Toys they force you to buy

COVER STORY

defence dud deals

 

Toys they force you to buy

Logic in the world of bullets, bombs and ballistics dictates that China is the most populous, Gulf is overflowing with petrodollars, Israel or Iran have the utmost threat, conventional wars may never happen. Still why is India buying so many weapons – to be the world’s largest weapons importer and fourth-largest defence spender by 2020 ahead of France, Japan and UK. Is India really under so much threat or is it because few individuals and countries make money in every deal? Buying the most expensive or sophisticated arsenal is not end of the problem but the beginning of a new arms race.

 

by Neeraj Mahajan & Anil Tyagi

 

Money is everything and there is no patriotism, ethics, morality, sanctity of borders or qualms about supplying arms to army or mercenaries—in the business of weapons and missiles. The huge and unending demand from Army, police and terrorists who are the biggest consumers – makes arms a recession-proof industry. Armed forces spend over $1,000 billion annually to purchase or upgrade military hardware and consumables. A thin veil divides the legal and illegal business of arms. There are no separate factories, channels of supply might be different but products are the same. An AK 47 in the hands of Police or militants might originate from the same factory.

 

The $1.465 Trillion global arms industry is largely unregulated and controlled by —USA, UK, France, Russia, and China and some 35 less significant weapon producing countries. As the only five permanent members of UN Security Council – the big six sanction all make war and peace and pocket 90 per cent of profits from the arms exports. It is an industry, where effectiveness of a product is decided by the number of people it can kill, where death and destruction is celebrated as victory. French investigators probing the charges of bribery against former President Nicolas Sarkozy in the ‘Karachi Affair’ involving the sale of French submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia discovered that the 11 French naval engineers were killed in the Karachi bomb blast allegedly triggered by Pakistan’s ISI to seek revenge because bribes secretly promised to them were not paid...Read More

 

Buy Indian

COVER STORY

arms deals shubhabrata bhattacharya

 

 

Buy Indian

There is a need for a sustainable PPP model to take
the Indian defence industry out of the mud

 

For the past 25 years, the political discourse in India has been overshadowed by scams relating to defence procurement. It all started with Rajiv Gandhi, the man who got the largest-ever popular mandate in 1984, and who was ousted from power five years later due to the Bofors howitzer scam. Till date, the mystery of the Bofors payoffs has not been fathomed. But all of us remember that when India defeated Pakistan in Kargil, the pride of the armed forces was enhanced by the prowess of the equipment selected by Rajiv Gandhi. Similarly, the Mirage aircraft, purchased during the last days of the Indira Gandhi regime (when Rajiv Gandhi was part of the political decision-making machinery) too provided the necessary sinews during the Kargil war.

 

The merit of choices made therefore need not be called into question. However, as more pay-off scams have surfaced, it needs to be ascertained if the policy of not allowing agents, followed since the eighties, is prudent. Till the late seventies, agents were not only allowed but the existence of an Indian agent of a foreign supplier was also encouraged, as in those days of a foreign exchange crunch the agency commission of the Indian entity was deducted from the deal amount and paid by cheque in Rupees...Read More 

BAD & UGLY

COVER STORY

defence wheeler-dealers

 

BAD & UGLY

They have what it takes to make the graphs in the Indian arms trade go up or down. This is a peep into the world of the Ravi Rishis, Win Chadhas, Nandas, Chandraswamis, Choudhries and Saxenas who officially don’t exist or do anything but who still determine the way the water will flow or the dollars roll in every arms deal that the country enters into. These middlemen and agents are the people who drive India’s arms deals. Here’s how:

Abhishek Verma & Anca Neascu

The uncrowned King and Queen!

