then started clearing files from home. "Work from Home" literally got a new meaning in the state. No Cabinet meet was held after 75 days! Do you know the effect of not having a cabinet meet - many decisions get postponed. Do you know the effect of ministers "working from home"? Only important/urgent files get cleared. An earlier blog piece details this "halt in governance" for months. Yet, "A year later, the state is even better..."?

In September, there was a call for general strike in Telangana. For about 40 days, bus services were affected. Schools and colleges were closed. Coal production stopped. Government employees did not turn up for work. Exams were postponed. Lawyers did not work. This government did not do anything to stop this strike. It just passed time - waited for employees to get exhausted and then come back to work. For about 40 days, people suffered and spent more because of the all the above issues, and yet "A year later, the state is even better..."?

Farmers from many districts were on a crop holiday. Lakhs of acres of land was left unsowed. Primarily because of some government policies. Yet, "A year later, the state is even better..."?

600 out of the 1000 odd mandals in the state have already been declared drought-hit, with no concrete plan to help them out yet. Yet, "A year later, the state is even better..."?

Let's now concentrate a bit on some of the schemes in the advertisement above. The Rs.1/kg rice covers 7.5 crore people in the state. The government is proud of the fact that there 7.5 crore out of the 8 crore people in this state are "poor". So poor that it had to reduce the price of rice from a whopping Rs.2/kg to Rs.1/kg. 7.5 crore out of 8 crore are poor people in this state, and yet "A year later, the state is even better..."?

Rajiv Yuvakiranalu is aimed at giving jobs to people in private sector. The government will act as a facilitator. No jobs have been given out yet - the plan is to give appointment letters to 1 lakh people in December. It's a good thing if these students find eligible jobs, but that still does not mean that "A year later, the state is even better..."!

Indira Jala Prabha was launched in October. Plan is to irrigate about 10 lakh hectares and will primarily benefit SC/ST farmers it seems. It was launched only in October and we are yet to see any tangible results plus there is this power cut problem still!

One good intiative though is "Mee Seva". Now one can get his certificates (caste, birth etc) within 15 minutes without having to bribe every petty official on the way. This program is an extension of e-seva and if it clicks, will go a long way in streamlining government services and can qualify to be advertised under "A year later, the state is even better...".

Interest free loans to farmers upto Rs. 1lakh is not beneficial if they are on a holiday and have no electricity. No way does this mean that "A year later, the state is even better..."!

The much tom-tomed "rachchabanda" program is nothing but clearance of old grievances. And the less spoken of extension of reservations, the better it is :)

At best, this Chief Minister is an expert at maintaining some status quo and introducing a scheme here and a scheme there. He commands little respect amongst his ministerial colleagues. The ongoing tiff between him and the PCC chief is never ending and his handling of the above mentioned problems leaves much to be desired.

If anything, the state is reeling under more problems than ever before. The power cuts for long hours is testimony enough that "one year later, the state is still better..." is a farcial statement.

PS1: On a lighter note, how can "A year later, the state is even better..." be true when we have named only one scheme after Rajiv Gandhi and one scheme after Indira Gandhi. This is such a massive failure!

PS2: Ofcourse, "sources" say Kiran Kumar Reddy was Rahul Gandhi's choice.

UPA 2 : When Politics Trumps Institutions

2011-11-18T06:36:00.002+05:30

The following mid-term perspective of the UPA2 rule was written for Centre Right India and published on their site here: http://centreright.in/2011/11/upa-2-when-politics-trumps-institutions/

Pasting the whole article below :)

‘I have orders from above.’

When a minister of state (with independent charge) in the union Cabinet says this to his officials, what does it mean?

'I have the blessings of my leader'

When the Home Minister of this country is asked a question, "Do you have the confidence of your leader?" after multiple terror attacks, he answers "I have the blessings of my leader". So who is the leader that the Home Minister is referring to?

"He almost warned that even if the Bill is passed by the Cabinet, he would complain to the UPA leadership"

This report says that Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar was upset about a sports bill (yep, you are reading this right. The agriculture minister was opposed to a sports bill, for the obvious reasons!) that was presented to the Cabinet and therefore in the cabinet meeting (which by the way, many ministers from the allies skip), said he will complain to the UPA leadership. What did he mean by "leadership"?

Back in High School, in our civics lessons, we were taught that the Prime Minister is the most powerful person in the country. We were told that all ministers report to him. We were taught that he/she is the ultimate authority when it comes to decision making. In fact when one is preparing for any state or central service examination, an entire chapter is devoted to explain about the authority and responsibilities of the Prime Minister. As assignments, students are made to write short/long essays on this authority of the Prime Minister of India.

So based on our high school experiences, the answer to all three questions above should have been the Prime Minister.

Alas! Two-and-a half years into the second term of UPA (more pompously called UPA 2.0), it is now time to either rewrite all those lessons or have an addendum - "all general rules have an exception, Dr. Manmohan Singh is an exception to term 'ultimate authority' ".

The above three links of ministers invoking a "leader" other than the PM is just a small sample of the erosion of the authority of the PM. Remember the incident where MoS for Railways openly defied the PM when asked to visit a accident site? Remember the Prime Minister's press conferences when he said he could not prevent the loot because there are "comprimises to be made in coalition". Mamta Banerjee openly flirted with Maoists and the Prime Minister was helpless. Month after month, the rot in agriculture ministry was being talked about but the Prime Minister could not do anything about Sharad Pawar. The losses and mis-management of Air India are a hot topic in TV studios every now and then. Yet, Praful Patel was always let off the hook. The Finance minister and Home minister of the country trade (very) serious charges of spying and 2G scam and it took people other than the Prime Minister to bring about a truce.

There are only three major allies which share power at the centre. DMK, TMC and NCP. Members of the cabinet from these parties have either pioneered massive scams or have been the cause for huge losses to the exchequer through their sheer incompetence and greed, and we have a Prime Minister who cannot even touch their toe nails! And that is the most enduring legacy of this UPA government. The abject surrender of the authority of the Prime Minister of India.

We have had 14 people as Prime Ministers so far (including Gulzari Lal Nanda). We have seen weak Prime Ministers, who could not exude any kind of authority. Such tenures were short-lived because of their lack of assertiveness. And in the course of time, their tenures will be forgotten too. But this Prime Minister is different. He will be the first PM (and probably only PM) who tried to sell his helplessness, incompetence and unreasonableness as an unparalleled virtue!

And now you must be wondering - if PM is not the ultimate authority, then who is? It has been successfully passed to the Chairperson of the NAC, and the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi (full list of her "achievements" here). The NAC she leads is the parallel decision making authority when it comes to policy matters. Sonia Gandhi is the parallel decision making authority when it comes to political matters. Manmohan Singh is the decision making authority when it comes to maintaining status quo!

Politics of Divide/Vendetta

The strength of a democracy depends on how freely the opposition (not just the political parties) is allowed to work. Another enduring legacy the second term of UPA will be leaving, is the politics of vendetta. Question them on corruption - immediately very old cases are dusted and thrown out in the open. If the principal opposition party, BJP questions them, then "what did they do in the 6 years they were in power" is parrotted with the help of a compliant TV media. If a politician falls out with the Congress party and leaves it, then automatically he becomes a corrupt person. If citizens of the country question, then either obscure income tax cases are foisted on then or lectures are given as to how they don't vote, how they resort to petty bribing and blah blah. Attempts were even made to discredit CAG but thankfully they failed at it (atleast for now!)

Anyone, practically anyone, who dares to the question the government is automatically hounded by it. There is very little informed debate on matters concerning public interest, and the primary onus for this fall in standards rests on the shoulders of the ruling party. If you don't want to believe me, then please follow the debates (I know it's a challenging task :D) on TV for about a week.

Vote bank politics have reached their peak during UPA. It is always about "minority welfare", "minority well-being", "minority rights" etc. This is not to say that minorities should not have any of those. It is just that the ruling party is creating this divide that will only be detrimental to the country's progress. At every step, the ruling party makes the minorities feel weak, and then project itself as their saviour. Any government's aim has to be to empower them. This government is doing the exact opposite and worse, is proud of doing it.

Federal Structure

Fellow blogger Jiten documented in 2009 that there was an ad in TOI during the Maharashtra elections. Gist of the ad being that there will be better centre-state relations if people vote back NCP-Congress to power. And in July 2011, we see a news report that says "State gets little fund allocation in Centre’s schemes: Ministers" !! Guess which state this is? Maharashtra! Congress big-wigs, Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh who is a central minister and Prithviraj Chauhan who is the Congress Chief Minister (earlier minister in the PMO!) have made this observation - they accuse their own party of hyping development in their state and thus releasing lesser funds!

The importance of Centre-State relations can be gauged from the fact that it is an important part of the manifesto of all political parties. That congress politicians feel miffed at treatment towards their states is another irony in itself, but that's aside the point. With respect to the States -To interfere when necessary and to give a free hand otherwise - is a sound policy for the centre to follow. This way, federalism is strengthened. UPA has done the exact opposite!

The recent Manipur blockade is a perfect example. For 100 days, the two national Highways that connect Manipur to the rest of India have been blocked, and the centre has not even moved an inch towards trying to resolve it. The state government should have taken the lead, but clearly it hasn't and more importantly a state in this country is completely cut off from the rest of us for 100 days and UPA was unmoved! And this is not the first time, a blockade of this magnitude happened. Just last year, there was a nearly 2 month blockade.

The Telangana fiasco is another perfect example. When everyone looked towards the centre for resolving this issue, UPA 2.0 hurriedly took a disastrous decision and the result is there for everyone to see (fellow CRI commentator Amar says that the Telangana fiasco deserves a separate post in itself and I agree). Nearly two years since that "Sonia's birthday gift", this contentious issues continues to bog the people of AP.

Tamil Nadu CM, Jayalalitha made some very interesting observations at a recent National Development Council meeting. She correctly said that the Centre is taking hurried decisions on matters that hugely affect states, thereby reducing the states to merely "glorified municipal corporations". The examples she cited were the Communal Violence Bill (which will give more powers to the Centre than the states, given that law&order is a state subject!), the GST (Goods and Services Tax) and changing formats of Entrance tests for professional courses (this is by far the worst executed program in my opinion. The Centre is giving very short notices for states to comply with ridiculous demands. If you think it is the opposition-ruled states that are complaining, then you are mistaken. Maharashtra and Congress filed a petition just 2 days back against the Centre's diktat on medical entrance test!).

And ofcourse, there is the Governor's post always to be used for political machinations. One perfect example of using this post to undermine an elected state government is from Andhra Pradesh. Surprised at the choice? Here's why I strongly feel so. Mr. E.L.Narsimhan was appointed as governor after the great N.D.Tewari expose. The state was just beginning to go through it's most tumultous phase. Rosaih was the Chief Minister, and since he was perceived to be less competent to deal with such political matters, the new governor was given the mandate of invovling himself in matters of daily governance too. He even reviewed the law and order situation with police officials directly, without the CM or any minister present. Mr. Rosaih once advised his ministerial colleagues something on these lines "I can't do much. If there is anything else, please go to the Governor directly." To date, E.L.Narsimhan continues to play an active role in important matters of law and order. And please be aware, the people of AP have elected the Congress party to govern them. And a crisis in their party, led the UPA to find a solution in an appointed governor, not in any elected leader!

Damaging institutions

The institution of the Prime Minister is not the only institution that has been damaged by the UPA. Do correct me if I am wrong, but the post of Governor has never been so abused before. Either the post has been used for vengeance or to reward it's former leaders. The Governor of MP even announced that it was Sonia Gandhi who recommended him. Buta Singh in 2005, HR Bharadwaj since 2008, Kamala Beniwal recently, E L Narsimhan in AP are examples of proactive governors. Shivraj Patil, Rosaih, M.K.Narayanan, J.B.Patnaik etc get appointed to the royal Raj Bhavans to lead a happy retirement life. Take a look at the complete list and just see the number of former politicians of the Congress on that list.

The CBI has been used like a pawn as never before. Election Commission was bogged down with some controversies. The institution of Vigilance Commissioner was also put through severe testing times only because of the adamant attitude of UPA leadership. During Team Anna Crisis, this government unilaterally decided to not involve any elected opposition parties in delibarations while at the same time had to gall to lecture us on the supremacy of elected representatives! There just seems to be no institution left for the UPA to damage further.

What about policy then?

Quiz Question. What happens when an "economist" PM who concentrates excessively on Foriegn policy. Disaster on both fronts! Inflation has been on a high for more than 2 years. Our "economist" PM has no solution for that. Food prices go up - global problem. Fuel prices are up by Rs.11 over the past 1 year or so - global problem. Spending goes up on social sector, impeding the growth in the infrastructure sector - thankfully not a global problem but a problem whose solution should remain a "priority concern". Mamta Banerjee causes losses to Railways (and thereby to the economy) and we have no one to ask about it. The EAM is there only to parrot the PM's views. The once powerful office of Foriegn minister has been reduced to doing secretary level work to the PM's foreign policy.

We have already seen how Jairam Ramesh goes off the tangent. The less said about Sports ministry, the better. The mess in Civil aviation gets highlighted in Parliament as well as media, but the PM can't even touch the concerned minister. "Rural Development" is happening only in the sense of NREGA, where people are getting income for repetitive work. Kapil Sibal seems to be a man in a hurry. He announced of reforms within 100 days. Two and half years hence, we are still debating them! Speaking of Kapil Sibal, his famous "zero loss" theory in the 2G spectrum scam has become the butt of jokes, but that has exposed another serious legitimacy issue in the government.

All the above mentioned points lead to only observation - UPA's serious problems with decision making of any kind. This is one more dangerous legacy that we will have to live with. Till date, the PM has not clarified whether he agrees with Kapil Sibal's "zero loss" theory. Each minister is on his own. No one knows who takes decision, or at whose behest decisions are taken. It took a Supreme Court to openly direct the investigations on massive corruption scandals, not an executive order. Apart from the above mentioned policy points where decision making has stagnated, take the recent handling of the Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare agitations.

At every step, the only thing that reigned supreme is confusion. First, top ministers go meet Baba Ramdev and praise him. When he goes ahead with his plan for an agitation, they start to deride him. The midnight scoop (because UPA feared communal elements will take over) killed one hapless woman. A similar story with Anna Hazare. All that the "Team Anna" asked in the beginning was to be heard. The egoistic UPA refused to even do that, thereby giving them space to launch bigger agitations and make fiercer (and unreasonable) demands. And then they arrest him, release him, cajole him and finally give in. All this while, there is no single authority of the government saying "Yes, I take responsibility for these decisions".

Conclusion

There is an air of negativity around this UPA dispensation (led mostly by Sonia Gandhi and partly by Manmohan Singh). Mere status quo is being maintained. Dr. Manmohan Singh has reduced the job of Prime Minister to a mere desk job. Even the most tom-tomed schemes of UPA - MNREGA, Loan Waiver, Forest Tribals act are not his ideas. No flagship economic reform has been carried out. During the infamous trust vote in July 2008 (called because of the Nuclear Deal, of which we don't hear anything these days!!), he tabled his speech in which he spoke about "achievements". The first one was about controlling inflation, and we all know how well it is being controlled. He spoke about "revitilising agriculture" and we know what happened there. "To deal firmly with terrorist elements" - we all know what has happened since.

One of the worst things to happen during UPA 2.0 is the Supreme Court's active invovlement in matters concerning corruption related investigations. More than a couple of times, the SC has rapped the government for it's lethargic response. The political legitimacy of UPA is in serious doubt only because it is the judiciary and not the executive that is driving the cleaning up act. The political legitimacy of UPA is in serious doubt not just because the centre is severely undermining the states. Last, but not the least, the political legitimacy of UPA is in serious doubt only because it is Sonia Gandhi who is driving policy and politics, not the Prime Minister.

Arun Shourie summed it up best, in an interview on the 2G scam - "This was not the Manmohan Singh cabinet that the ministry could do anything. It was Atal Behari Vajpayee's cabinet. You could not do one milimetre more than what Cabinet has decided."

That's all, Your Honour! : Nov 6 -12

2011-11-13T16:55:00.001+05:30

After a break for about 2 months, trying to revive back this weekly series. Starting with a short update this week... hopefully from next week, will be giving full time updates :)

1. Indian english TV media continues to fool the viewers and get away with such crap. Last week, the famous Sagarika Ghose who runs a show "Face the nation" (FTN at 10pm on CNN-IBN every night, openly cheated her viewers. FTN planned to carry a live debate on Sri Sri Ravishankar ji's "campaign" in UP against corruption. The recorded an interview with him a couple of hours before the show. And then at 10pm, Sagarika Ghose informed the viewers that Sri Sri is live with them along with three other panelists !! Shocked? Here's more shocking news.... at about 9 minutes into the program, Sagarika actually asks Sri Sri to respond to severe criticism by one of the panelists! Please watch the program to see the despicable manner in which Sagarika "questions" Sri Sri. Knowing fully well that Sri Sri cannot respond, this great journalist with a totally condescending tone, demanded that Sri Sri "respond" to criticism! This Indian Express article tears apart the entire program and her defense after that. Please read to understand the depth of the deceit this journalist resorted to. And they apologized later in the night - not because their conscience said so, but because their bluff was called by alert viewers. From her defense, Sagarika Ghose has clearly implied that these things happen very regularly. And they got away with a "small apology". That's what Sagarika Ghose said on at the end of her show the next day - - before ending, a "small apology". A pity really.

