Republican Monetary Policy Myths - Paul Krugman, New York Times, The Hindu
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's observation that enforcement of environmental regulatory standards should not lead to a throwback to the days of the licence-permit raj strikes a jarring note...
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Mubarak Out of Touch With Egyptian People - Thomas Friedman, NYT, NYT
The killing of fishermen from Tamil Nadu in the deep seas is not unprecedented. Several hundreds of them were allegedly gunned down over the years by the Sri Lankan navy, which saw them as a conduit for supplies to the Tamil rebels in the north of the isl
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Curious story of Hasan Ali Khan - A Surya Prakash, Pioneer
Despite piles of evidence against this Pune-based stud farm owner, the UPA regime has failed to act against his wealth in Swiss banks.
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Endgame for PM? - Ashok Malik, Asian Age
There are some in the Congress who believe — and a smaller number who actually hope — he will throw in the towel, leave 7, Race Course Road and walk away from a situation he cannot personally be comfortable with.There is another view that his government may just limp along, given ithas three-and-a-half years of its term left.
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Extortnomics: Funds the Maoist long march - Times of India
The rebels coerce industrialists, illegal miners and even poor villagers to raise close to Rs 2,000 crore every year, say senior police and intelligence officers fighting Naxals across the country.
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DoS recommends cancellation of Devas-Antrix deal - Economic Times
The satellite transponder lease deal between state-run Antrix Corporation and Devas Multimedia had a highly unusual provision to provide Devas back-door access to the precious and heavily monetizable S-band terrestrial spectrum. This, and many other details that reveal the extent of how problematic the government now finds the deal to be, forms part of a note by the Department of Space prepared for the Cabinet Committee on Security, recommending the cancellation of the deal.
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'The irregularities should not have happened' - Live Mint
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Scams in the name of the poor - Surjit S Bhalla, Financial Express
The scams pertaining to the national welfare schemes like MGNREGA and PDS, may annually be about the size of the 2G scam, if not more. I repeat—the flow of corruption money via operation of MGNREGA, PDS, fertiliser subsidy, kerosene subsidy, etc, may well be substantially in excess of Rs 40,000 crore.
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The Maoist junction - Indian Express
On the southern tip of Orissa and connecting the state to Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Malkangiri district is today a Maoist base that is controlled by runaway Naxals from Andhra and serves as a safe haven for those of all three states.
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Playing politics with peace - Kalyani Shankar, Pioneer
The Congress hopes to win the coming Assembly election in Assam by leveraging the Union Government’s peace talks with ULFA. That would fetch the party its third consecutive victory.
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Nothing personal - Anuradha Dutt, Pioneer
The Supreme Court has recently urged the Government, as it has been doing for many years, to move towards adopting a uniform civil code. Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Jsutice AK Ganguly made the pronouncement while hearing petitions, filed by National Commission for Women and Delhi Commission for Women, seeking clarity on the definition of a minor girl.
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A PM without grip or grit - The Hindu Businessline
Ican only say that I am aghast at the performance of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, at the electronic media meet of February 16.
I sat glued to both the live and repeat telecas...
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The divisions in Deoband - Indian Express
ThereÂ’s more to the anti-Vastanvi movement than his statements.
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Aditi Phadnis: Watch out for the heart-throb - Business Standard
Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are round the corner but “Captain&" – as Vijayakanth is known – isn’t saying a word.
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Why abduct an honest, pro-poor collector? ask Malkangiri residents - Supriya Sharma, The Times of India
After decades of apathy, R V Krishna, a young IAS officer, came as a breath of fresh air. "He is very dynamic. He energised us. We began organising camps in the area," said Hemant Singh, another block officer.
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Maoists when cornered turn to kidnap strategy - The Times of India
Whenever Maoists are on the backfoot or face major reverses in their fight against security forces, they use the abduction strategy kidnapping senior officials and politicians to force the government to concede to their demands.
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Winds of change in Bengal - Ishita Ayan Dutt, Business Standard
The “Paribartan chai” slogan has united the Bengal intelligentsia apparently in favour of Mamata Banerjee.
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Upsurge of anger against Maoist monstrosity - Saroj Mishra/Millu Pattnaik, Pioneer
Even as the Government of Odisha remained clueless about the fate of the Collector of Malkangiri district, R Vinil Krishna, and a junior engineer, Pabitra Majhi, who were abducted by Maoists two days ago, thousands of people took out huge rallies on Friday demanding the immediate release of the two officials and denouncing the Left extremists.
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On Feb 27, a Tahrir Square in Delhi - Baba Ramdev (Yoga Guru), Pioneer
The people of India have had enough of corruption. The world famous Yoga exponent who has been articulating their angst for some time now, is about to launch a mass movement aimed to bring down the corrupt establishment.
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BJP stands by report despite Advani apology - Santwana Bhattacharya, Express Buzz
S Gurumurthy, convener of the task force that named the Nehru-Gandhi family in its report on black money in foreign banks, stood by its findings despite BJP veteran L K Advani’s apology to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
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‘Shahid Balwa is a Dawood associate’ - Lens On News, February 21, 2011
Maharashtra’s director general of police
D Sivanandan has said that Shahid Balwa is an associate of Pakistan-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. This is a fact that is widely known in Mumbai, Sivanandan has said. In an interview to the Tamil bi-weekly magazine JuniorVikatan, Sivanandan further said that it is also widely believed that Balwa has the patronage and blessings of powerful politicians.
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Building bridges in the red corridor - Indian Express
In Maoist affected and communally charged Kandhamal, a BDO tries to bring governance to its residents.
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Between ULFA and peace - Indian Express
With the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) opening a dialogue with the Centre, there is hope after three decades of violence in Assam.
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Maoists hold Naveen to ransom - Pioneer
The Naveen Patnaik Government in Odisha is working overtime to negotiate a deal with the Maoists who abducted the Collector and a junior engineer of Malkangiri district last Wednesday.
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Hawala: the fine print - Pradeep Thakur, The Times of India
For years, hawala has been the preferred choice of traders, industrialists, criminals, drug lords and politicians. This is how they stash unaccounted currency in safe havens or conceal a tainted money trail. Deals are sealed cutting across continents, in cash, and no financial records are maintained. The operation is based on trust and is considered foolproof.
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Hard calculations in Tamil Nadu - V Krishna Ananth, Indian Express
ThereÂ’s an air of inevitability about the alliances preparing for the fray. But thereÂ’s no certainty about the outcome.
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Two pro-India parties floated in J&K - Pradeep Thakur, The Times of India
Two new pro-India political outfits are being launched in J&K, headed by former militants and Ikhwan commanders, with the backing of the Union home ministry and the Indian Army.
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'Left scuppered Sonia chance of becoming PM' - The Times of India
If former Prime Minister IK Gujral is to be believed, it was the Left that thwarted Sonia Gandhi's chance of becoming the prime minister in April 1999 and not Mulayam Singh Yadav as is believed.
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Jamaat-e-Islami-e Hind to launch its own party - Seema Chishti, Indian Express
In three of the five states going to the polls in weeks — Assam, Kerala and West Bengal — the percentage of Muslims, after Jammu and Kashmir, is the highest in the country. To tap this political space, the Jamaat-e-Islami-e Hind, the organisation established for the propagation and “reform” of Islam in the subcontinent in 1941, is planning to launch its political party.
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Plug the hole in the bucket - Santosh Mehrotra, The Times of India
Thanks to the Right to Information Act, 2005, and also the activism of NGOs and of the media, a culture of accountability is growing in the country. That is the good news. However, the media, NGOs and RTI activists can only do so much. They can focus the attention of the public and parliamentarians on egregious scams, but rarely address the systemic flaws that result in leakage of funds.
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Hostage situation: Does India have a policy to deal with these crises? - Josy Joseph, The Times of India
Is India a soft power? This question has been asked so many times that it almost sounds like a cliché. But it comes back to haunt India every time a group of armed men makes the aspiring global power go down on its knees. It happened in Kandahar. It happened in the Veerappan country. Now, it has happened in the jungles of Orissa. Every time a bunch of militants abducts an important person, puts a gun to his head and makes outrageous demands, the Indian state succumbs just to buy peace for the time being.
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Lok Sabha, 2014 - Shekhar Gupta, Indian Express
The resumption of our parliamentary proceedings has coincided with the cricket World Cup. And, at least in the early rounds, it has looked like more fun than the one-sided matches being played in the World Cup preliminaries.
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How not to tackle black money, Arun Kumar, Hindu - Arun Kumar, The Hindu
Technically, we know how to check the black economy but the problem is political. More studies or committees and treaties with foreign governments are only to stall action.
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Left's parasites will survive - Sunanda K Datta-Ray, Pioneer
CPI(M)'s goons were the first to make the move and join Trinamool Congress. Industrialists and intellectuals are following them.
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The Muslim as BJP supporter in Gujarat - The Hindu
In a patronage democracy where resource distribution depends on the discretion of elected officials, it pays to stay close to the power centres in government.
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SC stay order a body blow for DMK - G Babu Jayakumar, Express Buzz
By staying the elections to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Council, the Supreme Court has dealt a body blow to the DMK, which has been displaying extraordinary enthusiasm in reviving the Upper House that was abolished by former Chief Minister M G Ramachandran in 1986.
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BJP’s menacing vacuum - Prabhu Chawla, Express Buzz
Despite the media hype the BJP is certainly passing through one of the worst phases in its life, something similar to years after 1984 elections when it was reduced to two members in the Lok Sabha. But the present spell has serious political consequences for its future politics.
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Digvijay Singh’s comments on Hindu Bengalis flayed - Sentinel Assam
Congress leader Digvijay Singh’s comments on Hindu Bengalis, who migrated to India from Bangladesh, at a public meeting at Karimganj on February 17 continue to draw flak from various organizations.
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Quota is not the answer - Firoz Bakht Ahmed, Indian Express
Minority status will only hurt, not help, Jamia Millia Islamia.
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The Art of Living - Pushpa Iyengar, Outlook
Opposition circles the DMK for a kill, but it hopes to faze it out.
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Initiative returns to BJP - Sanjay Kaul, Pioneer
The mishandling of the 2G scam and the setback to the secular position on Godhra this week has handed the political initiative back to the BJP. Not since the mid-1990s has the Indian right looked as strong.
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Watching History Unfold - Seema Chishti, Indian Express
It is interesting to recall that well before the recent spat between writer William Dalrymple and journalist Hartosh Singh Bal, on whether the Jaipur lit fest was one that reeled under a colonial shadow, stripped of any real appreciation of Indian literature by Indians, and was just about craving attention from Anglo-Saxons, Dalrymple, at the time of the release of his book The Last Mughal, had got into another bitter argument with Indian historians about there not being enough literature on the Revolt of 1857 or historical narratives by Indians.
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Disappointing Budget ignores inflation - Sitaram Yechury, Mail Today
THE Budget is an exercise in disappointment. It
doesn't address two pressing issues - inflation and corruption. There is
no relief from the rising petroleum prices.
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Does not meet nation’s challenges - Yashwant Sinha, Hindustan Times
In 2007-08, the government’s fiscal deficit was around Rs 1,27,000 crore. In one stroke, P Chidambaram more than doubled it to Rs 3,37,000 crore in 2008-09, making a mockery of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.
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Please all, please none - Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, The Asian Age
Pranab Mukherjee is the most seasoned politician in the present government. He was finance minister more than a quarter-century ago when Manmohan Singh was the governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He has seen economic policy in the country change over the decades. In this year’s Budget, he has conveyed an impression that he is trying to walk the proverbial tightrope by seeking to please everyone and his brother. That’s not an easy task in the best of times.
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Congress has no state level leaders - Ramachandra Guha, Hindustan Times
Returning to Bangalore after a fortnight on the road, I discovered that while I was away my chief minister had acquired a new wardrobe. I knew BS Yeddyurappa to dress always in white trousers and white shirts, but now, on hoardings that peppered the highway from the airport into town, I saw him clad in a grey suit with pink tie, advertising his government’s achievements (real and imagined) in economic and social development.
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The Six-gun Ballot - Anindya Sengupta, The Telegraph Calcutta
For three decades, a Left win in the Bengal polls had been the easiest of psephologists’ predictions. They could have it just as easy this time, too — only it would be the other way, barring a political miracle.
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Judiciary asserts itself, yet again - Satya Prakash, Hindustan Times
Former Chief Justice of India YK Sabharwal once said judiciary need not have a cozy relationship with the government, as it may come in the way of taking independent and difficult decisions. The SC verdict quashing an apparently arbitrary and illegal appointment of a tainted man as the country’s anti-corruption watchdog has only proved the statement right.
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Roughshod riders - Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Hindustan Times
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram could have saved themselves considerable embarrassment if they had not hastily appointed Polayil Joseph Thomas, one of the seniormost officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), as the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) on September 7. They would have saved the UPA government the ignominy of having the Supreme Court quashing Thomas’ appointment to an important and sensitive constitutional post on the ground that it was “illegal”.
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Kapadia's court revives activism, rattles power elite - Manoj Mitta, TOI
The unseating of central vigilance commissioner PJ Thomas is the latest breakthrough made by the Supreme Court in the course of a resurgent judicial activism under the leadership of Chief Justice SH Kapadia.
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'Institution more important than individual' - Soli J Sorabjee, The Times Of India
Institutions owe their existence to the enactment of a statute. Their growth and effective functioning depends upon the person at the helm of the institution. As John Stuart Mill rightly reminds us "Political institutions ... are the work of men; owe their origin and their whole existence to human will."
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No-nonsense Kapadia's gavel silences govt - Swati Deshpande, The Times Of India
I come from a poor family. I started my career as a class IV employee and the only asset I posses is integrity." That was Sarosh Homi Kapadia describing himself last year at a felicitation ceremony for another judge. Kapadia grew up as the son of a poor defence clerk in Mumbai to become India's 38th chief justice. And after two decades in the higher judiciary this year, seven of those years as an SC judge, the one description that has always tagged him was honest.
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Why I had no doubt the court would strike it down - JS Verma, Indian Express
The office of the Central Vigilance Commissioner is most important, in its task of overseeing the functioning of people in public office and tackling corruption wherever it is found. It is the crucial body entrusted with combating corruption. In that context, this turn of events — the Supreme Court having to strike down P.J. Thomas’s appointment — is indeed tragic.The person for the job must possess impeccable integrity, and be utterly beyond suspicion. There is no dearth of such people in our country, who can answer to all these requirements.
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It’s not just corruption - Coomi Kapoor, The Indian Express
Five states are set to elect new assemblies by the middle of May. And many politicians assume that the UPA alliances have an edge in West Bengal, Kerala and Assam.
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They are lucky there’s no VP Singh: Advani - Vandita Mishra, Indian Express
On the day the Supreme Court struck down the appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner P J Thomas, BJP parliamentary party chairperson and senior leader L K Advani said that the UPA government is gripped by a larger crisis for which both the prime minister and Congress president are accountable.
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When grassroots innovation goes global - Peerzada Abrar & Radhika P Nair, Economic Times
India's rural entrepreneurs are turning the conventional model of globalisation on its head — by selling consumer products designed for Indian villagers across global markets. Mansukhbhai Prajapati, a potter living in rural Gujarat, is completely untaught in English. But the lack of formal education has not hindered this grassroots entrepreneur from building a thriving business using just clay.
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Why worry about China's nuclear warheads? - Michael Richardson, The Japan Times
SINGAPORE — Latest estimates by Western analysts put China's stockpile at 240 warheads, with 175 in active mode and 65 in reserve or waiting to be dismantled because they are considered too old for use.
This is a small arsenal compared with those of the United States and Russia. The U.S. has declared that it has 5,113 active nuclear warheads. Russia is thought to have a similar number; it has indicated it will follow the U.S. and make a full disclosure after their latest treaty on strategic arms cuts has been ratified.
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Caesar's Wife, Teflon-Coated - The Times of India
The Supreme Court judgment on the CVC both shames and exposes the government
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Equations after the elections - Ashok Malik, Pioneer
If Mamata Banerjee and J Jayalalithaa were to win handsome victories in the coming Assembly polls, we could witness an early general election.
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Time to play hardball, Mr Chandy - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
Last month, Tejas, a newspaper based in Kerala’s Malabar region published the results of a political survey. It made two points: if the Left Democratic Front (LDF) continued with V S Achyuthanandan as chief minister, it could get up to 76 of the 140 seats in the Kerala Assembly elections on April 13; and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) was not as comfortably placed as it was about three months ago.
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Lessons from the Thomas verdict - The Hindu
The Supreme Court ruling shows that fundamental facts were glossed over by those who were authorised to make the vital appointment. But there are two aspects of the judgment that are debatable.
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A mysterious reluctance - A Surya Prakash, Pioneer
Much like the reluctant bridegroom who is kidnapped and dragged into the mandap kicking and screaming and married to the daughter of a mafia don in the badlands of Bihar, the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, has, much against his will and with the utmost aversion, given in to the Opposition’s demand for the constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the 2G Spectrum scam.
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Secret report on fake notes blames Pak - Ritu Sarin, Indian Express
A secret Government report, that claims to be based on a “million intelligence inputs,” has named officials in the Pakistan High Commissions in Dhaka and Kathmandu as being responsible for not only manufacturing but also distributing Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN). For the first time, the Government has put a figure to the value of FICN in “circulation” — Rs. 16,000 crore, and linked it to at least 15 cases of terrorist funding.
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The secret self of Kanimozhi - Santwana Bhattacharya and G Babu Jayakumar, Express Buzz
“I’ve nothing to regret. I’m used to public life throwing up all kinds of controversies at my face from the time I was born. This is nothing new.” That’s Kanimozhi, Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Karunanidhi’s youngest child, speaking with steel in her voice on the unwelcome 2G spotlight on her. In her calm voice is the timbre of years lived, a depth that goes beyond her 42 years.
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Congress to launch TV news channel - T J S George, Express Buzz
What does not happen in any other democracy in the world is about to happen in India: the Indian National Congress is ready to launch a national television channel in Hindi. Two regional channels in Maharashtra and Rajasthan are also in the works under the general umbrella of Jai Hind TV. The Congress Party will own the channels and directly run them.
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At JNU, Arundhati renews offensive against India - Pioneer
Author Arundhati Roy has again created controversy by attending a function where the National Emblem was put to disrespect. According to reports, the Maoist sympathiser attended a function organised by the banned Democratic Students’ Union at Jawaharlal Nehru University campus on Saturday night, where pamphlets showing Lion Capital (the National Emblem) as part of a shoe’s sole were distributed.
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Court lists proof of Godhra conspiracy - Rathin Das, Pioneer
The designated Special Court which sentenced eleven people to death and awarded life imprisonment to 20 others for the 2002 torching of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, has stated several reasons for upholding the conspiracy theory put forward by the prosecutors.
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Hasan money fed terror - Abraham Thomas, Pioneer
When the Supreme Court demanded, “What the hell is going on in the country?” suspecting some “hidden” interest was working overtime to shield Hasan Ali Khan, it had more than one reason for expressing its anguish over the Government’s non-seriousness to prosecute money launderers and tax evaders holding black money accounts. Documents placed before the court made very disturbing disclosures on how black money stashed by Ali was channelised for terrorism, corruption deals and weapons sale.
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Is PM facing a royalist revolt? - Swapan Dasgupta, Pioneer
The unwritten British Constitution operates on the quaintly-expressed principle that ‘the Queen can do no wrong’. In the Congress’ monarchical system, it is understood that Sonia Gandhi can do no wrong; she is just ‘misled’. It does no good to the self-esteem of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that his spin-doctors have to fall back on the same plea that in pushing through PJ Thomas’ appointment as Central Vigilance Commissioner, he erred because he too was ‘misled’.
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Shiv Sena finds Muslim friends - Sanjay Jog, Business Standard
The Shiv Sena has floated the Muslim Mahasangh to expand its support base in the Thane district. With this, the party hopes to improve its chances in the 2012 civic body elections.
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In Siachen, Dhruv proves a world-beater - Ajai Shukla, Business Standard
It was a brutal test of helicopter and pilot. As the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) shuddered towards the icy helipad on a 21,000-foot ledge overlooking the Siachen Glacier, the pilots could see wreckage from earlier helicopter crashes dotting the base of the vertical ice walls on either side. Ahead lay the Indian Army’s infamous Sonam Post, the highest inhabited spot on earth, and an extreme example of why the military so urgently wants the Dhruv, which has been customised by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) for high altitude operations.
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The disunited colours of Tamilnadu politics - T S Sudhir, NDTV
Ghulam Nabi Azad's health portfolio clearly wasn't concerned with keeping the DMK-Congress alliance in the pink of health. It is obvious the wily politician from Jammu & Kashmir deliberately kept shifting the line of actual control in the DMK-Congress marriage. He knew it would upset Dr Muthuvel Karunanidhi.
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Band Management - V Shoba, Indian Express
In physics, spectrum refers to a range of frequencies at which electromagnetic waves can be transmitted. Such waves—radio waves, infrared and ultraviolet radiation, microwaves and visible light—abound in nature and travel at various frequencies. Ever since scientists learned to generate artificial electromagnetic waves, these have been used to transmit data for various service—cellular telephony, broadcasting, satellite communications and navigation systems.
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There is more to Malkangiri than Maoists - Patralekha Chatterjee, DNA
Looking for a holiday destination off the beaten track this spring break? Consider Malkangiri.
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Anarchy vs hierarchy - Shankar Roychowdhury, Deccan Chronicle
The furore over the abduction of R. Vineel Krishna, IIT Madras alumnus and Malkangiri district collector, by Naxalites died down with his release from captivity after nine days.
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For the love of life in power - Deccan Chronicle
Rapprochement was inevitable. It was always difficult to see the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) threat to withdraw support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and break its partnership with the Congress as more than bluff and brinkmansh
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Chain reaction - Economic Times
The nuclear deal's gains have started coming in, soon they'll reach critical mass
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All-party meet on women’s bill after polls - Hindustantimes
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will call an all party meeting after elections in five states to build a consensus of Women Reservation Bill passed in Rajya Sabha last year.
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Tirap-Changlang imbroglio: A creation of electoral politics - Nani Bath, The Sentinel
Given the volatile situation in two eastern districts of Arunachal Pradesh, no rigorous exercise of one’s mind is required to understand the fact that the State no longer remains an ‘island of peace’. The myth of Arunachal being a peaceful territory has been falsified by the writings of Padma Shri Mamang Dai (Living the Untold Myth), Jarpum Gamlin (ceremonial broken tapes played yet again) and Tongam Rina (Deafening Silence and Tirap). I need not repeat again.
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Black is beautiful - Inder Malhotra, Deccan Chronicle
When the Supreme Court is driven to asking: “What the hell is going on in this country?” (about black money stashed in tax heavens abroad), it is clear that the situation is bleak. The court’s underlying ire is understandable because it had before it the case of Hasan Ali Khan, a Pune-based stud farm owner, which is a wonder of sorts and might even merit inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records. The facts are stark.
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Terrorism thrives in the fault lines - Live Mint
As the origins of one of the longest lasting conflicts in human history show, an act of terror is seldom just that
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Tweeting blues - Sidharth Bhatia, The Asian Age
Even by the usual standard of excuses advanced by politicians when they make a gaffe — “I was misquoted by the media” — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushma Swaraj blaming Twitter for her remarks being misunderstood rings hollow.
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Bloody Indians vs Chinkees! - Jarpum Gamlin, The Sentinel
A yogi of Baba Ramdev’s stature got emotive just because ‘bloody’ was prefixed with the word ‘Indian’! At least he was referred to as Indian. Think of another scenario where people of mongoloid looks are slurred racially with the term ‘Chinkee’. A cuss word used to abuse a person of Chinese origin. Was it Ramdev’s pride or his prejudice?
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Foes, not friends in Tamil Nadu - Express Buzz
Karunanidhi's credibility as a consummate political strategist lies in tatters at a time when electoral spotlight is on.
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Kochi to Kupwara, the Lashkar recruitment trail - Shaju Philip, Indian Express
In October 2008, security forces in Jammu and Kashmir found that four Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants killed in a series of encounters were from Kerala. Subsequently, they learnt that the group had a fifth Kerala youth, who escaped.
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The Argumentative Nation - Sunil Khilnani, The Times of India
The recent outbreak of civility among our political elite is a gratifying change from the bitter, belligerent mood that has jammed the parliamentary process in previous sessions.
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Minus the Left - Shekhar Gupta, Indian express
Funny we still see 2012 as the most crucial year on way to the big 2014 general election, mainly because Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls early in that year and probably also because a new president has to be elected for the Rashtrapati Bhavan that year. Funnier, therefore, is how nobody looks at 2011 as a year of any great political significance.
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System Haemorrhage - Namrata Joshi, Outlook India
Fifteen deaths in three weeks damn Jodhpur’s main government hospital. In this inexcusable, heinous game of death, as many as six agencies have been conducting separate probes: the police, the drugs control organisation, the divisional commissioner, a committee from Umaid Hospital, a two-member committee sent from Sawai Madho Singh Hospital, Jaipur, and a committee from the Union health ministry. Meanwhile, the NHRC has issued notice to the government of Rajasthan, seeking a detailed report within four weeks. Last heard, the Jaipur probe team concluded that toxic fluids were the probable cause of deaths but also pointed out that six of the cases could have died from natural, pre-existing causes.
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Decoding the patriarch - Ravi Shankar Etteth, Express Buzz
When a political rookie like Rahul ignores Karunanidhi while visiting in Chennai; when Sonia Gandhi keeps Kalaignar waiting in Delhi; when the Congress uses the 2G scam to try make the DMK cry “Uncle” and concede a few more Assembly seats, it doesn’t realise that Tamil pride is being insulted.
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Voter ID: the battle before the ballot - The Hindu
The voter ID card has assumed an important role in our society. For every other thing, there is the familiar demand for our photo, address or date of birth proof. An application for school a...
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The more they remain the same - Javed Anand, Indian Express
On the sunny side of the Muslim street today, you can find growing talk of the crying need for Muslim empowerment and meaningful initiatives to pull the community out of its state of hopelessness.
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Why India Might Save the Planet - Jeremy Kahn, Newsweek
If you had to name a most valuable player of December’s climate summit in Cancún, hands down the award would go to Jairam Ramesh. His Mexican hosts, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and ministers from small island-nations such as the Maldives and Kiribati all hailed India’s 56-year-old environmental minister for salvaging the entire endeavor.
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‘TV, cinema tools of Satan, must be buried’ - Mohammed Wajihuddin, Times Of India
The last time the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind (JUH) hit the headlines was in November 2009 when it reiterated an old fatwa against singing Vande Matram.
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Dawood men on save Balwa mission, IB alerts CBI - PNS, The Pioneer
The Intelligence Bureau has issued an alert to the CBI suggesting that global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim’s men could destroy 2G spectrum allocation documents in a bid by the underworld to save Shahid Usman Balwa, promoter of Swan Telecom and a key accused in the multi-crore scam.
The IB alert comes after a telephonic interception and a follow up reconnoitering of the lead, official sources said, adding that Dawood’s men have been covering the proceedings-related to the 2G scam in the courts.
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Gaddafi oils cautious India - Archis Mohan, The Telegraph
The Libyan leader yesterday met New Delhi’s envoy to Tripoli, M. Manimekalai, and offered Indian firms a stake in his country’s oil wealth. He also met the Chinese and Russian ambassadors.
