CBI hints at Anil Ambani's role in 2G

Anil Ambani  - son of late Dhirubhai Ambani - is now under the CBI scanner for his role in the alleged mega-2G scam.

It may be noted that three senior executives of his Reliance Communications are already members of the Tihar Jail's VIP Club.

It has been reported that the cops have informed the Supreme Court of India that these 3 Reliance Communication Executives want to change their original stand in the case according to which they had maintained that they were responsible for the decisions made in connection with the 2G issue.

Reliance Communications is India's second largest telecom service provider and a company of Anil Ambani's ADAG. The prices of the shares of the ADAG companies crashed on the stock markets today when the news of Anil Ambani being investigating hit the streets.

However, some political observers say that information of investigating Anil Ambani has been disclosed at this juncture to take heat of the home minister P. Chidambaram. The home minister has been under pressure for quite some time, especially after the note from Finance Ministry to Prime Minister Office went public.

Scams of India

The current Government of India led by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh will probably go down in history as the government with the maximum number of corruption charges - both in terms of quantity and magnitude. Most of the scams exposed in the last few months have occurred while the government is still in power.

Ironically, some of the most severe allegations of corruption were against the Congress or Congress-led governments. These include...

• Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency when Jai Prakash Narayan led an anti-corruption campaign against her government.
• Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi faced rough weather when his senior colleagues led by V. P. Singh alleged corruption in the Bofors Commission scandal. 
• Soon after completing his tenure, Prime Minister P. V. Narsimha Rao's was tried in court for bribing the members of parliament from the Shibu Soren's JMM Party.
• Amar Singh, Member of Parliament, is currently in custody for his role in trying to bribe some members of parliament to abstain from voting or voting in favour of the Congress during the last Vote of Confidence in the parliament. Incidentally mediator and the whistle blowers in the case have been sent to judicial custody while the beneficiaries of this graft are still left untouched.

And now the current government has, shamelessly, surpassed all previous scandals, its ministers and senior MPs have landed in jail for their involvement in the mega-scams that have taken place in the last 3-4 years. The size of the scams put all the previous scams to shame...

• Commonwealth Games scandal - Thousands of Crores - Accused politicians include... Suresh Kalmadi MP and chairman of the Organizing Committee, Sheila Dixit, Chief Minister of Delhi.
• 2G Scam - Lakhs of Crores - Accused politicians include... A. Raja, MP and now ex-Minister of Telecommunications, Kanimozhi MP, P. Chidambaram - then Finance Minister, now Home Minister.

Earlier governments too have had criminal investigations against them, but none were of this magnitude and most were after the government had left office.

To top it all, the government has vigorously contested against those have raised voices against corruption and black money.

Rajbala - victim of police action dies in hospital

Rajbala - a 51 year old woman - who was injured in the police action on the Ramdev Baba and his supports at Ramlila Ground on night of 4 June 2011, died in GB Pant Hospital today morning (20-Sept-2011).

Baba Ramdev was on an indefinite hunger strike in protest demanding action from the government against black money. On the fateful night the police had used brute force shortly after midnight to break hunger strike at Delhi's Ramlila Ground. They had swooped down and started hitting the sleeping supporters including women and children.

It is alleged that Rajbala was injured in the lathicharge that had severely damaged her spinal cord. She had been battling for her life in the city's G. B. Pant Hospital since then. She had undergone surgery and was on ventilator since then. She had become quadriplegic. She passed away today morning in the hospital.

The police had faced severe criticism for the brutality it had displayed on that eventful night. They have no argument to justify why they had to take action late in the night when the protestors - who were in a peaceful agitation - were sleeping. Even the Supreme Court had taken suo-motto cognizance and sought an explanation from Delhi Police on this matter.

Truck driver beaten to death by the police! Corruption at its worst.

Another case of police brutality has come forward - the death of a truck driver on the national highway in Uttar Pradesh.

Corruption at its worst - RTO Officials today (26-Sept-2011) beat a truck driver to death in Uttar Pradesh. His fault was that he refused to pay a bribe of Rs.5000.

The incident happened on National Highway 2 in Chandauli. An ARTO who was supposedly on a routine checking, intercepted a truck. After checking the licence and other documents, the ARTO demanded a bribe of Rs.5000/-, which the truck driver refused to pay. As a consequence of his refusal the ARTO and his associates badly beat up the driver leading to his death.

This is the state of affairs in our country and the Congress-led UPA Government is not willing to act against the corrupt. It does not want to pass the strict jan-lokpal bill that Anna Hazare is demanding.

Forest and Environment - Who Cares!! At least not the government

This is what a new study released by the Centre for Science and Environment, an NGO, has to say...

For some time now, industry, government and regulatory agencies have been persistently talking about how environmental regulations have throttled the country’s growth. They have raged on about how the system of forest and environment clearances has forced India’s credit ratings to its nadir. And they have bitterly complained about how environmentalists were holding the country and its people to ransom.

All of which is unadulterated hogwash, says a new assessment by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

The Director General of CSE Sunita Narain says “Environmental regulations are seen as impeding growth, but where is the impediment? We are finding that despite all the browbeating, almost every project is getting cleared with frightening consistency, making a complete mockery of our regulatory systems.”

If the report is to be believed that the Government of India has approved more damage to the environment and specially forest land in the last two year than has been done since independence

Take the case of coal mining. All coal mining areas are heavily polluted, and most coal mining companies have very poor environment management record: many of these places fall under the category of critically polluted areas (CPA). Monitoring by pollution control authorities shows about one-third of operating coal mines are violating all environmental norms. Despite this, coal mining projects in CPAs are being given the go-ahead quite regularly.

It is the same story in the case of coal-based thermal power projects. Of the top 10 districts where environmental clearance has been granted to these projects, six were declared as already critically polluted.

The report also speculates that, there could be a new scam to take over the land and the water of the people.

Fingers pointed at P. Chidambaram's role in 2G scam

Another embarrassing moment for the Congress led UPA government at the center in India.

This time a note has come forward. This note prepared by the Department of Economic Affairs, an office under Pranab Mukherjee, current Finance Minister of India, was sent to PMO on 25 March 2011. It has raised questions on the actions and inaction of P. Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister of India in connection with the 2G scam.

The note - an 11-page document - describes that the Finance Ministry had demanded that the 2G spectrum be auctioned. According to a report in the Times of India, the note says that P. Chidambaram had overruled the recommendations of the ministry - the Ministry of Finance - that demanded that 2G spectrum be auctioned.

"DoT could have invoked this clause (5.1 of the UAS license) for cancelling licences in case MoF had stuck to the stand of auctioning the 4.4 MHz spectrum," the note says.

The note, directly casts a shadow of suspicion on the role played by the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum allocation which is said to have caused a loss of Rs. 50000 crore to Rs. 1.76 lakh crore to the Indian exchequer.

The timing of this note becoming public could not have been worse for the ruling UPA coalition, whose credibility has been severely compromised in the past few months. The note was given by PMO to an RTI activitist in response to an RTI request.

Onion Export - Another Rollback by UPA Government

Something is really not working right for the Congress-led UPA government at the center in India.

Since its almost successful panga (पंगा) with Baba Ramdeo during his hunger protest against black money in middle of the night at the Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi, almost every decision of the government seems to be backfiring, further denting its already low credibility.

The latest in the series is, today's (20-Sept-2011) announcement of a roll-back by the Government on its decision that it had taken on 9-Sept-2011 to ban the export of onion.

This time the government has bowed down to the protest by the farmers against the ban.

Common-on GOI - get your act together, and do something right for a change.