2. Here's more pitiful stuff. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh again met Pakistan's Prime Minister. That's not the pituful stuff. Returning from that meeting (actually there was a SAARC summit in Maldives but we all know that the only purpose SAARC serves is these bilateral meetings), our Prime Minister had this to say - "Indo-Pak relations are subject to accidents". That's right - he terms all those multiple terror attacks that emanated from Pakistan's soil as "accidents". Worse, he calls the despicable 26/11 attacks as an "incident". This man's obsession with Pakistan is worse than that of jilted lover. This Prime Minister is ready to go to any extent to appease international community that he will lose sight of domestic apprehensions. Simple question - for starters can this man answer what exactly has Pakistan done in the three years since 26/11 happened? That's all, your honour!

"Serious Introspection"

2011-11-03T11:12:00.006+05:30

Hi Rajdeep,

Apologies for writing a long mail, but somehow 140 characters in twitter is just not enough to express a few thoughts of mine regarding the "serious introspection" tweet of yours. I will first write about missed opportunities at introspection, and then would suggest some introspection steps. I am also directly publishing this letter on my blog.

You had a golden opportunity to seriously introspect when the radia tapes were out. That golden opportunity presented itself in the form of a meeting organised by PCI and EG with fellow journalists. We were anticipating the kick-starting of a serious introspection, but instead we witnessed the charade of the the President of Editors Guild reducing the whole episode to just "professional jealousy".

Members of your own fraternity were outraged by those comments. Members of your own fraternity said "we don't want to be like Barkha Dutt". Members of your own community said "this is not expected from the chairman of Editor's Guild." Members of your own community bought out serious contradictions in the way reporting is done. Most of the points raised there were the exact same that got raised in various online forums. Barkha first rubbished them, then wrote a couple of articles saying that the matter is closed and then in a 45 minute charade on NDTV, she tried to tell us about the double standards of those who accused her! Vir Sanghvi wrote an article, came on TV once and then vanished!

The "lynch mob" mentality that journalists on twitter so often use, was quite evident in that meeting attended only by members of your own fraternity. So I ask again, why was that opportunity to introspect not utilized at all? Why was there a mud-slinging match led by none other esteemed office bearers of PCI and EG?

Paid news was a big revelation two years back. Radia tapes were a bigger revelation about a year back. Yet, not many TV channels could even devote a 30 minute special to discuss the muck in the media. Not many newspaper devoted enough print space to write about the muck in their own backyard. When the opportunity knocked at your door for serious introspection, why was it not grabbed?

And needless to say, when questioned about these things, either we are branded as trolls or ignored all together. Persistent questioning on serious issues only leads to one thing - we getting branded. In the time that I have had, I documented 18 instances of my discussions with various TV and print journalists. Most of the time I was just ridiculed (was called loser and moron by Nidhi Razdan. Sagarika wondered if "I was for real" when she found out that I actually believed Dhritharashtra was blind). And sometimes, discussions were abruptly ended. Countless chances of "serious introspection" arose in online forums - only that the bigwigs chose to ignore those opportunities.

A good start towards serious introspection would be to improve coverage on policy and good governance. A recent survey conducted by your channel ranked the chief ministers in the country. And your own channel does not even have 10 good stories to showcase the 10 best chief ministers. Isn't it alarming that channels don't have one good story per chief minister atleast? The negativity that has seeped into the public mind is partly because of the continuous negative coverage on TV. Positive stories about common people are a good watch. Likewise, positive and also programs that make one think about governance are the need of the hour.

Another step towards serious introspection would be to improve the level of public discourse in the media (TV media especially). Excessive concentration on needless and banal soundbytes of attention-seeking politicians has contributed to the abysmal fall in today's discourse. The matters affecting the people of this country are too serious to be captured in one headline, one soundbyte and in a "yes or no" fashion. We need better debates on policy, governance and politics. We need enlightening discussions with sane politicians and law-makers. We don't need debates on one-liners and then follow-up debates on one-liners that comment on the original one-liner! The "generalisation" that you folks are now complaining of, has been perpetuated by none other than you folks! Surely, if LS TV can conduct such decent debates with aplomb, private TV channels can do too.

There are multiple instances on twitter when journalists (including from your channel) banally simplify complicated issues, and try to pass them of as a product of serious intellectual discourse. And ofcourse negative feedback on those comments are, more often than not, treated with contempt; which brings me to my third point.

No amount of serious introspection is possible without gauging the feedback and engaging the viewer/reader. You could begin by advising journalists of your channel to engage more with the viewer/reader. There are many folks online who are keen to engage in decent debates. Just because folks question persistently and continue to reel out facts that contradict your (as in journalists) conclusions, doesn't mean the forum is worthless. The loss of not engaging with the viewer/reader is yours, not ours.

For any given program, there will be +ve and -ve feedback. Sometimes the criticism can be scathing too. One would assume journalists are mature enough to engage with such folks. More often than not, journalists come on twitter, throw out some platitudes, market their show, engage in flourishing rhetoric on how the medium is ignorant, troll-infested etc and leave. This needs to stop ( I can give you examples of how editors picked up on points that trolls made months/years ago). Surely, editors/bureau chiefs need to be mature enough to ignore the miniscule percentage of those who actually abuse.

Serious introspection also demands that an ombudsman be appointed. The viewer/reader needs to have a channel of communication through which he/she will be able to ask questions regarding facts and coverage. And yes, questions on coverage are very legitimate, contrary to what many members of your fraternity feel. The amount of coverage that certain topics/policies/persons/departments/states is subject to questioning, and "don't watch if you don't like" is not the introspection one is looking forward to!

Lastly, please refrain from calling yourselves (all TV channels based out of Delhi) as "national" channels. It takes a while for you to just figure out that something serious is happening to the south of Vindhyas and the north-east. It feels depressing to seek attention to problems in our states from you folks. Either you measure up to the name "national" or rename your taglines.

I repeat again. It's been about two years since the paid news scandal broke out. It's been about an year since the Radia tapes came out. Nothing changed. No introspection happened. Rhetorical and sanctimonious tweets are a big bore. And please note that members of your own community echo the views of many "trolls". Perhaps this is another opportunity to introspect and change. What better place to begin, than at home.

Regards,

Trysts with MSM - Part 18 - CAG and 2G scam

2011-10-31T10:12:00.001+05:30

MSM stands for Main Stream Media

The series returns back after a long time :) The delay is not because I have stopped asking them questions. The delay is because they have stopped responding to those questions!

CNN-IBN's National Bureau Chief, Bhupendra Chaubey tweeted about his show on Ra.One and said that he was getting lots of feedback. So I asked him if he ever responded to feedback. He replied this:

@ssudhirkumar I used to respond a lot to u, then stopped because u started indulging in destructive criticism, m all for constructive points

The "destructive criticism" he was talking about is here. Anyways, about the same time he also tweets about this "breaking story"

Breaking at 6: CAG's can of worms, its getting murkier, fresh details accessed by me show that there was no consensus on the 2G report

So I ask him back :

Was there ALWAYS consensus at your work place on what to report? @bhupendrachaube ofcourse, you wont answer this Q.

To which he replies:

@ssudhirkumar lack bof consensus if different from allegations of coersion, of course u won't understand this

What he meant was "lack of consensus is different from allegations of coercion, of course u won't understand this"

Well, he first said "lack of consensus" and my question was based on that observation. He then changes the point to "allegations of coercion". I asked him back about this inconsistency. Ofcourse, no reply.

Let's take a quick look at his "breaking news". Here is the report on IBN website - http://ibnlive.in.com/news/2g-losses-letter-exposes-divide-within-cag/197058-3.html

First off, Bhupendra fails to mention that CAG gave a total of 4 estimates of losses. The range is Rs. 57,000 crore to Rs. 1,76,000 crore. Check this report of the CAG available on their website. The last page of the "Executive Summary" section (just before Introduction) gives us the the table of how the 4 estimates were arrived at. And the entire report explains in detail how the numbers were arrived at. But our news channels are content with just mentioning the upper limit.

The scoop by Bhupendra Chaube is that the Deputy CAG has written to the lead auditor, R.P.Singh (who signed the above report) saying that they are not happy with the way the audit is being conducted. The lead auditor replied back in a 2-page note (quite interestingly, the full letter is not yet available to the viewer. I asked them, but as usual no reply). What we have is only a quote from that letter wherein the lead auditor is hurt at the accusation that he is not properly auditing.

Nowhere in the whole report by Bhupendra, is there one proof of the lead auditor being told to toe the CAG line. Nowhere in the letter is it shown that the lead auditor was asked to sign off on the Rs.1,76,000 crore amount. But then, for our national news channels, these facts matter little. There has been a disagreement, and therefore that is huge news for them. In which institution are there no disagreements? How many times have we disagreed with our bosses?

Now here comes the interesting part. "Ex-CAG babu stands by 2G loss figure" in the Times of India. The lead auditor wrote to the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament of India, saying he did sign the final document.

"While indicating that he did not intend to support attempts to question the CAG findings, Singh told the panel he had signed the final report. He has denied reports quoting him as questioning Rai's decision to go ahead with assessing presumptive losses ranging from Rs 65,000 crore to Rs 1.76 lakh crore"

Read that full report. Now guess which channel didn't report this rebuttal by the lead Auditor. CNN-IBN !

Break for a month

2011-10-03T10:16:00.002+05:30

I will be travelling this month, and hence will not be able to regularly update the blog. A break for about a month :). Wish you all a happy dushera and deepavali.

Happy Holidays :D

Some thoughts on KBC :)

2011-10-03T10:15:00.000+05:30

For the past 3-4 weeks, I have been watching Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC)-5 in awe. Sometimes the episode gets very inspiring too. And the reason is simple - the nature and the background of all the contestants on this show. The past 4 seasons of this show had mostly contestants from a normal background leading a decent life with not too many troubles throught their life. This season has opened up a totally different window. We could get to hear the story of an young man who met with an unfortunate accident and got paralysed neck down. His poise despite such a catastrophy was such a delight to watch. He won Rs. 12,50,000/- that night, and the sense of achievement and pride in his and his father's eyes is difficult to describe.

We have even got to see and learn about the lives of housewives; teachers from rural areas;physically handicapped yet mentally strong people; folks from small towns; folks with jobs that don't pay much (especially the guy who picks calls for ambulance service... remember him? :) He asked 3 interesting questions to Amitabh himself!!) - in total, we got exposed to a whole new world out there. A world most of us thought is difficult to exist. I don't mean to say that we did not know such people existed. What I meant is that most of us surely did not know that these people also read a lot, discuss stuff and have a good amount of information on general/current affairs. And this is despite their living and growing up conditions - I think that is the biggest reason I have been in awe of this season.

Not just their stories, but even the way they conduct themselves on the show has been very nice. And I must say, Amitabh Bachchan as the show host has been very very gracious while interacting with these contestants. The subtle humour that flows from both the contestants and BigB, all along the program has been another treat.

Maybe a few might feel that this season is more like a melodrama. But what I got to see was reality - the harsh reality under which these folks live their life everyday. Listening to the accounts of tragedy in some of the contestant's lives just confirms how unpredictable and cruel life can be. I don't wish to lecture and all that, but I think watching these folks on TV only strengthened my belief that as long as we are capable of doing good, we should continue to do it. Making a difference in just one life is a feeling that will stay with you for life - we only need to put in a little extra effort to experience that feeling :)

ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారికి ఒక లేఖ ...

2011-09-27T09:32:00.013+05:30

గౌరవనీయులైన ఆంద్ర ప్రదేశ్ ముఖ్యమంత్రి గారికి,

పేదల కోసం మీరు పడుతున్న తపన చూసి మాకు కళ్ళు చేమ్మగిల్లుతున్నాయి. ఈ మధ్య మీరు వాళ్ళు బియ్యం కోసం పెట్టె కర్చుని ఏకంగా 50% తగ్గించి వాళ్ళకి చేసిన మేలు ఎప్పటికీ మర్చిపోలేము ఏమో. కిలో కి రెండు రూపాయలు చేల్లించుకోలేని పరిస్థితి లో దాదాపు రాష్ట్రం లోని 2 కోట్ల కుటుంబాలు ఇబ్బంది పడుతుంటే, అదీ మీరు చూడలేక, చూసినా భరించలేక, వెంటనే స్పందించి - ఇంక రెండు రూపాయలు కుడా కర్చుపెట్టద్దు , నేను మీకు అదీ 50% తగ్గిస్తాను; ఇక మీదట కేవలం ఒక్క రూపాయి మాత్రమె ఇవ్వండి, కిలో బియ్యం తీసుకు వెళ్ళండి అని ప్రకటించేశారు. అంతే కాకుండా, ఇంకో 25 లక్షల తెల్ల రేషన్ కార్డ్లు కూడా ఇచ్చేస్తాము , పండగ చేసుకోండి అని సెలవు ఇచ్చారు ! 2.25 కోట్ల రేషన్ కార్డ్లకి మీరు కిలో రూపాయి కి బియ్యం ఇస్తున్నారు. అంటే దాదాపు 8 కోట్ల ప్రజలకి ఈ పధకం వర్తిస్తుంది. మిగిలిన 50 లక్షలు మంది ఎం పాపం చేసారు సార్ - వాళ్ళకి కూడా ఇచ్చేయండి కిలో రూపాయి కి. మర్చిపోయా - మిగిలిన వాళ్ళ దగ్గర పన్ను రూపేణా డబ్బు లాగుకుని, ఈ పధకం కోసం అయ్యే కేవలం 600 కోట్ల రూపాయల అదనపు భారాన్ని మొయ్యాలి కదా ... అసలు సార్ మీది బుర్రే బుర్ర ! కానివ్వండి ... ఇలానే కానివ్వండి !

సార్ - మీలో ఇంకో గొప్ప లక్షణం ఉంది అంట కద? ఏ పరిస్థితి ని ఆయినా భలే అర్ధం చేసుకుంటారు అంట కద ? ఈ మధ్యనే మాకు కూడా అర్ధం అయ్యింది. అక్కడ అక్కడ అల్లరి చిల్లర గా తెలంగాణా లో జరుగుతున్న ఈ సకల జనుల సమ్మె వల్ల సామాన్య ప్రజలకు బాగా ఇబ్బంది అవుతుంది అని మీరు సెలవు ఇచ్చారు చుడండి.... సార్, అసలు మీది బుర్రే బుర్ర ! కేవలం 14 రోజుల నుంచి సమ్మె జరుగుతున్నా సరే, మీరు ఇంత అద్భుతం గా భలే ఆలోచించారు సార్. సరదాగా రోజుకి రెండు నుంచి ఆరు గంటల విద్యుత్ కొత్త అంట కదా ? బస్సులు నడవటం లేదు అంట కద? విద్యా సంస్థలు మూసివేసారు అంట కద? మధ్యలో ఆటోలు, రైళ్ళు కూడా రెండు రోజులు నడవలేదు అంట కద ?. కేవలం ఇలాంటి చిన్న చిన్న ఇబ్బందలుకే మీరు సామాన్యుడు గురుంచి అంత లాగ ఆలోచించారు అంటే .... నీళ్ళు , కళ్ళలో నీళ్ళు వస్తున్నాయి సార్.

రెండు నెలలు నుంచి సమ్మె చేస్తాం అని మీకు చెప్పినా, అసలు మీరు పెద్దగా పట్టించుకోలేదు. ఇప్పుడు సమ్మె జరుగుతున్న మీరు పెద్దగా పట్టించుకోవటం లేదు. అసలు నాయకులకి ఉండాల్సిన లక్ష్యం ఇదే సార్. ఇలాంటి చిన్న చిన్న విషయాలు పెద్దగా పట్టించుకోకపోవడం. మొన్న ఆ మధ్య మీ మంత్రి వర్గం లోని 12 మంది రాజీనామా చేసి పని చెయ్యలేదు అంట కద ? హొం మంత్రి కూడా రాజీనామా చేసారు అంట కద? అసలు అంత మంది పని చెయ్యక పోయిన, ఆ బాధ్యత ని కూడా మీరు మీ భుజాల మీద వేసుకున్నారు అంట కద ? ఆఫీస్ కి రావద్దు లే, ఇంటి నుంచే ఫైల్స్ క్లీయర్ చేసిన పర్వాలేదు అని వాళ్ళకి మీరు ఇచ్చిన ప్రోత్సాహం - అసలు సార్, మీదే బుర్రే బుర్ర !

మీ మంత్రి వర్గం లోని ఇంకో మంత్రి, శ్రీమాన్ శంకర్ రావు గారు రోజుకి ఒక సారి మిమ్మల్ని కాని, తోటి మంత్రులను కాని ఏదో ఒకటి అంటూనే ఉంటారు. ఒక మంత్రి మిగతా మంత్రుల మీద విచ్చల విడి గా అక్రమార్జన ఆరోపణలు చేస్తున్నారు. ఒక మంత్రి గా, కనీసం మనిషి గా పాటించాల్సిన హుందా ఏ మూల ఉండదు ఆయనికి. ఆయినా సరే, మీరు పెద్దగా పట్టించుకోరు చుడండి - అదీ సార్ మీలో గొప్పతనం!

