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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Oct 14, 2012 AT 18:44 IST
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Edited At: Oct 14, 2012 18:44 IST
For those who came in late, the backgound:
Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, an NGO run by law minister Salman Khurshid and his wife Louise Khurshid, has been at the centre of many allegations of financial misappropriation and forgery that have been refuted by the law minister and his wife.
Arvind Kejriwal, sitting on a protest at Parliament Street police station, has been demanding Khurshid be arrested for alleged misappropriation of funds from the Ministry of Social Justice by his trust, quoting a CAG report which alleges “misappropriation of a grant of Rs 71.5 lakh, interest of Rs 15.49 lakh thereon and the irregular release of a further grant of Rs 68.25 lakh”.
According to the report, on the basis of recommendations of the Uttar Pradesh government, a grant-in aid of Rs 71.5 lakh was sanctioned to Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust Delhi, as a non-recurring grant in 2009-10 for distributing aid and appliances under a scheme to be implemented in 17 districts across Uttar Pradesh.
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Oct 14, 2012 AT 18:44 IST, Edited At: Oct 14, 2012 18:44 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Sep 20, 2012 AT 21:44 IST
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Edited At: Sep 20, 2012 21:44 IST
Apart from some common-sensical, clear-headed advice, the prime minister's former media advisor throws in some rather astonishing insinuations for good measure in his column for the Hindu:
In this moment of “crisis,” it should be sobering to remember that during the last Lok Sabha election the Congress had crossed the magic figure of 200 seats, a feat that had eluded any political party since 1991. Yet the historic advantage was squandered away in internal confusion and distractions, producing a massive disjointedness in the government’s functioning and policies, which in turn invited trouble and challenge from different quarters and institutions. Those in the judiciary and other constitutional institutions smelled the spilt blood within the UPA and felt doubly empowered to muddy the political waters. The result was the so-called policy paralysis. The country’s best interests demanded that decision-making break out of this paralysis; and, it was natural that any attempt to break out would be resisted by vested interests and political rivals and would produce some kind of convulsion.
Read the full piece by Harish Khare at the Hindu: An opportunity, not a crisis
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Sep 20, 2012 AT 21:44 IST, Edited At: Sep 20, 2012 21:44 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Sep 06, 2012 AT 23:39 IST
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Edited At: Sep 06, 2012 23:39 IST
Coincidentally, two independent pieces make substantially the same point: that things may not be as bad as they might seem. The poison coming out is a form of cleansing, not a sign of greater disease, says Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express:
...just in the last week, three central elements of India’s dirty political economy, which at first sight might seem unconnected, have arguably reached a new inflection point. Our political economy was founded on state complicity in communalism, a disregard of law and regulation by big companies, and the plunder of natural resources. But there is a distinct possibility that things may never be the same again..
The Naroda Patiya judgment was significant for several reasons. It has, for the first time, convicted senior politicians for complicity in a riot. This will send out a powerful message. As many people have pointed out, if such convictions had been achieved in the case of the1984 riots, our history would have been different...
Though seemingly unrelated, the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in the Sahara case, ordering an unprecedented Rs 17,400 crore to be returned to investors, is also part of the maturation of our system. This is the first time a really big fish has been hauled up for what, based on the court judgments, seem egregious violations. This judgment will empower regulatory institutions like Sebi, whose effectiveness has been undercut in the past by the uncertain course of the law...
Despite vicious attacks on the institution of the CAG and the controversy over numbers, there is now one incontrovertible fact. No state will, any longer, be able to dispose of mines in the recklessly casual way that they did in the past. You can actually begin something of a clean-up of this sector...
The BJP is overdoing its blockade of Parliament. But the government went out of its way to wreck the key institutional device for public reason — the committee system...
An editorial in the Business Standard makes the same point:
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Sep 06, 2012 AT 23:39 IST, Edited At: Sep 06, 2012 23:39 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Aug 20, 2012 AT 23:51 IST
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Edited At: Aug 20, 2012 23:51 IST
Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express says the three reports are raising deep and fundamental questions about governance. Taken together they amount to an incontrovertible indictment of government.
A lot of the whispering against the CAG reports comes from an unstated fear: such scrutiny will slow down decision making. It will create economic uncertainty. These risks are present. But we have to face the fact that there is a lot more poison waiting to come out of the system. The system now needs to respond constructively and internalise new norms of governance, based on horizontal accountability, transparency and public reason, instead of arbitrary discretion. The CAG’s reports are part of the great cleansing now under way. In the medium to long run, these will make government stronger, not weaker, because it will be forced to ask the right questions.
You can contest the CAG’s numbers. But the reports, even if they do not say it, leave us in no doubt that the government is a rotting ancient regime. It is a deep morass of evasions, dereliction of duty, and outright fraud on the taxpayers. The responsibility for this runs to the highest levels, including the prime minister. He is, doubtless, an honourable and honest man. But will he admit that the government is at least guilty of a sin even worse than corruption: gross incompetence of the kind that has put the country’s future at risk?