Abhishek Verma, and his Romanian wife, Anca Neascu, are a jodi (couple) that is made for each other. He is a typical big, bad guy, a conman accused of the gravest crimes from leaking India’s defence secrets – he was the prime accused in the 2006 Navy war room leak case to manipulating the defence and trade policy, money laundering, forgery and tax evasion, to hobnobbing with notorious arms and drug dealers. She is a divorcee and mother of a five-year-old girl, who married Abhishek in New Delhi just four days before his arrest, and has since stood by him through the thick and thin...Read More 

MERCHANTS OF DESTRUCTION

COVER STORY

defence lords of war

 

 

Merchants of destruction

The global arms trade has had its share of warlords, middlemen, go-getters, path-finders, fixers and agents. They have insight into the needs of both buyer and seller, the infrastructure and logistics to procure and ensure timely delivery as well as the financial backing to procure and sell. Here are some of the greatest deal crackers of all times

 

Dale Stoffel

Tech specialist

Dale Stoffel, formerly a technician in US National Guards with expertise in advanced radar, electronic warfare, and electronic intelligence, left the service to join some defence and intelligence contractors. His new job was to buy missiles and other weapons produced in the former Communist bloc countries for Pentagon and US intelligence agencies who wanted to analyse them. Charmed by the lifestyle that people associated with the arms trade were living, Stoffel then decided to venture out on his own. He made his name by procuring a $40-million order from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence to refurbish Soviet-era T-55 tanks and artillery. It was, however, a short-lived success; his bullet-ridden body landed up in a Baghdad morgue after he was gunned down on his way into Baghdad along with Joseph Wemple, 49, his friend and colleague.

 

Viktor Bout

High flier

Hailed as Russia’s most famous arms dealer, the world’s most recognisable gunrunner and the Russian version of Osama bin Laden, Viktor Bout reportedly has a reputation as large as the money he has made through the arms trade. He is learnt to have made a cool $50 million in profit by selling arms to al-Qaeda and Taliban in the late 1990s, delivered weapons in Afghanistan and helped arm both sides in Angola's civil war besides selling weapons to governments in Central Africa, Congo, Sudan and Libya. He also helped the French government ferry equipment after the genocide in Rwanda. A former Soviet military intelligence officer, Viktor had a flair for flying and it was this that helped him set up a fleet of around 60 aircraft, mostly military planes lying unused on Russian airfields, to help run his defence operations.  Bout, the businessman, dealer and transporter of weapons and minerals supported former Liberian President Charles Taylor's regime to destabilise Sierra Leone.

 

Monzer Al Kassar

Embargo buster

A wealthy Syrian, Monzer Al Kassar is one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers, who the United Nations say is an ‘international embargo buster’. On one side, he owns an import-export company that conducts legitimate business while on the other, he is known as a notorious...Read More

 

Top 10 who profit from war!

COVER STORY

defence war factories

 

Top 10 who profit from war!

They say the arms industry never changes its leaders who control the demand and supply, dominate the world’s weapons market and its bulk profits. Their interest is to keep wars going. Corruption, bribery, espionage, forgery, fudging of records, fraud, blackmail, drugs and prostitutes — they consider nothing as unethical or immoral in their business. Wars come at a price… each bullet, each rocket costs. Wonder why, the top arms companies are in the US or Western Europe?

 

The US arms giant and manufacturer of F-16, F/A-22 fighter jets, spy planes Hellfire, Javelin missiles and Patriot missiles, which cost $91 million per missile, is the world’s #1 military contractor as well as the world’s largest arms exporter getting $105 from each taxpayer and $228 from each household in the US. In 2001 the company was awarded a $200 billion deal – the world’s largest weapons contract ever – to build the Joint Strike Fighter, a ‘next-generation’ combat jet that would eventually replace the aircraft used by the US Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. The SEC is investigating insider trading and falsifying of accounts.