ప్రబుత్వ ఉద్యోగులు పని చెయ్యకపోయినా, మంత్రులు పని చెయ్యక పోయినా, బస్సులు , ఆటోలు, రైళ్ళు లాంటివి నడవకపోయినా, బొగ్గు ఉత్పత్తి దెబ్బ తిన్నా - మీరు చిరంజీవి గారితో కలిసి విశాఖపట్నం లో బహిరంగ సభకి వెళ్లి, అక్కడ ఏమో మీ పార్టి ఈ సారి లోక్ సభ కి రాష్ట్రం లో ఉన్న మొత్తం 42 సీట్లు గెలిచిపోతుంది అని ధీమా వ్యక్తం చేసారు. మీలో ఉన్న ఈ నమ్మకానికి అందుకోండి మా జోహార్లు. రాష్ట్రం ఇంత క్లిష్ట పరిస్థితి లో ఉంటె, మీరు మీ బిజీ స్కెడ్యూల్ లోంచి కొంచం సమయం, "సకల జనుల సమ్మె విరమించండి, ప్రజలు ఇబ్బంది పడుతున్నారు" అని విన్నవిస్తున్నారు చుడండి సార్.... అదీ సార్ మీలో ఉన్న గోప్పతన్నం. ముఖ్యమంత్రి గా సమస్య ని పరిష్కరించాల్సింది పోయి, కేవలం ప్రకటనలు ఇస్తున్నారు అంటే, అసలు మీలో ఒక అదీ, ఒక ఇది ... అబ్బబ్బబ్బా అసలు మాటలు రావటం లేదు అండి !

రాష్ట్రం లో రైతులు పంట విరామం ప్రకటించారు అంట కదా ? ఎరువుల ధరలే కారణం అంట కదా? అసలు పంట పండిచకపోవడం ఎంటండి ? అసలు ఈ చిన్న ఆపద మీ అభిప్రాయం వినే భాగ్యం మాకు ఇంకా కలగలేదు. వ్యవసాయ మంత్రి (అయన ఉప ముఖ్య మంత్రి కూడా ) గారు కూడా వారి స్పందన ఏమి చెప్పినట్టు లేరు మరి.

కిలో రూపాయి బియ్యం పధకం కోసం సోనియా గాంధి గారి అనుమతి తీసుకున్నారు అంట కద ? మీరే చెప్పారు లెండి - ఈ అద్భుతమైన పధకం కి సోనియా గారికి మనం కృతఙ్ఞతలు చెప్పాలి అని , అందుకే అడుగుతున్నా ! మరి తెలంగాణా సమస్య వల్ల అక్కడ అక్కడ ఇబ్బంది పడే కొంత మంది సామాన్యులు కూడా సోనియా గాంధి నే ప్రశ్నించాలా ? అమ్మో వద్దు లెండి, ఆమెని ఏమైనా అంటే మీరు మీ పార్టీ వాళ్ళు ఊరుకోరు ... ఎందుకు వచ్చిన గొడవ లెండి.

ఈ సమ్మెలు , బంద్లు , పుకార్లు, గొడవలు అన్ని పట్టించుకోవద్దు సార్. మీ లక్ష్యం వైపు ముందుకు దూసుకు వెళ్ళండి. ఇప్పటికే మీ ప్రభుత్వం రాష్ట్రం లో 8 కోట్ల మందిని పేద వాళ్ళను చేసింది. ఈ సంఖ్యా పెరగాలి అని మీరు పడుతున్న తపన, దాని కోసం పడుతున్న శ్రమ - ఈ రెండిటిని ఏ శక్తి ఆపలేవు. మీ పాలన లో మరింత మంది పేదలు పెరగాలి అని ఆకాంక్షిస్తూ ....

భవదీయుడు,

సుధీర్ కుమార్

That's all, Your Honour! : Sep.18-24

2011-09-25T20:38:00.001+05:30

1. In an unfortunate tragedy, a massive earthquake that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale hit north-east India and Nepal. The worst hit state was Sikkim. So far, 77 people have lost their lives.Parts of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, West Bengal, and Bihar were also affected. Sikkim has only one highway connected to the mainland of India, and this route got damaged too. The army helped in restoring an alternate route to help in the movement of supplies. The airforce also helped a lot in supplying relief materials for all those affected. Rebuilding efforts are in full swing currently.

2. The 2G scam just doesn't seem to leave this UPA government. New revelations this week have bought out more shocking details on how this "honest and decent" Prime Minister has ignored mulitple warnings for many people within the government that the policy followed by Raja was flawed. Also, a 2011 note by the current finance minister Pranab Mukherjee sent to the PMO says that the then finance minister P. Chidambaram should have been more assertive in handling the pricing of the spectrum.

First, the man who broke the 2G scam first, journalist Gopikrishnan of Pioneer revealed that the government has lied to the nation (as always) on the meeting between Raja and P. Chidambaram. The government said that no minutes were noted of that meeting. Gopi revealted that minutes were signed by then finance secretary, D.Subba Rao who said that PC agreed with Raja that there was no need to revisit the spectrum pricing!!

Meanwhile, another letter revealed by DNA (earlier too by a news channel which I don't recall) from Dayanidhi Maran (Telecom Minister in 2004-2006) to the Prime Minister almost demanding that the pricing of spectrum be removed from the terms of reference of the GoM has created fresh storm. The Prime Minister,decided that the telecom minister be given full freedom to decide on the pricing and this will not even be bought before the cabinet!! This Prime Minister has given up all his responsibility while dealing with this national asset. Maybe this is the first time that a PM decided to keep out the cabinet while dealing with such a major decision. But ofcourse, he is "honest" and "decent".

And then a third letter. This one from the Finance ministry blaming the then Finance minister of not being assertive enough. P. Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee are now at loggerheads over this blame. The Prime Minister as usual says no one will resign, and there is no issue here at all. What this week's revelations have bought out is not just the infighting in this government, but the shocking lack of assertiveness from none other than the Prime Minister of India. And please, let's not call this "coalition compulsion". We are talking about loss in thousands of crores and that is only thing to be discussed here.

3. Last week, we discussed about the strike in Telangana. Guess what - the strike continued this week too! There was a rail roko for two days. Autos went on strike for the same two days. Buses are still on strike. Coal workers are also on strike. There is near total shutdown on many departments. Yet this government is not bothered. Except holding some review meetings and releasing some banal statements, nothing concrete has been done at all. The central government is the least bothered, which is more frustrating. They are behaving as if nothing is happening and all is well. Both the central and state governments are just hoping that this 13 day strike (and still going strong) will end by itself. Meanwhile, the common man continues to suffer.

4. Do you want to take a guess as to the cut-off mark for being poor in India? If you are in rural area, Rs.25/- per day will be enough for "private expenditure on food, education and health". There is no typo in that number. Rs.25/- per day. If you live in urban areas, then Rs.32/- per day will be enough it seems. Guess who came up with these numbers.... the Planning Commission of India !!! That's all, your honour!

That's all, Your Honour! : Sep.11-17

2011-09-19T11:22:00.001+05:30

1. In Andhra Pradesh, this week there has again been widespread agitation in the Telangana region. This time a call to strike was given to all people in the Telangana region. Essentially, any working member of the government has to strike work in order to protest and demand for a separate Telangana state. For the last 7 days, coal production came down drastically in the Singareni Colleries, thereby resulting in hours of power cut in villages and towns. Coal India has come forward to help out the state, but that help cannot still compensate for the loss from the stalled production in Singareni. The teachers have decided to join the strike too. Not just the government teachers, but also ALL private educational institutions have decided to close them for two days starting today. When the strike began, cinema theaters were closed for two days. And starting today, the employees of state Road Transport Corporation have decided to go on a strike! So no transport facilities in Telangana now. Bolstered by this, Telangana supporters have decided to block national highways - which means trade will also stop! Lawyers in High Court have decided to strike work - so those seeking legal help all have to wait now! So for the last seven days, following are the sectors that have either reduced their effort or have completely stopped work

Coal Production
Power Sector
Education Sector
General government employees
Road Transport
Lawyers at High Court

In the pipeline is an autorickshaw strike too. And earlier post on this blog talked about the halt in governance because about 14 ministers resigned from the cabinet and refused to go to the Secretariat. After dragging this drama for a while, they again started attending office but this government again has begun dragging it's feet on this general strike that has been affecting the above crucial sectors. The government is behaving as if nothing happened, when the people are affected by these unending strikes.

If you are staying outside of AP, chances are you have never heard of this crisis of governance, given the "national" media's tendency not to look towards the south. Last week, there were massive floods in Odisha too - many of us did not know because the rains in Delhi recieved more coverage on TV than the floods in Odisha! That's all, your honour!

Art masterpiece

2011-09-16T10:00:00.003+05:30

After a series of serious posts, it is now time for a very very very serious post. Below are two paintings I drew in the last month. I usually don't like to boast off too much, but you have got to look at the nuances in these paintings. I know you would like to stare at these paintings and feel/enjoy them, so without much further ado - presenting to you the world class master pieces!

Have a happy friday folks!

"...but what are the BJP's views?"

2011-09-15T10:22:00.001+05:30

"....but what is the BJP's view" is the new latest fashion question to ask. Any contentious issue that comes up on UPA's plate on which the Congress is divided, almost immediately it places the onus on the opposition to decide! An attempt is made to show that there is no "all-party" consensus, and if such a thing exists, then the party has no problem (never mind, that it actually has no views/divided views!) Few examples since 2009 below.

Caste Census

When the census 2011 exercise began, there was a demand by some political parties that a caste census also be done. Primarily parties like RJD, SP, JD(U) demanded that caste be included in this census. To cut a long story short, the Congress party and BJP haven't taken any decision at this point of time. The PM as usual appoints a GoM, which was not able to take a decision given the deep divide withing the Congress party and therefore wanted a written assurance from all parties (putting the onus on BJP and others) about caste census. The BJP then gave a written consent (despite RSS opposing). Guess the only party that didn't give in writing - the Congress. When asked, Pranab Mukherjee said there is no need for the party to give in writing because he represents the party in the GoM. Indian Express reported that a deeply divided congress agreed for the caste census. A decision was taken just because the ruling party had no view, but all other parties had a view on this! The Congress party expected BJP (or any other significant opposition party) to say no, and then pass the blame perhaps!

Nuclear Liability Bill

I am sure most of us would have forgotten about this government's pathetic attempt to bring in a nuclear liability bill by stealth. This article in The Hindu gives a good summary of the events back then. The government made every damn effort to bring in language that was to the advantage of the supplier. Reports in The Hindu created enough awareness and the BJP now came into the picture big time. Without BJP's support the bill would not go through. And this time, the government rhetoric of "this bill is in national interest" did not work either. The BJP ensured that the deal got better and was beneficial to the country rather than the supplier. It was only after "Union government ... took on board most of the suggestions made by the Bharatiya Janata Party" that the bill was passed. Arun Jaitley severly criticised the government for trying to rush through this landmark legislation, but all was forgotten by evening!

Second Gen reforms

It was one of those rare moments when the Prime Minister decided to speak to the press. He invited TV editors and one of them had the common sense to ask him why reforms were not taking place. Guess what his answer was? The BJP was stalling the Goods and Services Tax bill, and therefore the second generation reforms were not taking place! He said that the BJP wants the govt. to go easy on a "Gujarat minister". Some state governments of the BJP have been opposing GST from like 2009. Amit Shah (the Gujarat Minister) was arrested somewhere in 2010. What link does passing of GST have to do with the arrest of a minister? Is GST the only reform that he has envisioned? If so,has he tried to address the state governments concerns about this proposal? If not, what are the other reforms he plans to usher in? What is their status? No - nothing of this sort is discussed later in the day. The onus is all the BJP's to get the reforms (I guess we should not use a plural form here, given that there is only one law that the govt. intends to bring!).

Telangana

Well, here nothing was specifically asked about BJP. But let's have a quick look at how Sonia Gandhi arrived at her decision. In early December, K. Chandrashekar Rao started a fast unto death demanding a separate Telangana state. On December 7th, Sonia Gandhi ordered the CM of AP to call for an all party meet. In the all party meet, opinions of all the parties were elicited. Guess which party did not give a concrete opinion? Congress! At about 11:45pm on the December 9th, the Home Minister announces that the process of formation of a separate Telangana state will begin! Later ofcourse there was public outcry and he had to withdraw this decision. But even till date, he refers to this all party meeting and says they took a decision only because all the parties agreed to it! Never once did Congress give out a categorical view on this subject.

Terror Attacks

Each time a terror attack happens, guess what media will be waiting with bated breath? How will BJP react? According to many pundits in the media, BJP is not supposed to criticize the government after terror attacks, no matter how many times various cities in this country are attacked. BJP must be a mature opposition party and exhibit bi-partisan spirit when it comes to dealing with terror. And how exactly should it exhibit "bi-partisanship" - not one pundit will even care to elaborate. No pundit will ever ask the Congress why we are being attacked so many times. No questions are asked on why so many attacks under this Prime Minister; no specific questions to ministers concerned - All they care is about BJP's criticism and therefore the "politicisation" of the attacks. Never has there so much onus on the opposition to not point out the deficiency in the government!

The row about death convicts

Recently, Tamil Nadu assembly passed a resolution recommending to the President to commute the death sentence of 3 convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi +18 others assasination case. This resolution was passed after the President gave the order to hang them. Almost immediately, J&K Chief Minister asks if the reaction would have been so muted if J&K assembly passed a resolution recommending clemency to Afzal Guru. BJP criticizes this statement by Omar. Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal party in Punjab renewed it's demand to grant clemency to Bhullar. And so now our CM from J&K jumps again and asks what is the BJP's view about this. Folks on twitter showed him articles in national newspapers, in which BJP clearly said they do not agree with Akali Dal on this. Not bothered about these facts, he goes on to ask Barkha Dutt the same question, and the diva thinks it is an "good" question. So now you see, it is all about "What is the BJP's views". Not one question on the Congress party's views on these topics (to think of it, they revere Rajiv Gandhi. They should atleast have a view on that right?). No one even bothered to debate what the ruling party of this country thinks about these controversies on death row. The entire debate was centered around BJP and it's stand, despite repeated clarifications. Infact, BJP clarified on NDTV channel that all death convicts must be hanged. And despite that both Omar Abdullah and Barkha Dutt have not yet clarified on BJP's position.

The Jan Lokpal agitation

Events are too recent to recount them all here. A full account of the 11 day fasting by Anna and the massive support he got is here. It all started with the pre-emptive arrest of Anna Hazare. Arun Jaitley gave a spirited speech in Rajya Sabha, detailing how BJP is opposed to some povisions of the Jan Lokpal bill, it supports the right of the citizen to protest and the government killed that right. Everybody praised the speech, said wah wah and some said they'd even vote for the BJP if they can sustain such clarity. Meanwhile, however the Congress is dragging it's feet. the fasting enters into its 4th day, 5th day. Suddenly, again they ask, .."but what is the BJP's view on Lokpal". The BJP has put forth it's views on Lokpal much much earlier, many times (not able to find it, but their website has a draft version). They are again elucidated and again everyone is satisfied. Again the Congress drags it's feet. Now, after 10 days, again people ask " .... but why is BJP not doing anything." That's right - the onus suddenly shifted on to the BJP now! The congress party, which had no freaking clarity on what to do, tried to pass the onus on to the BJP saying, they might not agree and vote on this etc!

I have not gone into too much detail on each of the issues presented above. No discussions on whether we agree with the BJP's view or not - but what is certainly disturbing is the fact that never before has then onus been on the opposition to take policy related decisions! Never before has the ruling party been so callous in it's approach towards important policy matters. And with a compliant media to help it out, the congress party has ensured in seeding the argument that it is helpless because the political class as such is to blame!

That the ruling Congress party can talk on so many issues with different voices and still get away with it is disappointing to say the least. The Congress won a resounding 206 seats on its own in 2009 against the 116 won by the BJP. Pretty much every small party was more than eager to support the congress. Despite such a clear mandate, all we get to see is the government dragging it's feet on every possible important decision. Whilst it is good that we are getting a very good insight into what the opposition's views are, on policy matters, isn't it concerning that the ruling party's incoherence is never the subject of intense debate?

And yet YSR won, how?

2011-09-14T09:52:00.002+05:30

The loot of Andhra Pradesh, Part-1 and Part-2 discussed in detail how much corruption seeped into the system under the Congress CM, YSR and his family. Despite all the outrage and open loot, YSR won back the elections in 2009. It is but natural to be asking and thinking how this happened if all that has been discussed is true. In my opinion, there are four main factors (in no particular order) that helped YSR win back the election in 2009.