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TN elections 2011: Detectives to spy on voters, cadre - C Shivakumar, Express buzz
Political parties in Tamil Nadu are roping in private detectives to feel the pulse of the electorate and track the loyalties of party cadre.
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No Jamia ghetto, please - Samina Mishra, Indian Express
Why we must rethink the university’s minority status.
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After 2G, it could be coal - Anil Sasi, Business Line
There's no such thing as a free lunch, goes the popular adage. The Government's policy of dishing out scarce natural resources, however, proves the contrary — that free lunches are abs...
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Mood magic grips West Bengal - Shikha Mukerjee, The Pioneer
Popular mood plays a decisive role in determining the outcome of any election. In West Bengal the mood is overwhelmingly in favour of Trinamool Congress and could fetch Mamata Banerjee a sweeping victory in the coming Assembly election.
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Dalai Lama and destiny of Tibetans - B Raman, The Pioneer
To ensure that Tibetans do not lose their sense of nationhood, the Dalai Lama should select his successor before it’s too late. This is all the more important to prevent Beijing from imposing its choice on Tibetans
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Moving backwards - Yogesh Atal, Times Of India
There is a repeat of Rajasthan in Haryana and UP, where the BSP has backed the Jat agitation to access OBC quotas in central government jobs. What is happening today was predictable.
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India’s fraying institutions - Narayan Ramachandran, Live Mint
The essential trust that works between entities in a society and the institutions that guarantee “contract” delivery are fraying at the edges in our country. What separates India from anarchy is a handful of institutions. This may be an exaggeration, but bear with me.
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National Security Doctrine for India - B. S. Raghavan, Business Line
It took 50 years after Independence for the Government to set up the country's first National Security Council (NSC) in 1998. When, around that time, Mr K. C. Pant was assigned by the NDA Government the task of preparing a blueprint for the Council setting out its functions and the composition
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Professionalising politics - Nistula Hebbar, Financial Express
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TNC) unveiled a series of surprising candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state, not the least being Sabeer Bhatia, founder of Hotmail.
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Amit Mitra, Gen.Sec.:FICCI - Richa Mishra, Business Line
Few know that I come from a political family. My father was a Deputy Speaker of West Bengal Assembly and my mother has a station named after her in the State, a rarity for a woman. Also, my maternal grandfather was Subhash Chandra Bose’s elder brother.
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Is nuclear renaissance dead? - Shyam Saran, Business Standard
The recent explosions at the Japanese nuclear power plant at Fukushima, resulting from Tsunami devastation during the past few days and with more bad news likely to follow, are bound to have a major impact on the global nuclear power industry, including India.
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Sharp drop in number of families getting jobs under flagship scheme - Ruhi Tewari, Live Mint
The number of households that have received employment for the mandatory 100 days under the government’s flagship rural jobs programme has dropped to less than 5% in the current fiscal from 14% in the previous year. While the Union rural development ministry, which oversees the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), blamed state administrations for implementing it poorly, an expert said the government’s failure to provide 100 days of work defeats the purpose of the programme.
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With allies like these - Subir Bhaumik, The Times Of India
The long and tortuous seat-sharing negotiations between the Congress and Trinamool Congress (TMC) emphasise a second dimension to April-May's Battle for Bengal.
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Din in Maharashtra House over Thomas issue - TN Raghunatha, The Pioneer
With the BJP-led Opposition disrupting the proceedings in the Maharashtra Legislature on Tuesday over its demand for Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's resignation over the PJ Thomas episode, prompting the presiding officers concerned to adjourn both the Houses for the entire day without transacting any business.
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Modi's pride, Congress' envy? - PNS, Pioneer
The BJP is outraged over the income tax (I-T) department’s notice to the Gujarat Government for details on memoranda of understanding (MoUs) signed during the recent Vibrant Gujarat Summit.
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2G: S Tel dropped challenge in SC under duress - Abraham Thomas, The Pioneer
There is fresh evidence to suggest the Government forced telecom operator S Tel to drop its challenge in the Supreme Court against the controversial first-come-first-served policy for allocation of 2G spectrum in 2008.
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Elections 2011: Tiruchi residents get surprise gifts - V Mayilvaganan, TOI
Campaigning may not have begun in right earnest for the coming polls in Tamil Nadu but attempts to bribe voters already have.
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Arun Shourie - Outlook
Sent a detailed questionnaire, former disinvestment and telecom minister Arun Shourie responded in an equally detailed manner, debunking all of Outlook's accusations. But the documents accessed by the magazine and the CAG report do point to huge irregularities and several favours shown to bidders.
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Too bad to swallow - Milind Murugkar , Bharat Ramaswami , Ashokkotwal, Indian Express
The Central government does not and cannot deliver food subsidies. For this reason, successful interventions have happened at the initiative of state governments — mid-day meals, cheap rice, universal access, supply-chain computerisation.
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The Thorium Route - Yoginder K. Alagh, Indian Express
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd., Technical Director S A Bharadwaj announced on 12 March that they have developed the first of its kind Advance Heavy Water Reactor(AHWR) of 300 MW capacity for thorium utilization.
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Media bats for Somali pirates - G Parthasarathy, The Pioneer
TV channels are demanding that the Government should pay ransom to free Indian sailors held hostage. We saw similar media frenzy during IC-814 crisis. On December 8, 1989, Ms Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who had become India’s Minister for Home Affairs less than a week earlier, was kidnapped by members of the separatist Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front.
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Why blame coalition dharma? - Raghu Krishnan, Economic Times
First, the TV news channels quoted AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi as stating that if the Congress-led UPA coalition government could not tackle national problems like rising prices as decisively as Indira Gandhi did, it was because of the compulsions of coalition politics.
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Immunity for bribe-giver will curb graft, says Basu - ENS Economic Bureau, FE
Concerned that ham-handed handling of corruption could potentially bring the economy to a halt, the government is looking at policy changes for a more intelligent response to this growing scourge.
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Dalai Lama shows the right path - Premen Addy, The Pioneer
Revered by his people and by communities across the world, the Dalai Lama combines a rare blend of goodness and greatness leavened by shrewd wisdom and humour that confounds his Chinese adversaries.
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Still searching for identity - Kalyani Shankar, Pioneer
Jaganmohan Reddy is not the first in Andhra Pradesh to float his own outfit. There have been many others who have done it before.
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Batchas death: focus back on 10-year old case - D Suresh Kumar, Express Buzz
The suspected suicide of Batcha has revived memories of a similar incident that rocked the state nearly a decade ago.
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Favourite places - Telegraph India
With the Supreme Court coming down hard on the government and the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, taking full responsibility for an "error of judgment", the furore over P.J. Thomas's appointment as central vigilance commissioner has come to an end. Althou
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Home min initiatives flounder on the govt’s indecisiveness - Aditi Phadnis, Bus Std
P Chidambaram delivered the Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture in which he announced a new plan for homeland security. He said his plan rested on two pillars: reform of the ministry and the creation of a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) headed by a serving police or military officer.
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The winning poll platform - Rama Bijapurkar, Business Standard
Kenichi Ohmae famously said the heart of strategy is not about beating the competitor but about adding value to the customer, and avoiding the competitive battle altogether. India’s beleaguered prime minister could still go down in history as the man who made Indian fulfil her destiny not just through paradigm shifts in economic thinking and action, but also as someone who brought real and widespread changes in access to quality knowledge-building and skill-building education for all.
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'Can't use poll results to sidestep allegations' - Manoj Mitta, TOI
In the seventh Lok Sabha elected after the revocation of Emergency, the House expelled Indira Gandhi for offences she had been found to have committed during the term of the previous Lok Sabha.
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Unique identity: the boon & the bane - Tajender Singh Luthra, The Hindu
UID would reveal the benami transactions in stocks and commodity exchanges. It would unearth benami holdings of agricultural land and real estate. The Election Commission would finally be able to issue identity-based card to all eligible voters. Banks, with the help of UID, would streamline their policy of “know your customer.” Duplicate PAN cards, ration cards, below the poverty line yellow cards, driving licences and many such cards which are issued to cheat the government would become a thing of the past. Certainly, UID would increase the government's tax collection, boost enforcement of the law and stop pilferage of development funds.
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I don’t need certificate from Moily: Karnataka Lokayukta - Indian Express
Reacting sharply to Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily’s reported adverse remarks against him, Karnataka Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde on Sunday said he did not need a ‘certificate’ from the Congress leader on the works done by him.
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Leaders win always; India loses always - TJS George, Express buzz
A difficulty with Indian elections is that they don’t take the country forward.
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The Last Red Shankaracharya - Ravi Shankar Etteth, Indian Express
It is doubtful whether Comrades Prakash Karat and Pinarayi Vijayan remember that Iosif Dzhugashvili Stalin studied in a seminary and even was an altar boy. His religious training is considered responsible for the transition from wannabe priest to bank robber to a priest-hating psychopathic mass murderer: the Russian Orthodox Church was particularly harsh and tolerated no opposition, like Stalin.
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Prepare for the Big Bang - Claude Arpi, The Pioneer
With China working on innumerable dams in Tibet and India planning to build dams in Arunachal Pradesh, a huge disaster awaits the region.
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You've got a cable - Bharat Bhushan, India Today
Barely had the logjam over the telecom scam been cleared that the Wikileaks expose on how power brokers of the Congress fixed the confidence vote in July 2008 threatens to disrupt parliament again. The Opposition wants the matter handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI). The government is in no mood to oblige. Indian politics is back to square one. The Congress- led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government may brazen out the cables on the cash- for- vote scam. Yet they would have done irreparable damage to its reputation.
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Post-trust vote, CBI let up on Mulayam - Dhananjay Mahapatra, Times of India
WikiLeaks may have resurrected the ghost of the cash-for-votes scam but the CBI's probe into alleged disproportionate assets of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his kin took a U-turn after the party gave crucial support to the UPA government after Left withdrew support in 2008.
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Projecting the alternative - Tuhin A Sinha, Times of India
Five years is a long time in the life of a democracy. It seems even more laborious in the rapidly transient world of today where any event or issue, irrespective of its consequences, ceases to impact public opinion for long.
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The sheen has gone… totally - Rasheeda Bhagat, Business Line
The WikiLeaks on the cash-for-votes scam have electrified the Opposition into demanding Dr Manmohan Singh's resignation. Indeed, the image of the latest Mr Clean of the Congress has taken a severe beating.
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The BJP’s privilege motion explained - Vibhuti Agarwal, The Wall street Journal
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose government is battling allegations of corruption, is now faced with the fury of opposition parties who are accusing him of deceiving Parliament when he denied that Congress party officials bribed lawmakers in an effort to win a confidence vote in July 2008.
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Left alone to rot in shining Assam - Oinam Sunil, Times of India
Nearly seven years have passed, but their wounds are still fresh. The bloody memories of the clashes between various ethnic groups keep coming back to haunt them.
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How to stop mind-readers - Subimal Bhattacharjee, Hindustan Times
When WikiLeaks was started in 2007 by a youngster Julian Assange, it was considered as yet another online manifestation of possibilities in cyberspace. But when in July 2010 WikiLeaks posted on its website more than 91,000 secret United States military reports related to the war on Afghanistan mostly
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My publicity agent - Arun Shourie, Indian Express
Another scam . . . Inquiry into disinvestment of VSNL” — the papers proclaim. The announcement has been preceded by stories along similar lines in two magazines, a planned build-up to the announcement.
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India sitting on water disaster - Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
Kalka Devi in Uttarakhand’s remote Rudraprayag district lives in a perpetual water paradox. From her window she can see the snow-laden Himalayan peaks almost round-the-year, but she has to trek 3-5 km everyday to fetch drinking water sourced from the same peaks.
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Congress prejudices hit economic federalism - Ashok Malik, DNA
The fifth Vibrant Gujarat summit this January saw 7,936 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) announced, committing to invest $462 billion.
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Make Chidambaram, Vadra accused in 2G scam: Swamy - Kumar Chellappan, DNA
The list of accused in the second generation mobile telephony spectrum scam is swelling by the day and may have two more high profile names.
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Making India a great power - The Pioneer
Today India lives on the cusp of becoming greater. The potential of global leadership is being held back by a governance deficit that means undelivered public infrastructure and services, inefficient regulation and a lack of concern for equality.
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Embassy redacts Ambassador's Sonia remark - Narayan Lakhsman, The Hindu
In the context of the greening of the India-United States relationship, it has often been said that one of the most celebrated aspects of the two countries' “shared beliefs” is their unshakeable commitment to secularism or religious pluralism, howsoever defined.
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We are the heroes, says cash-for-vote BJP MP - Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Indian Express
Almost two years after their dramatic moment in Parliament, when they waved wads of cash alleging an attempt to buy them on the eve of the trust vote
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We don't need no education? - Chetan Bhagat, TOI
Recent HRD ministry statistics show a significant decline in national primary school enrolments.
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Cricket diplomacy: PM invites Gilani, Zardari - TOI
The India-Pakistan clash in the World Cup semi-final on Wednesday might prove to be just the opportunity the two countries needed to reignite the spark in their flagging relationship.
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‘Women in India are becoming agents of change’ - Sonia Gandhi, Indian Express
Women as agents of change is an idea that seems self-evident in the Commonwealth. The two most influential women personalities of the 20th century
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Shunglu’s googly traps Govt - Ritu Sarin, Indian Express
The V K Shunglu Committee, probing the New Delhi Commonwealth Games, today landed the government in an awkward situation.
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Mother of insurgencies or reinvention? - MS Prabhakara, The Hindu
Has the Naga insurgency come to terms with its unrealised and, indeed, unrealisable sovereignty aspirations?
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Universalization of food security law may take a hit, shows survey - Subodh Ghildiyal & Rajeev Deshpande, TOI
A pilot survey finding that 25-30% of the rural population can be automatically excluded from food security entitlements for below poverty line population might help forge a consensus between the government and the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council.
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Follow the sun - Hindustantimes
India’s IT revolution, built on its technology base of the 60s and 70s, has propelled the country to the front ranks of growing world economies.
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Beyond boundaries - Ashok Malik, Deccan Chronicle
Cricket encounters between India and Pakistan come with the inevitable mix of passion, paranoia, politics and propaganda.
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Thought control - Ashok Mitra, Telegraph India
It was George W. Bush, then occupant of the White House, who authored the fascinating falsehood: global food prices were ruling high because the Chinese and the Indians were getting prosperous and, blast them, consuming more food. The relevant data are at
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Raja himself dictated letters to PM: Ex-aide - Rajesh Ahuja, Hindustan Times
A Raja took personal initiative in drafting and sending two controversial letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
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Charity begins at home - Nandita Sengupta, Times of India
Warren Buffett's visit to India to tap Indians' 'philanthropic interests' is in tandem with India slipping off the map of needy nations. To help its 410 million poor people, the world now expects India to dig into its own pockets, not least its lengthening list of dollar-millionaires. At last count, there were 125,000.
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The world after Wikileaks - Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Hindustan Times
The funny thing about the Wikileaks cables of the US’s state department is that, five years from now, everyone will wonder what the fuss was about. Diplomacy has been stirred but not shaken. International relations types are disappointed. “The Wikileaks confirmed what most of us who follow these matters had long suspected or surmised,” says Sumit Ganguly, Indian foreign policy expert at Indiana University.
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Manmohan just doesn’t care - Kanchan Gupta, Pioneer
The Budget Session of Parliament began on a sour note with the Prime Minister grudgingly accepting the Opposition’s demand for the setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the 2G spectrum scam. After cussedly refusing to set up a JPC (despite the Congress being agreeable to accepting the demand) and thus ensuring that the entire Winter Session went to waste, Mr Manmohan Singh displayed amazing lack of grace when he was finally forced, not so much by the Opposition but his own party, to eat humble pie.
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UPA govt helpless, none willing to take responsibility: BJP - Manoj Prasad, Indian Express
BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Sunday regretted the Manmohan Singh government’s inability to own responsibility for its decisions.
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Once there was a city - Abhijit Banerjee, HT
Urbanisation is going apace, especially in the developing world, but even in the United States. Why are people paying all the costs of urban living (expensive housing, polluted air, crowded streets) if closeness is moot?
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The shrinking Red map - Diptosh Majumdar, TOI
The Left is bracing for the biggest electoral blow in its history. Pundits predict they could end up being a bit player in national politics, at least for now.
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Stirring again, caste cauldron - Sidharth Mishra, The Pioneer
Soon after the victory of Nitish Kumar-led NDA Government in Bihar in the Assembly poll last year, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati made a statement that development alone was not the factor for the resounding victory of the JD(U)-BJP combine. She said that elections were won by getting the caste combination correct.
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Buck stops with PM - Balbir Punj, The Pioneer
Manmohan Singh's response to the sins of omission and commission committed by him has become predictable. He simply refuses to accept responsibility!
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Playing the political game - C Raja Mohan, Indian Express
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s googly of an invitation to Pakistan’s civilian leaders to come and join the party at Mohali tomorrow has evoked three broad Indian responses — impressionistic, technical and political.
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Bharat can’t grow unless India does - Isher Judge Ahluwalia , Ranesh Nair, Indian Express
We have been recounting aankhon dekhi stories of change in the cities and towns of India based on visits we made in our respective capacities as chairperson of the high-powered expert committee on urban infrastructure, and consultant to the committee.
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India needs to review forces - Ashok K Mehta, Pioneer
Done last year, Britain’s first comprehensive Strategic Defence and Security Review since 1998 is far-reaching. It is bold, honest and innovative, entailing analytical risks to extricate the armed forces from the Cold War mindset to face the new ground realities, including cuts amounting to 38 billion pounds over 10 years. It informs of the limits of British power — of what it can do alone and in partnership with allies.
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Amar-Mulayam 'conversation' irks court - TOI
An alleged conversation between former Samajwadi Party MP Amar Singh and then party chief and UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav about approaching the chief justice of Allahabad high court over a pending case drew caustic remarks from the Supreme Court
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Too much read into Gandhi book? - Akshaya Mukul, TOI
A close reading of letters between Gandhi and his German friend Hermann Kallenbach reveals that the reviewers of Joseph Lelyveld's book went overboard with their interpretation of the father of the nation being a bisexual.
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2G: 'Kanimozhi, Raja played lead role in Kalaignar TV' - Rajesh Ahuja, Hindustan Times
M Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha member and daughter of Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi, was the "active brain" behind Kalaignar TV, while former telecom minister A Raja was also involved in the channel right from its inception. This was claimed by the CBI's prime witness in the 2G spectrum case and Raja's former additional private secretary, Aseervatham Achary, in his statement recorded before a magistrate under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
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Maharashtra plans to ban book on Gandhiji - The Hindu
The Maharashtra government is planning to ban the book, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld after it created a furore in the legislature on Tuesday.
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PSUs left headless by scam-stung Govt - J Gopikrishnan, The Pioneer
The inertia that gripped the UPA Government following a series of scams and scandals has affected the administration so badly that several top posts of departmental secretaries and PSU heads have been lying vacant for months.
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Does Gandhi really need such protection? - Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Hindustan Times
Mahatma Gandhi's life invites scrutiny. His writing facilitates it. Innocent unconcern about likely distortions makes his letters and speeches peculiarly charming. It also makes tendentious mutilations of the story of his life particularly easy. I have not read Joseph Lelyveld's book. And so I ought not to — and will not — comment on it. But the media excitement in India, we should realise, has not been generated by a book but by a review of the book. Lelyveld has, in a riposte, said the review does not quote him right.
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This is a free country, everybody has freedom of speech: Shunglu - Mayank Aggarwal, DNA
“I don't comment. This is a free county and everybody has a freedom of speech. Everyone has a right to express their view,” Shunglu told DNA, while refusing to react on Delhi government's criticism of his committee's report.
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For Meira Kumar, Govt bungalows are on the house - J Gopikrishnan, the pioneer
The CPWD has passed the buck on to Ministry of Urban Development in connection with the eviction of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar from the bungalow allotted to her in 1986 as a Member of Parliament.
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Modi: The Man with a Vision - Tavleen Singh, The Sentinel
Among the stars who glittered at the India Today conclave, Narendra Modi shone brighter than all the others. Even those who came prepared to hate him left with a very different view
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In the name of the Mahatma - Tridip Suhrud, Indian Express
It is indeed sad that we should ban a book on the life of a man who embodied openness, who invited generations to follow after him to read and interpret his life as that was his message, a man who through his autobiography and other writings on himself and his experiments provided a cultural frame through which the story of a soul in quest of truth could be told and comprehended.
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1,210,193,422 and parts that make it up - Amitabh Sinha, Indian Express
For the first time ever, the number of people made literate in India is more than the number added to its population. Consequently, there has been a net decline of over 31 million in the total number of illiterates in the country.
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Will FDI come in now? - Subhomoy Bhattacharjee, The Financial Express
The timing of the review of the Foreign Direct Investment Policy on Thursday is just right, but the frequency of the change is just not right.
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South, Be Not Proud - Dipankar Gupta, TOI
For Periyar EV Ramasamy Naicker, the founder of Dravidar Kazhagam, the "Aryan" North unfairly dominated the " Dravidian" South.
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Cong, NCP tussle in Cabinet over Rs45 cr tax waiver to ICC - Himanshi Dhawan, TOI
The proposal to gift the Sharad Pawar-led International Cricket Council (ICC) a Rs 45 crore tax waiver split the Cabinet on Congress versus NCP lines.
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Pawar kin have business links with DB: BJP - Prafulla Marpakwar, TOI
Maharashtra leader of opposition Eknath Khadse said on Friday that Sharad Pawar's family had business links with Shahid Balwa's DB Realty.
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GoM, Sports Ministry let Kalmadi, OC have a free run from the start: Shunglu - Sobhana K, Indian Express
After hitting out at former chairman of Organising Committee Suresh Kalmadi, the Shunglu Committee report has now come down heavily on the Group of Ministers and the “ineffectiveness” of the Sports Ministry in monitoring the Games.
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Joe Lelyvelds of this world don't lie - Pranay Gupte, The Hindu
It's impossible to imagine him making things up about Gandhiji, or about anyone he may be writing about.
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Rumbles in Jatland - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
Destruction of public property and disrupting train services cannot be allowed in the name of agitation. The political parties behind such agitation must be derecognised and people must be sent behind the bars for such acts.
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As JPC, PAC lock horns, Speaker decides not to decide for now - Nistula Hebbar, Financial Express
The tussle over jurisdiction between the two parliamentary panels probing the 2G spectrum scam has turned more acrimonious.
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BJP questions ICC tax waiver, Cong defensive - Indian Express
A day after the Centre approved a Rs 45-crore tax waiver to ICC for the World Cup, there was unease in the ruling Congress even as the BJP questioned the decision.
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Paper Knives - Madhavi Tata, Outlook India
YSR Congress Party leader Jaganmohan Reddy is finding the going a lot tougher post his split from the ruling Congress as a tax noose tightens around his business ventures. This even as his group won three seats each in the MLC (legislative council) polls in Chittoor, Kadapa and West Godavari districts.
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Poll finds poor ratings for UPA - Shankkar Aiyar, Express Buzz
There’s a hush in the air. The string of victories notched by the men in blue in the World Cup and perhaps the mild thaw in Indo-Pakistan relations has created a feelgood factor. It could be pure optics; it could be a window of opportunity for the UPA for course correction. Fact is the undercurrent among voters is one of anger and angst.
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Troubleshooter Pranab Mukherjee wants to become PM - NV Subramanian, DNA
Sonia Gandhi’s leadership of the Congress is facing two major problems, one or both of which may be insurmountable.
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Wikileaks: Calling the Left's ‘bluff': Ahluwalia on nuclear deal - Sarah Hiddleston, Hindu
“The issue in India is who will blink first, the Congress or the Left. For the Left, it is clear the issue is not the 123 agreement, but the deepening U.S.-India relationship which they vehemently oppose.”
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Endgame begins for Manmohan? - Swapan Dasgupta, The Pioneer
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should thank the ineptitude of the Pakistan cricket team for allowing his Mohali sideshow to be treated with relative indulgence by the Indian people.
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Bapu and friends - Girja Kumar, Hindustan Times
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi certainly needs to be viewed with a fresh pair of eyes. The latest controversy over Joseph Lelyveld’s book Great Soul provides a new opportunity for introspection.
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India: soft state to soft power - Kiran Karnik, The Economic Times
India has, for long, been regarded as a soft state. Gunnar Myrdal is credited with inventing this term, intended to mean a country where law enforcement and social discipline are low; by extension
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Voting today, 400 ‘Assamese Chinese’ - Samudra Gupta Kashyap, Financial Express
In 1962, they were declared enemy spies, arrested and packed off to concentration camps, their “enemy property” confiscated. Half a century later, Wang Shing Tung, who was then about four, is still struggling to make both ends meet. But when it comes to voting, he and his community make sure they won’t miss even one election.
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Of defence and defensiveness - Ronen Sen, Indian Express
Defence cooperation, or for that matter, nuclear, space and high-technology cooperation, has to be seen in the perspective of the evolving global economic and geostrategic architecture.
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Wikileaks: A struggle between ‘reform cadre' and the ‘old line' in the Congress - Suresh Nambath, The Hindu
Cable speaks of some members of the party advocating that Sonia Gandhi jettison Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. After the Congress suffered electoral losses in Punjab and Uttarakhand in February 2007, some party members advocated that party president Sonia Gandhi “jettison” Prime Minister
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Chant of the flaming lips - Manoj Nair, Economic Times
A 5,000-year-old tradition involving recital of liturgical text from the Vedas around a fireplace will be conducted over 12 days to preserve the environment and usher in global peace. The athiratram, which will cost an estimated Rs 10 million, is likely to draw more than 15,000 people from all over the world including not just devotees and believers but also scientists, scholars and critics.
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Promoting crisis in the military - Ajai Shukla, Business Standard
South Block is being roiled by a face-off between military and the ministry of defence (MoD), which co-exist at the best of times in mutual loathing. Since September, the MoD has blocked the routine promotion of army officers to the senior-most levels of command. Today, the commanders of several army divisions and corps – combat formations that are headed by major generals and lieutenant generals respectively.
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Army toiling hard to learn Kashmir language - Ashiq Hussain, Hindustan Times
Apart from keeping a vigil, the army across Kashmir valley is busy in another job these days. It is learning Kashmiri language to come “close to Kashmiri people and win their hearts”.
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Defying Sonia, GoM set to retain discretionary powers - Times Of India
The group of ministers examining options on making anti-graft laws stronger is tilting towards not doing away with discretionary powers of the political executive as it is being felt that this might run into constitutional hurdles while disadvantaging the genuinely deserving.
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Rich, educated, criminal? - Poonam Gupta and Arvind Panagariya, Times Of India
An examination of the key characteristics of those contesting elections and those winning them, a subject of our current research, reveals fascinating facts about our leaders. Potentially, they can also have important implications for policies. Following a Supreme Court ruling, the Election Commission has required since 2002 that all candidates contesting election to either House of Parliament or state legislature file an affidavit open for examination by the voters.
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Cricket diplomacy: Gone for a six? - Shreekant Sambrani, Financial Express
The Manmohan Singh-Yousuf Raza Gilani Flying Circus went to and came back from Mohali, all a good day’s work for the two Prime Ministers beset with myriad other troubles. It raised expectations, with spin doctors hard at work.