 

This British aerospace and defence contractor sells around $32.9 billion of arms and is the largest military contractor in Europe. The BAE range of aircraft, defence electronics, vehicles, naval vessels and small arms include M2/M3 Bradley fighting vehicle, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Type 45 destroyer and Astute-class nuclear submarines. BAE reportedly paid bribes through a network of middlemen, Caribbean and Swiss bank accounts to win contracts across the world for fighter planes. It is now paying $450m in fines after pleading guilty of false statements and accounting practices in Saudi Arabia and Tanzania. BAE chairman Dick Olver admitted commission payments to a marketing adviser for radars sold to an African country in 1999. Another investigation into bribery in the Al-Yamamah deal was reportedly dropped at the behest of Tony Blair on the ground that it might upset relations with the Arab kingdom and threaten national security. The Saudi leaders were threatening to stop intelligence cooperation on terrorism. BAE Systems was fined $450 million for corruption in Europe and Middle East. BAE even held talks with Libya while the arms embargo was still in place. BAE Systems has faced many investigations and was fined $400 million for attempting to defraud the US and paid £30 million to UK for accounting ‘mistakes’ – setting up shell companies to facilitate bribes and bag deals. A three-year old JV between BAE and Mahindra ended in a divorce recently. BAE had invested $5.83 million in the $21.5-million JV to get 26 per cent equity in Mahindra Defense Systems – the maximum permissible in India. With its headquarters in Delhi and manufacturing facilities in Faridabad, Mahindra Defense Systems was making specialised military vehicles and developing a mine-protected vehicle for the Indian Army...Read More

 

WHO’S AFRAID OF ‘VINOD RAI’?

GOVERNANCE

cag m g devasahayam

 

Who’s afraid of ‘Vinod Rai’?

Vinod Rai and Digvijay Singh have raised and responded contrastingly to two very critical issues directly related to democracy and democratic accountability

 

In the mid-sixties, there was a popular play titled ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf’?’, a parody of the song ‘Who’s Afraid of Big Bad Wolf?’ from Walt Disney’s The Three Little Pigs. The story revolves around two couples trying to suppress certain truths, which to their consternation manage to come out leading to thunder and fury. In her writing, Virginia Woolf attempted to reveal the truth. When the couples sing the song together, they make a mockery of their own fear of the truth and attempt to project a false image.

 

The song is a witty joke, but it also represents the very real, though also very petty, fear so common in intellectual circles.

 

Do we see a parallel in this with Vinod Rai, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and the present scenario? Indeed, we should. More than the CAG’s horrid exposure of humongous scams – Commonwealth Games, 2G Spectrum, Coalgate, to mention a few – it is what Vinod Rai said in a speech on ‘Social Obligation of Public Auditors’ at Harvard Kennedy School the other day that saw the ruling ‘intellectual’ cabal going to town mocking him!...Read More

All airs about nothing

GOVERNANCE

prasar bharati

 

All airs about nothing

Formation of committees is the only activity done since Jawahar Sircar took over as CEO of Prasar Bharati. And amidst all this activity there is no plan in sight to revive the organisation.

 

by Arvind Tiwari

 

It has been one year since Jawahar Sircar became the CEO of Prasar Bharati, time enough to make one’s presence felt. But the only thing that seems to have been done in this period is formation and dissolution of a number of committees and sub-committees. This was revealed in response to a RTI plea on the working of the Prasar Bharati in the last one year.

 

Sircar seems to have smartly diverted organisational inadequacies to a horde of committees and now sees his future secured! These committees have lofty titles, including Lokvani Committee, Strategy and Vision Committee, Channel & Content Review Committee, Audit & Systems Committee, Technologies & Options Committee for Archives, etc. But none seems to doing anything concrete. All they seem to be ‘achieving’ is wasting hours by drafting ‘minutes’! 

 

These committees comprise of former bureaucrats who do not seem to have grasped the fact that television is medium that works by the minute and thus needs minds who could devise content on the spur of the moment.