1. The massive psychological and perceptional campaign

In 2009, TDP alliance won 34.54% share of the vote as opposed to the 36.53% of the Congress.There is just about a 2% difference in the vote share between these parties and therefore all the small and big perceptional and psychological points YSR scored over Naidu mattered a great deal. In my opinion, YSR very adeptly played the psychological game to the hilt. He turned the constant coverage of his corruption as a boon. He was successful in stressing that this is all a propaganda; that the media is all negative; that Naidu did more corruption; and finally opened a newspaper for himself. While stressing on this "negativity", YSR also roped in multiple other factors to play with the sentiments of people. Some examples:

Rains during his tenure

It didn't rain for the last three years of Chandrababu Naidu's tenure. From the second year of YSR's tenure till his 5th year, it rained bountifully every year without fail. He converted this natural occurence into his credit. He and the Congress party lost no opportunity to shout at the top of their voice - Rains are falling only because YSR is the CM. It never rained when Naidu was CM, it always rained when YSR was CM. Believe it or not, this created a huge sentimental impact of many people (including the non-agricultural folks!). After the first phase of elections in AP, some media started speculating that Naidu is going to come back to power. Since the elections were in May, it was very hot. At about that time, the Met department predicted a delayed monsoon. YSR immediately caught on to that fact and used it in his second phase of campaign - the mere speculation of Naidu's returning back to power is causing a delay in monsoon!

The trust and credibility factor

Another overdosed campaign was that YSR was the most credible and trustworthy person and leader ever to be born! He never took action against any wrong doer if he/she was close to him. The scale of the wrong doing never mattered to him - if he liked the person, he would not touch them at all. Despite it's huge negative impact on the polity, a big positive spin was given to saying that YSR never betrays those who trust him! Naidu is cunning, but YSR is friendly. YSR has a best friend, Naidu doesn't have a best friend also. Naidu doesn't believe in anyone. YSR forgives even those who betray him! This perception was very strong in some well educated and neutral voters too.

State government employees

Many state government employees were not happy with Naidu's style of functioning. He was strict, demanded performance and results from them, and was ruthless in admonishing them in public. He made many surprise visits to offices and didn't think twice before suspending employees. It is said that they too played a vital role in his defeat in 2004. YSR in contrast gave them a free hand. Employees were more content under YSR and hence he could get their support easily.

Always has a smile (rather heartily laughing face)

Yet another psychological point - YSR always has a smiling face. Naidu never smiles! Every small thing counts when you won just by 2%!

Counter to the Corruption

YSR's only point when pointed out to the corruption under his rule - Naidu was much more corrupt. Any argument on corruption always ended up with rhetoric of Naidu's corruption.

Taking on the well-established media

Two major newspapers, eenadu and andhra jyothy, were going bonkers on his government. He took them head-on, criticized them day-in and day-out, and finally opened his own newspaper and TV channel! So now we had people discussing the "war" between the media, and not the corruption charges anymore.

Welfare programs

His welfare programs achieved two things. One obviously is that they actually benefited sizeable number of people. The second one is that the perception of him being a poor man's messiah got imprinted into the minds of neutral voters. For example, a software engineer who benefited from Naidu's IT policy and is now placed in a good job now started to think - "ohh yeah, Naidu never did anything for the poor. YSR is doing so much, even though he is corrupt." Naidu lost quite a chunk of those votes too - simply because of this perception of the well-settled class of people thinking YSR is better than Naidu.

2. The welfare (free for all) programs

I will not be discussing the drawbacks/corruption/irregularities in these schemes here. Merely mention what they are and how they intend to benefit.

Free power

The backdrop of the 2004 elections was that the TDP rule failed to take care of the farmer's needs. YSR's main plank was that he will alleviate the farmer out of his misery. He will alleviate the poor people out of their misery. And midst this backdrop he won the election in 2004. The first file he signed was on "free power to the farmers". And since absolute free power is near impossible, slowly that has been diluted to exclude rich farmers etc. The remaning free power was given for seven hours a day, intermittently. Even if it was not given for seven hours, what actually did matter was that it was free. To the farmer for whom every ten rupees counts, this was something he never forgot.

Health insurance and Ambulance service

This was another huge hit amongst the poor, rural and lower middle class segment of Andhra Pradesh. Essentially, if you are white ration card holder, you are entitled to health care in most private hospital for ailments that are out of your reach. So for example, you need to be operated upon for a major operation which will cost you about 2 lakhs. Under ordinary circumstances you cannot afford it, but with this scheme you can get the operation done and the government will reimburse all the costs! So to all those people who couldn't get ailments cured at government hospitals, this became a boon. Suddenly, you see people who otherwise could not have afforded this health care, now happy and content. People I know have been so happy with the government for this scheme.

YSR also popularised the Emergency Ambulance service. Even in rural areas, you had ambulances reaching you within 15 minutes (with a picture of Rajiv Gandhi on it).

Fee reimbursement

YSR announces that the government will reimburse the full education fees (under-graduate, graduate, PG courses) of all BC students (eligbility criteria was very low too)! Colleges were hit because of late payments from the government, but students and their families were thrilled that their education costs are now free - and that's what mattered here!

Rs.2/Kg rice

This was the pet scheme of NTR in both his first tenure and his subsequent tenure in 1994. YSR, out of the blue again, announced that he will give rice at Rs.2/kg at ration shops!

Pavala vaddi (loan @ 25p) for Self Help Groups

He introduced loan at just 3% for Self Help Groups in the state. This encouraged small scale businesses to flourish well. And get their votes too.

Absorbing the Rs.50/- increase on LPG cylinder

When the central government hiked the LPG rate by Rs.50/- in 2007, YSR decided that the state government will absorb the cost

The perception about Jalayagnam

This was another huge perception campaign launched. It was made to look like Jalayagnam project was already complete and the state is now free of any irrigational problems. Only 12 out of the planned 48 have been completed so far. But YSR made sure inagurations of projects happened at a regular pace. So in case even if people forgot, they would suddenly be reminded of this project and think YSR is like the water god of AP!

Bad economics, one would argue? True no doubt. It is difficult for any free for all scheme to sustain in the long term. So imagine the troubles to maintain so many free-for-all schemes. The Finance minister himself would say that these schemes are a burden. Unless you have a steady revenue generating model, you cannot sustain these freebies. And where did revenue come from - real estate and higher taxes! But then there is only so much real estate one can sell. You and I can sit in the coziness of our offices/home and have the luxury of talking about "long-term" impact blah blah. Try telling a daily wage labourer or to that massive population that depends on nature to earn well, that the concessions he/she is getting will be disastrous for the economy in the "long-term". He will care a scoot. What mattered to them is that their present is good, with a promise of a similar future from a man whom they believed to be "credible".

3. Split in the opposition vote.

Elections are also about the complex electoral math. Just to avoid a split in the opposition vote, the entire opposition in the state entered into an alliance. TDP, TRS, CPI and CPI(M) all formed a "Maha kutami". But then Chiranjeevi played the spoilsport. Remember the statistics - TDP alliance gets 34.54%. Congress gets 36.53%. Chiranjeevi got 17% and Jayaprakash Narayan's Lok Satta got 1%. So you have a full block of 18% that would have gone either way (most of it into the opposition's vote). And this electoral math guided YSR and the Congress party to a slender majority (156/294) in the Assembly elections of 2009.

4. The money from the loot

And ofcourse the massive money power unleashed helped capture the votes of the vulnerable sections. It would be naive to assume that money played no role at all in those elections. It did, and it contributed to the victory too. Plus it is with this loot money that a newspaper and a channel were set-up. This loot money was used for counter attacking the opposition, and this loot money was used to distributing (either directly or indirectly) during the elections to vulnerable sections.

Conclusion

Also, those who say Naidu did nothing for the state are just fooling themselves. Even if we believe that the development of IT is his *only* achievement - take a look around at the number of steady jobs created not just in urban but even for people from other areas, the number of secondary sectors that flourished (like security, cab, catering - each in turn providing employment), and the real estate bump through which these politicians made so much money! To discount such a phenomenal contribution to the growth of the economy is naive. His success in fostering the Self-help groups (they succeeded only in AP), his stress on various initiatives like rain-water harvesting (neeru-meeru), people's participation in welfare programs through "Janmabhoomi" (you know, all his speeches used to end with Jai Hind Jai Janmabhoomi - liked that a lot :) ), clean environment etc - did impact a sizeable population too. Contrary to popular perception, TDP alone won 1crore 34 lakh votes in 2004 to Congress's 1crore 37lakh. Just 3 lakh votes between these two parties. The major loss for TDP was from it's alliance with the BJP (between TDP+ and Cong+, there was ~20 lakh vote difference!).

Anyways, A combination of the above four factors helped him win, despite the massive loot. His corruption did help the opposition, but like mentioned above the slender lead of 2% of votes (about 10 lakh votes) made all the difference. Nevertheless, the dire financial straits that the state is in, is testimony to his lack of vision. Leave all economics aside - think just about this - you have ensured that many people are dependent on you for their expenses, without really increasing their income levels and now you say - you know what, sorry I can't cover these expenses. live with it. The misery you cause because of that false hope is unbearable and that is what some people have already begun to experience. That's the sad reality too.

And with this, ends the series on YSR :) Sorry for bombarding you with these long posts!

That's all, Your Honour! : Sept. 4-10

2011-09-11T00:54:00.002+05:30

The above picture is a snapshot of the headline by Mid-Day after the Delhi bomb blasts last week. This was perhaps the only newspaper which reflected the sense of disgust amongst the citizens. In another gruesome incident, a powerful bomb went off outside gate no:5 of Delhi High Court, killing a total of 13 citizens and injuring about 100. And the drill was then followed, without any hiccups. First the government condemned it. Then the Home Minister said intelligence was given to Delhi police in July, but there was no specific intelligence. Later in the evening, our Prime Minister says these "cowardly" incidents will not make us succumb to the pressure of terrorism. Not make us succumb, Mr. Prime Minister? Under your watch, we have had about 18 terror attacks - and you had the courage to say we will not succumb?? Well, what is the point blaming you? There is a compliant media that will make sure your reputation is not hurt. There is a sleeping vote block will not come out to vote. As long as they wouldn't care, why would it matter?

And then our Home Minister addresses a press conference. Says there was a delay in procruring CCTVs. Then says, there have been just three incidents on terror under his watch. When the Pune blast happened, it was said that it was first blast after so many months post 26/11. Then when the varanasi blasts happened, they were termed minor incidents. Then when the Mumbai blasts happened, it was "just" the second incident. And now the Delhi blasts happened, it is "just" the third incident. Home Minister also said there is no intelligence failure. Home Minister also said that BJP does not know how to behave in bipartisan manner. I don't get it - what just is the BJP expected to do here? Nod it's head while the arrogant Home Minister reels out crap like this?

It feels so sad to see those dead bodies. Even more sad is the fact that many innocent families are suffering. It is mind-numbing to think that pretty much any place is cities is unsafe, and any disaster can strike you. And in return, we might get a "this is just the fourth incident" statement. That's all, your honour!

అదన్నమాట! : సెప్టెంబర్ 4-10

2011-09-11T00:52:00.002+05:30

ఈ వారం కూడా జగనన్న మీదే చర్చలు అన్ని ! జగన్ అన్న డిల్లి వెళ్ళరు అండి. అక్కడికి వెళ్లి - ఇంగ్లిష్ చానెల్స్ వాళ్ళకి ఇంటర్వ్యూ ఇచ్చారు. అందులో చాలా స్పష్టం గా - బీజేపీ తో కలిసే ప్రసక్తి ఈ లేదు అని ఖచ్చితం గా చెప్పారు. 2014 లో అవసరం అయితే యుపీఏ సర్కారు కు మద్దత్తు ఇస్తాము అని కూడా చెప్పారు అండి !! ఈ వ్యాఖ్యలు చాల దూమారం లేపాయి.

రాష్ట్రం లో ఏమో ఇన్ని ప్రగల్భాలు పలికి ఇప్పుడు సేబేఐ కాసులు పెట్టగానే ఇలా ప్లేటు ఫిరయిస్తారు అని కల లో కూడా ఉహించలేదు ఇక్కడ మద్దతుదారులు ! ఇంతే కాకుండా, డిల్లి లో ఎవరిని పెడితే వారిని కలిసి, సేబేఐ దాడుల గురుంచి మొర పెట్టుకున్నారు అంట. ఆఖరికి లాలు ప్రసాద్ యాదవ్ దగ్గరికి కూడా వెళ్ళారు అంట! ప్రధాన మంత్రి ని కూడా కలిసారు అంట, కాని సి బీ ఐ విచారణ గురుంచి చర్చచించ లేదు అంట. రాష్ట్రం లో రైతుల సమస్య గురుంచి చర్చించారు అంట! ఈయన చెప్పడం, ప్రధాన మంత్రం వినడం - సరిపోయింది లే !

జగన్ అవినీతి చిట్టా ఒక్కొకటి గా బయటికి వస్తుంది. కాంగ్రెస్స్ వాళ్ళకి కూడా ఇక వైఎసార్ ని వెనకేసుకొని రావడం కష్టం అయ్యిపోతుంది ! ముందు ముందు చూడాలి, ఈ తమాషా ఎలా సాగుతుందో ! అదన్నమాట!

The Great Loot of Andhra Pradesh - Part 2

2011-09-08T06:14:00.014+05:30

"This week, a series of media reports - including on NDTV - explored whether Jagan and Janardhana have ever formally shared business interests"

That amazing assertion has been picked up from an NDTV report, filed on September 8th,2011 will make you think some extensive research did go into "exploring" the best known open secret!

Let's briefly look at this "exploration" - Sakshi newspaper's registered address is also the registered address of two other firms, one of which has a stake in Obulapuram Mining Company owned by Gali Janardhana Reddy and the other is a iron ore trading company that invested money in Sakshi. This superb "exploration" was carried out by the media after a CBI enquiry revealed this known fact! Some snippets of this exploring report- "In June 2007, YSR was seen....at the inaguration of ... Brahmani steels". Seen? Yo NDTV - he actually inagurated it! One more - "NDTV visited the address ...". Let's leave it at there and revisit this point later in the article.

ohh, by the way, a mandatory reading before reading this piece is Part 1 , otherwise the context is not set correctly.

Bro. Anil Kumar

Can you possibly imagine the outrage on english TV media, if Yeddyurappa's father-in-law's son-in-law's nephew's sister's husband used hundred rupees of public money for a purely religious event?

Let's now get to the point :)

In 2008, suddenly we saw a spurt of banners in Hyderabad, through which we were introduced to Brother Anil Kumar.

(pic courtesy, rediff)

Many of us did not know who Bro. Anil Kumar was. Since it was around Christmas time, we thought that this was another evangelist organising a gathering. And then it was revealed that Bro. Anil Kumar is none other than the son-in-law of the Chief Minister, Y.S.Rajashekar Reddy! And now all that sudden publicity overdrive made lot of sense. The opposition parties began questioning the source of funds (not just the "communal" BJP but even "secular" TDP. so...) for Bro.Anil Kumar's little known evangelical organisation, Anil World Evangelism. Suddenly from nowhere, where is he getting the money to spend crores on publicity and is able to mobilise lakhs of people (even in other cities)? Was government machinery used for these purposes? Was undue influence used so as to favour the Chief Minister's son-in-law? How come a relatively unknown organisation, Anil World Organisation suddenly get so rich?

The Bayyaram Mining Lease

Bayyaram is a mandal in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh.
The above mentioned organisation, Anil World Evangelism is registered in the same apartment complex as that of another company, Rakshana Steels.
The Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation had entered into a joint venture agreement with - hold your breath - Rakshana Steels for mining iron ore in Khammam and Warangal districts in February 2009 when YSR was the chief minister.

Now that's an address NDTV never visited, despite there being a huge uproar in the state back in 2010! A random report was filed though. "It is alleged" blah blah.

You want to take a guess on how much land was given on lease - 1.37 lakh acres. Ofcourse, Rakhsana steels denied that Bro.Anil Kumar was holding any position in their company. Until the next day when regional newspapers published details of registered addresses of both companies in the same apartments! (unfortunately I am not able to find a snapshot of those reports. If only telugu newspapers maintained a proper archive section, life would be so much easier. Sigh!)

And so now we have the spectacle of 1.37 lakh acres of land being alloted for iron ore mining, to a company that is promoted by Bro.Anil Kumar (I won't even bother using the word "alleged" here!). Mark it in bold people - The Chief Minister's son-in-law is given a lease to mine iron ore over 1.37 lakh acres. Investigative media like the NDTV did not find the time to neither visit the address nor express outrage.

Spirited opposition attacks on the government in Assembly elicited this response from the govt. - Rakshana Steels will only transport the steel from the mining area. Actual mining will be done by the government only! And if you still insist that this is a opposition conspiracy, then you need to answer why this same Congress government at the centre cancelled the lease in August 2010 (after YSR's death and Jagan's revolt), that it only allowed in the first place?

MAYTAS Land deals

Remember Satyam? No no, am not trying to accuse YSR of the scam done by Ramalinga Raju! Ramalinga Raju's son owned MAYTAS infrastructure (reverse SATYAM and you get MAYTAS! This is how Raju created tens of bogus companies to carry out his scams - shuffle letters, rearrange them etc etc). MAYTAS was given infrastructure deals worth Rs.30,000 crore !! And they were given deals into projects that they have had no prior experience and are not some small building a mall or a road kind of projects. One project was to build a port! The other famous project, which eventually had to be scrapped and re-drawn again, was the Hyderabad metro! This article by a known opponent of the Metro rail project is very revealing as to how Maytas was getting good real estate for cheap. Out of the blue, MAYTAS was favoured. Ofcourse, after the scam broke out, when asked - YSR said that all deals have been given to consortiums so not a big problem if one of them fails!

