InfoAnda - COMMENTARY: Growing graft in India

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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Weekend Edition Australia China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Philippines Thailand Vietnam COMMENTARY: Growing graft in India ANN - Tuesday, February 8 Send IM Story Print New Delhi (The Star/ANN) - Nailed Raja jailed at last, screamed the front-page headline spread across all of eight columns of an English daily last Thursday. The reference was to former Telecom Minister A. Raja, who was at the centre of a huge corruption scandal. Two of his close aides were also arrested in connection with the arbitrary grant of telecom licences to hand-picked parties three years ago, touching off a huge public outcry against a humongous scam. It was the unrelenting campaign against corruption of the Manmohan Singh government which culminated in the arrest of the 47-year-old Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam (DMK) politician last week. Groomed by DMK patriarch and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi as the party's Dalit face, Raja, a forceful Tamil orator, had risen fast in the party hierarchy. His proximity to Karunanidhi's daughter, Kanimozhi, MP, further boosted his career. As the leaked conversations between Kanimozhi and a New Delhi-based woman lobbyist, Niira Radia, revealed, Raja owed his appointment as Telecom Minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government to backroom skullduggery in the Karunanidhi family. From the word go, he set out to grant licences for the launch of new cellular phone services to only those who would do "business" with him. Applications for allotment of 2-G spectrum were arbitrarily rejected, eligibility criterion wilfully changed, time deadlines for submission of applications surreptitiously altered to issue 157 licences out of the 500-odd applicants. Some of the successful applicants did not meet basic conditions. Others immediately encashed the licences at huge profits while still others failed to launch operations even after getting the licences. In sum, it was a huge scam which the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) of India reckoned could cost the taxpayers anything between US$12bil to US$35bil. The Prime Minister had stoutly defended Raja, arguing that he had done no wrong. Even when tell-tale evidence of wrong-doing surfaced, the Government stuck to its 'no-wrong-was-done' position. However, the report of the CAG and the intervention of the Supreme Court forced the Government to relent. Last November, Raja was made to resign and the apex court undertook to monitor the investigations in the case. Because the Central Bureau of Investigation was ordered to file a progress report at the next hearing in the Supreme Court due on Feb 10, independent observers felt the arrest of Raja and his aides was meant to show progress in investigations. Another banner headline in an English daily read: "Raja held, Govt still in the dock". This reflected the general consensus that the arrest was unlikely to provide relief to the beleaguered Manmohan Singh Government. The Government was on the back foot not only because of Raja's 2-G scam but due to a series of such scandals. Judicial activism had further exposed its seamier side. It had tied itself in knots in the appointment of a controversial official as the Central Vigilance Commis-sioner. The chief ombudsman of the government was expected to be above reproach. But retired bureaucrat, P.V.Thomas, was himself listed as an accused in an old corruption case. This was by no means the only embarrassment for the Government. The investigations in the Commonwealth Games corruption scandal, too, were moving at a snail's pace. Three aides of Suresh Kalmadi, the head of the Games Organising Committee, were arrested but had to be released for want of a charge-sheet. Kalmadi, a Congress MP, was interrogated by the CBI a couple of times but, as yet, there was no move to arrest him. Ordinary people believed that he was the kingpin in the scam. In the season of scams, more muck piled up for the Government when it was revealed that the public broadcaster, Doordarshan, had contracted with a British company to telecast the Games at an exorbitantly inflated price. The British company, in turn, had outsourced the job to an Indian company at nearly half the price. A similar case involved an Australian company whose Games-related payment was stopped on the orders of the investigators. In an unusual move, the Australian Government officially complained to the visiting Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna, demanding that the committed amount be paid forthwith. Manmohan Singh himself seems to have frittered away public goodwill for his multi-faceted failures. The general refrain was that he was not in control of the government of which he was the constitutional head. Yes, Manmohan Singh was squeaky-clean. But as prime minister he has presided over more corruption scams than any of his predecessors since the founding of the Republic. 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