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Wikileaks: ‘Kayani last obstacle to Kashmir deal’ - Hindustan Times
The Pakistan army chief, general Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was seen as the "remaining obstacle" for an India-Pakistan deal on Kashmir, which both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Asif Ali Zardari were ready to sign,
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Behind 'Rising India' lies the surrender of national dignity - Pankaj Mishra, Guardian
Food prices become intolerable for the poor. Protests against corruption paralyse the national parliament for weeks on end.
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Hazare fast feeds nation’s demand to fight corruption - Nagendar Sharma, HT
In a move that has galvanised demands across the country for a focused fight against corruption, veteran Gandhian and anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare, 72, carried out his threat to go on a fast-unto-death till the government agrees to enact a law to set up a powerful lokpal (ombudsman).
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The deception at the heart of ‘Rising India' - Pankaj Mishra, The Hindu
Food prices become intolerable for the poor. Protests against corruption paralyse Parliament. Then a series of American diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks exposes a brazenly mendacious and venal ruling class.
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Maoists: Holding the nation to ransom? - Satvik Varma, Economic Times
Since the release of five Maoists in exchange of an IAS officer and a junior engineer, a debate has surfaced whether the judgment of the Orissa government was an appropriate response to a difficult situation.
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'26/11 wounds not healed': Nirupama Rao - TOI
Though it has re-engaged with Pakistan on a wide range of issues that need to be addressed, India has said the wounds of Mumbai terror attack have not healed as yet and stressed on Islamabad taking with "utmost seriousness".
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Anna Hazare’s anti-Pawar stance - Zeeshan Shaikh, Hindustan Times
This is not the first time that activist Anna Hazare has taken Maharashtra’s most powerful politician and NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s case.
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Of the few, by the few - Bhanu Pratap Mehta, Indian Express
ometimes a sense of unbridled virtue can also subvert democracy. The agitation by civil society activists over the Jan Lokpal Bill is a reminder of this uncomfortable truth.
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Minorities panel member tried to gag me: '84 victim - Ramaninder K Bhatia, ToI
Delhi-based Nirpreet Kaur, a 42-year-old victim of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots who has been in the limelight for her recent testimony against Sajjan Kumar, has raised a storm by claiming that National Commission for Minorities member H S Hanspal had tried to pressure her to reach a compromise with the Congress leader.
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Tales from Wikileaks - Amulya Ganguli, Express Buzz
There are two sides to the WikiLeaks. One is that they bring to light what the diplomats and their contacts want to keep in the dark.
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Who after Sathya Sai Baba? That’s a Rs40,000-crore question - Hemanth Kumar, DNA
Even as questions are being raised about the credibility of reports on spiritual leader Sathya Sai Baba’s health, the question, ‘Who after Baba?’
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BJP expresses solidarity with Hazare - The Hindu
The Bharatiya Janata Party expressed solidarity with veteran social activist Anna Hazare in his agitation in favour of Jan Lokpal Bill, which, it said, should have the teeth to fight corruption effectively.
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Narendra Modi, Prime Minister? - Karan Shah, Outlook
If the Gujarat Chief Minister wishes to have a realistic chance of becoming Prime Minister in 2014, he needs to ensure justice for the victims of the 2002 riots.
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UPA caves in, announces JPC probe - Indian Express
Bowing to the tremendous pressure kept up by a united Opposition, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today announced the government's decision to set up a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe the 2G spectrum scam.
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Lead by example, CAG tells political leadership of the country - The Hindu
Stating that there existed governance deficit, the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) of India on Friday asked the political leadership to lead by example by displaying exemplary values in personal and public conduct.
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Jan Lokpal will be a ‘super' government, feels Congress - Aarti Dhar, The Hindu
The Congress sees as a “super” government the institution of the Lokpal as proposed in the draft Jan Lokpal Bill — it would virtually run a parallel government.
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BJP is inclusive and secular: Alphons - Ananthakrishnan G, Times of India
For the uninitiated, he comes across as a maverick having earned the title "demolition man" for his drive against illegal constructions in the national capital during his stint in the Delhi Development Authority in the 1990s. But bureaucrat-turned-MLA Alphons Kannanthanam, who till recently was a CPM-backed independent from Kanjirappally in Kerala, prefers to call himself "an innovative administrator who believes there is nothing impossible".
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Cleric shot to kill J&K peace - Khursheed Wani, Pioneer
A prominent religious leader with a separatist ideology was killed in a targeted explosion outside a mosque in Srinagar on Friday. The violent incident invited sharp condemnation from various separatist leaders and political parties in Jammu & Kashmir. Molvi Showkat Ahmad Shah, 57, was heading Jamiat-e-Ahli Hadith, a prominent religious group propounding the Wahabi school of thought, and was an ally of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front headed by Yasin Malik.
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Our Tahrir square - T N Ninan, Business Standard
To say that no one has elected Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and the rest to speak for ordinary citizens is to say the obvious.
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The Dalai Lama and North East - Sanjoy Hazarika, Assam Tribune
To those who complain about the failings in the Indian democracy, he always has had a clear answer: look at an authoritarian regime such as China, where the basic freedoms do not exist, and you will understand how important India's democracy is to its people and the world.
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Corruption denting India's image: Narayana Murthy - Asha Rai, TOI
Infosys Technologies chairman and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy on Friday came out strongly in support of Anna Hazare, saying the need of the hour was a strong, effective Lokpal.
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Be prepared for a bigger battle: Anna Hazare - Hindustan Times
After successfully leading the agitation on Lokpal Bill, Gandhian Anna Hazare on Saturday struck a note of caution, expressing apprehension over parliamentarians' readiness to pass a strong anti-corruption legislation and asked his supporters to be prepared for a "bigger battle". Addressing the media, the 73-year-old social activist said "power-hungry" politicians will not easily accept any bill having stringent provisions against corruption or "shed" the power they enjoy. "But on this issue, people will get together," he said adding, MPs and MLAs were being elected to serve the people and not to be their masters. "But they (elected representatives) have forgotten this."
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At the Risk of Heresy: Why I am not Celebrating with Anna Hazare - Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Kafila.org
At the risk of heresy, let me express my profound unease at the crescendo of euphoria surrounding the ‘Anna Hazare + Jan Lokpal Bill’ phenomenon as it has unfolded on Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and across several hysterical TV stations over the last few days.
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Hysteria will not end corruption - Tavleen Singh, Indian Express
As I have watched mass hysteria build up over Anna Hazare’s fast, there have been moments when I felt that his supporters had forgotten that India is a democratic country.
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Going ‘Potti’ over corruption - Meghnad Desai, Indian Express
Jawaharlal Nehru was a democrat and he had no time for fasts in a democracy. He believed that fasting by an eminent person was coercive.
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Village shopkeeper to a comrade’s wife, little escapes the Naxal eye - Vivek Deshpande, Indian Express
If a comrade has been arrested through tracking of his mobile phone, the following must be checked: from where and to whom calls were made, how many were in touch on this number.
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Many industries are forced to buy peace with Maoists: GK Pillai - DNA
Many industries located in Maoist-dominated areas are forced to buy peace with the extremists due to insecured environment, Union home secretary Gopal K Pillai said.
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This is how Kishan Baburao Hazare became 'Anna' - Shobhan Saxena, TOI
In the mid-1970s, a former Indian Army soldier declared war on illicit distilling and gambling in his village, Ralegaon Siddhi, in Maharashtra.
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Hazare fills the void in corruption battle - Swapan Dasgupta, TOI
For the past week, India has been trying to come to terms with a phenomenon they neither understood nor anticipated.
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Citizen Anna and agent Prashant - Rashmee Roshan Lall, TOI
In fashionably liberal circles, Prashant Bhushan is an authentic modern hero, the people's advocate who uses the killer argument to avenge the aam admi on the bloodless battlefield of the Supreme Court.
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Take 2 for Rajni in politics - Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan Times
Superstar Rajnikanth may take a full-fledged plunge into politics two years after wrapping up what could be his last blockbuster. At least, that is what he appears to have told BJP president Nitin Gadkari. Gadkari was invited to Rajni's home here on Friday evening as a follow-up on the BJP chief's rescue act when the actor and his family were about to be mobbed at the Wankhede stadium after the World Cup final in Mumbai on April 2. Rajni let his mind known when he and Gadkari were chatting on his life, films and politics, particularly the Tamil Nadu poll scene, BJP sources said. The superstar was not impressed by the choices before the people of Tamil Nadu. He expects people to seek a third alternative in the years to come and he might not let them down then.
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6 years after signing, India yet to ratify UN convention against corruption - Indrani Bagchi, TOI
India stands out as one of the few countries in the world that have not acceded to the UN convention against corruption.
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Safeguard for babus on - Nagendar Sharma and Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times
In a move that will ensure continuance of the single directive, the group of ministers (GoM) on corruption, headed by Pranab Mukherjee, has decided against taking a call on removing the controversial legal provision.
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Will videograph drafting of Lokpal Bill, says Anna - Annapurna Jha & R Singh, The Pioneer
Though striving hard to downplay its own differences against the backdrop of Baba Ramdev’s charge of nepotism in the joint drafting committee.
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Outburst of outrage - Balbir Punj, The Pioneer
The support extended by a large number of people to Anna Hazare shows few are willing to accept rampant corruption any longer.
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Allow profit in education - Economic Times
Corruption and incompetence can exist anywhere, but I'd like to make the case that the performance challenges in government schools - teacher attendance, learning outcomes, performance orientation, student employability, etc.
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Wikileaks “inspired” anti-corruption campaign in India - Hasan Suroor, The Hindu
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said the “tremendous” anti-corruption movement “building up” in India is a result of the publication of “cablegate” revelations by The Hindu in recent weeks.
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A hero by default - Ashok Malik, Deccan Chronicle
All democracies have a government and an Opposition. Some democracies have a Cabinet and a shadow Cabinet. India is unique.
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Modi: My heartfelt feelings in an open letter to Annaji - Indian Express
On the eighth day of fasting in the Navratri, I am inspired to write to you early at 5 o’clock in the morning. When you were sitting on fast in Delhi, same time, I too was fasting on the occasion of Navratri, the period that symbolises the embodiment of Divine Shakti.
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The seeds of authoritarianism - Neera Chandhoke, Indian Express
Any perceptive analyst of democracy will testify that there is no necessary relationship between democracy and a corruption-proof regime, or development, or political stability.
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Why tar all politicians with the same brush? - Madhu Purnima Kishwar, Indian Express
We should be grateful to Anna Hazare for dedicating his life to the people and battling for accountability in governance. Millions look to him for inspiration and guidance. We are all sick of mismanagement, venality and the lack of accountability that plague not only governance but also other institutions, including many NGOs that call themselves “civil society” institutions, the term made fashionable by international donor agencies.
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2G chargesheet gets too close to Karuna - Economic Times
With assembly polls in Tamil Nadu to be over on Wednesday, the Central Bureau of Investigation is ready to name Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal and his daughter Kanimozhi in a supplementary chargesheet likely to be filed in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
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Ahead of polls, pro-LTTE journal attacks Karuna - IBN Live
Just ahead of elections in Tamil Nadu, a pro-Tamil Tiger journal has accused Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and his daughter-cum-MP Kanimozhi of betraying the rebels as they went down fighting two years ago.
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Govt sat over Rauf arrest info for three months - Rakesh K Singh, Pioneer
The two-member team of the CBI and IB may have left for Chile on Tuesday to ascertain the identity of one Abdul Rauf — arrested in the South American country on suspicion of his involvement in the 1999 Kandahar hijack case — but it turns out, the agencies made the move three months after being informed about the development by Chilean authorities.
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2010 ‘unholy’ deal with MNS haunts Chavan - TN Raghunatha, Pioneer
An “unholy” deal struck by the ruling Congress with the MNS ahead of the June 10, 2010, Maharashtra Legislative Council poll, has returned to haunt Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. No wonder the Chavan camp is waiting with bated breath for the Bombay High Court’s ruling on Wednesday on the Election Commission’s plea seeking permission to conduct a State Council bypoll, in which he is a contestant.
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India ready to play ball in Pak - Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times
In a move to keep the Mohali spirit alive, India has backed Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s proposal to have the cricket teams of both countries play a three-match series in Pakistan. Gilani on Tuesday spoke of attempts to restart cricketing ties with India. “Negotiations are underway and nothing has been finalised as yet,” he said.
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India-China agree to resume defence exchanges - Pranab Dhal Samanta, Indian Express
India and China today agreed to resume high-level defence exchanges with Beijing giving its consent to let a division commander, a Major General-ranked officer, from the Northern Army Command to lead a military delegation to China later this year. The understanding is that this officer will be given a proper visa, not a stapled one.
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Kashmir ignores Geelani call, 78% vote in Phase I of rural polls - Mir Ehsan, Indian Express
Ignoring the boycott call given by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, four Kashmir areas on Wednesday turned out to vote for the state’s first panchayat polls in 10 years in overwhelming numbers. By the time polling came to a close, 86.2 per cent in the frontier district of Kupwara had exercised their franchise, while the overall figure stood at around 78 per cent.
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The war against germs - Biswaroop Chatterjee, Indian Express
Do you know of a relative or a friend who died of typhoid? Or tuberculosis? Or fever after childbirth? Not very likely, unless you were born before the 1940s. The discovery of the sulfonamides in 1936, then penicillin and streptomycin in the 1940s, and then a whole range of “cillins” and “mycins” and “floxacins” from the 1950s onwards changed all that by letting us treat most common infections.
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Nuclear borderline - Bharat Karnad, Deccan Chronicle
Every year, come January, the Indian and Pakistani governments exchange lists of nuclear facilities (along with their coordinates) that each side undertakes not to attack in case of hostilities. Presumably, new power stations and other sensitive nuclear military-related installations are added to the lists as and when these go onstream.
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For Sonia and the dissidents: Dr Adhir and Mr Chowdhury - Alamgir Hossain, Telegraph
Afternoon did not show the evening. Adhir Chowdhury canvassed for the Congress in Sonia Gandhi’s presence at 2.15pm, only to rally behind a party dissident hours later.
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Bureaucracy, graft thwarted plans: Tata - Amol Sharma, Live Mint
Ratan Tata has transformed the Tata group into the world’s best-known Indian company, the owner of Jaguar cars, the Pierre Hotel in New York and Tetley tea. But in the twilight of his career as chairman of the $67.4 billion (around Rs.3 trillion) conglomerate, Tata, 73, is frustrated that he hasn’t been able to expand more in India. He says bureaucratic delays, arbitrary regulatory decisions and widespread corruption have thwarted his domestic ambitions in sectors such as steel, power, aviation and telecommunications.
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1984 riots: Witness pressurised to save Sajjan Kumar - Headlines Today
Former member of Parliament Sajjan Kumar has been accused of instigating mobs to kill innocent Sikhs in 1984 in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination. However, Harinder Baweja, Editor, investigations, has exposed the ugly, uncomfortable truth about him.
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"Is Pappu ke Papa kaun hain?" - Outlook
That is what Mr Amar Singh had asked about the controversial CD that mysteriously surfaced a few days back.
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Government game, players not thrilled about Pak tour - Amol Karhadkar, HT
The government of India may be trying to revive diplomacy with Pakistan via cricket. However, the men who matter the most on the field seem to be averse to touring Pakistan for a cricket series. Yuvraj Singh, the World Cup’s player of the tournament, when asked about the decision, said: “I don’t know. It’s not my call. Whatever is decided, you have to go by it. My job is to play.” He was speaking after the Pune-Kochi game on Wednesday night.
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Moily: Satyagraha is unconstitutional - HT
Four days after anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare compelled the government with his satyagraha to draft the anti-graft Lokpal Bill, Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily described satyagraha as “unconstitutional”.
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All BJP MLAs in J&K resign after cross-voting - Hindu
Taking moral responsibility for cross-voting in the Legislative Council elections, all the 11 BJP MLAs in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday resigned and authorised the party central leadership to decide their fate.
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Hazare's angels ready for the long haul - M J Antony & Nivedita Mookerji, Business Standard
The agitation for the enactment of the Jan Lokpal Bill has brought people from different walks of life under one roof. Arvind Kejriwal began his journey as an activist about 11 years ago. Parivartan, the non-government organisation he set up to fight corruption, was a known name by the time he stepped down as joint commissioner of income tax in the year 2000 after a long leave.
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Oil prices likely to go up after assembly elections - Sanjay Dutta, ToI
The government would have no choice but to raise motor fuel prices because crude is unlikely to drop down below $90 a barrel – if at all. Combined with the losses already accumulated in 2010-11 by the state-run companies, estimated at Rs 174,000 crore, would make it impossible for the government to keep on cushioning consumers.
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Centre-state blame game holds up NREGA projects - Devika Banerji, Economic Times
Work is slowing down under the United Progressive Alliance government's biggest social welfare scheme as the centre and states fight over allocation of funds.
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The falling value of brand Manmohan - Prabhu Chawla, Express Buzz
The Congress has finally discovered that Brand Manmohan is not a bestselling political label anymore. Or why would he be sitting tight in Delhi except for token campaign-end appearances while other Congress leaders are on the road in the poll-bound states? No prime minister in Indian history has got such minimal public exposure in state Assembly elections that will set the tone for the next general election. On the other hand, sycophantic requests are pouring in from most of the states for both mother and son as star campaigners.
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Hasan net widens to Puducherry LG, Maya secy - Pradeep Thakur, ToI
Investigation in the Hasan Ali case has reached a crucial stage with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) deciding to question Puducherry lieutenant governor Iqbal Singh and UP chief minister Mayawati's principal secretary Vijay Shankar Pandey in the $8 billion money-laundering probe.
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Congress does a somersault - Ashok Malik, Pioneer
The Congress senses there is a middle class revolt brewing but doesn't know how to arrest it. That is why it is not even sure of what line to take and when. It is not unusual for a ruling party and its Government to speak in two voices. The Congress and the UPA Government headed by Mr Manmohan Singh have done one better. They are beginning to speak in three voices. In the process, the party is tying itself up in knots and contradictions. A series of examples from recent days testifies to this.
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2G scam: Judgment reserved on bail pleas of 5 executives - Anandita Singh Mankotia, Indu Bhan, Financial Express
The special CBI court to try the 2G case on Friday reserved its judgment on granting bail to five corporate executives accused in the 2G spectrum scam.
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Turf war may see collapse of PAC - Nistula Hebbar, Financial Express
Lawmakers from the ruling Congress party and the Opposition BJP on Friday clashed over where to draw the boundaries for the public accounts committee (PAC) probing the 2G scam.
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Political protection should not be given to corrupt judges: CJI - Indian Express
Concerned over judiciary's image coming under a cloud in the wake of corruption charges, Chief Justice S H Kapadia on Saturday said there was a need for "clean man in black robe" and asked the political class not to protect corrupt judges.
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Prime witness was ‘coerced’ by Teesta - Navin Upadhyay, Pioneer
The prime witness in the Best Bakery case was “manipulated” and “coerced” to give false evidence before the trial court in Mumbai. This startling disclosure has emerged from an affidavit sent to the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court on June 17, 2010 by Sheikh Yasmeen Banu, whose father-in-law Habibulla owned the ill-fated Best Bakery. Yasmeen’s husband Nafitulla was injured when rioters set Best Bakery ablaze. Nafitulla later died due to illness. In all, 14 persons were killed in the blaze.
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Learning from Chinese capitalism - Rajiv Kumar, Business Line
One of the features of China's high growth model is the seamless coming together of the private and public sectors. India, with its entrenched public-private divisions, has a long way to go in this regard. A worldwide survey on popular support for capitalism reveals that 67 per cent of the Chinese strongly support their variety of capitalism. What a delicious irony that China has emerged as capitalism's saviour.
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Descent of Buddhadeb - Anindya Sengupta, Telegraph Calcutta
On result day after the 2006 Assembly elections, he had the phone glued to his ear. Then the call came. It was Ratan Tata, one of the first to congratulate Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Tata would soon set up the Nano project in Singur, as he had promised. For Bhattacharjee, the call symbolised a turning point for Bengal. Personally, he thought it was the crowning glory of his long political career.
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Lokpal should have powers to tap phones, prosecute: non-govt reps - Amitabh Sinha , Swaraj Thapa, Indian Express
While the government termed the first meeting of the joint committee formed to draft a robust Lokpal Bill as a “good starting point” for discussions, non-government representatives in the committee pushed for a much stronger law than earlier envisaged, inserting a new provision in their latest draft that will empower the office of the Lokpal to intercept telephone conversations.
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Hazare's revised draft to be taken on board - Gargi Parsai, Hindu
At their first meeting, the government nominees on the joint drafting committee of the Lokpal Bill on Saturday agreed to take on board the latest version of the draft Jan Lokpal Bill tabled by Anna Hazare.
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Transparency International to hold graft conclave - Neha Lalchandani, ToI
At a time when the whole country is charged up with anti-corruption sentiments and debates, Delhi will now witness the first ever conference on corruption. 'Freedom From Corruption', organized by corruption watchdog, Transparency International, aims at addressing some crucial issues that might be getting drowned in the mass hysteria that now surrounds the movement and charting a course that might take India on the path to transparent governance.
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Supergene NDM-1: So what's all the fuss about? - Saira Kurup, ToI
Bacteria that are able to resist antibiotics are nothing new. It's in their nature to develop defence mechanisms. What's worrying scientists and governments now are supergenes, which enable bacteria to make enzymes that can help them withstand even the most powerful of antibiotics called carbapenems.
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They don’t steal mangoes in Anna country - Manjiri Damle, ToI
The mangoes are ripening in the sun. The hundreds of trees planted by Anna Hazare are laden with tempting fruit these days. No one's keeping watch. Does anyone ever steal mangoes around here? Apparently not.
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A campaign to free Bastar from Naxals? - Sreelatha Menon, Business Standard
Before the Naxals gained ground, the tribals still had a village which had a name, they had homes, they had festivals, songs, folk art. Now, they have nothing. Their villages are a battleground for the police and the Naxals.
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Magical end to Vedic fire ritual in Kerala - VR Jayaraj, The Pioneer
Tens of thousands of Veda enthusiasts and devotees watched in astonishment the moonlit skies turning pitch-dark with clouds all of a sudden and heavy rains drenching the Yagasala at the very moment of the conclusion of the 12-day Vedic ritual of Athirathram Yaga at Panjal village in Kerala’s Thrissur district on the night of Friday, the auspicious Vishu day. Just when the rain poured, Yajamana (master of the Yaga) Puthilathu Ramanujan Akkihtirippad was about to leave the Yagasala after completing the 4,000-year-old Vedic fire ritual along with 17 Ritwiks (Veda scholars) and 25 Parikarmis (associate priests).
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Prashant Bhushan suspects Amar Singh’s role in forgery - Abantika Ghosh, ToI
Celebrated PIL lawyer and leading anti-corruption activist Prashant Bhushan on Sunday expressed suspicion about the role of Amar Singh in the forged CD controversy, specially in light of the fact that in the tape, the Rajya Sabha MP comes off as the one who "arranged" the purported conversation between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Shanti Bhushan.
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Bhushan cites experts, asserts CD was spliced to tar graft war - Abantika Ghosh, ToI
Two renowned forensic experts have established that the Shanti Bhushan tape where he purportedly asks for money to fix a case was fabricated, vindicating Prashant Bhushan and his colleagues in the India Against Corruption campaign who had maintained that the CD was spliced.
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‘Judges do not have the competence to make policy choices and run administration’ - S H Kapadia, Indian Express
...A judge’s obligation must start and end with his analysis of law, not with personal beliefs or preferences. The judge should not accept patronage through which he acquires office, preferential treatment or pre-retirement assignments. These can give rise to corruption if and when quid pro quo makes a demand on such judges.
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Watch the watchdog - Pushpa Sundar, Hindustantimes
Amid the euphoria over the conclusion of Anna Hazare’s fast for the Lokpal Bill, a few dissenting voices were heard on two issues: first, the means that were used to force the government’s hand and, second, too much power and responsibility is thrust on one institution, the office of the Lokpal.
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82% polling in J&K 2nd phase - Hindu
Undeterred by the killing of a woman candidate by militants on Friday, people turned out in large numbers on Sunday to vote in Jammu and Kashmir, which recorded 82 per cent polling in the second phase of the panchayat elections, which were being held in the State after a gap of 10 years.
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Geelani quotes from Mahabharata, reaches out to Kashmiri Pandits - Hindu
Quoting from the epic Mahabharata, hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Sunday sought to reach out to the Kashmiri Pandit families who returned to the Valley after two decades, assuring them that they would be safe. The 81-year-old leader drove to the transit camp located 70 km from Srinagar and addressed over 100 Kashmiri Pandit members who have returned after the State government's appeal to the people who fled the Valley in the wake of the outbreak of militancy in 1980s to come back.
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The case for military diplomacy - Nitin Pai, Business Standard
One reason to go to a prestigious institution like IIM or Harvard is for the contacts you develop there. Now imagine after you come back from such a school, your employer — out of the fear that corporate secrets would leak to competitors.
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Hasan Ali case: Governor can't be summoned, says Law Ministry - India Today
The Law Ministry has put a spanner in Enforcement Directorate's plan to question Puducherry Lt Governor Iqbal Singh for his alleged links with Pune stud farm owner Hasan Ali, who is accused of stashing huge money abroad.
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From Didi to Mamata - Ravik Bhattacharya and Rajesh Mahapatra, Hindustan Times
Born into the family of a small-time trader, 56-year-old Mamata’s tryst with politics began when she would accompany her father to political rallies. Her father, a Congress worker, died when Mamata was 17. She chose to relive her father’s dream, joined the student wing of the Congress in college and rose through the ranks. Spotlight fell on her when she emerged a giant killer in the parliamentary elections of 1984, defeating the indomitable Somnath Chatterjee from Jadavpur. At 31, she became one of India’s youngest MPs.
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The hub of terrorism in Kashmir Valley - Sanchita Bhattacharya, Pioneer
The northern district of Baramulla has been one of the worst militant infested districts of Jammu & Kashmir. It is the largest of 10 districts in the Kashmir Valley, both in terms of population and area. Spread over 4,588 sq km, it is bordered by Kupwara in the west, Budgam and Poonch in the south, parts of the summer capital, Srinagar, and Kargil in the east, and the Neelam district in Pakistan occupied Kashmir in the north. Baramulla, consequently, has immense ‘geo-strategic importance’ for the Pakistani handlers of terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and other foreign terrorist formations, as it serves as a principal route of infiltration into the Indian side. As a result, Baramulla has emerged as a nodal point of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir.
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Hasan Ali: ED to question Puducherry LG - Rahul Tripathi, Indian Express
Even as the Centre is yet to take a final call about the fate of Puducherry Lt Governor Iqbal Singh, fresh evidence has emerged against Singh linking him to Hasan Ali, his associates Kashinath Tapuriah and his wife Chandrika Tapuriah. Based on the fresh facts, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Monday allowed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to examine Singh in connection with the fake passport issued to Ali.
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States of graft - Abheek Barman, Economic Times
This year is the 20th anniversary of two events that changed many things forever. In 1991, the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh team dismantled India's rigid licence-permit raj.
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Sharad Pawar Inc. - Shantanu Guha Ray and Kiran Tare, India Today
For many, Sharad Pawar has become the metaphor for the cosy relationship between power and money. In recent times, no politician has drawn the kind of flak Pawar has. Almost every week, the mighty Maratha has courted controversy for alleged investments made by him or his family in a host of projects. Anna Hazare, a fellow Maharashtrian, named him as the symbol of corrupt politics. The mighty Maratha is involved in innumerable controversies for investments made by him or his family in a host of grand projects.