DPEP scam

A curosry mention of this scam was made in part-1 but wanted to touch this briefly here. The person standing behind YSR in the below picture is an extremely well-known face to the people of AP.

His name is Sureedu. He was almost ALWAYS seen with YSR everywhere he goes. He had no official position till 2008. After objections from many quarters, YSR appointed him as one of his security officers and therefore his position became official! Most of us just thought he was just YSR's lucky charm or something like that.Until the DPEP scam broke out!

DPEP is the District Primary Education Program, run on funds that the central government gives to the states. By now, we are used to and have become immune to small scams in all departments and programs. When the scam first broke out, the mood was the same. A former teacher from Kadapa district, Sarasa Devi connived with an accountant Subramanyam, to open a fake bank accounts and eat money that was left over in DPEP funds. When the scam first came out, a fraud case for Rs. 7.40 crore was filed.

And guess whose name the accountant took in the investigations? He said that Sarasa Devi could run this show with the help of ..... Sureedu ! The amount maybe small, but the shock value was quite high. YSR promptly instituted a judicial commission that promptly said Sureedu is not guilty!

The EMAAR-APIIC scam

ok folks - this will be last scam to be discussed. I guess we are really reaching a break point here! There are two primary reasons for mentioning this scam.

This scam was unearthed by a serving Congress minister in the state, D.L.Ravindra Reddy. He says that this scam can easily be estimated at Rs.10,000/- crore.
The timing of the government raids on properties concerning this deal. Let's get into the details.

Those of us who watch TV news regularly in AP are very familiar with this man, Ambati Rambabu

Ambati Rambabu, along with a few others, were the most vociferous spokespersons of Congress party, on TV. To be frank, Rambabu is a good orator and a good argumentative guy. His rhetoric though got boring after a while. He was steadfast in supporting YSR and the congress party in all TV debates. You could see the loyalty and passion in his arguments. (A shameless plug here :) - Ambati Rambabu was on his rhetorical drive on drought situation in AP, in one of the TV debates. I could call in to the debate, and asked him only one Q - Can you list out the specific things the govt did to control this drought - guess the answer. He said, nothing specific has been done so far! This was on channel TV5 some 2 years back!).

Anyways, getting back to the point. After YSR's death, amongst all those vociferous spokespersons of the Congress party, only Rambabu voiced support for Jagan. Right from day 1, Rambabu has been scathing in his criticism of the Rosiah govt, Sonia Gandhi and high in his praise of Jagan. You should see the debates to believe his high energy levels. So now officially Rambabu is against the congress govt and is a Jagan loyalist.

And hence the witch hunt begins! Rambabu was the chairman of AP Industrial Infrastructure Coporation (APIIC). APIIC is the organisation that gives permissions for various SEZs and IT campuses to come up in the state (Now you get the importance of this position? :D). APIIC entered into a deal with EMAAR in 2002 (yeah, when TDP was in power!) to construct a township project near Hyderabad. 74% to EMAAR, 26% to APIIC. After Congress came into power, this deal was diluted in such a way that APIIC will get about 6.5%. Plus, apparently more than half the villas/plots in this township have been officially sold at Rs.5000 per sq yard, but unofficially at Rs. 45,000 per sq yard! The calculation was done by the Congress minister himself, and therefore we now had the spectacle of the Rosaih government conducting raids on establishments that entered into a deal with YSR government! Indian Express explores if APIIC is robbed left, right and centre here. Wonder why NDTV never "explored" this?

The above cited project is just example. There have been a deluge of reports in the media about more such "deals" by APIIC, only after Rambabu was kicked out from the Congress.

Everyone is clean as long as they are in Congress and hail the High Command. The minute you stop doing either of them - you become corrupt and raids happen on your establishments. So the Congress High Command was sleeping all these years?

Still if you are keen, happy cursory reading on the Outer ring road scam, temple land scam,Jalayagnam scams (also mentioned in part-1 in some detail), Nadergul land scam . Where there is land, there is a scam!

And please note again - ministers of Congress party are themselves filing cases against corruption done when Congress party was in power; office bearers of Congress party are accusing the son of their former CM of mammoth corruption!

I am not mentioning the scams that happen below the level of a minister. Those scams, though can be avoided, cannot be blamed on the Chief Minister directly. The above mentioned scams (and the ones in part-1) are mostly at the level of the Chief Minister (along with his family). And that's exactly what differentiates all this loot (by both the central and state government leaders) from all other previous corruption cases - these happened with the direct involvement and knowledge of the highest decision making authorities.

And yet YSR won. How? Coming up in the next blogpost :)

That's all, Your Honour! : Aug 28 - Sep 3

2011-09-04T11:33:00.002+05:30

1. On August 11, President of India, Pratibha Patil rejected the mercy petition of three people convicted of assasinating former Prime Minister Raji Gandhi and 18 others in 1991. Many Presidents on have sat on this file, and the decision seemed very logical. These terrorists perpetrated a murderous crime on our citizens and deserved to be hanged. However, what transpired from then on was shocking beyond belief. The dirty politicians from Tamil Nadu bought in "sentiments of Tamils" into the picture. The noises became louder by the day, and believe it or not - the Tamil Nadu assembly adopted a resolution recommending commutation of this death sentence, keeping mind "tamil's sentiments"!! Meanwhile, Madras High Court accepted a petition by the convicts saying that 11 years is an extra-ordinary delay in awarding death sentence to them and therefore the order needs to be relooked. The death sentence has now been stayed for 8 weeks!! This whole thing is simply unacceptable. What does sentiments of tamils have to do with this? These convicts killed people - didn't they have any remorse then? So what if it took 20 years - this is kind of slow death to them, which these buggers so richly deserve. Their act is an act of attack on the country - how can we even think of pardoning them on the basis of a non-existent "tamil sentiment"? What kind of precedence will this set? Already, the loud Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir asked if the reaction would be muted if their Assembly passed a resolution asking for clemency to Afzal Guru? Now the debate will be centered around if Afzal Guru deserves clemency too (Afzal Guru has been convicted in the attack on Parliament). This resolution by Tamil Nadu assemly and the stay by Madras High Court have set such a bad precedence - something which will haunt us for a long time to come.

2. Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues have declared their assets! 4 ministers, including the great Vilasrao Deshmukh haven't declared their assets yet. Apparently Vilasrao Deshmukh did not find the time to file these details! But that's not the main joke. The main joke is this - Sharad Pawar is worth only Rs. 12 crores! That's all, Your Honour!

అదన్నమాట! : ఆగస్ట్ 31 - సెప్టెంబర్ 3

2011-09-04T09:47:00.003+05:30

రాష్ట్రం లో రాజకీయ అనిశ్చితి కొనసా ...గుతూనే ఉంది. రోజూ సిబిఐ విచారణ జరుగు ..తూనే ఉంది.

ఇది అంతా జగనన్న వర్గానికి చెందినా ఎంఎల్ఏలను నిరాస పరచడానికే అని అనిపిస్తుంది. విచారణ ఎంత పొడిగిస్తే, అంత ఎక్కువ సమయం వీలన్ని బుజ్జగించడానికి / బెదిరించడానికి కాంగ్రెస్స్ వాళ్ళకి దొరుకుతుంది. జగన్ ని అర్రెస్ట్ చేస్తారు అని ఊహాగానాలు పుట్టిస్తున్నారు. కాదు, కేవలం ఆస్తుల్ని జప్తు చేస్తారు అని ఇంకో ఊహాగానం పుట్టిస్తున్నారు. మరి ఇలా అయితే, మీ పరిస్థితి ఏంటి అని ఎంఎల్ఏలను ప్రలోభ పెట్టడానికి ప్రయత్నాలు జరుగుతున్నాయి. స్పీకర్ గారు కూడా రోజుకి ఇద్దరు ఎంఎల్ఏలను మాత్రమె కలుస్తున్నారు. మరి బుజ్జగిస్తున్నారో, వాళ్ళ మాటలు వింటున్నారో ఎవరికీ తెలిదు. ఇది ఇలా ఉండగా, జగనన్న ఇవ్వాళ తన వర్గపు ఎంఎల్ఏలను కలుస్తున్నారు. ఇప్పటి వరకు రాజీనామా చేసిన 26 మంది కాకుండా, ఇంకా మరి కొంత మంది చేత రాజీనామాలు చేయించాలి అని జగనన్న అలోచిస్తునట్లు ఇంకో పుకారు పుట్టింది. మొత్తం కలిపితే, రాష్ట్రం లో రాజకీయ అనిశ్చితి ఇప్పుడు అప్పుడే అంతం అయ్యేది లాగ లేదు.

ఇది ఇలా ఉండగా, తెలంగాణా ఉద్యోగులు ఈ నెల 13 నుంచి సమ్మె చేస్తారు అంట. అట్టేందర్ దగ్గర నుంచి గజేట్టేడ్ ఆఫీసర్ దాక అందరు పని మానేస్తారు అంట. అంటే, మళ్ళి ఇంకో అనిశ్చితి కి తెర లేగావనుంది. అదన్నమాట!

The Great Loot of Andhra Pradesh...

2011-09-02T09:33:00.030+05:30

The above banner headline reads: Rs. 45Cr + 3 1/2 years = Rs. 3,053.90 crores!
The caricature is Y.S.Jagan Mohan Reddy, s/o late CM of Andhra Pradesh from Congress, Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy.
This headline was in the telugu newspaper, eenadu.
This headline is not a recent one.
And most importantly, this loot of Rs.3,000 crores is not the only loot that has been perpetuated on the people of Andhra Pradesh in the past 7 years. This is just a sample.

Let's briefly look into the math of the above headline before proceeding further to explain the growth of the YS empire. Raghuram Cements was bought over by a new company called Bharathi Cements. Bharathi is the name of Jagan Mohan Reddy's wife. The YS family gets about 4.5 crore shares alloted to them at Rs.10/- per share. Companies like India Cements, Dalmiya Cements suddenly bought premium shares for much higher amounts and invest about Rs.250 crores for a 31% share! The YS family owns 69% of the company with an investment of Rs. 45 crores. Others invested about Rs.250 crores with 31% share, into a company that hasn't even begun manufacturing! The article later goes on to explain how this 69% share holding rose in its value to about Rs. 3000/- crores in just 3 1/2 years.

The detailed math and financial transactions are way too complicated for my understanding. The route used by the companies of YS family is so circutous, it makes your mind go into a tizzy. Simple example. The company that invested 69% into Bharati Cements is Jagati Publications. Jagati Publications (named by combining Jagan's name and his wife Bharati's name) owns Sakshi newspaper. Shares were alloted to YS family in this company too, for Rs. 10/- !! Deloitte values this company for Rs.3,500 crore, and therefore the value of YS family shares jumps to thousands of crores!

Let's leave all the math jargon aside. Let's assume that all this is a propaganda by the opposition and a media that is against the Congress. Let's just go by facts present in the public domain (the charts presented below have been picked up from TDP's website, who in turn have picked it up from documents available in public domain).

Y.S Family in 2004.

YS Family ownership in 2005 (1 year after YSR became CM of AP)

YS Family ownership in 2006

YS Family ownership in 2007 (when Bharati cements also got added!)

Let's also for a moment assume that the above material presented at TDP's website is also bogus. Jagan, in his 2011 election affidavit said he has ownership in the following 11 companies!

Sandur Power
Saraswati Power
Carmel Asia Holdings
Bharathi Cement Corp
Kealawn Technologies Pvt Ltd
Marvel Infrastructure
Classic Realty
Silicon Builders
Swasti Power Engineering Ltd

First post also mentions that Sandur power has 4 subsidiaries atleast:

Classic Realty
Harish Infrastructure
Capstone Infra
Silicon Builders

Is your mind in a tizzy now? Has it been blown away by the complications of companies, percentages, ownership, subsidiaries and the wealth discussed above? Here's more official information:

Jagan declared the value of his assets as Rs.365 crore in 2011. Another ~Rs47 crore in the name of his wife. He is the richest MP in the annals of Indian history, with no close competition in sight in the near future! Guess how much his declared earnings were in 2003? ~Rs.9 lakh!! In 2009 - it was Rs.77.40 crores. From a mere 10 lakhs in 2003 to tens of crores in 2009 to hundreds of crores in 2011 - this is one musical journey for Jagan Mohan Reddy and YSR's family!

Almost every company mentioned above received some largesse or the other from the government (both the centre and the state were ruled by the Congress during this time). Each of these investors have recieved some largesse (in terms of land, investments, loans, rules etc). Now, are you wondering how come no media highlighted this? Take a look at the snapshot below.

The above snapshot is a small collection of headlines from the popular telugu daily, eenadu. Eenadu, along with another newspaper Andhra Jyothy, has revealed many such corruption sagas by the YS family and the other members of the Congress government. Slowly, a momentum was built saying both these newspapers were partisan; never exposed corruption in TDP regime etc

When TDP and other opposition parties discussed the share holding details in animated debates in the Assembly - guess what YSR and his stooges replied? They asked Chandrababu Naidu why he was jealous if other companies were making money! The ruling party rubbished pretty much every allegation. YSR even appointed some judicial commissions with retired Judges heading them - ofcourse we know the result (almost none of them submitted any report)! Not satisfied with that, they went on to open a newspaper and a TV channel to counter the "opposition" propaganda!

Sakshi newspaper and TV had two goals in mind - glorify YSR and demonise Chandrababu/Eenadu. If eenadu stories had details about corruption by YS and family, Sakshi would immediately resort to stories of "corruption" by eenadu etc. As if corruption by one group justified corruption by the other! And now suddenly the debate in the state turned to the "media war". The debate was never about corruption anymore - just about how cunning these media people are blah blah.

Even by now, if you are not convinced that public money and power were not misused, here's a minor fact revealed by CAG. Governments are not supposed to place ads in new newspapers, unless they publish continously for six months. Guess for which newspaper this rule was broken?? Full page ads in Sakshi newspaper right from day one! That's your money down the drain there! Sakshi paper was established for government propaganda and on top of that - full page ads!

The above mentioned details are just of THE empire. We have not even discussed the mammoth corruption in various government schemes and programs, that went on unhindered. Jalayagnam, the pet project of YSR involves construction of "30 major and 18 medium irrigation projects at a cost of Rs. 46,000 crores to provides irrigation to an extent of 73 lakh acres ". From the official website (which incidentally still has a picture of YSR and not the current CM!), "Eight of these projects were to be completed before the kharif season of 2006". Till now, only 12 projects have been completed. Project costs were escalated, tender process was rigged - what not! Even Sonia Gandhi was forced to order an internal probe into this! It was even labelled as "Dhanayagnam" by the opposition! No news about that. Scams unearthed ranged from industries (which involved the current PCC Chief)to education department, and yet not a squeal from the "national" media.

I am sure you people must have heard about "Reddy Brothers" from Karnataka. I am sure you would have assumed by now, given the awesome coverage that they are the epitome of corruption in this country. You must have also heard that through their Obulapuram mining company, the Reddy brothers have manufactured an unprecedent loot of natural resources of this country. Quiz Question - in which state in Obulapuram located? Andhra Pradesh!

This same Obulapuram Mining company also owns "Brahmani Steels" which - hold your breath - reportedly made profits even before it started manufacturing any steel! 10,000 acres of land was alloted to it in Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh) after a cabinet decision by the Congress government in AP in 2007. We were also told that the plant will start manufacturing within 18 months (without any bank loan!) and will beat Vizag Steel Plant in no time (according to latest TOI report, the plant is nowhere close to manufacturing!). Amidst lot of criticism, a successful foundation laying ceremony was also held. I very vividly remember, YSR playing a Quiz master here and asking the Reddy brothers all the questions that the opposition was asking, and the Reddy brothers "refuted" them point by point. And therefore, amidst public, it was decided that this steel project is the awesomest idea ever.

The USP is always the same. Allot shares for yourself at the cheapest price possible. Lure investors to buy shares at a more higher price. Give these investors largesse in terms of land, concessions etc etc. And get away with all the loot.

What has been mentioned in this blog so far is not comprehensive - only because the loot is so large, it is impossible to cover everything in one go! A mining lease was issued to YSR's son-in-law Brother Anil Kumar, which was later cancelled by the centre, very conveniently in 2010. I am sure if we start digging into Brother Anil Kumar's business details.

Please remember, all this loot happened when Jagan was a member of Congress party and his father YSR was heading the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh. Please also remember that YSR was one of the favorite Chief Ministers of the high command led by Sonia Gandhi.

The reason I am mentioning the Congress party so many times is because there has been a concentrated campaign to try to convince people that this loot by the Congress party led by the father-son duo had nothing to do with the Congress party itself! And now, after Jagan Mohan Reddy has resigned from Congress, many leaders from Congress are openly accusing him of misusing power. Many are openly calling him as very corrupt. And when pointed out that all this corruption took place under the guidance of YSR, they went on to say, Jagan misused his father's powers!!