 

During Prime Minister V P Singh’s tenure, professionals in Prasar Bharati organised a mile-long protest in form of a human chain near the PM’s residence demanding ‘functional autonomy’. He did give that in 1990 but autonomy got trapped in the superfluity of committees that today have become the order of the day. The result:  Prasar Bharati is facing low public estimation and viewers and advertisers are deserting it...Read More 

Picking pockets

GOVERNANCE

unclaimed funds insurance

 

Picking pockets

Both life and non-life insurance companies are sitting on huge funds
belonging to the investor or policy holder

 

by Dr G S Sood

 

Mis-selling of products is the single most important reason that is hurting the growth of insurance industry in India.”. This statement by Finance Minister P Chidambaram only reflects the deep malaise that is plaguing the financial services industry in general and insurance sector in particular. There is utter lack of transparency and deliberate denial of information to consumers and investors. But for the recent study published by Mint, no one knew the amount investors in the insurance sector have been duped of. As per the study, the sector collected Rs 3.7 trillion from the sale of fresh regular premium policies in the last seven years wherein the investors lost Rs 1.56 trillion.

 

The question that needs to be asked is how do insurers move the lapsed money and other such monies belonging to the investors to their profit and loss account when the same rightfully belongs to the policyholders. The Society for Consumers’ & Investors’ Protection (SCIP) was flooded with such questions and requests relating to unclaimed money running into thousands of crores lying with various public and private insurance companies for some reason or the other. These reasons primarily comprise the failure of insurance companies to search, find and make payment of the said amount to legally entitled claimants and beneficiaries...Read More

The quiet innovator

MANDARIN MATTERS

the 1990s prabhakar menon

 

The quiet innovator

Foreign policy under PV Narasimha Rao reflected the growing realisation
in India of its own capabilities or lack of them

 

India’s foreign policy formulation and practice in the late 1980s/early 1990s was more attuned to domestic and external realities, and obliged the country to temper its idealist-visionary view of international relations into something more down-to-earth. One astute practitioner of the down-to-earth - ‘pragmatic’, as some termed it- foreign policy mentioned above was Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. He had earlier served as Indira Gandhi’s minister for external affairs, a job for which he had no proven background, but which Mrs Gandhi seemed to have entrusted to him with uncanny prescience. Rao was able to bring to his subsequent prime ministership an earnest, cogitative and analytical view of India’s place in world affairs; moreover a place that did not ignore India’s identity as a struggling developing nation which nonetheless possessed intrinsic, unique and potential worth for the extant world order.

 

He was the first Indian prime minister to give some coherence to what the home media called his ‘Look East’ policy, that is, India’s renewed interest in strengthening ties with South-East Asian countries. Abandoning the hitherto episodic nature of India’s contacts with these countries, he worked on defining the increasing political, strategic, economic and cultural convergences between India and the region; and on the timeliness of cooperation in various fields for an evolving Asian architecture that, in jettisoning the ramshackle, often mutually adversarial, pattern of previous decades – aggravated by the hostile camps into which the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict had split the regional solidarity...Read More

Storm in the cesspool

MY CORNER

criminal justice amitabh thakur

 

Storm in the cesspool

The Delhi rape case has opened a Pandora’s Box and thankfully, one of the most hotly debated topics today is improvement in the criminal justice system

 

The recent Delhi rape case can certainly be regarded as a watershed event in the history of Indian sensibility towards crime and criminals. As a citizen of this nation, most of us had got used to our daily bouts of crimes of different kinds, but the public reaction, ably and justifiably fuelled by media, ensured the coming together of people from their comfortable cocoons and raising their voices against crime, criminals and societal disorders.

 

It is no wonder that the report by a judicial committee came out much before the stipulated period. It is again a heartening feature that almost immediately after the submission of the Verma Commission Report, an ordinance was passed keeping in view its major recommendations...Read More

Pain multiplies into suffering

PERSPECTIVE

life sadhguru

 

Pain multiplies into suffering

 

Why is life so full of pain? Why do human beings suffer? These are recurrent questions for many. The point is pain is a physical phenomenon; suffering is not. Pain is of the body and is even good for you. Suffering, on the contrary, is something that you create.