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Another summer of unrest in Kashmir? - Ajai Shukla, Business Standard
This summer will witness a clash of wills in Kashmir, the outcome of which could reshape New Delhi’s engagement with Pakistan and its dialogue with the Kashmiri secessionist leadership. In the blue corner, so to speak, is Kashmir’s new generation of hard-line separatists.
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CAG blames PMO for not acting against Kalmadi - Subhomoy Bhattacharjee, Indian Express
There could be more trouble in the offing for the Prime Minister’s Office on assorted corruption charges.
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How and why money matters in an election? - IBN Live
There's been quite a lot of talk about the distribution of money by the DMK in the Tamil Nadu election. The allegations against the ruling party are largely true and despite the Election Commission's crackdown money did flow to the voter, choked by the crack down, but it did reach the voter.
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Jamaat launches party, Christian priest is vice-president - Manoj C G, Indian Express
A Christian priest reciting the Gayatri Mantra at the launch of a new political party at the helm of which are top functionaries of the Jamaat-e-Islami-e-Hind. A perfect secular backdrop for the leadership of the Welfare Party of India (WPI), which was launched on Monday, to assert that it was neither a Muslim party nor the political arm of the Jamaat.
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Night of the long knives - Prabhu chawla, Express Buzz
Even though the battlelines have not been publicly defined, the knives are clearly out for Hazare’s Hunters. There is nothing unusual about the venomous diatribe being levelled against the man who’s perceived as an outsider.
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Sathya Sai Baba: Life & Times - Ajith Vijay Kumar, Zee News
“I have come not to disturb or destroy any faith, but to confirm each in his own faith, so that the Christian becomes a better Christian; the Muslim, a better Muslim; and the Hindu, a better Hindu.” - Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Bhagwan to his believers, humanitarian to others and controversial in the eyes of some others, Sri Sathya Sai Baba has occupied a prominent space in India’s collective mindscape for over half a century. Routinely featuring among the most influential persons in the country, Baba passed away at the age of 85.
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PM’s fatal attraction - Manvendra Singh, Pioneer
Much is made of the relationship between Pakistan and the United States of America. Much is made of it in India, in a permanent state of perplexity. And much is made of it in both Washington, DC and the whole of Pakistan. All kinds of specialists arrive at all kinds of conclusions on the basis of all kinds of interests, national and personal. Even as most of Pakistan’s citizens express and demonstrate a fear and loathing towards the US, significant sections of the ‘establishment’ remain wedded to the relationship. The same is true of the US, its citizenry and its Administration.
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Jaitapur rage is more about Sena vs Rane than nuclear fears - Rakshit Sonawane, Indian Express
The protests over a nuclear power plant in Jaitapur, which claimed one life yesterday and erupted in street clashes and stone-throwing today, appears to be driven by a local political impulse — the enduring sentiment in the Shiv Sena against Narayan Rane.
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From Bhopal to Patna - MK Venu, Indian Express
It is heartening to see how the middle ground in the debate over the Jan Lokpal Bill has expanded so much in just over a week after Anna Hazare stirred everyone’s imagination from Jantar Mantar.
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Appeasement never pays - Arun Prakash, Indian Express
At about four in the morning of September 12, 2010, just a few hours after she had departed the Kenyan port of Mombasa for Durban in South Africa, the motor tanker Asphalt Venture was boarded by Somalian pirates.
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The other crusade - Bhaskar Dutta, Times of India
The government blinked. Anna Hazare broke his fast. Representatives from civil society are sitting with some central ministers to draft a new Lokpal Bill.
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Wikileaks: US should ‘continue to cultivate' Mamata - Suresh Nambath, Hindu
American diplomats pushed United States government officials to cultivate the All India Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, following her party's success in West Bengal in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, even while recording scepticism about whether she had changed from being a political maverick to being able to lead the State as Chief Minister.
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Wikileaks: ‘The Kremlin on the Jumna' - Hasan Suroor, Hindu
Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi is seen by the Americans as a place to watch for a “new generation” of Left leaders who “will use relations with the US, Indian foreign policy, and growing conflict over globalization to solidify Left party gains.” Cheekily dubbed “The Kremlin on the Jumna,'' JNU gets prominent billing in leaked internal American diplomatic communications as a centre of the Indian Left's soft power with a “politically and intellectually charged” student body.
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Strategising on Indian Ocean - Chandan Mitra, Pioneer
Today, the main security threats to India’s interests in the Indian Ocean region arise from three factors — first, the gradual erosion of its political influence in the area; second, the increase in Chinese presence in the region; and, third, the uncontrolled activities of Somali pirates. Nowhere is the erosion of the Indian political influence more evident than in Sri Lanka where despite assistance to Colombo in its successful counter-insurgency operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, New Delhi has been unable to adequately secure either the interests of the Sri Lankan Tamils or the lives and livelihood of Indian Tamil fishermen, who have been at the mercy of the Sri Lankan Navy. The negative state of affairs that India is confronted with in Sri Lanka today could be repeated in the Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles in the years to come if the Indian political leadership is not more assertive in protecting its interests in these island nations.
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2G: Dayalu Ammal’s role in CBI focus - Rajesh Ahuja, HT
The CBI is examining the role Dayalu Ammal, wife of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, played in the affairs of Kalaignar TV to file a chargesheet against her in the 2G scam. The agency has to file its supplementary chargesheet by April 25. CBI has alleged Kalaignar TV received up to Rs200 crore from Shahid Usman Balwa’s company DB Realty via two intermediary companies — Kusegaon Fruits & Vegetables (now Kusegaon Realty) and Cineyug.
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Tamil Nadu polls: A different battle - TS Subramanian, Frontline
When Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi described Tamil Nadu as “a challenging case”, he was not exaggerating. Apart from its outcome, the April 13 election to the Tamil Nadu Assembly will be remembered for three things – the audacious distribution of money to buy votes and the Election Commission's (E.C.) gallant efforts to block it.
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Assam polls: Close contest - Sushanta Talukdar, Frontline
ASSAM recorded an overall turnout of 76.03 per cent in a closely contested two-phase Assembly election held on April 4 and 11. The turnout was higher – 78.60 per cent – in the 64 Assembly constituencies where polling was held on April 11. The turnout on April 4 was 73.11 per cent. In the previous Assembly election the turnout was 75.72 per cent and in the 2009 Lok Sabha election it was 69.60%.
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In search of civil society - Dilip Bobb, Indian Express
The drafting of the Lokpal bill has started to take on the contours of a reality show involving two sides challenging each other’s moves and motives. It is, in reality, a contest with ancient origins: the people versus their rulers. As the entire country keeps score with greater intensity than for the IPL, each day’s winners are adjudged.
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Strategising on Indian Ocean - Chandan Mitra, Pioneer
India and the Indian Ocean are two inseparable entities. India owes its geophysical existence to the Indian Ocean. Throughout history India has been interacting with the lands and the peoples of its littoral states through religion, culture and other means. There existed a certain unity in the Indian Ocean for centuries till it was broken by the advent and impact of the advancing European colonial powers after 16th century.
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That essential balance - Mukul Mudgal, Indian Express
Our Constitution is a complex and comprehensive document that elaborately sets out the checks and balances for the exercise of the three limbs of governance — Parliament, the government and the judiciary.
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Law alone is not enough - Sunanda K Datta-Ray, Pioneer
The only way of curbing corruption is to restore the systems that functioned well before the kaaley angrez took over. A showpiece Lok Pal law will be of little use. My local BSNL office is plastered with posters against corruption which we are exhorted to “fight without fear”. Fear of who I wonder except my own interest. If I don’t pay something every month to the municipal sweeper who gets a salary as well as overtime to collect domestic garbage, the rubbish will pile high in my house. If money isn’t slipped into the drawer that the high court clerk keeps discreetly open, vital documents that must be registered will never be put up to the registrar.
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Force behind ‘civil society’ - Anuradha Dutt, Pioneer
The stupendous growth of the civil society movement is ascribed to the wide-scale emergence of non-governmental organisations throughout the world in the latter half of the 20th Century, as a mechanism for change, development and reform, parallel or supplementary to the services provided by the political and administrative apparatus of the state. However, sceptics question the very premise of parallel governance and policy-making by people and agencies, without public accountability, seeing in the exercise a hidden plan by amorphous forces to sabotage the state and eventually take over the functions of Government.
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Congress dissidents up in arms - Kalyani Shankar, Pioneer
The Tamil Nadu Congress president’s decision to expel dissidents for working against the party during the recent Assembly election has only further deepened rifts within the organization. Although polling in Tamil Nadu has been completed peacefully, the Congress is feeling the heat of internal squabbles. Barely had the din of election subsided when internal acrimony and groupism in the party came out in the open after Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president KV Thangkabalu unilaterally expelled 19 members for alleged anti-party activities on April 13. Out of these 19, seven are Youth Congress office-bearers.
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Hazare movement & the Delhi drama - RK Raghavan, Hindu
Has the battle between good and bad been lost again? Can we remain silent at the insidious adventures of some elements trying to scare away public-spirited people?
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‘Getting out of Hurriyat like Azadi’ - Toufiq Rashid & Peerzada Ashiq, HT
The cracks in the Hurriyat Conference seem to have deepened with suspended leader Moulvi Abbas Ansari declaring on Thursday that the decision by Hurriyat chaiman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq spelt “azadi” for him. Meanwhile, rift within the separatist conglomerate widened when the Mirwaiz refuted Ansari’s earlier claim that New Delhi-appointed mediators — Dilip Padgaonkar, Radha Kumar and MM Ansari — “just landed at my door”. He also accused the interlocutors of “adding confusion and working under extreme sense of desperation”.
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Twin setback for BJP, in Jammu & Gujarat - Shekhar Iyer, HT
With the Congress engaged in a row with the activists behind the movement for a strong Lokpal bill, the BJP is counting on the people’s angst over corruption to aid its revival. But the resurfacing of the party’s deep internal problems have upset top leaders’ calculations. The setback for the BJP in the maiden election of Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation and the cross voting by its MLAs in Jammu and Kashmir have come as dampeners.
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Rift in TN Congress over selection of poll candidates - Nidhi Sharma, Economic Times
Even before the declaration of Assembly election results in Tamil Nadu, blame game has begun in Congress' state unit with members of Parliament and local leaders queuing up at Congress President Sonia Gandhi's doorstep to complain against state unit chief K V Thangkabalu and AICC leader in-charge of the state Ghulam Nabi Azad.
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TN Polls: Freebie rage pushes up alcoholism - Economic Times
The craze for the offer continued until people figured out that the cost of lunch was being compensated by the price of the drink. There was, in other words, no such thing as a free lunch! The analogy fits another age, another geography and another tactic.
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Spectrograph shows breaks in Bhushan CD - Arun Ram, Times of India
If the Truth Labs report on the 'Shanti Bhushan-Mulayam Singh CD' is anything to go by, the controversial tapes expose the temerity of the forger. The private forensic lab approached by Prashant Bhushan to test the authenticity of the CD found that an old tape, submitted by Bhushan himself to the Supreme Court in 2006 on behalf of his then client Amar Singh, was used to weave the controversial "conversation".
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Subbarao had resisted Raja’s cheap 2G sale - Rakesh K Singh, Pioneer
In a damning disclosure in the 2G spectrum scam, former Finance Secretary and present RBI Governor D Subbarao has told the CBI he had persistently objected to the throwaway pricing of spectrum by former Telecom Minister A Raja. Subbarao has also revealed that the Department of Telecom under Raja deferred the crucial meeting of the full Telecom Commission on spectrum pricing and went ahead with the controversial allotment of 122 licences during the intervening period.
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2G: Cong-DMK ties may take a hit - Rajesh Ahuja and Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan Times
The Congress-DMK alliance in Tamil Nadu could hit another turbulence with the CBI planning to chargesheet DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi and his second wife Dayalu Ammal, as the 2G scam money trail has led up to them. The CBI has concluded that Dynamix Realty, a firm of the scam-accused Vinod Goenka and Shahid Usman Balwa-promoted DB Realty Group, paid around Rs 200 crore to Kalaignar TV, owned by the DMK first family, between December 2008 and August 2009.
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Hindu family feud over succession spills over - ArchnaShukla, Indian Express
The feud among the members of Kasturi & Sons over editorial control of its group publications, including The Hindu and The Hindu Business Line, intensified on Friday with the warring factions making fresh allegations against each other.
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French ‘Reactors’ - Pranay Sharma, Outlook
As Japan grapples with the nuclear crisis at the plant in Fukushima, apocalyptic images of death and devastation conceived in fear have prompted the people of Jaitapur, in Maharashtra, to protest against the decision of France’s Areva and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) to build a nuclear plant there.
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Andhra: Weighty initials - Madhavi Tata, Outlook
Addressing a crowd while campaigning in Kadapa, Jaganmohan Reddy says, “This is not just an election, it’s war. It’s a fight between dharma and adharma, justice and injustice.” The wave of the hand that accompanies those words is an imitation of a famous gesture of his late father, former chief minister and Congress strongman Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
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Emotional Karuna backs Kani: I know what she's going through - Indian Express
Solidly backing his daughter Kanimozhi, named in the CBI chargesheet in the 2G spectrum scam, an emotional DMK Chief M Karunanidhi today said her growth in the party had nothing to do with the 'daughter tag' and only he was aware of what "she is going through now”.
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Chidambaram terms higher judiciary “over ambitious” - Hindu
Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Saturday termed the higher judiciary “over ambitious” but complimented it for its activism which “enlarged the ambit of fundamental rights” of citizens. Delivering the inaugural K.N. Katju memorial lecture on ‘What ails the Indian judiciary,' he said that like any other institution that has reached a ripe old age, the judiciary is under stress.
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Meet Cong's faceless workers who help 'spin' politics - Subodh Ghildiyal, Times of India
Khurshid Anwar runs around the Congress headquarters with an anxious look but is relieved when an occasional minister or party official waves to him in recognition. When charges of stamp duty evasion erupted against Shanti Bhushan, Khurshid packed his bags from Rae Bareli and landed in the capital hoping that his `exploit' would get him a political reward.
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Law of the jungle - Supriya Sharma, Times of India
The Moist press note that arrived at a newspaper office in the first week of March said: "Shikhshakarmi ke naam pe kalank Kamlu Varda ko janata ke hathon maut." Or that primary school teacher Kamlu Varda had been executed. So had two other men. Kamlu Varda, 30, had done well for a Madia adivasi. He had spent eight years teaching, had a monthly salary of Rs 7,700, and a cycle on which to travel the 10 km from Kutul, where he lived with his family, to Dhurbeda, where he worked. Both villages are in Abujhmad, a forested plateau in Narayanpur district in southwest Chhattisgarh.
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The good and bad of Gujarat - Chetan Bhagat, Times of India
There is a lot more to Gujarat, the Gujarati people and their CM than Godhra. It is one of the few Indian cultures that celebrates entrepreneurship. That is the need of the hour for the entire nation. It is a state whose now proven development model, if replicated, can dramatically change the country's fortunes. To ignore that would be harmful for the nation. Many rights do not cover up a wrong. But should a wrong be constantly used to cover up many rights?
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A free state has the right to self-defence - Swapan Dasgupta, Times of India
The battle over Binayak Sen's fate is just one facet of a culture war that has divided the middle class. At stake is not merely rarefied concern over the relevance of a 150-year-old provision of the Indian Penal Code—the sedition law. There is a parallel clash over democracy and citizenship.
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Lokpal not enough, we need radical reform - Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, ET
I wondered in this column some years ago why top businessmen were frequently prosecuted and convicted in the US but not in India. Answer: crooked politicians had mangled the police-judicial system such that it could never convict them beyond all appeals, and obviously such a moribund system could not convict crooked businessmen either. Solution: only if the system allowed crooked politicians to be nabbed would crooked businessmen be nabbed too.
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When sarkari jholawallahs lost the plot - Chandan Mitra, Pioneer
Digvijay Singh's diatribes are part of a script for 10 Janpath can't digest that the NGO agendas it has nurtured have been upstaged by newbies in the game. Will the Lok Pal Bill see the light of day? No way, if the Congress has its way. Irrespective of Ms Sonia Gandhi’s assurance to a distressed Anna Hazare of her continued support to his aims, Congress leaders are out to scuttle it. The controversies that have engulfed Anna’s chosen coterie have not helped the Bill’s cause either. The self-appointed chieftains of civil society have fallen out among themselves, which of course was only to be expected.
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Congress subverts anti-graft agitation - Swapan Dasgupta, Pioneer
It is a sobering experience for a journalist to be proved wrong. Human behaviour and, for that matter, political behaviour do not follow — whatever Marxists say — any science and are dependent on too many unknown variables. However, it gives me absolutely no pleasure to suggest that last week’s column where I had argued that the Congress seems hell-bent on pursuing a policy of subterfuge has turned out bang on target.
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Lokpal Bill demolition job is too clever by half - T J S George, Express Buzz
Svengali was a fictional character and Rasputin a real-life one. One used hypnotism and the other psychic faith-healing to gain enormous power over others. The two words are today part of the English vocabulary. They mean a person of evil intent who manipulates others to achieve what he wants.
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Checking on the House - Arun Jaitley, Indian Express
Middle-class cynicism is frequently directed against the functioning of Indian democracy, political parties and Parliament. An impression that all politicians are dishonest and that Parliament is only disrupted, however erroneous, has caught the public imagination. The truth is to the contrary.
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Bhatt’s track record speaks for itself - Navin Upadhyay, Pioneer
Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt may be positioning himself as a crusader against injustice, but his own track record on that count is a blot on the uniform. The officer was involved in planting narcotic substance in a hotel room to arrest an advocate of Rajasthan in 1996. The National Human Rights Commission had asked the Gujarat Government to pay up Rs 1 lakh compensation to the victim and Gujarat HRC twice asked the State Government to place the controversial IPS officer under suspension.
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2G: Will the new CBI chargesheet be the last straw in the Cong-DMK ties? - NDTV
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is all set to file a supplementary chargesheet in the 2G spectrum scam today. The chargesheet comes nearly three weeks after the first one which named former Telecom Minister A Raja, top telecom honchos and bureaucrats. Sources in the CBI say that M Karunanidhi's daughter, Kanimozhi, and his wife, Dayaluammal, will both be accused of benefiting from the scam.
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2G: Chargesheet may see DMK exit govt - Shekhar Iyer and Rajesh Ahuja, HT
The DMK may take a hard stand against the Congress and the UPA government if the CBI names Dayalu Ammal, one of the two wives of Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi, in the second chargesheet as a beneficiary of the 2G spectrum scam. Dayalu Ammal is the mother of Karunanidhi's sons, MK Stalin and Union minister MK Alagiri. The second chargesheet is to be filed before OP Saini, special judge for the 2G case, here on Monday.
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‘Can there be a better role model to promote nation?’ - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, HT
I admire Bhagwan Sathya Sai Baba for his selfless work and contributions to the welfare of the people by providing drinking water for the rural population, free healthcare facilities for the rural poor and free higher education. The major factors in human resource development are value-based education and quality healthcare. In addition, the infrastructural requirement like availability of potable water is an essential need of the human resource. While the government is actively engaged in providing these resources to the citizens, Baba has been sensitive to these essential needs of the Indian population, particularly of the people living in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, for over four decades.
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2G scam chargesheet: Dayalu Ammal may not figure after all - NDTV
Just hours before the CBI is due to file its next chargesheet in the 2G scam, the agency seems to have changed its mind about whether to name Dayalu Ammal, the wife of DMK chief M Karunanidhi. The change in plan, sources say, is attributed to political pressure to exclude her. No similar favour, however, is likely to be extended to Mr Karuanidhi's daughter, Kanimozhi. Till Friday, CBI sources were sure that both women would be chargesheeted because of their ownership of a TV channel in Chennai that allegedly hosted a massive kickback sent by a telecom company to former Telecom Minister A Raja.
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We're part of participatory democracy - Pradeep S Mehta, Economic Times
Much has been written about the successful campaign by Anna Hazare in raising the ante on corruption and getting the government to agree on the participation of the civil society in drafting the Lokpal Bill. Cynics and sceptics questioned the process on various grounds, including defining civil society advocates as self-appointed guardians of public interest and so on.
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WB: Left on its own terms - Swapan Dasgupta, Telegraph
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance would probably have lost the 2009 general election even if its candidate from Pilibhit had not been caught on camera making a provocative hate speech. The significance of Varun Gandhi’s misplaced show of muscular sectarianism, which was repeated ad nauseam on television, was that it bolstered an existing trend and widened the BJP’s electoral deficit.
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ULFA receives Rs 40 lakh from govt for daily expenses - Indian Express
Believed to have led lavish lives in their heydays, pro-talks ULFA leaders have now been given Rs 40 lakh by the Centre for daily expenses and to run their families. The Home Ministry released the first installment of financial assistance to the ULFA leaders, including 'chairman' Arabinda Rajkhowa, 'vice-president' Pradip Gogoi and others besides its cadres -- totalling approximately 400.
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WB Polls: Why Buddha’s battle for Jadavpur is a close one - Sujan Dutta, Telegraph
Eight-lettered names echo so much that they often become political clichés. Like Waterloo. Like Jadavpur. Through electoral battles that have ground generals, Jadavpur has created upsets of the like Bengal has probably never experienced elsewhere. It was Jadavpur that threw up Mamata Banerjee in a giant-killing contest over Somnath Chatterjee in 1984.
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Corruption 2.0 - Tavleen Singh, Indian Express
How amusing that the people Anna Hazare selected to craft the definitive law against Indian corruption now find themselves squirming in some very murky ground. Those who till last week were lecturing the rest of us on probity and high moral standards, now have huge estates and dark secrets tumbling out of their closets. And, how did they react? They railed and ranted against ‘unsubstantiated’ charges being thrown at them without noticing that this has been the leitmotif of Anna’s own campaign.
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2G: ‘Kanimozhi conspired with Raja’ - J Gopikrishnan/ Sana Shakil, Pioneer
Showing daya to Karunanidhi’s wife Dayalu Ammal, the CBI on Monday chargesheeted his daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, for accepting `200 crore as kickbacks in 2G spectrum allotment to Swan Telecom, prompting the Special Court to issue summons to her for appearing on May 6. Apart from Kanimozhi, the CBI also chargesheeted former Telecom Minister A Raja, Asif Balwa, Rajiv Agarwal, Karim Morani and DMK-run TV channel Kalaignar TV’s managing director Sharadkumar in connection with the kickback. Raja was already charged under Prevention of Corruption Act in the first CBI chargesheet.
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Demand for Sheila Dikshit’s ouster gains momentum - Pioneer
The arrest of now suspended Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi in Commonwealth Games scam has triggered fresh demands for the ouster of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, whose Government has been indicted by the Shunglu Committee report for massive financial loss in the Games-related city infrastructure works. The opposition parties — both BJP and the CPM — also rued the delay on the part of investigating agencies in cracking the whip on the former head of the Games Organising Committee.
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No better than politicians - Sandhya Jain, Pioneer
Representatives of ‘civil society' in the Lok Pal Bill drafting committee increasingly appear to be no different from those whom they berate and ridicule. One thing is truly shocking about the Mayawati Government’s allotment of two 10,000 square metre farmhouse plots to Supreme Court lawyer Shanti Bhushan and his son Jayant, and it is amazing that no political party or civil society activist has taken note of it. The Rashtriya Lok Dal of Mr Ajit Singh, and the Samajwadi Party of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, which draw their strength from middle farmer beneficiaries of zamindari abolition are especially culpable in this respect.
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CWG scam: Not the end, host of babus, politicos remain in line of fire - Times of India
The Commonwealth story does not end with the arrest of sacked Organizing Committee chief Suresh Kalmadi. There are private individuals, politicians, government employees and public figures indicted for lapses ranging from lack of oversight to downright complicity in irregularities.
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DMK breathes easy, all eyes on Kanimozhi - Hindustan Times
Tension eased in the DMK after the CBI kept wife of Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi Dayalu Ammal out of the second chargesheet in 2G spectrum case. The Congress too dismissed any threat to the UPA coalition in the wake of Kanimozhi being made an accused in the 2G case. Senior Congress sources also maintained that the DMK would not create any crisis even though all eyes are now on DMK chief's daughter who was named a co-conspirator in receiving Rs 200 crore for Kalaignar TV in lieu of 2G licence given to Swan Balwa-promoted Swan Telecom for Delhi circle.
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Lokpal: Hazare wants judges kept out, Hegde asks why - Tanu Sharma, D K Singh, IE
A day after consensus emerged at a roundtable to keep the higher judiciary out of the purview of the proposed Lokpal — something that even Anna Hazare agreed to — his nominees in the Lokpal Bill drafting committee said the judiciary must be included in the Bill. Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde told The Indian Express: “I don’t mind and do not understand why they (higher judiciary) should not be included.
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Pune Coffee House to CWG: The rise and fall of Kalmadi - Pranav Kulkarni, Indian Express
Many in Pune still remember Suresh Kalmadi as a young man in his early 30s sitting at the cash counter of Poona Coffee House — a meeting point for established as well as aspiring politicians. After retiring voluntarily from the Indian Air Force as a squadron leader in 1974, Suresh Kalmadi, the eldest of four Kalmadi brothers — Shridhar, Prakash and Mukesh — began to run the Poona Coffee House with the blessings of Nilubhau Limaye.
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Bengal worst governed state: Chidambaram - Madhuparna Das, Indian Express
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Monday described West Bengal as the “worst governed state in the country” and blamed the CPM and its cadres for spreading violence and turning the state into a “killing field”. “I have never seen a worst governed state in the country. There is not one example in the world, in which one political party has ruled a state for 34 years. There’s nothing wrong in it if it’s done through fair means. But you know how they have been winning elections,” he said.
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Trailing Rs 200 cr to nail the scam - Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Indian Express
Loan without security, forged documents to investment in favoured companies. To establish that the Rs 200-crore money flow between Dynamix Realty, a partnership firm of DB Realty, to Kalaignar TV was in the nature of illegal gratification paid in lieu of UAS licences to Swan Telecom, the CBI cites an intricate web of transactions in its supplementary chargesheet in the 2G case, which has 29 more witnesses, including Dayalu Ammal, and 135 new documents.
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WB Polls: Will WB vote for liberalisation? - Sougata Mukhopadhyay, CNN-IBN
The third phase of the West Bengal elections on Wednesday will see a high profile battle of two economic PhDs in Khardah. This time all eyes will be on the two contestants fighting for the state's finance ministry. It's the clash of ideas as voters will have to decide from the liberalisation of Amit Mitra or the labour-intensive growth model of Asim Dasgupta.
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Reclaiming Democracy: People clamour for more direct mechanisms - Naren Karunakaran, Economic Times
He stood at a distance and watched. The energy, anger, angst and hopes of the throng at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar quickly engulfed him, and he slowly started making his way towards Anna Hazare on the dais. TV Ramachandran, Vodafone Essar's resident director, however , couldn't cut through the frenzy and fervour of the anti- corruption supporters and turned back. As he left, he surveyed the throbbing congregation yet again, and muttered under his breath.
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'Indian govt response to WikiLeaks the worst' - Arnab Goswami, Times Now
In an exclusive interview to TIMES NOW's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tore into the Indian government's response to the publication of the India cables in March, saying that out of the 60 countries where Wikileaks had done exposes, the Indian governments response was one of the worst in the world to the information.