The Andhra Pradesh High Court directed the CBI to investigate these cases. Minor fact that media won't tell you - this case was filed by a Congress minister, Sankar Rao! (a second case was filed by TDP leader, Yerran Naidu). So now, the corruption accusations are no more a opposition and media conspiracy. Have you ever seen a near unanimity amongst all major political parties on such a contentious issue? Leaders of the same Congress party who enjoyed the spoils of power under YSR are saying there was massive corruption; PRP, the party whose main plank was to take on this corruption merged with the Congress because YS family is not in power anymore; TDP, Left, and BJP (the state unit) have been crying hoarse from a long time too!

The regional media, has been shouting from the rooftop of the loot being done in the name of business acumen. From about 6-7 years, they have been very vociferous of the corruption and robbery the YS family has been resorting. This "national" media was no where to be seen or heard. There was one obscure "Devil's advocate" interview by Karan Thapar in which YSR had only one answer - Go the court if you think it is wrong! Other than that, no "exclusives". No stories of the phenomenal growth of THE empire. Atleast, if they thought this was a media war - no story about that either!

The closest any newspaper came was this article in livemint. Just that article is enough to confuse us with the machinations used.

Anyways, Jagan owns two palaces. One in Hyderabad. It is a 74 room palace! The second is in Bangalore. Take a look below

Bangalore palace:

Hyderabad palace:

And what did B.S.Yedyyurappa do? Alloted some government land under CM's discretionary quota to his family members. Remember the outrage by the "national" media? I rest my case.

PS: I would welcome any fact based rebuttal. Please resist from labelling this article as Anti-jagan, anti-congress blah blah. We have crossed that line long back!

విరామం తరువాత ...

2011-09-01T10:05:00.002+05:30

మీ అందరికి వినాయక చవితి శుభాకాంక్షలు. తెలుగు లో రాసే ఆర్టికల్స్ కి వచ్చిన అంతరాయానికి చింతిస్తున్నా :( . అనివార్య కారణాలు వల్ల రాయలేకపోయాను. గత నెల లో చాల పరిణామాలు చోటు చేసుకున్నాయి. ఇందులో ముఖ్యమైన పరిణామం - జగనన్న మీద సిబిఐ విచారణ !

మాకు ఏమి సంబంధం లేదు, అంతా కోర్ట్ ఆదేశాల మేరకు జరుగుతున్నాయి అని కాంగ్రెస్స్ వాళ్ళు కబుర్లు చెప్తున్నారు. కోర్ట్ లో కాసు వేసింది కాంగ్రెస్ మంత్రి అని మాత్రం చెప్పారు!! ఎప్పుడో జరగాల్సిన విచారణ ఎట్టకేలకు మొదలు అయ్యింది. కాని, జగన్ మరియు యైఎసార్ కాంగ్రెస్స్ లో ఉన్నంత కాలం, ఈ అవినీతి, అక్రమ సంపాదన గుర్తు రాలేదా?? జగన్ అంత దోచుకుంటే, దాంట్లో అసలు వైఎసార్ ప్రమేయం లేదు అంటే నమ్మడానికి జనం ఏమైనా పిచ్చోల్లా ?

జగన్ అవినీతి పరుడు అని ఇప్పుడు కాంగ్రెస్స్ వాళ్ళు కూడా కోడై కూస్తున్నారు ? ఇప్పుడు గుర్తు వచ్చిందా మీకు ? అప్పుడు ఏమో మీరు ఆటను కలిపి దోచుకునప్పుడు ప్రశ్నిస్తే, కొట్టి పారేశారు కదా ఆరోపణలు అన్ని? కాంగ్రెస్స్ నుంచి బయటకి రాగానే, ఈయన అవినీతి పరుడు, అక్రమంగా డబ్బులు సంపాదించాడా ? జగనన్న మీద వేసిన చార్గిశీట్ లో వైఎసార్ పేరు కూడా ఉంది అంట ... ఈ మాట విని 26 మంది ఎమ్యెల్యేలు రాజీనామా చేసారు. ముందు ఏమో వాళ్ళని బుజ్జగించడానికి ప్రయత్నించారు. వాళ్ళు వినకపోవడం తో, ఇప్పుడు ఏమో రాజీనామాలు ఆమోదించ మంటున్నారు. మళ్ళి ఎన్నికలు వస్తాయి, పాలన స్తంబిస్తుంది.

క్రిందటి నెల ఏమో తెలంగాణా ఎమ్యెల్యేలు, మంత్రులు రాజీనామా డ్రామా నడిచింది. మంత్రులు ఏమో ఆఫీస్ కి వెళ్ళడం మానేసారు, ఒక నెల వరకు ! కేంద్ర ప్రభుత్వం, 14(f) ని తీసేసింది అన్న మంత్రులు పని లోకి రావడం మొదలు పెట్టారు. ఇలా పని లోకి వచ్చారో లేదో, జగనన్న ఎమ్యెల్యేలు రాజీనామా ఇచ్చారు. ఇంకా పాలించే సమయం ఎక్కడికి అండి? రాష్ట్రం ఇంత లాగ అతలాకుతలం అవుతూ ఉంటె, పట్టించుకునే నాధుడే లేదు మనకి !

ఇంత హడావడి మధ్యలో , చిరంజీవి గారు రాహుల్ గాంధి సమక్షం లో కాంగ్రెస్స్ లో చేరిపోయారు. మనసులు కలుపుకోవాలి అని కార్యకర్తల్ని ఉద్దేశించి చెప్పారు కూడా. మిగిలిన ఆ కొద్ది పాటి కార్యకర్తులు అయన మాట వినక ఎం చేస్తారు లెండి !

ఈ నెల రోజుల్లో జరిగిన ఏకైక మంచి - మంచి వర్షాలు పడ్డాయి రాష్ట్రం లో. అదన్నమాట!

That's all, Your Honour! : Aug 14-27

2011-08-28T10:11:00.005+05:30

Apologize for not filling in last week...I was not keeping good health. However, the single news that dominated last week and the previous one was this - The indefinite fast by Anna Hazare, demanding the passing of his version of Jan Lokpal bill.

An earlier blogpost, written when Anna first fasted on this issue, has detailed links on the background of the bill. After the government agreed for consultations, Anna Hazare called off his fast. After that, the government of India and members of Anna Hazare's team met several times to come up with a joint draft. However, apparently there were 7 differences (strangely, am unable to find the list of these 7 items, but an extensive list is here ) between both the parties, and the government of India was unwilling to incorporate these demands. This led to breakdown of talks, and to the beginning of confusion.

The government first said, we will present both versions of the bill to the Cabinet and whatever cabinet approves, we will present it in Parliament. And then we are told that only the government draft will go the cabinet. Meanwhile, protests erupt intermittently, demanding that both versions be presented. The government suddenly realises that the opposition was not included in any of the deliberations. It suddenly realises that all this while, it has been talking about supremacy of elected representatives, and it has not consulted those very representatives! So, as is the norm, an all party meeting is called. And in this all party meeting, all opposition parties were unanimous in condemning the unilateral action of the government ignoring the opposition in the first place. Some sanctimonious UPA partners derided Anna, asking who the hell is Ann to dictate terms, at which point they were reminded that their own government was talking to Anna all along!

After taking the government to task at this meeting, it was proposed that the government should first come up with a draft, introduce the bill in Parliament, send it to standing committee, debate it further and then pass (in accordance with the established procedure). The draft bill approved by the Cabinet is presented in Parliament on the 4th of August, 2011. Meanwhile, Anna Hazare had long back announced that he will again begin fasting on August 16th, if the Jan Lokpal is not passed in this session. The government was adamant that passing the bill is impossible, we will introduce the bill and according to established procedure, send it to the Standing Committee to study it further, and then pass the bill. This process is due to take some time, and therefore the demand that the bill be passed this session is unreasonable. Fair enough.

However, the mood against the bill presented by the government was agitative. Immediately after the bill was presented, Sushma Swaraj (BJP), leader of Opposition stood up and said, the BJP wants the Prime Minister to be included in this bill. She wondered why the government is not willing to have the Prime Minister when the previous version of the bill, presented in 2001, included the PM. And she also reminded that the standing committee that went over this bill was headed by Pranab Mukherjee. Pranab reminded her that that version of the Lokpal bill was not passed. And the discussion ended there. The bill was sent to the Standing Committee.

And with this, the government washed its hands off, saying the ball is now in the committee's court. Meanwhile, the hyping up of Anna Hazare's impending fast began in all earnest. The arrogance of the government was slowly showing too. First, they refuse permission for this fast. Then they put in the most unreasonable conditions for giving permission (stuff like, you can have only 5000 people at the venue, you can fast only for 3 days and worst - only 50 two wheelers and 50 four wheeler will be allowed to park!!). The government then goes on an overdrive saying Anna is breaking the law blah blah. Anna Hazare declares that he will start his fast on the 16th of August, despite these conditions. "Supremacy of law" was played in a loop by the government. And then their biggest blunder.

The government arrested (yes arrested) Anna Hazare on the morning of August 16th, from his house!! Not just the arrest, they took him to an "unknown location". The ensuing confusion was unprecedented. Suddenly it was not about the Jan Lokpal bill anymore. It was about a citizens right to protest against the government (and Parliament). Anna's demands might be unreasonable but none can snatch away his right to protest. And along with him, the rights of thousands of his supporters. Home Minister P. Chidambaram tells in a press conference in the afternoon that he does not know where Anna is. All he knows is that Anna will be presented at a Magistrate soon! He along with Kapil Sibal and Ambika Soni reel out standard answers (they could have gone to court if demands were unreasonable blah blah). And then the next blunder happened.

The Magistrate ordered that Anna Hazare be sent to Tihar jail (along with Kiran Bedi and Shanti Bhushan). This was laughable beyond comparison. We have media highlighting that Anna is sent to the same jail that houses the epitomes of corruption. Even the worst critics of the JanLokpal Bill and the methods Anna chose to undermine the government, were shocked at this decision. TV media then suddenly flashes that the saviour of this country, Rahul Gandhi has stepped in and now Anna Hazare will be released from jail. Suddenly, all those platitudes of law taking its course and government having no hand in the arrest was blown to pieces. Now, Delhi police get orders to release Anna.

Anna refuses to come out of Tihar jail. He wants the government to relax all conditions set for his fast. He wants to fast at Ramlila maidan, and unless the government relents on conditions set for this fast, he will not leave Tihar jail. This whole arrest drama is where the government lost the entire plot. The moment the Congress government stifled the right of a citizen to protest, there is no way out of that quagmire. Ultimately the government had to relent to all these conditions, and the fast continued from the Ramlila maidan.

And the response only began to grow. In many cities across the country, protest marches were organised. Thousands of people joined these marches. Critics countered saying these thousands did not know about the draconian provisions of the Jan Lokpal bill. Critics argued that this kind of blackmail will not work, and must not be encouraged. Critics argued that this fast is setting a path towards anarchy. And with each such argument, the crowds just began to increase. Congress party even called Anna Hazare a corrupt person and used harsh language against him(only to apologise later)

The anger is real. We have seen monumental and unprecedented amounts of corruption these past two years. The breaking point of people's patience was reached. Previously, when we opened newspapers, there was news of murder everywhere. These two years, all we see is news of corruption. This massive corruption by the Congress government and the Prime Minister's stellar contribution to the rise of corruption in this country was the sole cause for this anger. It did not matter what the provisions of the bill are - all it mattered was this movement was against corruption. That's all it mattered - and this Congress government is entirely responsible. The valid arguments of blackmail were drowned in this massive support, and frankly it didn't matter if this was blackmail or not.

The outpouring of emotions on the street was a good thing. That most of them who joined these protests, at one point or the other broke some rule or the other is a fact. However, if their participation will lead to a better society, where traffic rules are not broken, bribes are not paid to get things done in the parliament, then the movement has achieved something.

Each passing day only increased the participation. People braved rain and sun, applied leave to their offices, took a break from their work - and announced they supported Anna. All this while, negotiations were on. Prime Minister also wrote a letter, in which he says "your and our object is identical"!! Finally, Anna said that if three of his demands are accepted, he will end his fast. He wanted lower bureaucracy to be bought under the ambit of Lokpal; a citizen's charter to be displayed at all offices; and establishment of Lokayukta at state level.

The government again began it's bungling here. One day, the Prime Minister says he is ready to discuss these. Next day, Rahul Gandhi is given an out of turn chance to speak in Lok Sabha and he says JanLokPal is not the solution and gives a "I believe in" kind of speech, which frankly revealed more about his stupidity than anything else. Anyways, the confusion was much more evident now. The fast entered into the 11th day and the government was nowhere close to finding a solution.

With active intervention from BJP and other opposition parties, the differences in the resolution were ironed out. The congress party was still continuing it's confusing gameplan. On thursday, we are told there will be a debate on friday. On Friday, Rahul Gandhi delivers his magnum opus at 12. More confusion. At 2:10, government says debate is at 2:30pm!! Without consulting parties on what kind of resolution, they announce a debate at 2:30. BJP objects, and more time is bought now. Finally Parliament agrees to meet on Saturday, in which the opposition tore into the government and also into some of the unreasonable demands of the members of Anna Hazare's team.

After a day long debate in Parliament (details on that later :) ), the House agreed in principle to the three demands of Anna Hazare, and sent its recommendation to the standing Committee. Anna agreed to end his 13 day fast.

Phew - that was a very long post :) Apologies, but wanted to document all at one place. That we continue to suffer from this tragic Congress regime is unfortunate. Will end this post now - and will continue later :) Before ending, hats off to the 74 year old Anna Hazare. Hats off.

THE Precedent!

2011-08-26T13:01:00.002+05:30

On 23rd August, CNN-IBN asked:

At 10 pm tonight...Will Anna's protest style now become a precedent for the future?

A precedent? Really? So no one threatened and blackmailed the government with a fast unto death till date? Why go way back into the past, lets go to Dec 2009 when the central government announced a separate Telangana state by giving in to the KCRs demand. The resultant chaos because of that caving in by GoI, is there for all to see (well, except for these self professed national media). But back then, while the fast was on, the debate was on whether small states were good or bad, not whether fasting (and therefore blackmailing) was good or bad.

Curiously, when it came to the Anna Hazare movement, so far, the media has debated how their demand is unreasonable, how it will become a precedent, how the numbers are exaggerated, how negative energy is being created etc etc. And also, those protesting will break traffic lights argument also came into picture. If atleast 75% of those who marched on the streets, decide to follow traffic rules (even if they didn't earlier) that is a huge victory to this movement.

Karan Thapar interviews Arvind Kejriwal and Prashanth Bhushan. He starts bombarding them and questions how can they claim such massive support of people in lakhs, when a CNN-IBN survey says 24%, 42% blah blah blah. That CNN-IBN survey was done with 20,000 people. On any given day during the last 10 days, that was minimum number of people just at the Ramlila maidan in New Delhi. And we are not talking about thousands more in other cities. So for media, their 20,000 survey is the ultimate truth, but members of IAC (India Against Corruption) should NOT be enthused about the response they are getting in lakhs (which again Karan Thapar thinks are exaggerated!).

On August 16th, Anna Hazare was arrested. Ministers P.Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Ambika Soni addressed a press conference and were trying hard to justify the arrest. And then a gem of a question was thrown at them ( I am not able to find the transcript though). The journalist said the current outpour of anger is disgust not just with corruption at high level but even the common man has to pay to get things done. He has to pay for a passport, for a license etc. Has the government recognised this, and what steps are being taken to address that issue. In my opinion, that question summed up the correct mood. The answer was ofcourse long winded and generic.

What however was not debated threadbare, is this anger. We'd expect the media to discuss WHY there is so much spontaneous support. Why did people apply leave to their offices, moved out of their comfort zones to march on the street? Who are all these people who are braving the rain and sun, coming out to support Anna Hazare? Instead, what do we get? The Prime Minister himself has said that Anna has become a symbol of people's angst against corruption. Why then have we never debated the reasons for this angst? Why then did the media never ask the ruling dispensation of its failure to control this? As always, this was made to look like a problem of the entire political class and not of UPA alone. It is only UPAs corruption that gave fuel to this fire. To sidetrack that debate is naive. To sidetrack that anger, by citing legalese and rhetoric is disastrous.

Some of Anna's demands are unreasonable. However, what drove him to make those unreasonable demands? And why is there such an outpour of support for those demands? Ill - informed you would say? Then who will take the blame for that? The media which did not disseminate full information? Or just blame it on ignorance of the masses? First, you hype up the movement, then you say it is unreasonable. For a change, why don't you decide first?

In what have now become his trademark and famous "gnight" tweets, CNN-IBN's Editor in Chief, Rajdeep Sardesai, recently had this to say

was asked to wear an 'i am anna' cap in studio by a friend. had to remind him that journalism aint marketing! gnight

I was forced to go back to the "My Name is Khan" controversy days, when the entire English TV media wanted to us to buy a ticket and watch the show, to make a point about democracy and all that (strangely, that ain't marketing!). Here is a sample from the same Rajdeep:

to every mumbaikar: go watch mnik in the theatres, its a small, but important way of taking a stand.

