EVERY scandal needs a villain, rather a
hero-turned-rogue. In fact, what a scintillating scam requires is an anti-hero,
who combines the traits of an idol and a scoundrel. The Securities Scam of the
early 1990s had Harshad Mehta. In the 1950s, another stock-speculator, Haridas
Mundhra defrauded the state-owned LIC. Sanjay Gandhi, and his brother, Rajiv,
were involved in the Maruti Scandal and Bofors Bribes, respectively. In recent
times, Nirav Modi engineered the Punjab National Bank swindle.
October 8, 2018
IL&FS SCAM : Ravi Parthasarathy : The New Robber Baron
Ravi Ramaswamy Parthasarathy perfected
the art of networking and science of logical persuasion. He carefully built
contacts in financial, political, bureaucratic and business circles, both at
the national and state levels. When the opportune time came, he used them to
bag lucrative and large projects and gold-plate costs. His model helped him to
recover group’s investments before the projects were completed. He left before
the over leveraged and bloated castle caved in. His story began in the 1980s.
Cover Story : The House of Cards Ravi Built
What went wrong with the IL&FS empire over the past four years? How did it turn from a seemingly-robust and complex maze into a castle of sand? What did Ravi Parthasarathy, who resigned in July 2018 due to health reasons, do to bring down his carefully-built businesses over the three decades within three months? Here all the answers in an easy-to-chew and easy-to-digest fashion.
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Governance : Massive Army, Miniscule Spending
The
29th report of the Estimates Committee that was chaired by veteran BJP MP,
Murli Manohar Joshi, raises many alarming questions about India’s defence
preparedness. The most severe indictment is that India’s defence budget as a
percentage of GDP at 1.56 per cent has fallen to the 1962 levels. The acute
shortage of funds for capital acquisition has had a devastating impact on the
modernisation of our defence forces.
Governance : UN-MADE IN INDIA
For any nation with a large defence force, relying on imported fighting equipment was always going to be an expensive and impractical proposition. Yet in India, which has the fourth largest standing army in the world, developing and manufacturing of indigenous weapon systems remained an area of neglect for more than seven decades. The premature end to the development of the HF-24 fighter aircraft and the case of the lost-and-found blueprints of the Bofors gun are just two instances that highlight this chronic failure.
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Governance : An army of scare crows
THE Estimates Committee
report of the Indian Parliament on India’s operational preparedness has
highlighted with predictable regularity the inadequacies in defence allocation,
especially the year 2017-18. This is due to the absence of any systematic and institutionalised
process of defence planning and budgeting. A plethora of reasons can be given
for this recurring lacuna despite the 15-year Long Term Integrated Perspective
Plan (LTIPP).
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Governance : Short sighted smugness
THE letter from a retiring Chief of Army
Staff to the Prime Minister that made headlines in March 2012 calling attention
of the Government to the critically depleting state of armament and equipment
in the Indian Army’s principal fighting arms like mechanised forces, artillery,
air defence, infantry, Special Forces and so on was neither the first nor the
last. As a practice, prior to demitting office, all military chiefs have been submitting
reports to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence on the state of their
respective Services.
Governance : Oil & Gas-Why settle for ‘Sell in India’, when you can ‘Make in India!’
For every barrel of oil produced in
India, the government earns more than 50 per cent of revenue through royalty,
cess, profit petroleum; not to mention corporate income tax and other state
level taxes. On the other hand, for every barrel of oil imported into the
country, the government not only gets zero revenue but has to shell out
precious foreign exchange that has a direct bearing on the country’s economy.
The need of the hour is to boost domestic production through a robust policy
and concerted efforts.
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