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Julian Assange's explosive disclosure - Arnab Goswami, Times Now
In his most revealing and explosive interview to date, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has revealed to TIMES NOW's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami that he is being offered a swap deal if he hands over the exclusive details of Swiss banks and their secret account holders list.
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'Double taxation has nothing to do with asset hiding' - Arnab Goswami, Times Now
In an exclusive interview to TIMES NOW's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, apart from talking about Swiss bank data featuring Indian names, also dismissed the argument of the Indian government that existing bilateral agreements with the Swiss government came in the way of the disclosures activists and political parties have been demanding.
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Why IPS Bhatt hates Narendra Modi - Navin Upadhyay, Pioneer
Controversial Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who created a ripple by submitting to the Supreme Court an affidavit saying that Chief Minister Narendra Modi wanted to teach Muslims a lesson, has a shady past. Apart from being indicted by the National Human Rights Commission for planting narcotics in a hotel room to implicate and arrest an advocate of Rajasthan in a drug peddling case, the officer is also an accused in a major recruitment scam that hit Gujarat in 1996.
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Speaking of the comrades - Subrata Nagchoudhury, Indian Express
No one should read the incendiary rhetoric of a seven-term CPM MP, Anil Basu — drawing parallels between “prostitutes” and “big clients” on one hand and Mamata Banerjee and her “big client” America on the other — as anything but a farewell speech from Bengal’s communist regime. The outrage the comments evoked instantly, right from Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to the party’s grassroots comrades, appears to be demonstrative in nature and well-orchestrated.
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Jaitapur plan on: To rein in Sena, Ramesh relents - Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh wanted to put the Jaitapur nuclear power project on hold till all safety concerns were dealt but had to retract after the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was told on Tuesday that it would provide Shiv Sena a reason for a political cheer. Shiv Sena Executive President Udday Thackeray had demanded scrapping of the 9,600 MW Jaitapur nuclear park project on ecological and safety grounds. And, would putting the project on hold meant political victory of Congress arch rival in Maharashtra.
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Karuna furious with Cong for Kani 2G taint - Karthick S, Times of India
With the CBI indicting his daughter Kanimozhi in the multi-crore spectrum scam, chief minister M Karunanidhi is said to be furious with the Congress, accusing the DMK ally of violating coalition dharma and attempting to tarnish his party's image. But despite the initial angry reaction behind closed doors, the DMK leadership is unlikely to take a harsh stand against the Congress.
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India bids farewell to ascetic revered as a 'living god' - Harmeet Shah Singh, CNN
Famed Indian spiritual guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba was laid to rest Wednesday as hundreds of thousands of followers bid a tearful farewell to the ascetic they revered as a living god. Hymns rang through his ashram at his hometown of Puttaparthi in southern India as his body was sprinkled with petals and holy water before a private burial behind a maroon curtain. Hindu funerals generally involve cremation, but infants and saintly figures are buried. Sri Sathya Sai Baba died Sunday at age 85 of respiratory failure. A number of luminaries attended the funeral conducted with full state honors.
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CWG: Premium seats were sold for a song, says CVC - Aman Sharma, India Today
The Organising Committee (OC) had justified umpteen budget revisions in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games citing the 'cash crunch' plaguing it. Yet, it did not bat an eyelid as it gave away premium tickets - each worth about Rs 50,000 - of the opening and closing ceremonies at just one-tenth of their original price, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has found.
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CBI takes air out of Kalaignar TV loan claim - Rakesh K Singh, Pioneer
The DMK may have been claiming that the `200 crore paid to Kalaignar TV by Shahid Balwa’s DB Realty was an unsecured loan, but the CBI investigation has established that the DMK-owned TV channel — in which party MP Kanimozhi is a stakeholder — returned the first installment of the purported loan on the day former Telecom Minister A Raja was interrogated by the CBI on December 24, 2010 in connection with the 2G scam.
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Your firms are out of fighter contract fray, India tells US - Manu Pubby, Pranab Dhal Samanta, Indian Express
Taking a decision based on technical evaluation, the government has told the United States that its two companies bidding for the $10-billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract are now out of the fray. Sources said only two of the six companies will be called in tomorrow to extend their commercial bids. This decision was prompted by the fact that commercial bids for all six players were to expire by the end of this month.
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2G scam: Top babus slept on job, PAC report - Economic Times
A number of bureaucrats failed to be vigilant or proactive to prevent the loss to the exchequer from the 2G spectrum allocation scam, the draft report of the Public Accounts Committee has said. The report is expected to be adopted by the committee. The officials under adverse glare of the PAC report are mostly from the Ministry of Finance and the DoT, and include former Finance Secretary D Subbarao.
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2G scam: PAC frowns on Vahanvati’s ‘advice’ to Raja - Economic Times
The draft report of the Public Accounts Committee probing the 2G scam has said it was "intriguing" that then Solicitor-General GE Vahanvati directly advised the Telecom Ministry in 2008, on the issue of spectrum licenses, despite the Law Ministry suggesting that it be referred to an Empowered Group of Ministers.
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Covertly does it - Ajai Sahni, Times of India
In the wake of the dramatic US operation at Abbottabad, which ended in Osama bin Laden's death, some fantasists here have begun to wonder whether India has the 'capabilities' to carry out such strikes. The question can and should be quickly answered. Given the experience of 26/11 in Mumbai and the quality of responses witnessed there, as well as in a host of earlier operations, and knowledge of 'capacity building' thereafter, it should be abundantly clear that India does not have the necessary capabilities to carry out such operations even on its own soil, leave alone deep inside hostile territory.
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Bhawani Singh's grandson crowned Maharaja of Jaipur - Mohammed Iqbal, The Hindu
Teenager Padmanabh Singh — grandson of the erstwhile Jaipur ruler, the late Brigadier Sawai Bhawani Singh — ascended the titular throne of the Pink City at a magnificent coronation ceremony at the City Palace.
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India’s rejection of US fighter jets seen as a blow to Obama - S Rajagopalan, Pioneer
Although US-India trade and commercial relations have greatly expanded, almost in tandem with the dramatic turnaround in bilateral political relations, the Obama administration had laid great store by India’s mega fighter jets deal. President Barack Obama appeared to lead it from the front, making the push for Boeing and Lockheed Martin during his India visit last November. For Obama, a key selling point to his political constituency was the estimated 27,000 American jobs that the deal would be generating.
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PAC draft report puts 2G loss at Rs.1.90 lakh crore - Sandeep Joshi, Hindu
The draft report of the Public Accounts Committee on the 2G scam has come out with yet another figure for the loss to the exchequer, putting it at Rs.1.90-lakh crore in the grant of 122 licences in 2008, dual technology licences and extra spectrum.
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Manmohan behind ruckus at PAC meet, says Gadkari - Indian Express
With Congress and DMK members stalling the crucial PAC meeting convened to finalise its report on the 2G spectrum allocation, BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Thursday alleged that the ruckus was created at the "instance" of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the role of the PMO in the entire episode has been "exposed". In serious allegations, he said four senior Cabinet ministers "controlled" and "monitored" the activities.
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How Joshi sailed through PAC into BJP’s good books - Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan Times
Events have come a full circle for BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who has often felt sidelined by his party or found himself at loggerheads with other party leaders. On Thursday, Joshi found his stock going up within the BJP — after a stormy meeting of Parliament's public accounts committee (PAC), which he heads. As the Congress and allies “ousted” Joshi from the panel’s chairmanship to counter his draft report’s indictment of the government in the 2G scam, Joshi earned accolades within the BJP.
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SP, BSP Cong's last-minute saviours - Times of India
When Mayawati confidant S C Mishra escorted party MP Baliram to the doorstep of the PAC meeting on Thursday morning, it was clear that the understanding had been struck at the top. The seasoned Samajwadi Reoti Raman Singh too took a stand in sync with Congress.
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Sonia's NAC takes on Anna camp: Lokpal no magic pill against graft - Subodh Ghidiyal & Nitin Sethi, Times of India
The split in the civil society over the Lokpal bill is out in the open. Amid the clamour for Lokpal as a magic pill against corruption, the National Advisory Council (NAC) on Thursday argued that a bouquet of systemic reforms with a clutch of laws is required to curb graft.
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Mulayam, Maya make Congress day - Economic Times
The BSP and the SP may be the Congress . political foes in Uttar Pradesh, but they are proving to be "dependable allies" of the UPA at the Centre. If the decision of the BSP and the SP to back the UPA at the PAC meeting is anything to go by, the two parties can be counted as friends during policy wrangling with the Opposition.
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NAC suggests jail for officials who don't stop riots - Sruthijith KK, Economic Times
Public officials who fail to prevent and control communal violence could soon be liable to be imprisoned for up to five years, if a new draft of the Communal and Targeted Violence Bill prepared by the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council becomes law.
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Rafale, Eurofighter to fight it out over IAF order - Economic Times
A European fighter aircraft is likely to provide the much-needed boost to India's air power after the defence ministry preferred them over Russian and American aircraft such as the latest in the MIG series, the MIG-35, and the F-16 and the F-18. Rafale, built by France's Dassault and the Eurofighter Typhoon built by a pan-European consortium, were shortlisted by the defence ministry on Thursday. The two companies, which produces the aircraft, have been told to keep their commercial bids open till December 31, 2011.
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Political war sinks 2G report - Saubhadra Chatterji, Business Standard
Fierce fighting between members of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the opposition on Thursday put a question mark on the future of the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC’s) draft report on the telecom spectrum scam. The UPA camp claimed the draft report had been rejected by a majority of the PAC members through voting. The opposition said the report was with Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi (of Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP) and no voting was held according to the official record.
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Kanimozhi: Her Mother's Daughter - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
Kanimozhi is usually composed. But when she emerged from the meeting of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)’s general council earlier this week, she was a little irritated. “Why do you want my visuals? This is quite unnecessary,” she told the photographers outside the party’s headquarters.
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Make the spring last longer - Rajeev Anantaram, Business Standard
Ten years ago, almost to the month, Indian sport seemed headed for an eternal spring. Viswanathan Anand was the World Chess Champion, the first time ever that an Indian player had reached the pinnacle of the sport. In cricket, India had beaten Australia in a modern-day classic.
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Parallax View: So, are we any wiser about the Purulia arms drop? - Veer Sanghvi
The Purulia arms drop dates back to December 1995 and because I then worked with Sunday magazine, which was Calcutta-based and Purulia is in West Bengal, the story had a special resonance for me. What happened was this: villagers in the Purulia district of West Bengal woke up to find that somebody had air-dropped sophisticated weapons in the countryside.
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Joshi outwits cocky Congress - AM Jigeesh, Mail Today
IN AN extraordinary attempt to stall the proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee ( PAC) and prevent the PAC’s report on the 2G scam from going through, the Congress on Thursday sabotaged the proceedings, and even ‘ replaced’ PAC chief Murli Manohar Joshi. But the doughty Joshi appeared determined to submit the report, which has exposed the role of the Prime Minister’s Office ( PMO), a senior Cabinet minister and a law officer of the government, besides the Department of Telecommunication in causing an estimated ` 1.76 lakh crore loss to the exchequer in the 2G spectrum scam.
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2G whodunit: Tavera with Rs 4 crore cash stolen, detective called in - Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Indian Express
In the 2G case files lies a mystery — of a driver, a “stolen vehicle with Rs 4 crore cash” and a private detective hired to keep tab and gather evidence. In its supplementary chargesheet, the CBI claims Rs 190 crore was transferred from Cineyug Films to Kalaignar TV in Chennai between January 28 and August 7 in 2009. A Tavera, the CBI says, was used to carry 23 boxes from Anna Arivalayam, headquarters of the DMK and Kalaignar TV office, to a building in nearby Taylors Road. The agency says the Tavera was hired by Greenhouse Promoters to ferry officials of DB Realty Ltd.
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Declare assets, rally donors: Kejriwal tells parties - Virendra Nath Bhatt, Indian Express
Arvind Kejriwal, social activist and a member of the joint committee for drafting of the Lokpal Bill, on Friday asked political parties to declare the assets and donors for their political programmes.
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Kani attended ‘kickback’ meeting - Hindustan Times
Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi's daughter and DMK Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi attended the board meeting of Kalaignar TV in which MD Sharad Kumar was authorised to receive kickbacks Rs 200 crore from Cineyug Films in 2009. The TV channel’s general manager (Finance) G Rajendran told CBI — probing the 2G spectrum scam — that Kanimozhi and Kumar were present as per the minutes of board meeting.
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A matter of prime importance - Anil Dharker, Hindustan Times
'The Prime Minister put himself out there and answered all questions because as an honest man he has nothing to hide.’ That’s a quote from Manish Tewari, Congress spokesman, after Manmohan Singh’s press conference in February this year. As a statement of fact, few would quibble with it, for everyone knows that the PM is a spotlessly clean man. But everything else is wrong with the indefatigable Tewari’s sentence. But let’s not shoot the messenger; he is only repeating what the big man himself said.
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Good omens for rule of law in India - Gurcharan Das, Times of India
The day before Anna Hazare broke his fast, i was in Cairo to present the ‘Indian model' for Egypt's future. After the conference, a few of us wandered off to Tahrir Square, where a massive demonstration had broken out. Through a twist of fate, i found myself suddenly on the podium, offering good wishes to the 37,000 protesters from the people of al-Hind.
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Sell Air India and move forward - Tavleen Singh, Indian Express
Three things that remind me depressingly of the socialist times in which I grew up. The Ambassador car, the Ashoka hotels and Air India. Whenever I encounter these symbols of that dreary old India, I remember the tawdriness of those times. Images come back of surly Indian Airlines hostesses dumping cardboard boxes of stale food in front of me. Memories revive of that smell of lavatories that was ever redolent in the atmosphere of our state controlled airlines and government hotels. As for the Ambassador car, what memories it brings.
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Her kingdom has come - M J Akbar, India Today
Now for the good news. If opinion polls are right, more than 60 per cent of India will be ruled by women of substance from the middle of May. Between them, Sonia Gandhi, Mayawati, Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee could preside over the destiny of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
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NTRO scam: Govt tries to hush up CAG exposure - J Gopikrishnan, Pioneer
A sensational report of the CAG on the functioning of National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), the technical intelligence wing of the Government, has exposed financial swindling, gross violations in the recruiting procedure and plundering of public money by top bosses of the agency. The Government has not tabled the report, classified as “top secret” by the CAG in Parliament, even though the auditor submitted it to President Pratibha Patil a week before the Budget session. This is the first time that a CAG report has been classified as ‘top secret’.
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Cabinet note is not confidential anymore: CIC - Prafulla Marpakwar, Times of India
A cabinet note on the basis of which a council of minister takes a decision and subsequently passes a government resolution is not confidential and anyone can have access to a copy of it under the RTI Act. The verdict was passed on Friday by a full bench of the Maharashtra information commission, presided over by chief information commissioner Vilas Patil.
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India’s foreign policy: a Canadian view - W Pal Sidhu, Live Mint
Commenting on the writing of a friend and former colleague can be a daunting task. But the recently released volume, Does the Elephant Dance? by David M. Malone, president of Canada’s International Development Research Centre and former Canadian high commissioner to India, more than justifies that risk.
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Combat Jet deal: on a wing and a prayer - Sanjaya Baru, Business Standard
Major and strategically important defence purchases have rarely, if ever, been purely technical decisions. In the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru made political choices in opting to seal deals with the British, the Americans and the French. Nehru’s and Indira Gandhi’s switch to the Soviet Union in the early 1960s was a political and strategic decision. In her second stint in the 1980s.
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Dirty tricks of UPA regime - A Surya Prakash, Pioneer
Rather than join the battle against corruption in high places, the Congress-led Government is busy trying to tar the reputation of those leading the campaign. Having survived the scare, the Congress opened its bag of tricks, a few days hence. Anxious to get even with Mr Hazare and his fellow travellers, the party’s leaders picked on individual members of this group. A Commission of Inquiry report, which was gathering dust in Maharashtra, was pulled out to show that Mr Hazare was “tainted” — he had spent, without authorisation, a couple of lakhs of rupees on a birthday celebration.
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Getting Osama: Lessons for India - Saikat Datta, Outlook
Time our security establishment learnt from the systemic changes and reform that has been attempted by the US in the two decades between the disaster in Iran, the 9/11 attack and the subsequent war against terror in Afghanistan.
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Supreme Court stays takeover of Padmanabhaswamy Temple - J Venkatesan, Hindu
The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the judgment of the Kerala High Court directing the State government to immediately take over the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, its assets and management. A Bench of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice A.K. Patnaik, while staying the impugned judgment on a special leave petition filed by Marthanda Varma, gave a series of directions including permitting inventory of articles in the presence of two observers appointed by the court.
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What India can learn from Operation Osama - Gurmeet Kanwal, Hindustan Times
What is the main lesson for India from the spectacular military operation conducted by the CIA and the US Special Forces? Nations that are too moralistic and legalistic in dealing with the complex challenge of state-sponsored terrorism end up as hapless victims. Only covert operations conducted by proactive counter-terrorism agencies can raise the cost for an adversary enough to deter him from launching terror strikes.
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2G: Journalist offers bribe to ED official - Rohini Singh, Economic Times
The Enforcement Directorate, an agency that probes moneylaundering and violations of rules governing use of foreign exchange , has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe an incident in which a journalist is alleged to have approached an officer seeking to intercede on behalf of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia , who has been questioned by investigating agencies probing the socalled 2G scam
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Temper Mohali spirit with Abbottabad realism - G Parthasarathy, Economic Times
Merely having dinner with Yousaf Raza Gilani, who is known to be an army protégé, unlike president Asif Ali Zardari, is hardly going to resolve the problems of terrorism we face. We should temper the Mohali spirit with the realism of what we know from today's events. As far as Americans are concerned, their relationship with Pakistan is one of mutual convenience. With their economy in the shape that it is in, Pakistan cannot survive without American financial aid. With their presence in Afghanistan what it is today, the Americans cannot sustain their troops without logistical support from Pakistan.
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Farmers' new mantra: Got cash, get car! - Sohini Das, Business Standard
As land deals pick up in Gujarat, the farmers or landowners are laughing their way to the banks in their newly bought 'luxury' cars! While Gujarat is fast emerging as a market for luxury cars, farmers in the state as well as people with landbanks are increasingly taking to luxury cars. "They are cash-rich and are opting for premium cars as a status statement", said Paras Somani, executive director, Benchmark Cars, the Mercedes dealer in Ahmedabad.
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Andhra bypolls: Jagan is just unstoppable - G Arun Kumar, Times of India
It's not a question of who will win. The current buzz doing the rounds in Kadapa parliamentary constituency is with how much majority Y S Jaganmohan Reddy will sweep the bypolls. In all, over 13.28 lakh voters will exercise their franchise in the much-touted election on May 8. In what is fast turning out to be one of the most one-sided elections Kadapa has ever witnessed in recent times, Jagan is holding all the aces while his rivals.
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WB polls: Six-course poll spread in tiffin box - Manoj Saunik, The Telegraph
In hundreds of centres in Bengal, the feverish activity that is the process of conducting elections is gathering pace. Thousands of polling, security and other staff have gathered early this May Day morning to receive and check their equipment and materials, meet up with members of their team and the security men and women assigned to each polling team.
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WB polls: Strange winds - Sujan Dutta, The Telegraph
In the fields of green and gold, the paddy is just knee high. There’s a few more weeks to go before the summer’s Boro crop is harvested.At Mankur Ghat by a bend in the Rupnarain, inside the local CPM office, the comrades are worrying over just what it is that they will reap.
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Talks and terrorism can’t co-exist: BJP - Pioneer
Describing Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s elimination as the high point in the global war on terrorism, the BJP on Wednesday suggested New Delhi revisit its policies on Pakistan and reiterated that terror and talks can’t go along hand in hand. The core group of the party — which met on Wednesday to take stock of recent developments in the country and abroad — said the fact that Osama was housed in a mansion close to a Pakistani military academy establishes that the neighbouring country is the epicentre of global terrorism and was harbouring the most wanted international terrorist.
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Talks with Pakistan on course - Jayanth Jacob, Hindustan Times
India's talks with Pakistan will continue, despite the killing of Osama bin Laden just 60 km away from Islamabad by American special forces on Monday morning. Indian government sources described the event as 'sensational' and believe many more terror fugitives could be hiding in Pakistan's terror sanctuaries.
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Wimpish India may lose the great game - Times of India
A week after 9/11, when an angry United States was planning fierce retribution against Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts, General Pervez Musharraf made a televised speech on the choices facing Pakistan. In a rambling address, Musharraf drew inspiration from the early history of Islam. The Prophet, he reminded viewers, had negotiated the Treaty of Hudaibiya with the Quraish of Mecca.
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The uncalled for fascination with Aurangzeb - Francois Gautier, DNA
We all admire William Dalrymple for his writing style, knowledge of India and for making Delhi his home. Yet, his fascination for the Mughals, which already made him write the ‘The Last Mughal’ and ‘White Mughals’, is bizarre, to say the least, as the Mughals were the biggest perpetrators of human rights abuses of their time, not only against Hindus and Sikhs, but even against their own kin.
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State of two states - Rajdeep Sardesai, Hindustan Times
This week, two states, separated at birth, completed their 50th birthday celebrations. While comparing siblings is often best avoided, the journey of Maharashtra and Gujarat offer many lessons for the future. Fifty years ago, Maharashtra was the country's economic powerhouse, benefiting from the colonial legacy of being the heart of the old Bombay state while Gujarat was 'an idea in the making'. Today, on several growth indicators — including an impressive double-digit agricultural growth rate — Gujarat is showing signs of marching ahead, even while Maharashtra is reaching saturation point.
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2G: Telcos paid huge sums to Kanimozhi's NGO - Times of India
If it is a coincidence, it must be quite a remarkable one. CBI told the Supreme Court on Thursday that telecom companies donated crores of rupees to a Chennai-based cultural NGO – with DMK MP Kanimozhi as a director -- days before they got spectrum licences on January 10, 2008 during A Raja's tenure as telecom minister.
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2G: BJP wants CBI to probe Chidambaram’s role - Indian Express
Adding a fresh dimension to its offensive against the UPA on the 2G spectrum issue, the BJP on Thursday demanded that the CBI probe the role of the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram as well. The demand came as the party launched a campaign, hoping to derive political mileage from the Public Accounts Committee report on the 2G spectrum allocation.
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The battle in Bundelkhand, the war in UP - Sudha Pai, Indian Express
Given the political significance of Uttar Pradesh, the campaign for assembly elections due in May 2012 has started gathering strength. It was flagged off by Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav with a three-day state-wide agitation in early March, when he criticised the Bahujan Samaj Party government as corrupt and incompetent, leading to violence and the arrest of many workers and leaders. Recently, the Congress party organised a “parivartan” rally at Banda in Bundelkhand district, addressed not only by Rahul Gandhi but also by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
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Kadapa: Outcome will impact Andhra political dynamics - S Nagesh Kumar, Hindu
Overshadowed by the Assembly elections to five States, for their likely influence on the national politics, are the two by-elections in Andhra Pradesh on May 8 — Kadapa Lok Sabha and Pulivendula Assembly constituencies — whose outcome will be no less significant for their impact on the future political dynamics of the State.
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Leaves of history - Anindita Ghose, Live Mint
Three months ago, when they first visited the Academy of Sanskrit Research in Melkote—a temple town in Karnataka and a historical centre of Sanskrit learning—the resident scholars weren’t particularly welcoming. But persistent inquiries and several trips later, they’re now working on a self-initiated documentary project on the academy’s archives. With more than 6,000 manuscripts in its fold, and 10,000 bodies of work spanning epic literature, general science, history and literature, the archives only whet the photographers’ interest further.
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Raising the bar for India - Business world
Picture this. A state with 5 per cent of India's population and 6 per cent of geographical area accounts for 17 per cent of the country's fixed capital investment; 22 per cent of exports, 42 per cent of pharmaceuticals; 62 per cent of petrochemicals; 65 per cent of plastic industry; and 80 per cent of diamond processing. Gujarat also happens to be the world's largest producer of psyllium husk, fennel seeds and castor; home to the world's largest grassroots petroleum refinery complex.
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Azamgarh, Bihar cliques bring AMU to its knees - Parvaiz Sultan, Pioneer
While everybody prefers remaining tightlipped on the matter, the eerie silence on the campus stands witness to the deep fissures in the university community, which led to the firing among the student groups of Aligarh Muslim University forcing its closure sine die.
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Yashwant Sinha bats for US-like surgical strike - Pioneer
Former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha on Friday strongly batted for a US-like surgical strike on Pakistan, which is sheltering 26/11 attackers, and rejected US’ argument that 9/11 attack was different from that on Mumbai. Sinha, a senior BJP leader, said here on Friday “as and when considered necessary” New Delhi should not hesitate to carry out such an attack (on Pakistan).”
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More to graft than 2G scam - Hiranmay Karlekar, Pioneer
The CAG’s audit of the accounts of Maharashtra’s PSUs and statutory corporations reveals how extensive corruption is in this country. One of the collateral damages caused by gargantuan scams like those associated with the 2G Spectrum allocation and the Commonwealth Games is the sidelining of lesser but significant instances of corruption that, consequently, can be in danger of being buried.
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2G: DMK dumps Raja to save 'first family' - Hindustan Times
Has the DMK, to save supremo M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi, made a deal with itself to dump its Dalit poster boy? Tongues started wagging on Friday as Kanimozhi's lawyer Ram Jethmalani sought to pass the 2G spectrum scam blame on Raja, saying she had no role in it and the conspiracy was hatched by the former telecom minister.
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Kanimozhi shifts blame on Raja - Smriti Singh & Neeraj Chauhan, Times of India
Faced with the prospect of being jailed for alleged complicity in the 2G spectrum scam, Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi is seeking to distance herself from the main accused, former telecom minister A Raja.
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Kanimozhi: The daughter’s turn - Coomi Kapoor, Indian Express
When Kanimozhi, then only 39, emerged on the national scene in June 2007, after being elected to Rajya Sabha on a DMK ticket, she was hailed as a shining example of a Gen-Next politician. Now Kanimozhi has been accused by the CBI of conspiring with Raja so that DB Reality, whose owners are close to the Pawar family, paid Rs 214 crore as kickbacks to Kalaignar TV in return for the allotment of spectrum.
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Kadapa poll: Is Jagan on his way to a thumping win? - Vicky Nanjappa, Rediff News
The political fate of former Kadapa member of Parliament Jagan Mohan Reddy and his mother Vijayalakshmi will be decided with the counting of votes on May 13. Vicky Nanjappa takes stock of the situation at ground zero. At Kadapa, the issue is not about who wins the elections. The primary goal for both the Telegu Desam Party and the Congress is to ensure that they reduce the margin by which Jagan Mohan Reddy wins.
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WB polls: Factory factor - Kinsuk Basu, The Telegraph
If the industry dream is the pivot around which this Bengal election is swinging, nowhere is the see-saw between hope and despair as stark as in the 11 seats in Left citadel Burdwan’s industrial belt. While the Left is holding up the Aerotropolis, the upcoming airport city, as the symbol of hope, Trinamul is banking on the despair over the serial factory closures of the past decade.
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In Battleground: Kadapa - Sreenivas Janyala, Indian Express
Who will come second? That’s a recurring question in Kadapa, the family pocket-borough of late Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, that goes to polls today. On who will come first, there is no debate. In the dusty towns and neo-rich villages of Kadapa, it is a foregone conclusion that YSR’s son Jagan Mohan Reddy will win with a resounding majority.