Fellow blogger, Vivek, has in detail described IBN's wavering stand on the Anna Hazare issue. His blog is a must read on that topic.

When the MNIK controversy happened, there were only two sides (according to this English media). You are either with SRK or with the Shiv Sena. There is no third ground. It was impossible to get a third view across. I made an attempt, but in vain.

ok @bdutt .I believe in free speech too.I protest @iamsrk calling Pak a great neighbour.As a mark of protest I wont watch MNIK.Can you RT?

Now, since the media itself has problems with the methods Anna Hazare is using, they start debating:

Does voicing any criticism of Anna's movement make you corrupt and anti national? FTN 10pm

The impulsive and "only the present matters" approach of this TV media is getting so damaging, that pretty soon we will all rue for even watching them for so long! All they leave us is confused threadbare - not give us clarity.

That's all, Your Honour! : Aug 6-13

2011-08-15T09:00:00.000+05:30

1. After peddling multiple lies on where the Afzal Guru file is, the Central government finally recommended to the President that he be hanged. When the issue of the delay in processing his file was bought up a couple of years ago, we were told that the file is with Delhi government, Delhi Lt.Governor, Central Govt and even with the President! And then like all issues, this issue also died down and the government once again got away with lies. It was very well known that many "prominent" people, and most of the Congress party members wanted clemency granted to him. This despite the fact that the trial court, High Court, and Supreme Court have all upheld his death penalty. Afzal Guru is the prime accused in the attack on Parliament, and this has been established beyond doubt in all court trials. The head of the interlocutors for J&K, Mr. Dilip Padgoankar has even called this decision as bad timing because this might create problems in Kashmir. That such considerations and cheap vote bank politics by many political parties hastened the hanging of a man who is primarily responsible for the attack on Indian parliament is disgusting to say the least. Here's hoping that the President will take a quick decision and close the case for good.

2. Governance in Andhra Pradesh is still being taken for a toss. The latest confrontation is about a clause in a government rule that declares Hyderabad as a free zone for all candidates appearing for SI exam ( I am not totally sure if this rule applies for only this exam or for all exams. But this rule has been bought into the picture each time this exam was planned to conduct). Pro-Telangana people want this clause deleted and their demand is that postings in Hyderabad be made exclusively for Telangana people only. Amidst high tensions last year, the Assembly passed a unanimous resolution asking the central government to delete this clause. However, our dear Home Minister, asks the Assembly to pass a fresh resolution again! This statement paved way for fresh flare-ups. CM had to convince our dear Home Minister that it is not possible to get a fresh resolution. Somehow our Home Minister seems to have realised this, and finally decided to delete this clause. Actually the SI exam that was conducted last weekend, was not for Hyderabad anyway! Wonder why these political parties made such a big issue in the first place!

3. And finally about Karnataka - the famous Reddy brothers are out of the cabinet! But no english TV media highlighted this. That's all, Your honour!

Disconnect of English TV media!

2011-08-12T11:40:00.006+05:30

The Hindu has been presenting the findings of a CNN-IBN & CNBC-TV18 ‘State of the Nation Poll’ "State of the Nation" poll, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Ofcourse, CNN-IBN also debated them everyday and I haven't seen any of them. The findings of this poll have been published over 5 days. Some observations and interpretations to follow now :)

State of the Media

No no - that poll was not conducted :D. Today's poll findings were about the popularity ratings of various Chief Ministers. The results can be found here. Am just pasting a snapshot of one result below.

Now - here's my question - can anyone show or point to a link, where we can find 5 good stories about the top 5 Chief Ministers? Leave top 5 - 10 good stories of the top 10 Chief Ministers?

Let's leave CMs of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala out of this survey - they just won landslide victories, so their popularity is expected.

What is it that you always hear about Chattisgarh? Salwa Judum, SPO, Naxalites, law and order.
What is it that you hear about Gujarat? 2002. Nothing more, nothing less.
What is it that you hear about Orissa? Last we knew, farmers protesting about land acquisition and before that Rahul Gandhi's visit to Niyamagiri
What is it that you commonly hear about Bihar? Nitish Kumar is good, bought hope blah blah. One, one indepth story of about how he became so popular?
What is it that you hear about Madhya Pradesh?? Nothing! (except for having to hear from their former CM, Digvijay Singh on a daily basis!)
What is it that you hear about Uttarakhand? Maybe many of us will even forget that such a state exists, given the kind of coverage!
What is it that you hear about Assam? Once in 5 years, when there are elections. That's all.

If we watch and read the publications that published these results (and others too), all we will know is that the above 7 states are either screwed or don't exist!! How come their admistrators are so popular then? Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa has a 51% popular rating. 51% !! And what do we know about him?

The question here is not of media bias - we don't hear of good stories from Rajasthan either (a Congress ruled state). The observation here is the kind of negative and banal coverage silly issues get on the english TV media. The above survey results are proof enough of their severe disconnect from the masses of the country.

State of the UPA

Almost every index that was surveyed showed UPA in extreme poor light.

On Terrorism ( the most shocking thing here is that 61% actually thought government's response to terrorism was good in 2009!!) And if one were to go by the commentary of the english TV media - Chidambaram is the best Home Minister the country ever had. The same media house publishes a survey which shows the confidence declined by a whopping ~30% during his time. Another disconnect? (assuming the survey is true).

On price rise (blame on the Central government)

On Corruption (full page here) only one snapshot of a summary below:

Yet, Rahul as PM!

And finally the one thing the entire media wants to happen - Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister of India. 19% respondents want him to become Prime Minister.

Except for the survey on Rahul Gandhi, all the other surveys had detailed break-ups of "urban", "rural", "literate", "college" etc. It will also be interesting to note what these segments think about Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister. The survey (some good questions on the methodology here) covered 73% of rural areas, and it is not surprising Rahul Gandhi get 19% thumbs up as the Prime Minister.

Many have already analysed why despite the congress falling down, the BJP hasn't rised. It is BJP's own failing to counter a massive PR propaganda of the Rahul Gandhi machinery. The media went overdrive to project Rahul Gandhi as an entity that has nothing to do with the UPA government. Look at the state government results - the percieved "Rahul magic" does not work. When it comes to national level politics, then the perception of people is bound to change. Rural people (in general) interact more with the state government - for them a Prime Minister might not mean as much as the Chief Minister means. Urban people are lazy and impulsive - an image of Rahul Gandhi "fighting" for farmers is enough for them to think that he is "the" man. And quite frankly, BJP has so far failed in countering this PR propaganda.

And another main drawback is that the BJP still doesn't have a face for this 2014 campaign (perhaps things will be clear in 2012, post UP elections but any delay beyond that will be damaging). We still don't know if Congress will declare Rahul as PM, but for sure he is their face for any campaign.

A split up of this 19% will reveal much more than what is hidden. I have sent a mail to election@csds.in but haven't received any mail yet. (Update, I just got a reply, and the results are astounding! - below)

Looks like the PR machinery of Rahul Gandhi is turning out to be a success :( .

However, look at the snapshot below.

"The sentiment against the UPA continuing in power is stronger in urban areas and among the upper classes. While in rural areas, the sentiments against the UPA is strong, there are still more people among the sections who want it to continue in power".

Hence a split up of these areas when it comes to the Prime Minister is crucial to understand the Rahul Gandhi "phenomenon". Plus there is little to cheer about - look at that survey. Vajpayee's popularity was 38% in 2004. And yet NDA lost.

By the way, the survey on Prime Minister itself has 3 exclusive questions on Rahul Gandhi.

Padayatra? Show me ONE article that gives us the distance he travelled on foot? Just one.

Fine print...

2011-08-09T09:06:00.006+05:30

CNN-IBN and The Hindu are publishing results of a "State of the Nation" poll conducted by Centre for the study of developing societies. The poll is throwing up many interesting facts and will be published all along this week. A more detailed study of the poll will follow later. But for today.... couldn't help but notice something.

Yesterday's results were published in The Hindu. The topic was Rahul Gandhi (disguised in the name of who should be the Prime Minister. Don't believe me? "Opinion on Rahul as Prime Minsiter", "Rahul's trustworthy and pro-poor image", "Rahul better known than his work" - 3 out of 10 questions). Anyway, that is not what I want to talk about now.

19% of the respondents want Rahul Gandhi to become PM and he is the top scorer. Snapshot below.

Now below is a snapshot of IBN's website I took this morning.

A first look suggests that 42% of the public wants him to become PM. But the fine print "Among UPA leaders" is small font, is the key. See below.

Again, look at The Hindu's report:

That's how you report it. How come you glorify 42% and then have "Among UPA leaders tucked away?

My apologies if others were immediately able to spot "Among UPA leaders" at first sight, without the attention going to 42%, the question and Rahul's smiling picture. Only because I knew it was 19%, I searched for the fine print. Again apologies if others didn't find this glaring.

The "venemous glee" ...

2011-08-08T07:19:00.003+05:30

B. Raman is a former officer of RAW (Research and Analysis Wing, the external intelligence wing of India). He is also the author of the book, the Kaoboys. On his blog, he regularly discusses many strategic issues. Occasionally, he also talks about hate on the internet. He is also a great admirer of Barkha Dutt, and misses no opportunity to praise her sky-high.

Recently, the Congress party announced that Sonia Gandhi went to the US for getting a surgery done and hours later Tehelka reports that Sonia Gandhi is in a cancer hospital for a surgery. While there were different viewpoints on how this serious matter can be kept so secret, Barkha Dutt emphatically declares that Sonia Gandhi is entitled to her privacy (it matters little though, that a NDTV website published the video of an ailing Steve Jobs).

B.Raman writes a blog post titled "VENOMOUS THOUGHTS THROUGH THE INTERNET" and discusses how Sonia Gandhi's illness has bought out the worst in some tweeters. He is disturbed with their thought process, through which they were hoping (or justifying) she would get more sick. Also, in this process B.Raman also brings in the "hatred" targetted towards Barkha Dutt (believe it or not, yes!).

So far, so good.

Now, this article has been picked by rediff. Small change in the headline though. "A venemous glee over the internet". And then the article is split into a slide show. First slide has a slide with an accompanying screenshot of a "I hate Sonia Gandhi" facebook page. Rediff made it look like as if there exists only a "I hate only" page for Sonia Gandhi. Slides 2 and 3 were the most contentious.

Slide 2 had a screenshot with search results on twitter for "Barkha Dutt".

Silde 3 had a screenshoot with search results on twitter for "Sagarika Ghose".

And in slide 3, tweets of yours truly appeared in that screenshot! Now, I do not believe this was deliberate targetting of certain individual tweeters. This is a very very poor editorial call. A total of 8 tweets have been shown on slides 2 and 3 - Not a SINGLE one of them is venomous, nor is there glee over them. Merely having tweets there just because Barkha and Sagarika are "mentioned" is naive. And if those tweets were "chosen" after a scrutiny, then it is a desperately cheap judgement call.

Just tweeting about Sagarika and Barkha does not amount to "venom". This kind of blind assumption that anyone criticising Barkha (because of the way she conducts interviews) and Sagarika (because of...ahh well!) have hatred written all over them and need not be taken seriously is very dangerous. Already Barkha uses this logic to not answer anyone questioning her strongly. It was sad to see rediff fall for this bait.

We requested rediff to provide us equal space to write a a counter argument, but rediff ended up removing those screenshots from the website. I would have preferred if that space was provided, but alas!

That's all, Your Honour! : July 31 - Aug.6

2011-08-08T07:17:00.001+05:30

1. Phew - finally some closure to the "nataka" in Karnataka (pleas to excuse me folks, for repeating that phrase many times ... just that I like it a lot :D). B.S.Yedyurappa resigned as the Chief Minister of Karnataka. However, a consensus eluded the legislators on who the next leader should be. After 2 days of failed consultation, the top brass of BJP decided to go for a secret ballot. Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh oversaw this secret ballot. 65 MLAs voted in favour of Sadananda Gowda and 51 voted in favour of Jagdish Shettar. This secret ballot is not just significant for the polity in Karnataka alone. This should be a curtain raiser for many such democratic options. Party Presidents can be elected through secret ballots. Legislature party leaders should be elected by secret ballot (instead of the banal "Madam will decide"). It is sincerely hoped that this system of secret ballot envisaged and executed by the BJP doesn't become an exception but becomes a rule. The drawback though is that the internal bickering amongst party MLAs will be bought out in the open, but that should not be a hindrance to usher in such a reform. Coming back to Karnataka, Jagdish Shettar's group is disappointed that they lost and have even boycotted the swearing-in ceremony of Sadanand Gowda. Sadanand Gowda has a herculean task ahead and here's wishing him all the very best :)

2. The Congress party announced this week that Sonia Gandhi has taken ill, and has left to another country for a surgery that is required. She appointed a four-member committee to run the day-to-day party affairs. Rahul Gandhi, A.K.Anthony, Ahmed Patel and Janardhan Dwivedi are the members of this committee. As usual, some english TV media folks started hyping up Rahul Gandhi, saying that now he is "incharge"; CNN-IBN had a slide show to talk about "Rahul's rise in politics" beside the news item of Sonia Gandhi's illness. Anyways, a few hours after the announcement by Congress, Tehelka reported that Sonia Gandhi was admitted in the Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer hospital. No confirmations though. Then again there endless speculations going on about the nature of her illness. This brings us to another important point - how can the most powerful person in this country be so secretive about this? We are not asking for hourly updates on her health status, but given her prominence in matters that affect governance, shouldn't the people of this country get to know more? When did she leave? Where is she now? When is she expected to recuperate? Even basic details were missing from initial statements.

3. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India released the report on the CWG scam and severly indicted the Delhi government led by Sheila Dixit, the PMO and the central government. Not surprisingly, the english TV media and the Congress party came to the rescue of Sheila Dixit. Apparently, according to Congress, this is not a case of corruption, only a case of mis-management. NDTV group editor, who wrote an article about why Yedyyurappa should go (and she quoted Gita in that too!) was silent on this. IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai sermons that we should stop pronouncing politicians guilty. Where was this diligence while debating previous scams endlessly? It is common knowledge that Suresh Kalmadi is not the lone culprit. The budget for CWG was increased manifold by the central government - most of the times citing delays in the projects. Nobody wants to discuss why there were delays in the execution of the projects. Nobody wants to discuss why shoddy deals and contracts were signed by the government. All we wanted to see what Suresh Kalmadi in jail, and that's about it!

4. Monsoon session of Parliament began this week. The first two days were drowned in din, and no business was transacted in either the Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha. However, once the government relented to discuss price rise under a voting rule, normalcy was restored. Parliament discussed Price Rise (as always this was blamed on global factors), Security scenario and Telangana issues prominently. There were no surprises in the debates - known positions only. Question hour and Zero hour also happened without interruptions (one should have listened to answers by Railway minister to pointed questions -"this is a democracy, things will take time" etc!). It is recommended to the readers that you watch these proceedings if you get a chance :) - www.loksabha.nic.in and www.rajyasabha.nic.in

5. Finally, the news of the week! A thousand tonne ship, M.V.Pavit, drifted in the high seas, and ran aground at Juhu beach in Mumbai. The best part - no one knew about this! This ship was not detected, not seen by any security agency. Only after morning joggers reported, did we come to know. So much for talking about improving coastal security ! That's all, your honour!

That's all, Your Honour! : July 24-30

2011-07-31T23:34:00.004+05:30

Here's a Quiz question to the reader. Do you know who Dharam Singh is? Let's now proceed to discuss this :)

Some old posts on this blog will give you a detailed background on the "nataka" in Karnataka. There are just way too many crises surrounding this government that it is just difficult to summarize them all in a short post. Basically, Yedyurappa government had to endure a couple of revolts from within the party; then had to endure a very very partisan governor; and then had to endure allegations of unfair allocation of land to yedyurappa's sons; and now finally the Lokayukta report on illegal mining in the state. The latest crisis that led to Yedyurappa's resignation is the report submitted by the Lokayukta of Karnataka, Justice Santosh Hegde.

As is always the case, portions of the report were leaked to the "national" media. And quite conveniently, these leaked portions were about how the Lokayukta has "indicted" BJP's first CM in a South Indian state. The actual report was released about a week later, but during the entire week, the english TV media went gaga over how BJP can claim moral high ground over corruption when it doesn't act on it's own CM on corruption charges; on how the party can go along defending the indefensible blah blah. The BJP said that they will only comment after reading the report. The Congress (and the english TV media) predictably called for Yeddyurappa's resignation.

The Lokayukta, Justice Santosh Hegde also went on almost all TV channels - confirming that he has named the CM in his report. He also mentioned that there are a lot of other politicians named too. Fellow blogger Naveen, has captured and discussed these actions of Santosh Hegde in a detailed manner here - so no need to further discuss on how Santosh Hegde was all over TV.

The need for a better debate

Chief Minister Yedyurappa finally submitted his resignation today.