 

When I say ‘pain is good’, I am not blessing you with it! Pain is good because you do not have the necessary intelligence to preserve your body in its absence. Suppose there was no pain in the human body, you would have, in the name of fashion, mutilated and destroyed yourself in no time! But now, if you are walking on the street and a bicycle comes along, you stand back – only because you know the consequence of pain. If there were no pain, you wouldn’t budge. So, pain is good. When you truly accept it, there will be just pain, no suffering. There are a number of examples of this.

 

A wonderful instance is the yogi, Sadashiva Brahmendra. He lived in Nerur, near Coimbatore. He was a nirkaya or bodiless yogi. Sadashiva had no sense of the body. Consequently, the question of wearing clothes did not arise. On a certain day, this naked yogi walked into the king’s garden, where the latter was relaxing with his queens. When he saw Sadashiva, the king grew angry. “Who is this man who dares to walk naked before us?”...Read More 

Corruption is in the genes

SILLY POINT

humour mk kaw

 

Corruption is in the genes

indira Gandhi once said famously, “Corruption is a global phenomenon”, as if by being global it ceased to be an anathema. The bhrashtacharis of today speak of corruption being universal, both in respect of time as well as space. Now if corruption has always been there, it would be interesting to analyse whether there are ups and downs in this journey. It is my humble assertion that periods of high economic activity also witness a higher level of corruption.

 

Take the period of Emperor Ashoka and Chandragupta Maurya. Kautilya says in his Artha Sastra that bureaucrats are like fish that live in water. The revenue of the State passes through the hands of the bureaucrats in the same way as water passes through the gullet of a fish all the time. Thus, it is but natural that a bureaucrat will imbibe a part of the water, wittingly or unwittingly...Read More 

Finally, Buddha is fighting

STATE SCAN

panchayat polls west Bengal

 

Finally, Buddha is fighting

Just for one-third of the panchayat pie, the Congress and CPI-M

have come to a secret understanding

 

by Diptendra Raychaudhuri

 

Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is back. After a long stupor, the former Chief Minister is again making his presence felt by hurling accusations against the Trinamool Congress party and its government. He has even raised questions, albeit indirectly, about the integrity of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. It is for the first time since the washout of the Left in May 2011 elections that the man, who paid so dearly for his misrule by losing even his own constituency, has amassed courage to launch a counter-offensive.

 

This is the most appropriate moment for the leaderless and radarless flock called the CPI-M. Panchayat elections are due in May and two-thirds of the electorate will ink their opinion in favour of or against the two-year-old government of ‘change’. Obviously, Bhattacharya and his colleagues would try their best to take their tottering ship to the shore. Exactly five years ago, the countdown to the downfall of the Left had started with panchayat elections. Next three years only upped the graph for Mamata Banerjee, culminating in her sweeping victory in the assembly election of 2011. The last two years have been marked by innumerable faux pas by the Mamata-led government. The Left therefore feels that from its old base it would be able to make some sort of comeback to the state politics.

 

Quite strangely though, the once-mighty Left has become modest enough to eye only one-third of the seats at the gram panchayet level, and seeks taking control of three to four districts at the zilla parishad level. If they can do it, the Lok Sabha election 2014 would become a goldmine for it as even 14 seats out of 42 from the State would be rejuvenating. To make that happen, the tally in the panchayat elections has to be one-third of the gram-level seats...Read More 

Budget has come & gone

STOCK DOCTOR

dr gs sood

 

Budget has come & gone

 

the Union Budget has become a non-event for some time now and those analysing and predicting what lies ahead for the market needs to do so in the broader policy framework that is being outlined in the months preceding the Budget. However, the Budget still retains its importance as the benchmark for future policy directions and as the guide to address issues like the current account and fiscal deficits and overall growth.