Read the full column at the Indian Express: Great cleansing act
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Aug 20, 2012 AT 23:51 IST, Edited At: Aug 20, 2012 23:51 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Mar 22, 2012 AT 23:58 IST
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Edited At: Mar 22, 2012 23:58 IST
In response to the Times of India story of March 22, 2012, titled CAG: Govt lost Rs 10.7 lakh crore by not auctioning coal blocks, which stated that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had estimated in its 110-page draft report that the coal ministry's decision to award 155 coal acreages without competitive bidding had led to "undue benefits" of Rs 10.67 lakh crore to private and public firms, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) today issued a press release saying:
CAG writes to PM clarifying the coal block issue
With reference to the lead story published in the Times of India today titled “Government lost Rs 10.7 lakh cr by not auctioning coal blocks: CAG”, the Prime Minister has received a letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India at 1:30 pm today.
Among other things, the letter clarifies that:
“In the extant case the details being brought out were observations which are under discussion at a very preliminary stage and do not even constitute our pre-final draft and hence are exceedingly misleading. … Pursuant to clarification provided by the Ministry in exit conferences held on 9.02.2012 and 9.03.2012, we have changed our thinking …. In fact it is not even our case that the unintended benefit to the allocatee is an equivalent loss to the exchequer. The leak of the initial draft causes great embarrassment as the Audit Report is still under preparation. Such leakage causes very deep anguish.”
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Mar 22, 2012 AT 23:58 IST, Edited At: Mar 22, 2012 23:58 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Aug 02, 2011 AT 21:39 IST
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Edited At: Aug 02, 2011 21:39 IST
While the embattled government is facing the heat over price-rise, the vicious cycle of increasing interest rates and declining growth, not to mention the variou scams it is embroiled in, the opposition has got a fresh salvo to fire in the form of a a leaked CAG report which apparently cites letters by former Sports Ministers Sunil Dutt and Mani Shankar Aiyar and faults the Prime Minister's Office [PMO] for ignoring warnings on the appointment of Suresh Kalmadi as the Commonwealth Games [CWG] Organising Committee [OC] Chief.
The report is expected to be tabled in the house soon.
The CAG directly holds the PMO responsible of giving Suresh Kalmadi a free hand in running the 2010 CWG OC and spending 2000 crores of taxpayers’ money.
Kalmadi is charged with having disbursed the money in an unfair manner to the contractors and also influencing the execution of various projects related to the Games since they were all approved by his panel.
Meanwhile, the sports minister Ajay Maken came up with what the Prime Minister perhaps had earlier alluded to as "skeletons in the opposition's cupboard" with the charge that the previous NDA government had signed the Host City contract, instead of the Delhi government and that was the source of all the problems that followed later.
He also said that all opposition parties "who are making a hue and cry now" were part of the General Assembly of the IOA which elected Suresh Kalmadi as the chairman of the Organising Committee.
It is very clear from the CAG report, which even cites the declaration made by Kalmadi in his capacity as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) chief to the Commonwealth Games Federation in 2003, that he was only supposed to be the vice-chairman of the OC.
The bid submitted by the IOA to the CWG Federation clearly specified that the executive board of the OC would be headed by a chairman nominated by the government. This is the way it had been even in the previous CWG which were held in Melbourne, where it was the government of Australia which was in charge.
It is on record in Mr Sunil Dutt's letter quoted by the CAG that a Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by the PM Manmohan Singh decided to appoint the Union Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs as the head of the OC on October 25, 2004.
Even Mr Ajay Maken's suo moto statement in the Lok Sabha today acknowledges:
'The original Bid Document had provided for a “Government Appointee” as the Chairman of the Executive Board of the Organizing Committee (OC), with the Vice Chairman being the IOA President. However, the bid document was inexplicably changed to delete the words “Government Appointee” in respect of the Chairman'
And that is where things get blurry as somehow Mr Suresh Kalmadi managed to convince PM Manmohan Singh later in the same year to have him as the Chairman, despite persistent opposition from the then Sports Ministers Sunil Dutt who should have been the chairman, as mentioned in Mr Dutt's letter to the PM.
Mani Shankar Aiyar, the sports minister to follow on Mr Sunil Dutt's death, had always made his opposition to Mr Kalmadi more than clear on more than one occasion.
Rahul Mehta, Supreme Court lawyer, dissects the issue on his Twitter timeline:
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Aug 02, 2011 AT 21:39 IST, Edited At: Aug 02, 2011 21:39 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jul 03, 2011 AT 07:10 IST
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Edited At: Jul 03, 2011 07:10 IST
Siddharth Varadarajan in the Hindu:
The Prime Minister and his advisors just don't get it. At a time when the public is looking for an end to the loot of public money, the last thing they want to hear from their government is a bunch of excuses and alibis.
In his interaction with a small group of editors on Wednesday, Dr. Manmohan Singh made a number of arguments to justify the half-hearted action that has been taken so far against the politicians, officials and businessmen suspected of corruption in the telecom, hydrocarbon and other sectors.
First he said the decisions which the media and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) are citing as evidence of irregularities and graft were all taken in good faith under conditions of uncertainty. “If out of 10 decisions that I take, seven turn out to be right ex-post, that would be considered an excellent performance,” he said. “But if you have a system which is required to perform [in] 10 out of 10 cases, no system can be effective and satisfy that onerous condition.”
His second argument was to attack all bearers of bad tidings, accusing the CAG of going beyond the limits prescribed by Constitution and the media of being judge, jury and executioner rolled into one.
Read on at the Hindu
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jul 03, 2011 AT 07:10 IST, Edited At: Jul 03, 2011 07:10 IST
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