So far, an unassuming reader/viewer would assume that the illegal mining, massive corruption, and incompetent governance has been the trend in Karnataka since Yedyurappa took over. What most of the news channels won't concentrate on (mind you, they will mention it but not harp on it) is this - the Lokayukta report also names about 500 officials, ministers past and present, and pegs the loss from 2006 as Rs. 16,000 crore. The Lokayukta report mentions that iron ore mined is transported illegally through trucks. These fake permits for the trucks originate in Andhra Pradesh and not in Karnataka. Anybody talking about illegal mining in Karnataka without mentioning the valuable role played by Congress CM, YSR is either naive or has an agenda.

Current External Affairs minister of India, S.M.Krishna granted 36 licenses when he was the CM. Guess what, the Karnataka High Court quashed all those licenses. Yes, all of them. (thanks to fellow blogger Kiran K.S. for digging this info). (Update on August 1) --- Fellow tweeter avinashbhat alerted me to this important piece of info - SM Krishna denotified 11,000 acres of forest land for mining!

Rediff correspondent Vicky Nanjappa details here, the whole mining process. He tells us how a license is obtained. Congress Chief Minister Dharam Singh recommended 43 licenses and 33 were granted by the central government (UPA). Later, H.D.Kumaraswamy (s/o humble farmer and ex-PM, H.D.Deve Gowda) recommended 47 and 22 were granted (by UPA). During President's rule in the state (which means the state was controlled by the UPA government at the center) 14 licenses were granted. Yedyurappa recommended 22 and 2 (yes, just two) licenses were granted.

A systemic method, that encouraged the prevailing illegality was introduced and cemented by successive governments in Karnataka. Politicians from all parties have been involved neck-deep in this massive mining scam - but just how fair is it that we persecute the last man at the helm for not stopping something that has been introduced by his predecessors, for decades! Here are a few questions that I think are relevant, and are not being debated at all.

When will our debate turn to discuss the reforms needed?
Have you come across a single debate that discussed what can be done to curb this illegal activity?
So now that Yeddyurappa has resigned, all is well?
What about the ministers named? Will they be inducted into the new BJP cabinet? There is no problem with that?
What about Dharam Singh, under whose regime the maximum number of licenses were recommended and granted?
What about S.M.Krishna (who is now our External Affairs Minister)?
What about H.D.Kumaraswamy? If in the future, he wins elections, will he be allowed to be sworn in as CM?
What about the 500 odd officers named? Will they be allowed to continue in service?
What about the UPA government that granted all these mining licenses?
What about the conniving AP government?
Why this fetish to just change the Chief Minister and pretend that all is well from now on?

Now english media will go on patting itself on its back saying that it effected this change. Opposition parties will pat themselves on their backs too. BJP is now as confused as it can get. By sending Rajnath Singh as one of the observers, the party has taken another step backwards. UPA government will claim victory over corruption (yes, they will do it and english TV media will tom-tom it too). And when the next scam breaks, we will again banally debate "Are we a corrupt society?".

Quite frankly, the english TV media is doing a lot of damage by carrying out totally loud and un-informed debates. Sadly, they are just in no mood to learn. And BJP is equally responsible for not insisting on a informed, timely debate (not just on this issue). Wonder when the party will wake up to see the damage that's being caused. They might have gained in Karnataka, but surely have given away way too much scoring points for the "All politicians are bad" brigade. And this brigade will win 2014 for UPA, if the trend continues.

Since UPA is anyway sleeping, the opposition must give a call for better public discourse on reforms need. Otherwise, it is just a matter of time before we banally discuss "Are we a corrupt society" again. That's all, your honour!

An evening with Arun Shourie

2011-07-29T11:10:00.001+05:30

"Good evening sir, my name is Shourie" .

"Sir, you and I have lot of similarities.We share the same name. You are a writer, I also like writing and write articles".

"You are a journalist, I am also a journalist. You worked for Times of India, I also work for Times of India. I write for them as my school correspondent"

"So sir, my question to you is - Being a journalist and writer, why did you decide to come into politics?"

The above question was posed to Arun Shourie, last evening at Hyderabad, by a ~10yr school going kid!! It was really surprising to see such nice articulation coming from such a young boy, and Arun Shourie was genuinely happy too :). He praised the boy for his articulation, and quipped " I am sure you will become a much better journalist if you write for Indian Express than Times of India" (entire audience burst into laughter here!).

Arun Shourie then told us that he got a call from the then BJP President Kushabao Thakre and was told that Vajpayee, Advani and Joshi thought that it would be a good idea to send him to Rajya Sabha - so would he be interested. Arun Shourie quipped, since I was unemployed as I was for a long part of life, I said ok :). Immediately, the moderator asked "Has there been an exit?".

Arun Shourie stammered a bit, said pretty much yeah. Like he has been saying for the past few days, after Atalji's exit, there has not been much to look forward to. He told the audience that some leader in BJP said "They were Atalji's imports. They went with him. For them, it might have been a witty remark but to us, it is a badge of honour". And therein lies our tragedy I feel.

The tremendous decline in the levels of policy and public discourse during the past couple of years is testimony enough to the huge loss we have encountered because of these "imports" leaving.It is our misfortune that we had to lose people like Arun Shourie who always bought in the much needed sanity, dignity and content into our discourses and debates. Just one example - take a look at how neatly he decimates Raja's and Manmohan Singh's defense of the 2G scam. He has done this before - on this same topic - but our TV media will forget it and ask him the same banal questions again and again!

Last evening, he was signing his latest book "Does He know a mother's heart?" in Hyderabad. To me, it is plain impossible to even imagine how a person who has endured (and is enduring) so many crises in life can achieve so much and inspire millions across the country. One lady even asked him to tell us about how he felt when he first knew and all along. He said they were ofcourse shocked but there was so many needs of the child to attend to, we accepted it very quickly. I am yet to read the book, but from what I have read and from what I have heard last evening, the book does not just talk about the suffering of just Arun Shourie's wife and their child, but digs into what explanations do the scriptures and saints give for suffering.

In his speech, Arun Shourie gave us multiple examples of different faiths and persons (like the most revered, Mahatma Gandhi).that give very insufficient explanations to suffering. You will be amazed at the kind of research he has done, reading all those scriptures, questioning many things, explaining why he questions so - like I said, it is impossible to imagine how and when he finds the time to enlighten people like me with tremendous knowledge (not just last evening, his other books on "Eminent Historians", Ambedkar, Reservations, Governance etc - all loaded with vast information and little rhetoric).

One more good thing about last evening was that there was no media - so no banal questions! Audience asked good questions and Arun Shourie answered them well too (as expected!).

I had a chance to talk to him for a few seconds, when he was signing the book. Told him that I bring with me wishes of a lot of people from the online community who hope that, amidst all that you have gone through, he will find solace in the fact that his works have inspired millions of people. He smiled :). Also told him, we miss an informed discourse and hope that we will come back to good old times. He again smiled :).

If this post sounded to you like a fanboy writing, then it is bang on target! I have no inhibitions to accept that fact. I consider it my good fortune that I have been able to watch him from close, speak to him for a few seconds and that I now proudly own a signed book of his! If his life does not inspire, then whose life will?

The final "gnight" !!

2011-07-29T08:57:00.001+05:30

Editor-in-Chief of CNN-IBN, Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted this last night:

"tempted tonight to say final gnight on twitter. too much bile and dare i say ignorance,packed into 140 characters! gnight"

Let's come to the bile part later. Let's talk about ignorance first. To cite an example, we don't have to dig back way too much into the past. Just about an hour before he sent the above tweet, he had this to say:

"it is to credit of anna and co they forced govt to come up with lokpal bill after 42 years. cant they wait a few more months?"

Unassmuing followers would now think that the draft Lokpal bill prepared by this awesome UPA government is the first one after 42 years. Even before going to Wikipedia, I can quote from memory that Atal Behari Vajpayee introduced the bill in Parliament 2 times, and ManMohan Singh introduced it twice already! Now let's go to wikipedia. No no, let's go to CNN-IBN website only. Here.

"The first legislative attempt at Lokpal in India fell after the bill was passed in the 4th Lok Sabha in 1969 but could not get through in Rajya Sabha. Subsequently, Lokpal bills were introduced in 1971, 1977, 1985, 1989, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2005 and in 2008."

I am tempted to end the article saying, "I rest my case" but I don't want to.

Because he also said this last night -

whether on twitter or in tv studios, we are becoming a noisy society, not a knowledgeable one. sad.

Since no one making the "noises" here exactly owns twitter, I guess it is fair enough to turn our attention to TV studios and people who run them. Just one question - what exactly has been done to make the TV studio less noisy and more knowledgeable?

Finally, this tweet (last evening only) -

when we expose kalmadi, raja, ashok chavan etc, we're on right track. when bsy and reddys exposed, we're biased!! amusing.

Since it was not IBN that first exposed Raja, Kalmadi "etc", it is fair enough to presume that Rajdeep is talking about the entire media when he says "we". So here are some questions (or bile) - When Kalmadi was exposed, many informed bloggers and tweeters (the bile throwers) questioned why Sheila Dixit is being let off lightly from the media focus. When BSY and Reddy brothers were exposed, the same informed bloggers and tweeters (the bile throwers) questioned how fair is it to isolate YSR/Cong government in AP from the mining scam. Where is the bias picture coming in here?

If you (as in media, not just you Rajdeep) have a problem with a particular tweeter or a blogger, what on earth is stopping you (as in media, not you Rajdeep) from directly debating with that person? For example, this blog and many others have documented instances of your (this time it is you Rajdeep) own Senior Editor spewing venom on tweeters who have been decent in criticism. When you (as in media, not you Rajdeep) have lakhs of followers, how fair is it for you (as in media, not you Rajdeep) expect there be NO criticism at all. Who gave you (as in the media, not you Rajdeep) the exclusive right to brand the entire blogging/tweeting community as "bile" , "mob", "nuts" etc etc? Your crass generalization of any topic, mood, and question has lowered the level of public discourse and here we are - witnessing this spectacle of the pot calling the kettle black.

There are abusers. Hell, a nobody like me gets abused on twitter, at times! If I were to follow your (media, not you Rajdeep) path, I should have raised a hue and cry, screamed victimhood and garnered some sympathy. There is so much information flow out here. There are many many people who are decent, lend dignity to debate and question incisively. If that bothers you (as in media, not you Rajdeep), it only speaks volumes about your openess to debate. And don't get into rhetoric again - give specific examples of accusations you (as in media, not you Rajdeep) make. Banal tweets such as "thanks", "that's so sweet" is no interaction. There is immense scope for meaningful interaction online - it is sad that none of the English TV media community chose to utilise it for betterment.

Dear English TV media anchors and their fanbots - If you choose to run away from meaningful debate citing a few abusers - the loss is yours. Not ours.

PS: Please don't use the words "ignorant". Doesn't suit you (as in media, not you Rajdeep)

Mr. Fai and the Indian Media ...

2011-07-21T11:54:00.002+05:30

"As someone who has spent the last sixteen years reporting kashmir...."

The second part of that tweet has not been reproduced above because it is not relevant to our discussion now. This was tweeted by NDTV Group Editor, Barkha Dutt, last year during the violence in Jammu and Kashmir. She made every attempt to enlighten us about her long drawn experience in Kashmir. Ok, now let's come to the present.

Kashmiri American Council, with the tagline (Freedom for all, Freedom for Kashmir) is a US based organisation. Basically it is a "think-tank" that organises seminars, meetings, etc to try and influence the US position on Kashmir. From their tagline, it is pretty much evident what their ideology is. In a shocking development, the FBI arrested the Director of Kashmiri American Council, Mr. Ghulam Nabi Fai because it was revealed that all along, this KAC has been funded by, lo and behold, the ISI !! This Pioneer report quotes the US attorney as saying that ISI funded Mr. Fai to even contribute funds to elected officials, organise high profile conference, seminars etc. And amongst those who have been invited (and have attended too) are multiple Indian "left-liberals".

Before we are accused of hyping up a non-person and non-story, here's what Praveen Swami, the foremost expert on security issues in India has to say about Mr. Fai - "For decades, Dr. Fai was the most visible face of Kashmiri secessionism in the West: presiding over a succession of high-profile conferences for which delegates were flown in from across the world and flying from one world capital to the next rallying support for his cause."

Now, for someone like Barkha who has been covering Kashmir for the "last sixteen years" (well, seventeen this year), shouldn't this story be one of the highest priority to report? The "most visible face of Kashmiri secessionism" in the West getting arrested doesn't even warrant a tweet from her? Prominent amongst those who enjoyed Fai's hospitality is Dileep Padgaonkar. Dileep Padgaonkar is the one of the three interlocutors appointed by GoI to discuss the J&K problem. Now, how do we trust if Mr. Dileep is not influenced by KAC's position? Another prominent person whose trips were funded is Rajinder Sachar. Remember the Sachar committee report? I am only citing two names here (some other names in this report here), which are enough to ring alarm bells and yet NDTV does NOT percieve this to be newsworthy enough? Should we not be grilling these "eminent personalities" on the details of their discussions? Should they not come out and openly declare the nature of their association with this ISI funded initiative? Even if they did not know this earlier, isn't this a good enough reason to come out fully in the open?

Before you pounce on us saying English TV media did cover the arrest - the debate here is about the amount of coverage. Hillary Clinton's visit, British PM's reply to parliament, Cash for votes, illegal mining in Karnataka (yes, believe it or not, news channels still have breaking news on that!), the yet-to-begin Lord's test (with images of Sachin Tendulkar's son bowling to Suresh Raina) - these occupied most the coverage. Fai's arrest was buried somewhere amongst these. Only TIMES NOW had a full fledged discussion last night (and unfortunately I couldn't get to watch it).

Fai's arrest also brings into focus the multiple "Track-2" diplomacy "efforts" that take place, from time to time. And again, most of the invitees from both sides of the border are either retired officials or current journalists. Who pays for them? What topics are discussed at these "track-2" meetings? Why don't all those who attend write about these meetings? What are the conclusions reached? Who decides on the way forward? And if at all any decisions are taken, or any messages are passed - who goes and gives it to the government? How can we be now sure that these efforts are not funded by nefarious elements? Why do journalists shy away (no, actually when I asked them the above questions, most of them never bothered to reply also) from putting all these out in the open? What qualifications do they have to run "diplomacy" between the two countries?

Fai's arrest happened some 36 hours ago. The Pioneer and Times of India were the only ones to report and front page it yesterday. Others like The Hindu front paged it today. About the TV channels - well, we discussed them above :) . Why is the Indian media so reluctant to discuss this and the above asked questions in detail? Is it because there is a conflict of interest? Is it because those who fund their junkets disapprove of threadbare discussions that will paint them in bad light? Or is it because they are so incompetent to get their priorities so wrong? Either way, most of these channels stand exposed, yet again, of their double standards.

PS: Special thanks to fellow tweeter "CodedVirus" for pulling out that old tweet (he has this superb knack of finding them in minutes :) ).

PS2: Shameless plug: If you are interested in the second part of that tweet and all that happened during the summer of 2010 - some blogs here that detail them :) . Don't miss this one - gives the number of people dead day-wise breakup

That's all, Your Honour! : July 10-16

2011-07-17T22:13:00.000+05:30

1. On the evening of July 13th, terrorists blasted three bombs in Mumbai (again in crowded areas). So far 21 innocent civilians have been killed and more than 150 have been injured. This is the third such blast in the crowded Zaveri Bazar (earlier ones were in 1993 and 2003). Initial investigation is leading to doubts that the IEDs were used in these blasts. Also it is being analysed that Bangladeshi immigrants might have been employed to place these bombs. The Home Minister has told us that this is the first blast in Mumbai since 31 months and therefore it is evidence that security scenario has improved a lot. English TV media went gaga over how calm and composed the Maharashtra CM post these blasts. Later, in an interview to NDTV, the CM cites red tape as the main reason for not being able to procrure equipment to the police. And instead of questioning how as CM he is not able to get over this red-tape, NDTV again called him frank blah blah. The Prime Minister has told us that "we will do everything to prevent the terror attacks". Rahul Gandhi has told us that "99% of terror attacks have been prevented". Perhaps he should talk to the 21 families who have lost their near ones. Or maybe to the 150 injured - and explain to them how 99% of attacks were prevented. Sonia Gandhi, ofcourse hasn't spoken anything.

2. Sadly, this has been a week of tragedies. There has been a train derailment in UP. 35 passengers were killed and more than 100 were injured. And on the same day, in Assam, a local militant group triggered a blast in a train injuring more than 100 passengers. At this point of time, the Prime Minister was the Railway Minister too and asked the Minister of State for Railways to go and visit the Assam site. The MoS refused, saying he is not the railway minister!!! And ofcourse, our Prime Minister was as helpless as ever.

3. There was a central cabinet reshuffle this week. As always, all hype and little substance in this reshuffle. Significant changes include relieving Veerappa Moily from law portfolio and making Jairam Ramesh as the Cabinet minister for Rural affairs. Analysts are confused if this is a promotion (given that they think Jairam will use his experience as a drafting member of NREGA of NAC in UPA 1.0, and will ensure most of Rural India will vote back UPA in 3.0) or if this is a demotion from his hyped stint in Environment ministry. Ohh wait, there is one more thing people are happy - Jayanthi Natrajan is a minister now, so we won't have endure her on TV talk shows :D That's all, your honour!