 

Since the stock market is a barometer of the economy, the immediate reaction of the market indicates that this year’s budget does not inspire any big positives. Given the Finance Minister’s mool mantra of higher growth leading to inclusive and sustainable development that seeks to limit the fiscal deficit to 5.3 per cent of the GDP for fiscal 2012-13 and to 4.8 per cent for Fiscal 2013-14, the issue on hand is how will the Government do this...Read More 

Wounds of an exodus

Book REVIEW

kashmir memoir

 

Wounds of an exodus

 

Talking about his book Palimpsest, the US literary great Gore Vidal made the interesting observation that ‘a memoir is how one remembers one’s own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked’. Judged by this definition, Rahul Pandita’s Our Moon Has Blood Clots is both a memoir and an autobiography– for it is quite clearly how Pandita has remembered, and continues to remember, his own life even as the co-terminous historical bits that provide the overall tapestry appear to be well-researched.

 

Its sub-title ‘The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits’ is an apt caption for the overall concern that the book shares and which is narrated through the memory of a young boy cut suddenly from his moorings and cast adrift. This memory grows and evolves into a memory of adulthood with its attendant heartbreaks and heartaches, broken dreams and hopes, always in one exile after another, of overlapping lives and memories of many other people...Read More 

Typing to stay in touch

Bric-a-brac

times & mimes

 

 

Typing to stay in touch
mamata’s magic potion

 

Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of Bengal, has her own whims and fancies with little care about what the bhadralok have to say. She follows a curious routine, is awake till three in the morning, is very fond of movies, has two Blackberry mobiles and replies to every SMS sent to her. While her Ministers, party members and MPs may wait for months to meet her, she keeps them updated about her plans through SMS, which is how most of them now stay in touch with her. In fact, even during Cabinet meetings, she has both her hands on her mobile, busy typing or replying to messages. Trust being a commodity she has little faith in, Mamata uses SMS’ to keep in touch with her party cadres. This direct communication, however, is taking its toll on her performance; official business appears to be getting sidelined. Importantly, even as the Congress in West Bengal is fretting and fuming over her performance -- Deepa Dasmunshi made a rabid ekla chalo speech at the recently held Chintan Shivir in Jaipur, with Sonia Gandhi responding enthusiastically, party members like Kamal Nath have a different world view. The gum chewing minister (who is desperately trying to give up his smoking bug) was overheard commenting in Parliament, “If you close one door, keep one window open”. Thus, the Congress is said to be keeping its Bengal options open, and even the Budget session saw Mamata softening her line against the Congress and UPA. In fact, she has reportedly instructed her MPs not to take the ruling party head on. Clearly, elections are around the corner and Mamata also needs to keep that one window open. This could also be because the wily Mamata knows on which side her political bread is buttered. She needs either the crutches of the BJP-led NDA or the Congress-led UPA to make good her seats and consolidate her votes.

Smile that never tires

Bric-a-brac

times & mimes

 

Smile that never tires
shinde’s facial explanation

 

Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who took time out in between serial bomb blasts, terrorist hangings and Hindutva bashing to visit West Bengal to survey coastal security arrangements, took a boat ride to catch up with Mamta Banerjee. He also took time off to visit the Sundarbans, where he offered Rs 10,000 as a reward to any official who could enable him to sight a Royal Bengal tiger. But, neither the reward nor the chance to gain some numbers with the Home Minister worked; Shinde did not get to see the ‘lord of the Sunderbans’. While this did not erase the smile off his face, Shinde had an explanation for this. He said his expression is such that he always appears to be smiling even though he may actually be furious. Touche, Mr Shinde. That should satisfy a lot of your critics who wondered why you were looking so happy when you were describing the hanging of Ajmal Kasab!!