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India lacks will to confront enemies - Swapan Dasgupta, The Pioneer
The so-called $1 million ‘mansion’ in which Osama bin Laden was holed up in Abbottabad for the past five years looks, to sub-continental eyes at least, more like an ungainly — and most likely unauthorised — construction we are accustomed to seeing on the fringes of our unplanned cities and towns. That the CIA was able to hone in on such a building and observe it undetected for nearly a year is a tribute to its capabilities.
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Jamia's quota for only 'Muslim SCs' sparks row - Subodh Ghildiyal, Times of India
Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University as a minority institution may give a 10% backward class quota to only OBCs and SCs among Muslims. The move has raised the hackles of National Commission for SCs, besides triggering murmurs about its legality. The panel has asked HRD minister Kapil Sibal that reservation to 'Hindu SCs' in admissions and appointments in Jamia should continue unchanged, and the issue be put on hold till a final decision is taken.
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Praful Patel forced Air India to buy excess aircraft - Ajmer Singh, India Today
If Air India's Maharaja is in the red today, one man - Praful Patel - is largely to blame for it. On August 2, 2004, four months after he took over as civil aviation minister, Patel, now the minister for heavy industries, chaired a meeting that decided to inflate Air India's purchase order from the original proposal of 28 aircraft to 68 at a stupendous cost of Rs 50,000 crore.
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Behind Owaisi attack, property rows, land deals - Sreenivas Janyala, Indian Express
Not many people in the old city of Hyderabad were surprised when Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi was attacked on April 30, leaving him to battle for his life in hospital. He is, according to doctors, now out of danger and taken off ventilator.
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Kadapa may upset Cong fate in AP - Pankaj Vohra, Hindustan Times
One election result which could have far reaching ramifications for the Congress in Andhra Pradesh and the government at the Centre is the outcome of the Kadapa Lok Sabha by-poll which features late chief minister YS Rajsekhar Reddy’s (YSR) son YS Jaganmohan Reddy. The parliamentary constituency witnessed heavy polling on Sunday.
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The Prime Minister and the CBI - RK Raghavan, Hindu
In order to give meaning to his reassuring words on the role and duty of the premier investigation agency, the Prime Minister will need to assert himself against many who would not want an autonomous CBI. “… It [the CBI] has always to do what is right and correct. For an investigating agency, there can be only one guiding beacon, only one gold standard, and that is the law of the land. Whoever transgresses it, however mighty, has to be brought to book.”
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Post-PAC row, BJP unlikely to back govt on reforms - Nistula Hebbar, Financial Express
The BJP may have rescued the Pension Bill in the last session of Parliament, but after the standoff between the Congress and the opposition over the draft report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the 2G spectrum scam, all cooperation on key economic reforms seems to be on hold. Speaking at a function to mark Ficci’s national executive, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said it was the Centre’s job to “bring key players on board.”
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“Congress has failed to provide leadership to UPA” - K Balchand, Hindu
Accusing the faction-ridden Congress of failing to provide leadership to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley has apprehended that the drift which has gripped the politico-economic sphere could prove fatal if not stemmed urgently.
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Political cauldron simmers over Noida - Vikash Lata and Bhatta Parsaul, The Pioneer
Absconding Manvir Singh Tewatia is proving to be the biggest stumbling block in the Uttar Pradesh Government’s attempt to control the farmers’ agitation in Gautam Budh Nagar district as political support swelled for him, with former BJP president Rajnath Singh, Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav, Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav and CPM leader Brinda Karat jumping to the support of the agitating farmers.
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Karuna kin confirms Kani’s active KTV role - Rakesh K Singh, The Pioneer
In a major revelation, Chief Financial Officer of Kalaignar TV and a nephew of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, P Amirtham, has told the CBI that DMK MP Kanimozhi, who is an accused in the 2G spectrum scam, was involved in the day-to-day affairs of the company as its founding director.
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Political equations changing in Maharashtra - TN Raghunatha, The Pioneer
The Shiv Sena-BJP combine and Republican Party of India-A (RPI-A) moved closer to forging an alliance for the forthcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) poll, after a crucial interaction that Sena chief Bal Thackeray had with RPI-A leader Ramdas Athawale, here on Monday.
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Decade of spectacular moral failure - Rajiv Dogra, The Pioneer
During the past decade we have seen corruption soar to an unimaginable level in our country. In China, scores would have been put to death for similar crimes. But not so in India where we take a relaxed view and adopt an unhurried approach towards dealing with corruption. Our leaders are more worried about the political consequences of acting against corrupt individuals, not the image of India and its people.
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2G witness points finger at Dayalu - Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, The Telegraph
The CBI may have spared Dayalu Ammal but a prosecution witness in the 2G spectrum case has told the agency that DMK chief M. Karunanidhi’s second wife was present at a meeting that decided to accept an alleged bribe of Rs 200 crore. Kalaignar TV general manager (finance) G. Rajendran said MD “Sharad Kumar and Mrs Karunanidhi”, who holds 60 per cent stake in the channel, attended the February 2009 meeting of the board of directors where they decided to accept the money from scam-accused Shahid Usman Balwa’s DB Realty.
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OK to have Sinha, Jaswant in JPC - Times of India
Congress members on the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G and the telecom policy may have to temper their criticism of the inclusion of former ministers Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha as BJP nominees with Speaker Meira Kumar deciding their eligibility is in order.
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Congress mulls trust move against Joshi as PAC head - Times of India
Congress demanded that Murli Manohar Joshi apologise to Parliament and the Speaker, accusing him of destroying the credibility of Public Accounts Committee with his political utterances. The party is also mulling no-confidence against his leadership of the parliamentary panel.
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Great Noida land acquisition stir: Rahul should have been with Rae Bareli farmers, says Mayawati - Economic Times
In a counter-offensive, UP Chief Minister Mayawati today accused the Centre of not providing due compensation to farmers for Rae Bareli coach factory land and said Rahul Gandhi should have been standing with them and not in Bhatta Parsaul. The Congress reacted sharply saying the land was acquired for a railway project which is in public interest and "not for private builders and developers as was being done by her government.
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UPA for an image makeover after assembly elections - Business Standard
May 13 will unveil a new-look Congres-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Regardless of the outcome in the assembly elections in five states and the Union Territory of Puducherry, the Congress has decided to become more aggressive and not give in to ‘opposition bullying’.
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Don't worry about inequality - Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, Economic Times
If people are totally free, the most talented (and lucky) will get far richer than the dullest and unluckiest. So, freedom will create inequality. Communist countries aimed for equality of outcome through totalitarian controls, but this was hypocrisy: there was no equality of power between those laying down the rules and those forced to obey.
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Mamata Banerjee - one of India's last mass leaders - BBC
Mamata Banerjee is on the cusp of a remarkable political victory, if the latest polling is to be believed. This most resilient of politicians, the leader of the West Bengal's Trinamool Congress (TMC) party, could be about to overturn the communist stronghold in one of India's most populous states. In 2006, the TMC won 10% of the seats in a local assembly election, while the left-wing coalition won nearly 80% of the seats.
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Here, everyone knows Dawood is in Pakistan - S Ahmed Ali, Times of India
Any kid on South Mumbai's Pakmodia Street, where Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar grew up and then moved out after becoming one of the world's most wanted terrorists, knows where he now lives — in a Karachi neighbourhood. "Its a very old story and everybody knows that seth (his underworld alias) is in Karachi. Bhai is in very safe hands there," says Dawood's former neighbour Usman Bhai.
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Road from Taj to Red Fort, thanks to NREGS fraud - Ravish Tiwari, Indian Express
“Agra ke Taj Mahal se Dilly ke Lal Kila tak Sampark Marg.” According to records, this is one of the projects undertaken under NREGS, for which over Rs 1 crore was spent during the last financial year. But inquiries have revealed that there is no such project on the ground. The matter came up during Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain Aditya’s recent visit to Varanasi.
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Sugar politics take a bank down - Geeta Nair, Financial Express
RBI has just superseded the board of directors of Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) after Nabard pointed out numerous irregularities in the bank. This does not make for the best of centenary celebrations, but the MSCB was asking for it the way it was functioning, and RBI had to act to stem the rot.
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Where does power reside? - Vikram Singh Mehta, Times of India
Reflecting on the reports of various committees, public demonstrations and media commentary on corruption over the past months, several contradictory thoughts course through my head and i wonder about the nature of our representative democracy.
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Top netas among Pawar co-op bank defaulters - Prafulla Marpakwar, Times of India
A glance at the list of defaulters of the NCP-controlled Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank finds that sugarcane processing factories and spinning mills controlled by politicians belonging to both Congress and NCP are responsible for the crisis the bank is in. In the name of the cooperative movement, rules have been broken to facilitate institutions controlled by cabinet members or their relatives.
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Tapuria reveals Hasan Ali’s political links - Rebecca Samervel, Times of India
In a statement to Enforcement Directorate that is sure to kick up a controversy, a close aide of Hasan Ali Khan revealed the alleged hawala operator's links to the political class, including two high-profile women politicians from Andhra Pradesh.
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From ‘shy’ to ‘shameless’ politics - S Gurumurthy, Express Buzz
Here is a sample for the extent of anger against the corrupt today. “If you can’t deal sternly with corruption, India will break up like the Soviet Union. We should emulate China and hang highly corrupt people openly at the India Gate.” Who says this? Abhijit Bhattacharya, formerly chief commissioner of customs and excise. A newspaper correspondent, who overheard him saying so to his friend on phone, quoted it in his report. Here is an entry in Abhijit Bhattacharya’s bio.
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Historic win for Trinamool Congress in Bengal - Times of India
The Trinamool Congress on Friday headed for a historic win in West Bengal, bringing down the curtain on the 34-year uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) led Left Front. The Left Front - the longest serving Communist-led government in a democratic set-up headed for a rout.
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Jayalalthaa's AIADMK sweeps state - Times of India
The Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK front forged ahead of its rival the ruling DMK front and is heading for a sweep, according to trends for assembly election in Tamil Nadu. The AIADMK had established leads in over 190 seats in the 234-member House. The ruling DMK front is way behind, leading only in 39 constituencies.
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UDF secures simple majority in Kerala - Business Standard
Congress-led UDF today managed to wrest power from the ruling CPI(M)-controlled LDF in Kerala with a wafer-thin majority of two seats in the 140-member Assembly, in the closest poll battle in the state in three decades. UDF won 72 seats, crossing the magic figure of 71 required for a simple majority as against its rival LDF's 68. Led by CPI-M stalwart, 87-year-old V S Achuthanandan, the LDF succeeded in staving off the anti-incumbency trend against the government, which was reflected in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and civic elections last year, in which the UDF had stolen march over the Left front.
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Assembly election results: Mamata, Jaya on top; mixed bag for Cong in Kerala, Assam - Indian Express
Among the decisive results so far, one was foregone Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, with Congress piggybacking, has ended the 34-year-old rule of the Left Front by a landslide. More surprisingly, J Jayalalithaa's AIADMK has also ruined the hopes of the scam-hit DMK and Congress combine that too, by a landslide. The telecom graft has swept the incumbents out of Tamil Nadu.
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Jantar, Chhu Mantar - Shekhar Gupta, Indian Express
As you savour this election verdict, remember the line that the Jantar Mantar candle-light vigilantes so loved to paint on their Gandhi (Anna) caps: Mera neta chor hai. It was spoken with such vehemence, and so adored by PLUs, that you had to be suicidal to question it.
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Mandate for the future - Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Indian Express
Nothing explodes hubris more effectively than an election. In West Bengal, the Left’s hubris was of a strange kind. The Communist Party had acquired a sense of invulnerability on the basis of its early achievements, its control of the state apparatus, and the street might of its cadres.
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Ashok Gehlot in trouble - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
Why has news of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot being involved in scams surfaced suddenly? On the face of it, the allegations look serious. The Rajasthan government stands accused of giving contracts and assets worth Rs 11,000 crore to firms with financial links to Gehlot’s immediate family: his daughter Sonia and son-in-law Gautam; and son Vaibhav and daughter-in-law Himanshi.
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Summery Executions - Saba Naqvi, Outlook
If we look at these election results through personalities, then we must acknowledge that two solitary and strong women have uprooted entrenched regimes and changed the rules of the political game. The long-expected collapse of the Left happened in Bengal and without much ado. A diminutive woman in a white sari stood tall as the famed citadel of cadres collapsed into dust and haze. The revenge in Tamil Nadu was more unexpected as J. Jayalalitha posted a decisive win over the squabbling, bleeding Karunanidhi clan.
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Jagan's victory a major setback to Congress in AP - Amaranth K Menon, India Today
An electoral triumph with a stunning record margin is enabling Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy position himself strongly as the game changer in Andhra Pradesh. His Yuvajana Sramikaa Rytu (YSR) Congress will emerge as a serious threat to the ruling Congress and Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy as well as the rival TDP and its president N. Chandrababu Naidu hoping for a comeback in the next legislative assembly polls.
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Will Jagan win force Cong hand on Telangana? - Times of India
Will Congress rebel Jaganmohan Reddy's massive win in the Kadapa Lok Sabha bypoll force the party's hand on the statehood demand for Telangana? Congress's average showing in Kerala, losses in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and Jagan's rise in Kadapa has increased the pressure on the party high command manifold as Telangana proponents are waiting in the wings.
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I have majority, no need for trust vote: Yeddyurappa - S Rajendran, The Hindu
“I have the support of a majority of the legislators and there is no need to face another vote of confidence. The BJP government will complete its term and any effort to dislodge it will only boomerang,” Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa told The Hindu here on Saturday. The present strength of the ruling party is 122 in the 224-member Assembly (one seat is vacant following a resignation).
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Advani flags off BJP's Border Darshan yatra - NewsKerala
In order to sensitise countrymen about the security problems of the border areas and people living there, BJP veteran L K Advani today flagged off a unique 'Border Darshan' pilgrimage. "Border Darshan is an effort to focus attention on the areas which have been in the forefront of the country's defence. Border areas like Kashmir and Northeast need special care and we have to ensure our defence preparedness to face challenges emerging from various factors across the border," Mr Advani said at his residence here.
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Clean up the Leftovers - Chanakya, Hindustan Times
Do you remember Prakash Karat during 2004-2008? I certainly do. He and his merry men in bush shirts were here, there and everywhere playing the self-styled role of the UPA’s ‘conscience’ — blocking every reform, rapping all those fleshy bourgeois knuckles and talking about the scourge of market forces
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BSY fends off another challenge from rebels - Times of India
Chief minister B S Yeddyurappa seems to be safe yet again with 10 of 11 BJP rebel MLAs agreeing to return to the party fold. The deal with the rebels was settled less than 24 hours after the SC quashed Speaker K G Bopaiah's order of disqualifying 16 MLAs, including five independents. Soon after the verdict was out on Friday, there was a big question mark over the survival of the first BJP government in Karnataka.
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As public anger increases, corruption falls - S A Aiyar, Times of India
The electoral debacle of the DMK-Congress in Tamil Nadu highlights public disgust with corruption , and underpins the Anna Hazare anti-graft crusade. But is corruption really worsening, or is the public simply angrier about it? Most survey data suggest, surprisingly , that corruption has been declining . Crooked politicians look enormously richer than ever before. Corruption has surely skyrocketed in real estate, natural resources and government contracts. But it has disappeared in deregulated areas like industrial and import licensing and foreign exchange.
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Debunking six myths about Narendra Modi - Chetan Bhagat, Times of India
A few weeks ago, i wrote on Gujarat and Narendra Modi. It attracted more comments than any of my columns in two years. In the thousand-odd comments , there was a high degree of misconception, exaggeration and misunderstanding. I have no reason to keep writing on Modi. But considering he is such a touchy issue in Indian politics, i'd like to bust the six Modi myths floating around. The anti-Modi myth number one is that he is akin to Hitler. Comparing the CM to possibly one of the most evil leaders on earth makes sensational copy, but is not factually correct.
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The Congress continues to subvert the system - Express Buzz
While professional sceptics may dismiss BJP’s allegations of Centre’s discrimination against non-UPA ruled states as political hyperbole, the Congress does have a long history of cutting its nose to spite the face of its political rivals. Meeting in Delhi last week, the chief ministers of seven BJP-ruled states and senior ministers of the two NDA-ruled states quoted numerous instances of discriminations by the Centre against their respective governments. According to them, the Centre’s hostility towards them is so brazen that it has brought our federal polity under strain.
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The big winner? Not Mamata or Jaya - T J S George, Express Buzz
Election Commissions and voting machines can only tell us a superficial kind of truth. The substantive, eternal truth is that those who win are not always the winners, and those who lose are not necessarily the real losers. Never was this eternal truth more dramatically brought out than in the latest round of assembly elections in five states. Look behind the headlines to know who are the real winners and losers. The biggest winners are not Mamata Banerjee and Jayalalithaa.
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Bhardwaj plays Rambo - Kestur Vasuki, The Pioneer
In an outrageous move that roughshod over Constitutional norms and made a mockery of well-laid judicial pronouncement, Karnataka Governor HS Bhardwaj on Sunday night recommended imposition of President rule in the State invoking sharp protest from Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa, his party and Constitutional experts. Livid over the Governor’s action, the BJP had decided to go on offensive. The BJP will parade all its MLAs, 121, from Karnataka before President Pratibha Patil on Monday evening. The party will also press for recall of the Governor.
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Is Kannur going the Bengal way for CPM? - VR Jayaraj, The Pioneer
Is Kannur, known as Kerala's Marxist heartland, going the West Bengal way as far as the CPI(M) is concerned? The huge setback the party and the LDF suffered in Kannur district in the election to the 13th State Assembly will figure prominently in the poll post-mortem in the CPI (M) and some top leaders will be required to do a lot of explaining.
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Sweet revenge for Rangasamy - The Pioneer
All India NR Congress founder N Rangasamy, whose party made a stunning electoral debut in alliance with AIADMK to dethrone his former party Congress in the Assembly elections, is likely to be sworn in as Puducherry Chief Minister on Monday. However, there is no clarity as yet on whether 61-year-old Rangasamy would head a coalition Government or not. AINRC had won 15 seats and the AIADMK five in the 30-member Assembly.
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Left discord grows - Hindustan Times
Following its worst electoral debacle, discordant voices within the Left parties appeared to be growing louder ahead of the crucial meeting of top CPI(M) leadership on Monday, which is likely to be skipped by its one time poster boy and outgoing West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
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Manmohan, Sonia responsible for corruption, scams: Gadkari - Atiq Khan, The Hindu
Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari has blamed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi for the corruption in the country. Addressing the closing session of the one-day All-India Lawyers' Conference organised by the legal and legislative cell of the BJP here on Sunday, he accused the Congress-led UPA government of using the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as an instrument to frighten and browbeat alliance partners and political opponents.
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Unpredictable front - Paul Zacharia, Indian Express
When Jabberwocky said, “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe/ All mimsy were the borogoves,” he was inadvertently summing up the scenario in Kerala after the election results. Nothing makes sense.
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Making things work in Bengal - Abhijit Banerjee, Indian Express
A prominent leader closely connected to the Left told me something to the effect of, “I am not sure Buddha (Chief Minister Bhattacharjee) knows what he is doing — the middle classes love him now, but they will abandon him the moment anything goes wrong — on the other hand, cultivating big industrialists costs us with the people who have always been with the Left”.
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Reaping the change - Ronojoy Sen, The Times Of India
The Trinamool Congress's sweep of West Bengal, with due apologies to Jayalalithaa and Tarun Gogoi, is the biggest story of the assembly elections. Beginning with the 2008 panchayat polls followed by the 2009 Lok Sabha election, the groundswell in favour of the Trinamool had been steadily building.
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Karnataka governor acting at behest of PM: Jaitley - The Times Of India
In response to the Karnataka governor's missive to the President, chief minister B S Yeddyurappa on Sunday sent a letter to Pratibha Patil, expressing apprehension of the governor recommending President's rule. "Any such attempts would amount to subverting the democratic process and such attempts should not be encouraged," the CM wrote.
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UP land acquisition: Let villagers keep their lands; development be damned! - Veeresh Malik, Moneylife
What started as a difference on land acquisition prices, and village landowners wanting to go back on pre-negotiated contracts after development has reached their doorsteps, is now being given a political colour in the name of villagers losing their land. What is, essentially a land acquisition issue of the sort where multiple issues have raised expectations, has grown rapidly into another political side-show which moves into the la-la land of election theories and made for television situations.
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SC judgment quashing disqualification of BJP MLAs erroneous: Arun Jaitley - DNA
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley today said the Supreme Court judgment quashing disqualification of 11 BJP MLAs is "erroneous" as it is based on the premise that they only wanted to replace the chief minister but did not want the government to fall.
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Regional, the new national - Tuhin A Sinha, Times of India
Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala - states where assembly election results have just been announced - account for 115 of India's 543 Lok Sabha seats. Add Bihar, where elections took place just six months ago, to this list and the total number of Lok Sabha seats thus covered goes up to 155, a bit less than 30% of the total seats.
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Red-faced over Bhardwaj, Centre sits on his report - Maneesh Chhibber, Indian Express
Even as the Congress upped the ante over the issue of continuation of the B S Yeddyurappa-led BJP government in Karnataka, the Centre is believed to be of the view that Governor H R Bhardwaj’s recommendation of President’s rule has little Constitutional grounding.
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Congress may join Bengal govt, Trinamool to keep Railways - Indian Express
The Congress is likely to join the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal, although the modalities are yet to be worked out. The Trinamool Congress was reported to have offered two Cabinet berths and two Ministers of State to the Congress, according to party sources.
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National intelligence gridlock: Home fires SOS to PM - Indian Express
The Home Ministry has informed the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that any further delay in establishing the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) could have serious repercussions for the country’s internal security. Raghu Raman, the NATGRID CEO, will demit office on May 31 after 18 unfruitful months without the CCS taking any decision on either the grid or the umbrella National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC).
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Reading Amma’s mind - A.R. Venkatachalapathy, Indian Express
Penguin had timed the release of a biography of J. Jayalalithaa to coincide with the declaration of election results. Publishers are not psephologists. Nor are Indian biographers the most insightful on public figures. That Jayalalithaa went to the Chennai high court just before it went on vacation, effectively scuttling its publication, probably tells us more about her than what the biography itself could have.
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Rahul tries to do a Singur in UP - Pioneer
In his new avatar as farmers’ leader, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday and apprised him of the atrocities being committed by the Uttar Pradesh Government on agitating farmers of Greater Noida. “People are being killed, women raped and houses are being destroyed. The situation is very bad,” Rahul said after emerging from his meeting with the PM.
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Mamata’s historic victory will hasten Left’s end: Advani - Pioneer
Senior BJP leader LK Advani on Monday congratulated Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee for her triumph in the West Bengal polls and said the "historic" win will hasten the end of communism in India. In his latest blog posting, Advani also lauded AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa's victory in Tamil Nadu Assembly elections and said her victory has proved that the Indian voter is concerned about corruption.
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Ratan Tata scripts Bengal return - Sutanuka Ghosal & Tamal Sengupta, Economic Times
The Tatas are understood to have written a 'general letter' to West Bengal's chief minister-in-waiting, Mamata Banerjee seeking her cooperation in matters of investment to be made by them in this state. The letter apparently has also said that the Tatas do not have any objection towards making fresh investments in West Bengal. The existence of such a letter and its receipt was confirmed to ET, by a very senior Trinamool Congress leader requesting anonymity.
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CM again, Jaya rolls out sops for aam admi - Economic Times
AIADMK leader J. Jayalalithaa Monday became Tamil Nadu's chief minister for the third time since 1991, and immediately unleashed a barrage of sops for women and others from the poor families. Back at Fort St. George, which houses the government secretariat, one of her first decisions was to order 20 kg of free rice for the poor and 35 kg for the very poor through the public distribution system.
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Jayalalithaa's victory will impact national politics: Narendra Modi - Hindu
The impact of the Tamil Nadu Assembly election results will not be restricted to the State but extend to national politics, said BJP leader and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday. Talking to journalists at a hotel in the city, he said the one positive thing emerging out of these elections was the shaping of bipolar politics in the country.
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Why bribery didn’t pay - Sushila Ravindranath, Financial Express
As the results have turned out in Tamil Nadu, it seems likely that Jayalalithaa and her AIADMK would have romped home even if she hadn’t promised to outdo rival DMK’s record in dishing out freebies. People wanted change and they have got it. The ruling party and the many pundits seem to have underestimated the angry public. No longer can anybody accuse the Tamil Nadu voter of being somebody waiting to be bought.
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In Bofors era, Hasan Ali got a huge kickback - Rebecca Samervel, Times of India
Hasan Ali Khan, said to be the country's biggest tax evader, had made a killing as a consultant when he had earned a commission of US $ 11.5 million for a Boeing deal with Air India in 1986-87.
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Losing face, finding some faces - D K Singh, Indian Express
On May 13, after the assembly election results, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee showed up at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi to deliver a message: that it was a verdict for “stability” and the opposition should make no further attempt to destabilise the government at the Centre.
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Left loses another minority face, CPI leader joins IUML - Shaju Philip, Indian Express
CPI national executive council member M Rahmathulla on Tuesday quit the party and immediately embraced the Indian Union Muslim League, an ally of the Congress — the latest in a series of minority leaders to leave the Communist parties in Kerala.
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'Muslims voting along community lines worrying' - Times of India
With Muslims polarizing in favour of religious outfits in Assam and Kerala elections, a key author of Sachar report has sounded the alarm that mainstream parties have to step in to check the "unfortunate" trend.
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After the fact - Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Indian Express
A potent mix of high inflation and land conflicts is haunting Indian politics. Most of the intellectual and political energy is being expended on what we do after the problem has acquired disconcerting proportions. There is relatively little discussion on how we could prevent the problem from acquiring such momentum in the first place.
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Losing face, finding some faces - D K Singh, Indian Express
On May 13, after the assembly election results, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee showed up at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi to deliver a message: that it was a verdict for “stability” and the opposition should make no further attempt to destabilise the government at the Centre. The Congress was emphatically returned to power in Assam, it registered a back-from-the-brink victory in Kerala, and its ally, Trinamool Congress, led a sweep in West Bengal.
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SC not right: Experts - Satya Prakash, Hindustan Times
As the BJP criticised the Supreme Court judgement reversing disqualification of 11 BJP MLAs as "erroneous", legal experts on Tuesday said the court was not right in basing its verdict on the premise that the MLAs only wanted to replace the chief minister, but did not want the government to fall.
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Panel secret note talks of controlling media, politicians - Prasad Nichenametla, HT
The Telangana crisis is back to haunt the Congress and the question that the UPA leadership will now face on a secret note in the Srikrishna Committee's report will bring more embarrassment. Though the committee's report was made public in December offering six options for the state, an all-important note on law and order and internal security dimensions (Chapter 8) was withheld from the public view, with a copy submitted in sealed cover to the home ministry.
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Polls 2011: You can’t fool all the people all the time - Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, DNA
The Left Front leaders in Bengal, from the very outset, were Marxist only in name, misusing a borrowed ideology to claim they speak for the disadvantaged classes; but finally, as the state went bankrupt, they could no longer fob off the people with tall promises, writes author and historian Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri.