Washing away sins

Bric-a-brac

times & mimes

 

Washing away sins
anand at kumbh

 

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, who has earned quite a reputation amongst his Cabinet colleagues and senior party leaders as a man who enjoys his regular drink in the evening, is being watched carefully by the party leadership for his connections and friendship with men who are themselves under the microscope of the law. One such connect is with a gentleman who was behind bars for the last six months in the 2G scam. To get Sharma out of the limelight, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda offered him a ride in his special plane to take a dip in the Sangam during the auspicious Mahakumbh. Sharma, of course, is not known for any overtly religious feelings but when you hail from Haryana, do your politics in Himachal Pradesh, get a Rajya Sabha berth from Rajasthan, marry in South Africa and strike business deals in the national capital, then you definitely need to take a dip in the holy waters and search for the right blessings!!!

Home is where the power is

Bric-a-brac

times & mimes

 

Home is where the power is
CMs’ dilli sojourn

 

Chief Ministers have palatial bungalows, with all the trappings of power but they still remain unsatisfied. That is until they get an equally big bungalow in Lutyens Delhi from where flows the political power which keeps them in the hot seat. Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who was earlier Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s office, thus continues to have a bungalow next to the Prime Minister’s office. He comes to Delhi every Friday night and leaves only on Monday morning. His wife was here till recently and now his children stay here. So attached is Chavan to Delhi (he is also called the Chief Minister who is on deputation to Maharashtra) that recently he held the engagement of his daughter in his Delhi house. Then there is Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who is now in his second term. Hooda has retained his bungalow on Pandit Pant Marg, reportedly because this allows him to make the rounds of important power centres in the Capital. Similarly, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who was an MP before he became Chief Minister, has retained his bungalow in the Capital and uses it whenever he is there. The same is the case with Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who is now in his third term as Chief Minister. These are all powerful men who have no fear of the estates department, which is forever scrounging around for bungalows to give to serving MPs.

I, me and my seat

Bric-a-brac

times & mimes

 

I, me and my seat
rajnath works overtime

 

BHARATIYA Janata Party President Rajnath Singh knows how to remain grounded even though he has a pan-India presence now. The ambitious thakur from Uttar Pradesh knows well that without winning his seat in the Lok Sabha election, his dream of becoming the Prime Minister will fizzle out like that of N D Tiwari. Rajnath is an MP from Ghaziabad; he won the last election with the help of Jat leader Ajit Singh. Now Ajit Singh is an ally of the Congress Party and the Civil Aviation Minister in the Union Cabinet. This queered the pitch for Rajnath and he was finding it difficult to resolve this situation. But a godsend opportunity came his way from Bihar. A Rajya Sabha seat was vacated by Upendra Kushwaha. Rajnath grabbed the opportunity and lobbied with BJP Bihar unit for nominating K C Tyagi, leftist-turned-centrist politician of Western UP and known as KC. On the other side, Sharad Yadav – a long time associate of Tyagi – spoke to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the wily Laloo Yadav. Sharad requested Laloo not to spoil the game as KC is an old friend of both since the days of Karpoori Thakur and Devi Lal. As a result, KC finally entered Parliament again as Rajya Sabha member after 22 years of long wait. With the induction of KC in RS, beleaguered Rajnath ensured an important section of his constituency to be on his side. Now he is aiming to get the support of a Jat leader in Parliament. For this, he has assured one Jat leader from Western UP that he will fulfill his promise soon. The question now is, will these manipulations lead to the desired result of a win from a Jat and Tyagi-dominated Ghaziabad constituency? Only time will tell!

Turning them young

...by the way

 

Turning them young

 

 

P K Misra, Secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training, is considered to be an efficient officer. But, he is either over-worked or has become travel weary. For if this was not the case, the North Block would not have made West Bengal cadre IAS officer Hem Kumar Pande an Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests. As per the note appointing him to this post, Pande is 10 years junior to his batch-mates. And, this note was even sent to the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Pulok Chatterji, Environment Secretary, V Rajagopalan, and Joint Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Nivedita Shukla Verma. The order appointing Pande as Additional Secretary was signed by the Joint Secretary and it showed him to be a 1992 batch officer whereas he actually is of the 1982 batch. The order, dated January 28, 2013, from the Department of Personnel states that the 1990 batch IAS cadre officer from Assam Meghalaya, Ravi Shankar Prasad, will replace Pande as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests. It goes on to say that Hem Kumar Pande (IAS, WB, 1992) will be Additional Secretary in the Ministry. Had common sense prevailed, officials in the DoPT would have realised that no 1992 batch IAS officer is eligible for appointment as an Additional Secretary!

Rewards for silence

...by the way

 

Rewards for silence

 

Secretaries in the Defence Ministry are supposed to ensure that Ministers don’t take arbitrary decisions and endanger the defence of the country. They are the watchdogs. They should be able to speak their mind. But when they choose to close their eyes and ears, it’s an invitation to all kinds of scams, deals and controversies. It is, therefore, not surprising that in all these years of scams and scandals, while ministers have lost their jobs, not one defence secretary appears to have put his foot down or dared to disagree with his political master. Is this because they are reaping the fruits of their silence after retirement? One beneficiary of this quid pro-quo deal appears to have been Shekhar Dutt, a 1969 batch IAS officer from Madhya Pradesh and brother-in-law of Pulok Chatterjee. Shortly after his retirement as Defence Secretary, he was appointed as Governor of Chhattisgarh. Similarly, NN Vohra took over as I K Gujral’s principal secretary and headed a committee, which submitted a report on the links between criminals and politicians to P V Narasimha Rao. He is now Governor of J&K. Another former Defence Secretary, P M Nair, a 1967 batch IAS officer, was appointed Secretary to the President while Vijay Singh is currently a member of the UPSC. Again, Pradeep Kumar, a 1972 batch officer of the Haryana cadre, was appointed CVC after his retirement. He had been promoted as Defence Secretary just two months before his retirement from Secretary (Defence Production). The promotion pushed his retirement to July 30, 2011. Again, he was chosen as the CVC just a month before he was due to retire, a post that will now allow him to continue in office till the age of 65. He will now retire on September 29, 2014. Interestingly the strongest contenders for the 12th CAG’s post are two former Defence Secretaries – Shashi Kant Sharma and R K Singh.

3-in-1 advantage

...by the way

 

3-in-1 advantage

 

Defence Research and Development Organisation chief VK Saraswat is an unhappy man, with the Defence Ministry clipping his wings. They say uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. So when you wear three crowns you have to be really careful. This is something Saraswat should have known. Wearing three hats – Director General of DRDO; Secretary, Defence Research and Development; and Chief Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister – Saraswat entrusted himself with certain financial powers. He used his good offices to persuade the Government to enhance the financial powers of DRDO Director General and Secretary, Defence Research and Development from Rs 25-50 crore and Rs 60-75 crore, respectively. To create a facade of accountability, while sanctioning a project up to Rs 50 crore as DG DRDO, he would get the concurrence of his financial advisor on the file. This was even though the financial advisor was reporting to him. When these ‘deficiencies’, ‘procedural irregularities’ and ‘splitting sanctions’ came to light, Saraswat found that he had more enemies than friends in the Defence Ministry. Thus, the CAG noted that the manner in which costs were being artificially reduced to below the Rs 50-crore mark was particularly objectionable. Apparently, this was being done by reducing the number of deliverables and curtailing the project scope. In many cases, expenditure heads for scientists and manpower were not included. For instance, the actual cost of a Rs 70 crore project for design and development of electro-optical sensors for air-borne platforms was manipulated and split in such a way that both remained well under Rs 50 crore. Likewise projects Akashdeep and Aditya were so tailored that there was no need to get higher sanction. There were also irregularities relating to nomenclature of sanction issuing authorities, database and splitting of sanctions. Now the very people who were supporting him are gunning for him.