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Dejected Guv to seek floor test; may quit - Kumar Uttam/Kestur Vasuki, Pioneer
Bhardwaj wants to get out of K’taka for Union Cabinet berth. Isolated Karnataka Governor HR Bhardwaj has finally buckled under pressure from all quarters and has invited Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa for a meeting in Bangalore on Wednesday. Bhardwaj is now expected to accept Yeddyu-rappa’s request to convene a session of the State Assembly and allow him to take a floor test to prove his majority.
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UP land stir: Smoke shrouds Rahul Gandhi’s ash claim - Pritha Chatterjee & Pragya Kaushika, Indian Express
A day after Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi escalated his fight against the Mayawati government by making the startling claim that women of Bhatta Parsaul had been raped and that there were 74 mounds with bodies inside, not one person in the two villages stepped forward to back the claim. Some said that they had “heard of such claims” but the general refrain was: the “police beat us up”.
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Jagan fear 'haunts' Andhra CM Kiran Reddy - B Krishna Prasad, Times Of India
Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has complained to AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad that two of his ministers were leaking information to YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and sought permission to remove them from his cabinet. Highly placed sources told TOI that it was because of these two ministers that Kiran Kumar Reddy did not hold the cabinet meeting that was scheduled for May 16.
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Bhatta-Parsaul: did Rahul mislead PM? - Divya Iyer, IBN Live
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi seems to have misled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the nation on alleged rape and killings at Bhatta-Parsaul. A CNN-IBN report finds that several of Rahul's claims are not backed by evidence.
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Yeddyurappa has massive majority, I won’t resign - First Post
Bangalore: After triggering a major controversy recommending President’s rule, Governor H R Bhardwaj today said the BJP government in Karnataka enjoyed a massive majority, but Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa still gunned for his removal.
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Arms, skeletons tumble out of two CPM offices - Koushik Dutta, Hindustantimes
Arms recovery from CPM party offices and from other places continued on Wednesday. Besides a huge amount of illegal fire arms and ammunition that were recovered from West Midnapore, East Midnapore and Bankura district, two skeletons were recovered from Kansabati river bed near Midnapore town, about 110 km to the southwest from Kolkata. After the Assembly election results were announced leading to the exit of the 34-year old Left rule in Bengal, there has been a spate of instances where villagers in districts such as West Midnapore and Hooghly have reported of arms being concealed in different places.
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Raja asked for crores from Tatas for hospital in constituency, got nothing - Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Indian Express
The period when 2G spectrum was to be provided to companies, then Telecom Minister A Raja wrote a series of letters to Tata Sons Chairperson Ratan Tata and other officials pushing the group to donate Rs 51 crore for a proposed medical college in his parliamentary constituency Perambalur.
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Why ‘Rahulji thoda confuse ho gaye honge’ - Pritha Chatterjee, Indian Express
Still searching for answers to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s claims about “dead bodies inside” ash heaps and “rape” of women in Bhatta Parsaul, residents of the two villages seemed all the more bewildered today after the party said “he had seen a large 70-foot (diameter) ash pile” during his visit last week.
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JPC’s Chacko guns for Soli Sorabjee - The Pioneer
Led by Congress member PC Chacko, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G spectrum scam has begun a political witch hunt by straightaway taking up the NDA Government’s Cabinet decision of 1999 on the announcement of new telecom policy and summoned the then Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee.
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Centre mulls special Mahadalit category - Usha Srivastava, The Pioneer
In a step which can have a major bearing on Dalit politics in the country and challenge Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s undisputed hold over her caste people, the Centre is likely to carve out a special Mahadalit category and include them in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) segment.
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Tasks that can wait no more - V.R. Krishna Iyer, Hindu
During the War years, the British imperialists seemed to have managed India's petroleum economy better than the agents of socialist verbomania and authoritarian sophistry are able to do now. The Union government is forsaking the masses and their basic freedom of movement and right to life as promised in the Constitution.
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Hindus voting against UDF worries Chandy - Indrani Bagchi, Times of India
Kerala politics has functioned for long on minority consolidation and a positive Hindu vote, sources here said. This was the first time the state witnessed a Hindu consolidation, and in favour of the LDF. That has been an eye-opener in more ways than one, colouring political movements in recent weeks.
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Memories of Q in Kim Davy ‘botch-up’ - Udayan Namboodiri, Pioneer
It’s a time-tested trick played by our police whenever the rich and powerful are to be protected in a criminal case. Dilute the charge-sheet. Or, file a strong chargesheet and then ensure that during the proceedings (when media attention has moved away) important documents or pieces of evidence are not produced or fudged. There’s an old yarn in the country’s lower courts which goes like this: “Better than the best defense lawyer is a helpful prosecutor.” The Kim Davy extradition case is a replay of this old tradition.
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Andhra CM demands action against Jagan loyalists - Pioneer
After the detractors of Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, it was the turn of his supporters to become active in the State Congress and demand action by the party high command. Chief Minister Reddy and some of his supporters have urged the party high command for action against at least two Ministers who were reportedly in cahoots with Congress bete noire YS Jaganmohan Reddy, highly placed sources said.
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An insane decision - Anuradha Dutt, Pioneer
Can a person guilty of sedition participate in policy-making? The Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and his Cabinet colleagues have decided to boycott Planning Commission meetings in protest against the nomination of Binayak Sen, physician and human rights activist, to the Commission’s steering committee on health. This is because Binayak Sen has been convicted of sedition by a Raipur sessions court on December 24, 2010.
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Wikileaks: US pushed for Pasha's India visit - Nirupama Subramanian, Hindu
After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the United States urged Pakistan's highest officials to send the Inter-Services Intelligence chief to India, in order to demonstrate their seriousness in cooperating with New Delhi in the investigations.
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Wikileaks: ‘We have some contacts with bad guys and perhaps one of them did it' - Suresh Nambath, Hindu
While denying that Inter-Services Intelligence had a hand in the 2008 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan's National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, admitted to his Indian counterpart M.K. Narayanan that Pakistan had contacts with “bad guys” and “one of them” could have carried out the attack.
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Wikileaks: ‘If Mumbai attack suspects in Pakistan are freed, India is at fault' - A Srivathsan, Hindu
United States officials were worried about the possibility that the top three Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants arrested by Pakistan in connection with the 26/11 Mumbai attacks could be acquitted and let free by the court for want of evidence. They complained that New Delhi was at fault in this, as despite repeated interventions by the U.S. government at “several levels,” it had not shared “certified evidence” with Pakistan.
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It’s in the numbers - Soli J Sorabjee, Indian Express
Karnataka Governor HR Bhardwaj’s persistence in preventing Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa from substantiating his claim of majority support by convening a session of the assembly is a grave constitutional impropriety.
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South India gives Congress an ominous diagnosis - Joe A Scaria, ET
Campaign managers of India's grand old party who criss-crossed southern states during April and May when four of them went to the polls, now have the report card in hand - and it doesn't look pretty: Decimated in Tamil Nadu, diminished in Kerala, embarrassed in Puducherry, and thrashed in the two by-polls in Andhra Pradesh. For the UPA government that looks ahead to the 2014 election, the portents are ominous, say political observers.
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UPA courts trouble with BPL census - Sanjiv Shankaran, Live Mint
India has embarked on an exercise to identify the poor that will in reality end up choosing who will be eligible for benefits and who won’t, an outcome that could be controversial.
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The pending raj - Shankkar Aiyar, Express Buzz
It is that time of the year when the United Progressive Alliance celebrates survival. In this mid-summer madness, hosannas will be offered to reigning deities, the drubbing in the recent polls will be classified as a 3/5 triumph and defeat will be applauded as victory. It is that occasion when ministers, mandarins and mahamantris will define existence as an achievement even as apparatchiks project pious intent as beneficial outcome. As the drum beaters put up tablets of command performance.
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Politics of antagonism will murder our democracy - Prabhu Chawla, Express Buzz
The survival of democracy depends on dialogue and debate. Sadly, the Indian democratic system is being subverted by the very individuals who are expected to hold healthy discussions to resolve contentious issues. The picture of a chief minister seeking justice from the president of India against the atrocities unleashed by a nominee of the Rashtrapati Bhawan defines the impending collapse of India’s institutional framework.
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The dramatic fall of the Left citadel - Mahesh Rangarajan, DNA
The end of nearly three and a held decades of the Marxist-led coalition government in West Bengal is a milestone for politics in India and Asia. Jyoti Basu was sworn in as chief minister a year before Deng Xiao Ping emerged as the major power in China’s ruling Communist Party and embarked on a programme of market-led reform. But India, unlike China, is a democracy.
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Eager Bhardwaj ruins India’s self-esteem - Subhash Kashyap, Pioneer
A Governor is supposed to defend and uphold the might of the Constitution of India in his State. But HR Bhardwaj has joined a long line of Congress political fixers out to revive personal careers by demolishing the spirit of law.
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Meanwhile, in UP, Rahul’s energies backfire - Tavishi Srivastava, Pioneer
A child of privilege, with infinitesimal experience of agro India, suddenly decided to take upon himself the burden of protecting farmers. Rahul Gandhi this week tasted bitter humble pie, but not before deepening his party’s crisis in UP. The Congress is now desperate to re-establish itself in the politically volatile state of Uttar Pradesh. The party’s national general secretary ‘Yuvraj’ Rahul Gandhi has taken over the onus of steering his party to power in the coming Vidhan Sabha elections in 2012, and so he does not lose a single opportunity to play newer and newer forms of ridiculous politics.
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Why RTE remains a moral dream - Krishna Kumar, Hindu
The law provides a five-year window to its implementation but the dream it legislated looks as elusive now as it did when the countdown started. Like the majority of India's children, the Right to Education (RTE) Act has completed its first year facing malnourishment, neglect and routine criticism. A year after it was notified as law, the right to elementary education remains a dream.
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Wikileaks: How India kept Kashmir out of US Af-Pak envoy's brief - Mukund Padmanabhan, Hindu
Weeks before the Obama administration appointed Richard Holbrooke as the Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, New Delhi sent an unequivocal message to the United States that any move to include India in his brief would be “unacceptable.”
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Delhi disconnect - Shekhar Gupta, Indian Express
The rise of regional parties and leaders is no longer news. Last week’s results have brought in two phenomenally strong single-state leaders, Mamata Banerjee and J. Jayalalithaa. A third has risen too, Jaganmohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, though that has passed under the radar a bit, thanks to the overwhelming noise of the bigger upheavals elsewhere. So, what’s the news, if the rise and rise of regional leaders is an old story?
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Arrested, but still wanted - Pranab Dhal Samanta, Indian Express
This was a disaster waiting to happen — the CBI’s most wanted list, based on red corner notices, being exposed for its inaccuracies and outdated information. But the embarrassment of this happening with a terror list handed over to Pakistan compounds the problem. The only good part of the story is that there has so far been no clumsy cover-up attempt.
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‘Lucky child’ brings misfortune to party - Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan Times
Kanimozhi was DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s favourite child — among his six children from three wives. “She brought me luck,” he would say — because he became chief minister of Tamil Nadu a year after she was born. But on Friday, as his 43-year-old daughter was led to Delhi’s Tihar Jail, Karunanidhi, 87, could hardly say anything. Once the daughter who brought luck to her father, Kanimozhi’s metamorphosis as the harbinger of the DMK’s downfall seemed complete, believe many party leaders who also feel sorry for the patriarch.
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Cong: responsibility must be fixed in 'most wanted' fiasco - Mahendra Kr Singh, TOI
Embarrassed by the goof-up in preparing the "most wanted" list, Congress on Friday termed the matter "serious" and said it should be investigated and accountability fixed. Stressing that the Congress did not condone the mistake that has left the government terribly embarrassed, party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the government and relevant departments were "serious and earnestly looking into the matter" to prevent recurrence.
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DMK tests Cong's coalition compulsion, quits govt - Rajeev Deshpande, Times of India
"No options" is how a senior Congress leader responded when asked to assess DMK's choices after arrest of party supremo M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi. A fit of pique will deepen the southern party's alienation and its best bet is to stick to its perch at the Centre, he said firmly. Kanimozhi's arrest and subsequent journey to Tihar as an accused in the 2G scam is not an unanticipated development for DMK and the party was resigned to the eventuality.
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A woman by any other name... - Sunanda K Datta-Ray, Business Standard
Most people thought West Bengal’s new chief minister was getting her he, she and it confused when she blurted out “I am a simple man.” Poor thing, Mamata Banerjee’s well-wishers (which means all the world and his wife since everyone loves a winner) explained, she meant sadharon manush, aam admi, a person rather than a man. After all, her “Maa, Mati, Manush … Mother, Earth, Humans” slogan embraces everybody.
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Modi to Centre: “change anti-Gujarat mentality” - Manas Dasgupta, The Hindu
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hit out at the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre and advised it to change its “anti-Gujarat mentality” for the overall benefit of the nation. Mr. Modi claimed that the Centre provided 90 per cent grant to other States for irrigation projects if it were to cover arid zones, but the same criterion was not followed for Gujarat.
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NAC for 100% land acquisition by govt - Financial Express
With Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee resigning from the Union Cabinet to take over as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) today completely sidelined her objections against government role in land acquisition — even for private industry.
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Congress popularity dips: Survey - Express Buzz
On the eve of Congress-led UPA II government entering its third year in office, a nationwide survey found a big dip in the Grand Old Party’s popularity across the country. People also saw the UPA as the most corrupt government since Independence and wanted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take responsibility for the 2G spectrum scam.
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Narasimha Rao faced opposition from Cong on relations with Israel: Advani - IE
Senior BJP leader L K Advani today said former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao had faced opposition from his Congress colleagues on establishing diplomatic relations with Israel as they feared this would affect their minority votebank. In his latest blog posting, Advani praised Rao for establishing relations with Israel which was "fortified immensely during the six years of Vajpayee's NDA regime.
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Wikileaks: When in power, people start making money, Maran told US Consul General in 2008 - Suresh Nambath, Hindu
The estranged DMK MP spoke about party's corrupt image & predicted its downfall; criticised ‘freebies'; praised Rahul Gandhi; was ‘very downbeat' about United Progressive Alliance's electoral prospects. Consul General David T Hopper, in a cable dated February 23, 2008 accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks [142702: confidential], informed the US State Department that Mr Maran predicted that in Tamil Nadu the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its partners “would lose about half of their [Lok Sabha] seats if things continue as they are.
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UPA government rejects Bhardwaj report - Smita Gupta, Hindu
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government decided late on Sunday night to reject Karnataka Governor HR Bhardwaj's report recommending the dismissal of the Yeddyurappa-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in that State.
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Centre snubs Bhardwaj for flawed report - Pioneer
The curtain has finally come down on the Karnataka political drama with the Centre snubbing Karnataka Governor HS Bhardwaj’s by rejecting his recommendation to impose President’s rule in the State. A late night meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, discussed the Governor recommendation in the light of Home Ministry follow up report, and did not support the Governor’s view of Constitutional crisis in Karnataka.
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‘Jaya must not let Sasikala control the government’ - Nitish K Singh, The Sunday Guardian
I am satisfied that the DMK has been ousted from power in Tamil Nadu. The 2G scam was a big scam and Tamilians have been greatly affected by it, as most of the accused are Tamilians. It has given a bad name to Tamil people. However, the new Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa should know that the people of Tamil Nadu have chosen her after being fed up with the corruption of the DMK government.
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How Kanimozhi got here: Notes from 2G scam trial court - Vinod K Jose, Firstpost
When I met Kanimozhi in January, while researching a profile of her father for Caravan magazine, she was reading an issue of Granta, a London-based literary magazine praised for high-brow literary taste. Not something that one associates with an Indian parliamentarian. This week, at the 2G trial in the Special Court of the Central Bureau of Investigation in Delhi, she had in her hand filmmaker Pradeep Kishan’s botanical catalogue.
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Explain delay on mercy petitions, SC tells Govt - Abraham Thomas, Pioneer
The Government’s discretion to delay decision on mercy petitions has met the first serious challenge with the Supreme Court preparing ground to examine delay to decide on the plea for pardon filed by a murder convict, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar. On Monday, a Vacation Bench of Justices GS Singhvi and CK Prasad expressed “surprise” over the eight-year delay in disposal of the mercy pleas.
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UPA warms up to Ramdev: tax chief briefs him, Kamal Nath vows support - Amitav Ranjan,Milind Ghatwai, Express India
nna Hazare’s fast at Jantar Mantar forced an embarrassed UPA to set up an unprecedented joint committee to draft the Lokpal Bill. But when it comes to Baba Ramdev’s fast against corruption — planned from June 4 — the government is taking some pre-emptive action to keep the yoga guru in good humour.
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Sharad Pawar upset over Congress' graft drive - Poornima Joshi, India Today
The most worried member of the UPA-II after DMK's utter humiliation in A Raja and now Kanimozhi's arrest is NCP supremo and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar. The Maratha strongman is believed to have recently sought an audience with NDA's acting chairman LK Advani.
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Coalition dharma: No mamata for Telangana - Pioneer
AP bifurcation may trigger Gorkhaland trouble for powerful Congress ally. Even as Telangana supporters have threatened to go on the warpath again, the Centre has decided to shelve the demand for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh fearing it could trigger trouble for fledgling Mamata Banerjee Government by reviving demand for creation of Gorkhaland. “It will be suicidal for the Government to agree to Telangana at a time when the Mamata Banerjee Government was trying to bring back normalcy in West Bengal,” said a top Government official.
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Ramesh’s IIT-IIM barb kicks up storm - Moushumi Basu, Pioneer
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s controversial remark on the quality of the faculty members of the IIT and IIM has triggered major row with outraged professors pouring their feeling on cyber net work and in public. The faculty members of the nation’s prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) have also received support from Ramesh own colleague, Minister of State for Science and Technology Ashwani Kumar, as well as the main Opposition BJP. The Congress on the other hand chose to play safe by distancing itself from the acerbic Minister.
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50 dead in 25 days: A bloody May in Chattisgarh Red zone - Supriya Sharma, ToI
A burst of light machine gun fire rips apart the bodies of nine policemen; a vehicle carrying CRPF jawans is lifted in the air by a powerful explosion, seven jawans die; another landmine blast waylays a wedding baraat, killing six of the groom's family, including a four year old child. May has been a bloody month in terms of Maoist violence. Within 25 days, 50 lives have been lost in or around Chhattisgarh.
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Food Bill proposal stuck in low yield - Seema Sindhu, Pioneer
The Government may be planning to pass the Food Security Bill in the next session of Parliament, but the Food Ministry has warned against the attempt to broadbase the category of beneficiaries as recommended by the National Advisory Council (NAC). Sources said the Food Ministry has communicated to the Planning Commission that NAC’s demand to give legal entitlement to both priority (below poverty line) and general category is “unrealistic” considering the current production trend.
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Juta son of Moja, ABVP son of BJP to revive Rahul’s Youth Congress - D K Singh, IE
Member's name Roti, son of Sabzi; Pani, son of Jal; Sunil Saetty, father’s name Shilpa Saetty; Juta, offspring of Moja; Pila, from Nila — when Rahul Gandhi went on a talent hunt with his massive Youth Congress membership drive, look who all he found. These were among the names on the IYC website of all its new members in Madhya Pradesh — till The Indian Express went to the AICC secretary in-charge of the Youth Cong, Jitendra Singh, with the list on Tuesday.
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In UP strategy, BJP sets sights on savarna votes it won & lost - Vandita Mishra, IE
With parties kicking up dust ahead of the battle for Uttar Pradesh in 2012, elements of the BJP’s poll strategy are already apparent. In a state that is the last holdout of political fragmentation in the Hindi heartland after Nitish’s landslide victory in Bihar encouraged hopes of blurring caste faultlines even in that chronically fissured state, the BJP is preparing to focus on winning back the savarna, read Brahmin, vote.
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Can't brush aside Shunglu panel, PM tells ministries - Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
The central government ministries will not be able to push the recommendations of Shunglu Committee on Commonwealth Games under the carpet without apprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about it. They will have to convince him on why they don't agree with the recommendations.
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Study ranks India next only to Pakistan, Malaysia in rigidness - Jacob P Koshy, Mint
A team of psychologists has a theory as to why some countries ban controversial books at the drop of a hat and others are more accepting of, say, same-sex marriages. A study published in this week’s edition of Science journal says cultures with a history of war, famine and ecological distress are “tight”, or less tolerant of infraction.
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BJP tears into Cong defence on Afzal mercy - Pioneer
The BJP on Friday questioned the “jumping of the queue” by President Pratibha Patil in rejecting the mercy petitions of two convicts on death row and accused the UPA Government of misrepresenting facts in saying it would take up each case according to the sequential order. The Congress hit back accusing the BJP of playing politics on a sensitive issue.
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Blame it on CBI - easiest dog to whip - J Gopikrishnan, Pioneer
In a week of “goof-ups” with “mistaken identities” and “expired warrants”, the CBI has emerged the likely suspect. But it is time one looked beyond these failures and identified the surrounding issues — if we are interested, that is. Among police forces the world over, it could be said that India’s Central Bureau of Investigation enjoys — or suffers, depending on your point of view — the greatest amount of public scrutiny.
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UPA on road to nowhere - Bharat Bhushan, India Today
There are still three years left for the next General Election, yet political chatter everywhere is about instability and whether the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will last its full term. An uneasy sense of drift is apparent in governance giving rise to some anxiety over developments in the polity. Much of such speculation comes from the ranks of the Opposition whose leaders, both aging and young, see Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi as interlopers.
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Mining barons who changed BJP's fate, and theirs too - N D Shiva Kumar, Times of India
Raised as sons of a police constable, the political and financial growth of Reddys resembles a fairytale. The trio - G Karunakara Reddy, G Somashekara Reddy and G Janardhan Reddy - had a normal childhood of a middle-class family with an ordinary academic career.
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L-G puts Afzal ball in PC’s court - Rajesh Kumar, Pioneer
Khanna sent back mercy file to MHA endorsing SC’s order months ago. The blame for indecision over the fate of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, who is facing death sentence, lies squarely at the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) door. Top sources said that the Delhi Government sent its opinion endorsing the Supreme Court order to the MHA a few months ago. The MHA has so far failed to process the file to be put up before the President of India.
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SC ruling blocks Govt escape route - Abraham Thomas, Pioneer
The Centre ducking criticism over the delay in deciding mercy petitions has opened the debate on if the President alone is responsible or it is the collective responsibility of the Government too. The mercy petition of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar remained elusive for eight years until it surfaced on Thursday, three days after the Supreme Court came knocking at the Delhi Government’s door asking the reason for the delay.
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Vahanvati took part in meet on 2G spectrum in 2007 - J Venkatesan, Hindu
The former Solicitor-General, G.E. Vahanvati, who is now Attorney-General, had participated in the discussions held in the first week of December 2007 with the then External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, on issues relating to 2G spectrum allocation and in that meeting the former Communications Minister, A. Raja, also participated.
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Why the softness on Pakistan? - Prabhu Chawla, Express Buzz
Practising politicians are rarely prophetic as they live only in the present. They refuse to read the writing on the wall if it is politically inconvenient. They don’t mind killing their conscience to serve their fake drawing room constituencies. This is exactly what our ruling establishment is doing when dealing with Pakistan. All of them concede that Pakistan is almost a dead nation, yet they want to engage those who aren’t safe even in their own country.
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Tripura: Why this Comrade hasn’t lost—yet - Samudra Gupta Kashyap, Indian Express
Barely had the Left Front government in Tripura recovered from the shock of the Left’s defeat in West Bengal when they had more cause for worry. Last Monday, a statewide bandh called by the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the students’ wing of the Congress, to protest against the alleged forcible collection of donations by the Left’s student wing, Students’ Federation of India (SFI), evoked an unprecedented response.
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BSY cabinet was collective decision: Nitin Gadkari - Indian Express
With Sushma Swaraj holding four BJP leaders — Arun Jaitley and B S Yeddyurappa among them — squarely responsible for the induction of Bellary brothers as ministers, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari on Saturday stepped in to clear the air. Virtually disapproving Swaraj’s views, he said the party had unanimously chosen ministers in Karnataka.
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Parties play politics over Bhullar issue - Press Trust of India
Chandigarh, May 29 Political parties in Punjab are playing politics over the the rejection of the mercy plea of Khalistan militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar with the Akali Dal and Punjab Congress demanding that his death sentence be commuted. The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal sought "direct and immediate intervention of the Prime Minister to save the life of Bhullar on grounds of humanitarianism and civilised concern and above all national interest". |
Joining NY trial against ISI a political call: G K Pillai - Vishwa Mohan & Himanshi Dhawan, Times of India
India could implead itself as a `party` in the lawsuit against Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistani spy agency ISI in a New York court if the government here decides to do so.
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J&K gets self-rule via panchayat polls - Randeep Singh Nandal, Times of India
The panchayat elections can be called a "quiet revolution". For the first time in recent memory, the voice of the ordinary Kashmiri has been heard.
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Maoist mayhem rises as states fail to coordinate - Diptosh Majumdar, Times of India
The Chhattisgarh government feels that the recent Maoist ambush in Nuapada district of Orissa in which nine police personnel including an additional superintendent of police were killed exposes the complete lack of cooperation between states in dealing with extremist violence.
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Missing in action: Indian Intelligence - Divya A & Shobhan Saxena, Times of India
Compare the perfectly executed strike on bin Laden with India's dispatch of a list of "50 most wanted hiding in Pakistan".
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Muslims poised to shed ‘secular’ vote - Faisal Fareed, Pioneer
Some outfits conduct survey, shortlist candidates to capture minority constituencies ahead of UP election. As Uttar Pradesh warms up for the Assembly election next year, Muslims, who have been treated as vote banks by so-called ‘secular’ outfits, are seeking their own place under the sun. A host of Muslim outfits are conducting surveys, shortlisting candidates and gearing up to join the fight for 30 per cent of the minority vote in the State.
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‘Mercy’ makes strange bedfellows - Monika, Pioneer
Cong, Akalis join hands to help Bhullar escape gallows. NDA ally Shiromani Akali Dal and UPA senior partner Congress have come together unexpectedly for a common cause — that mercy be granted to KLF militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar following the rejection of his mercy petition by President Pratibha Patil.
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‘Indira era saw Cong decline in UP’ - Hindustan Times
A book, part of a series commissioned by the Congress party on its history, related the decline of the Congress in the Hindi heartland to certain political measures taken by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, including the “excesses during the Emergency”.
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‘Communal violence bill based on past riots’ - Prasad Nichenametla, Hindustan Times
With BJP threatening to launch a campaign opposing the NAC's communal violence bill as ‘minority appeasement’, a key member of the working group defended the draft saying the proposals are based on experience — more so in BJP states such as Gujarat and Orissa (in alliance BJD).
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Brinda vs Yechury in RS toss-up - Sanjay Basak, Asian Age
The CPI(M)’s beleaguered boss, Prakash Karat, is trying hard to get his wife Brinda renominated to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal. This is no longer an easy task: the once-dominant Left Front has just 62 members in the new West Bengal Assembly, and so it can elect only one Rajya Sabha MP from the state. Four Left MPs, including Ms Karat, will see their terms in the Upper House expire in August this year.
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After Bhatta Parsaul, east UP feels the heat - Amita Verma, Deccan Chronicle
After Bhatta Parsaul in western Uttar Pradesh, it is now Chandauli in eastern UP that is facing the heat over land acquisition. Over 1,500 farmers, with women leading from the front, are staging a dharna in Chandauli district to protest against land acquisition for the proposed New Kashi city project. What initially started as a demonstration for better remuneration for their land four days ago has now turned into a protest against land acquisition.
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Maya: Cong fuelling farmer’s stir - Asit Jolly, Deccan Chronicle
Reserving most of her venom for the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance the Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Ms Mayawati accused Congress leaders of deliberately fuelling unrest amongst farmers on the issue of land acquisition in her home state. “It is in fact the Congress-led UPA government that has failed to legislate on a uniform acquisition policy for all states.
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Govt-civil society on collision course? - PTI
New Delhi, May 30 The Lokpal Bill drafting committee today appeared headed for a collision course with the government opposing demands to bring the Prime Minister, higher judiciary and MPs' corrupt acts inside Parliament under its purview, provoking a civil society threat to take to the streets again.
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Lokpal panel split wide open - Nagendar Sharma, Hindustan Times
In a blow to the anti-corruption movement, talks between the government and Anna Hazare’s team were on the verge of a breakdown on Monday, with both sides nowhere close to a meeting point on major issues. “Today’s meeting was quite disastrous… Definitely the government’s intentions are suspect,” said a terse two-page note from Hazare’s team after the meeting.
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Natgrid in deep-freeze? - Varghese K George, Hindustan Times
Thirty months after 26/11 and five months after a detailed project report was prepared for the Natgrid, the cabinet committee on security has not even taken it up for discussion. As for the NCTC, even the idea seems to be dying in the old-world, entrenched thinking of the establishment.
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Advani urges Cong to reconsider opposing Damodar Savarkar - Pioneer
Senior BJP leader LK Advani on Monday appealed to the Congress to reconsider its opposition to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the prominent freedom fighter known for his right wing ideology. Congress MPs had boycotted a parliamentary function to pay tributes to Savarkar on his birth anniversary on May 28. Only Meira Kumar, a Congress MP, was present in the capacity of Lok Sabha Speaker.
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Eye on Assembly polls, parties lap up Bhullar ‘issue’ - Vipin Pubby, Indian Express
The rejection of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar’s mercy petition by the President has stirred a hornet’s nest and has catapulted it into one of the major issues in the run-up to the state Assembly elections scheduled in February next year.
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Ramdev opposes bringing PM under ambit of Lokpal - Press Trust of India
Sehore (MP)/New Delhi, May 31 - Differences appeared to have cropped up in the civil society over the demand for inclusion of the Prime Minister and higher judiciary in the Lokpal Bill with Baba Ramdev opposing such a move. The yoga guru, to whom the government deputed the topmost tax official to convince him on the steps taken by government against black money, wondered at a press conference in Sehore how top positions like the Prime Minister and Chief Justice of India could be brought under the ambit of Lokpal.
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Is NAC losing its lustre? - Renuka Bisht, Financial Express
In its first innings, the National Advisory Council (NAC) was credited with pushing UPA-1 to enact its most significant legislations—namely the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Right to Information Act. After the “office for profit” controversy caused Sonia Gandhi to resign as chairman, NAC was disbanded in 2008.
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BJP rejects offer of GST panel post to Sushil Modi - Economic Times
The BJP leadership on Monday indicated that it was not in favour of Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi accepting the Centre's offer to head the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers.
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Raja wants to mount his own defence - Rohini Singh & Joji Thomas Philip, Economic Times
Former telecom minister A Raja is set to apply for bail for the first time and plans to argue his own case, a person close to him told ET.
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Babus turn out to be canny investors - Abantika Ghosh, Times of India
Of the 4,587 members of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), about 660 did not file their statements on Tuesday — the last day for declaring immovable property. The statements posted on the department of personnel and training website shows how babus are canny investors since most of them own several properties. Greater Noida is the most preferred investment destination, followed by other parts of the sprawling and rapidly expanding National Capital Region.
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Govt scurries to placate Ramdev, BJP backs baba - The Pioneer
Rattled by Baba Ramdev proposed indefinite fast over black money and corruption, the Government on Tuesday made an all-out effort to placate the yoga guru. While Baba Ramdev remained determined to proceed on the fast, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself urged him to give up his agitation while Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) officials were in direct touch with the Guru.
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Centre shaken by Maran disclosure - The Pioneer
Yet another mega scam has cast its shadow on the scam-tainted UPA Government with Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran facing precisely the same nature of allegations which landed his DMK colleague and former Telecom Minister A Raja in jail in the 2G scam. News magazine Tehelka has published a sensational report in its latest issue, accusing Maran of favouring a telecom company by award of spectrum licences in lieu of huge financial consideration.
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2G: Prashant Bhushan's affidavit against Dayanidhi Maran in Supreme Court - LensOnNews
That the CBI has conducted investigation in the said scam and has filed two charge-sheets with seventeen persons/companies charged as accused. In its 2nd charge-sheet, the CBI has provided details as to how DB Realty Group, one of the beneficiaries of 2G spectrum scam, had routed Rs 200 crore as bribe money to Kalaignar TV Pvt Ltd. The shareholders of Kalaignar TV are (i) Mrs Dayalu Karunanidhi (60%), (ii) Ms Kanimozhi Karunanithi (20%), and (iii) Mr Sharad Kumar (20%). While the CBI has made Mr Sharad as Accused No. 16, and Ms Kanimozhi as Accused No. 17, but it has not charge-sheeted Mrs Dayalu, who is the wife of Mr M Karunanidhi, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and the Chief of DMK Party. It appears that Mrs Dayalu has been deliberately not made an accused by the CBI. A news report dated May 10, 2011 stating that she was present in the Board meeting when the critical decisions were taken is annexed as Annexure A1.
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Cong bid to wrest control of rail ministry? - Times of India
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday held a detailed review meeting of railways even as uncertainty persists over who will hold the political reins of the state-run transporter after Mamata Banerjee resigned to take charge as West Bengal chief minister.
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2G scam: Maran bent rules to give his friend licence - Manoj Gairola, Hindustan Times
Even as Dayanidhi Maran denies allegations of favouring any company when he was telecom minister in 2004-07, more evidence has surfaced that points to the contrary. Hindustan Times is in possession of documents that show that Maran scrapped the rules he used to block telecom licences to enterpreuner C Sivasankaran, the Indian promoter of Aircel, till he sold the company to Maxis.
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Maran thinks he can fight but DMK rattled - Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan Times
After reports surfaced that he is under CBI's scanner for his alleged role in 2G scam, textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran sought to put up a brave front. He rejected demands for his resignation and dismissed all allegations against him. His party however appeared more shaken.
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Ex-FBI chief helped CBI meet man who could ‘testify’ on Maran - Ritu Sarin, Financial Express
Investigation into allotment of spectrum licences between the years 2001 and 2007 is set to gather momentum with the Central Bureau of Investigation expecting to record the written statement of NRI businessman and Chairman of the Sterling Group, C Shivasankaran, within the next few days.
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Ramdev leaves Govt at its wits’ end - Pioneer
The decision-making paralysis over a spate of scams that keep surfacing at regular intervals has further aggravated, with the Centre caught in bitter skirmishes with a yogi and a Gandhian. Crucial issues of governance have taken a backseat and all the Centre’s resources are engaged in placating and combating the two rivals groups, which have seized the entire public discourse over corruption.
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Sushma lashes out at Centre over Telangana - Pioneer
With a large public meeting in support of Telangana State, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Andhra Pradesh has managed to elbow its way onto the centrestage. The ‘Telangana Poru’ meeting in Karimnagar on Tuesday night, addressed by the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj was an impressive show of strength for the party.
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Modi as driving force, federalism BJP’s mantra to make new friends - Manoj CG, Indian Express
For long, the BJP has accused the UPA government of destabilising and weakening India’s federal structure. Now, the party has decided to use this plank to build bridges with regional parties — especially those who profess staunch anti-Congressism — for it believes engaging state satraps at some level was imperative to fulfil its goal of expanding the NDA ahead of the next Lok Sabha elections.
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Ramdev: Savvy bizman and man of convictions - Gautam Siddharth, Times of India
He's a yoga guru, who fashions himself after a 'yoddha sannyasi' or warrior monk. Born as Ramkrishna Yadav in Ali Saiyadpur village in Mahendragarh district of Haryana in 1965, Ramdev's earliest influences, apart from yoga, were revolutionary writings on the lives of Ram Prasad Bismil and Subhas Chandra Bose. He learnt the value of pranayam when it cured him of the disabling effects of a paralytic stroke he got as a child.
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The clause of worry - Vikas Pathak, Hindustan Times
Congress President Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council’s (NAC) draft Communal Violence Bill has come in the eye of storm soon after it was brought in the public domain for comments. Politically, the proposed legislation has a strong symbolic value so far as addressing “minority alienation” and Dalit sensitivities are concerned — particularly with UP elections round the corner — but there is a range of technical criticism from different quarters, including the principal opposition party BJP.
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Ramdev friend Sahay is govt’s main negotiator - Amitabh Sinha, Indian Express
In the government's over-enthusiastic efforts to appease Baba Ramdev, the biggest surprise has come in the form of Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahay, who is learnt to have emerged as the key “political negotiator” to talk to the yoga guru. The normally low-profile minister suddenly found himself in the midst of hectic political activity when he accompanied Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal to the airport on Wednesday where the three were closeted with Ramdev for about two-and-a-half hours in the VIP lounge.
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Mr Prime Minister, please take note. Country needs a leader - Akshaya Mishra, FirstPost
His government has been held to ransom by the civil society. His ministers are grovelling before a Baba, who not long ago was a marginal player even in the world of spiritual gurus. A bizarre yet apparently carefully planned mix of public cause and politics has brought the country to a standstill. Where is the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the leader of the country, right now? He is nowhere visible. He has not yet come out with any reassuring word to the nation that things are in control — under his control, that is — and he will work a way out.
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Agitation neither "politically motivated or communal": Ramdev - PTI
New Delhi, Jun 3 - Indicating softening of his stand ahead of the crucial round of talks with the government, Baba Ramdev today said a consensus seems to be emerging on all issues barring one or two between the two sides.
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Brothers Maran! Last but one chapter to be written - DNA
The Sun never sets on the Maran Empire”, business honchos used to say about the Sun Group owned by Kalanithi and his younger brother Dayanithi Maran, the union textiles minister. But events of the last two days indicate that twilight hours have set in for the Marans, estimated to be worth $4billion in 2011 by Forbes magazine.
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Manmohan Singh presiding over 'most corrupt government' : BJP - Rakesh Mohan Chaturvedi, Press Trust of India
Lucknow, June 3 - The BJP national executive on Friday accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of presiding over the "most corrupt government" since independence, saying it has lost all moral authority to rule. The issue of corruption in Congress-led UPA dominated the first day of the BJP meet here with the party training its guns on Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for looking the other way and keeping mum while the 2G spectrum, Commonwealth Games and Adarsh scams were taking place. BJP passed a strongly-worded resolution on corruption in which is patted its back for the arrest of former Telecom Minister A Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
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Maya goes one up on Cong with land acquisition policy - Times of India
Mayawati's new land acquisition policy has set the benchmark for Congress to better at the Centre when it brings its bill to the monsoon session of Parliament. After the Bhatta Parsaul fiasco, the UP government has gone one up against the Congress which is likely to edge UPA towards a more farmer-friendly land acquisition bill. Mayawati took a leaf out of Congress's book and decided to remove government role in acquisition of land for private companies.
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BJP plays the Vajpayee card, vows to build Ram temple at Ayodhya - Neena Vyas, The Hindu
Desperate to revive its political fortunes in Uttar Pradesh — a must if it wants to win the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 — the Bharatiya Janata Party has tried to jog old memories, presenting Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its face in the State while again committing itself to building a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya. Delivering the opening address at the party's two-day national executive committee meeting that began on Friday.
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A Swiss window to black money the UPA won't look into - Ashok Dasgupta, The Hindu
The UPA government may have gone into overdrive on the black money issue but it has so far failed to use a Swiss tax provision that will allow India to not just estimate how much money its citizens have illegally stashed away in bank accounts in Switzerland but to also earn revenue from them. The Swiss authorities are unwilling to make these secret accounts public and will only provide foreign governments with details if they can prove an individual account is linked to illegal activity back home.
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BJP trains guns on UPA, Maya graft - Kumar Uttam, The Pioneer
The BJP on Friday raised the pitch against corruption, attacking both the UPA regime at the Centre and the Mayawati Government in Uttar Pradesh. It admitted that the absence of a charismatic leader like former PM Atal Bihari Vajyapee to lead the party from the front was hurting the party. On the first day of its national executive meeting here on Friday, BJP top brass went ballistic against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
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BJP lobs ball back to Govt’s court on vexed Lokpal issue - Kumar Uttam, The Pioneer
Opposition BJP on Friday stopped short of taking a position on certain vexed issues of the Lokpal Bill and lobbed the ball back into the Government’s court by asking it to first prepare a draft of the legislation, which has hit a deadlock with divergent views emerging in the joint drafting committee. With civil society representatives in the committee pressing for bringing the Prime Minister.
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Brand baba - Sukalp Sharma, Financial Express
He makes an unfailing daily appearance on national television at the crack of dawn in his saffron attire, conducts yoga camps across the country that are attended by tens of thousands of people, has created a network of more than 1,700 ayurvedic dispensaries and stores, and sells everything from salt to medicinal herbs to apple juice in posh tetra packs.
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Citizen Cane vs King Canute - Saikat Datta, Outlook
On May 30, as the joint drafting committee of the Lokpal Bill met for the fifth time in the conference room of the ministry of finance in North Block, trouble was already brewing. However, this time, within minutes, the finance minister dropped a bombshell. The prime minister, he said, would not be placed under the ambit of the proposed bill.
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80% want CBI under Lokpal - Outlook
While the UPA ties itself up in knots over the Lokpal Bill, two out of every three Indians say the prime minister and the higher judiciary should be brought under the bill’s purview, an issue that has seen the UPA government differing with civil society representatives.
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Welcome Mr Dayanidhi Maran - S Gurumurthy, Express Buzz
The article “Minister steals a telephone exchange, loots BSNL” (TNIE June 1, 2011) was entirely based on CBI’s secret report on Dayanidhi Maran’s home telephone exchange in every respect — except one. And that is, the figure of loss of Rs 440 crores in the article was estimated for the 323 stolen ISDN connections on the basis of the extent of use of phone no 24371515, given in the CBI report.
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Baba Ramdev’s 10 demands - LensOnNews
The demands of Baba Ramdev's Bhrashtachar Mitao Satyagrahaare are as follows:
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What the furore about Baba Ramdev tells us about the government - Vir Sanghvi
Whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of Baba Ramdev’s agitation, the furore surrounding the Baba’s fast has made two things clear – and neither of them has very much to do with Ramdev himself.
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BJP Meet: 'NAC, NIA an attack on federal structure' - Vikas Pathak, Hindustan Times
The BJP on Saturday charged the government with attempting to subvert the federal structure, with senior leader LK Advani even saying that the party could take recourse to legal action if the Centre pushed the states to the wall. The BJP veteran made pointed reference to the “misuse” of the office of governor under the UPA, a hint at the recent controversy in Karnataka.
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Communal Violence Bill a threat to unity: BJP - Neena Vyas, The Hindu
The Bharatiya Janata Party here on Saturday attacked the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre for eroding the federal structure of polity to move towards excessive centralism and from democracy to autocracy. It was a long litany of complaints in a six-page resolution — the Centre had usurped powers of the State given exclusively to them by the Constitution and due resources were being denied.
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Stephen’s spat: Jab at Thampu - Manash Pratim Gohain, Times of India
Sandeep Dikshit is not alone in feeling concerned about how St Stephen's is being run. Some other alumni, former faculty members and non-teaching staff have also expressed concerns over the way alleged attempts had been made to strengthen the influence of the church over the college. MP Dikshit recently alleged that the college was being run like a "communal institution", sparking a war of words between him and principal Valson Thampu.
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Cong unleashes loose cannon Digvijaya on Ramdev - Akshaya Mishra, First Post
Unflattering descriptions sit rather easy on Congress leader Digvijaya Singh. Loose cannon, enfant terrible, party’s resident dissident, Hindu baiter, rabble rouser – the royal from Madhya Pradesh has been called all things in recent years. He seems to be enjoying the notoriety, and the limelight his seemingly outrageous statements attract; the latest is his diatribe against Baba Ramdev.
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Post-Ramdev, govt faces Hazare's 'mantri-to-santri' idea - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Jun 5 - After dealing with Baba Ramdev's hunger strike, government is likely to face another challenge soon from rpt from Anna Hazare-led civil society which wants to bring 'mantri to santri' (minister to sentry) under the ambit of the proposed Lokpal Bill. Sources said government was wary on a few issues which the civil society members in the Lokpal Bill drafting committee wanted to incorporate in the proposed anti-graft law that seeks to bring the higher judiciary and the Prime Minister under the ambit of Lokpal.
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Police beating up young and old reminded of Jallianwala: Advani - Times of India
Senior BJP leader LK Advani on Sunday blamed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for allowing police action against yoga guru Baba Ramdev's Delhi rally. "Both should apologize to Ramdev and the entire nation for this fascist act," Advani said. Accusing police of forcing Ramdev to end his hunger strike against corruption, Advani said: "Police beat up the young and old. It was like Jallianwala Bagh."
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A five-star break that led to negotiations with Ramdev - Times of India
"Ab to gale lag jao swamiji (now we can exchange a hug)," telecom minister Kapil Sibal told Baba Ramdev at the end of their nerve sapping over five-hour negotiations on Friday. "You can afford a smile now surely," he told the yoga guru. The reason for Sibal's sense of satisfaction was a handwritten letter – which no one in the Claridges Hotel suite on Friday evening imagined would prove so critical for the government - offered on behalf of Ramdev by his close associate Bal Krishna.
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Under Baba fire, Sonia Gandhi calls for counter attack - Hindustan Times
The gloves are off. Under attack from all sides for the action against Ramdev, Sonia Gandhi now plans an offensive to counter the after-effects and take on the communal and other forces who, it charged, have joined hands to weaken democratic institutions. “The party has accepted the challenge,” said general secretary Janardan Dwivedi after Gandhi met office-bearers, state in-charges and the four ministers who were talking to Ramdev to call off his fast.
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BJP sees chance, goes for the jugular - Hindustan Times
Top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders including party chief Nitin Gadkari, senior leaders LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, and Rajnath Singh went on a 24-hour fast at Rajghat in the capital on Sunday evening against the detention of Baba Ramdev late on Saturday. The party has also called Ramdev to resume his 'satyagraha' in Haridwar today for 24-hour nationwide protests against the incident.
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India outraged, Baba defiant - Vikram Rautela & Sunil Kumar, The Pioneer
Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has announced that he would continue with his fast at Patanjali Yogapeeth in Haridwar after being returned from UP-Uttarakhand border enroute to Delhi. He announced that he would visit Delhi after the 15-day externment was over. Equating the police raid with the action by the Communist Government at Tiananmen Square in China, Baba told the media here that even the British Government never handled Gandhian protests in the manner that the Manmohan Government had done.
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UPA isolated after midnight caper - Anuja, Liz Mathew & Nidhi Misra, Mint
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government plunged into a fresh political crisis after it initiated police action early on Sunday morning to disperse the agitation led by yoga guru Ramdev who was demanding government action on black money. The ensuing violence, which injured 75 people, has united the political opposition that is now accusing the UPA of using state oppression to quell democratic dissent.
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Telangana movement gets a newspaper to advocate its cause - Anil Penna & Yogendra Kalavalapalli, Mint
A Telugu newspaper branded as the heartbeat of Telangana will roll off the presses on Monday, seeking to galvanize the region’s campaign for separation from Andhra Pradesh and to provide a platform for activists who complain the mainstream media is biased against the cause of Telangana statehood.Namaste Telangana will start with a print run of 750,000 copies across seven editions, said Katta Shekar Reddy, chief executive officer of Telangana Publications Pvt. Ltd.
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It's the beginning of the end of UPA rule: Narendra Modi - Manas Dasgupta, Hindu
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has held Prime Minister Manmohan Singh responsible for the “barbaric” police action against yoga guru Baba Ramdev and nearly a lakh of his innocent supporters and said this marked “the beginning of the end of the Congress-led UPA government rule at the Centre.” Describing the police action as “Ravanlila” at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi, Mr. Modi said the incident reminded the people of the Emergency days of 1975.
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BJP picks up Baba baton with caution - Radhika Ramaseshan, Telegraph, Calcutta
By the time television channels were done with playing and re-playing the action at Ramlila Maidan, the BJP’s mind was made up on its tactics but not on its strategy. The party will stage a “satyagraha” all over the country from this evening. Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and the rest of the party brass will sit in Rajghat for 24 hours and if they were arrested, “so much the better”, said a spokesperson privately. “We are picking up the baton from Baba Ramdev,” a leader said.
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6 unanswered questions on what govt & Baba were up to - R Jagannathan, Firstpost
Nobody, barring the PM and a few senior Congress ministers, know exactly what transpired between them and the political yoga guru Baba Ramdev in the talks held on Saturday and before that. Here’s what government ministers are saying now, but are they telling the full truth? Firstpost analyses their statements and raises questions, or adds comments to them, to bring greater clarity.
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Ramdev eyewitness describes ‘laathi ka barsaat’: ‘I am ashamed to be Indian' - Sandip Roy, Firstpost
I think this whole raid was pre-planned. All the media people were the first ones removed. They had scoped out the area and knew where they were. All afternoon we had been seeing the police presence increasing slowly. But at that time we were happy. We thought, look, the government of Delhi is making all these arrangements for our safety. We did not know this was what they had in their mind.
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Maran changed rules to be 'spectrum raja' - Manoj Gairola, Hindustan Times
In direct conflict of interest with his family’s satellite TV business, former communications and IT minister Dayanidhi Maran took complete control of granting spectrum to satellite channels and telecom firms with the stroke of a pen. Spectrum is the lifeline of any telecom and satellite network. HT is in possession of documents that show Maran directed the secretary of the telecommunications department (DoT) to issue a note that all the cases for grant of spectrum would be approved by the minister.
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RSS chief: If Ramdev, Anna outsiders, what about the NAC? - Vivek Deshpande, Indian Express
Addressing cadres at the conclusion of the month-long third year Officers’ Training Camp here today, RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat said that the RSS didn’t start the current anti-corruption agitation “but it also can’t remain a mute spectator”. Criticising the government for blaming the RSS whenever “it feels the heat”, Bhagwat questioned the constitutional validity of the National Advisory Council and the Bill it had drafted to ostensibly tackle communal violence.
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Opp: You kept us out, prepare draft first - Indian Express
I am in receipt of your letter dated 31st May, 2011 seeking our views on six issues preferably by 6th June, 2011. The Bill for setting up of the institution of Lokpal to curb corruption in high places is an important landmark proposal. The BJP is committed to the creation of an independent Lokpal. In the process of drafting of the Bill by a joint drafting committee comprising of Government ministers and Civil Society representatives there appears to be a divergence of opinion.
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Maya gave in to UPA pressure, says BJP - Indian Express
The BJP on Monday accused Chief Minister Mayawati of denying permission to Baba Ramdev to stage his protest in Uttar Pradesh under pressure from the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. On Sunday, the police had turned back Ramdev from the state’s border with Uttarakhand because he did not have permission to hold a protest in Noida. State BJP president Surya Pratap Shahi said, “On Sunday morning, Mayawati condemned the police crackdown on Baba Ramdev in Delhi
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Now will you accept it as wrong, Mr Maran? - S Gurumurthy, Express Buzz
‘I had only one BSNL line – 24371500 – and no other in my name or home at 3/1 Boat Club Avenue. The New Indian Express story of 323 lines is false. Why didn’t they get the facts from BSNL?’ yelled Dayanidhi Maran on June 2, 2011. The New Indian Express nailed his lie in less than 36 hours.
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What if Koda, Raja become PM: Bhushan - Indian Express
A Prime Minister enjoying complete immunity from any kind of investigations “would himself become the biggest security threat”, lawyer Shanti Bhushan has said in a letter to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, explaining why the Anna Hazare camp was insisting on strong measures to curb corruption including bringing the Prime Minister under the purview of the proposed office of Lokpal.
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Jaitley: PM is CEO, owner is someone else - Indian Express
Continuing the BJP’s attack on the government, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Tuesday compared the UPA regime with a corporate house in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was acting like a CEO taking orders from the proprietor of the company. He said while addressing a party convention here that the ruling dispensation suffered from structural contradictions. “The structure of the government is rare in the whole world.
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Maran either to quit or get dropped - Hindustan Times
DMK leader Dayanidhi Maran’s days in the union cabinet seem to be numbered, with the joint parliamentary committee set to question him and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) focusing on his role as telecom minister during 2004-2007. The question, however, is whether Maran will fade away when the next cabinet reshuffle takes place, or will he step down on his own as he did once earlier.
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It’s Maran versus Sibal now - Sunil Jain, Financial Express
Former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran may be right when he says the R600 crore investment by a Maxis group company (Maxis owns the Aircel telecom brand in India) into his brother’s Sun Direct took place when he was no longer a minister, so he can’t really be accused of abusing his official powers. Maran has also denied the allegation made by serial entrepreneur C Sivasankaran that Maran forced him to sell his stake in Aircel to Maxis of Malaysia.
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Siva: Indian telecom's L'enfant terrible - Surajeet Das Gupta, Business Standard
Entrepreneur C Sivasankaran had made startling allegations on Dayanidhi Maran and is fighting what is perhaps his toughest battle. Portly non-resident Indian businessman C Sivasankran is a global jet setter and a consummate dealmaker who has rarely lost money in selling a business at the right time or winning a battle against companies or politicians. But Siva, as he is popularly known, is now fighting perhaps his biggest battle, this time with Textiles Minister and former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran.
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Will, not magic wand, is needed - BS Raghavan, Business Line
The reaction of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to the country-wide outcry against corruption and the Government's seeming unconcern is that there is no magic wand to get rid of it. A Prime Minister should be the picture of decisiveness and exude the confidence that he is determined to fight to a successful finish the evils besieging the Government, in the spirit of Pericles, about whom it was said that even when he perished, he perished great.
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UPA govt's bumbling can shift politics rightwards - Bharat Bhushan, India Today
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's midnight crackdown on the supporters of yoga guru Ramdev has come at a time when it is entering a phase of instability. It is on the verge of losing out in the numbers game in parliament, the hostility of the Opposition is at an all time high, the pro-poor laws which are a part of its social reform agenda are still in the pipeline, and there is little public support for the government.
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Sonia Gandhi and the delicate art of being invisible - Akshaya Mishra, Firstpost
There’s something odd about Sonia Gandhi’s politics. In the age of high visibility, the Congress president makes herself rare. She appears before the public once in five years. She stays in the shadows all the time and is everywhere yet nowhere in matters of the Congress and the UPA’s governance. She gets all the credit for the good things that the government does but is spared the flak when things turn uncomfortable.
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Top netas against transparency: Antony - ToI
Amid the ongoing anti-corruption satyagrahas and andolans for more accountability in government functioning, the UPA government's "Mr Clean", AK Antony, broke his silence on Wednesday to proclaim that the "transparency revolution" now underway in India was simply unstoppable.
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Jaitley, Nitish unite Opp on Lokpal Bill - The Pioneer
When Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik responded on Wednesday to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s letter seeking his response to six contentious issues relating to the Lokpal Bill, he appeared to be in league with other non-Congress leaders and Chief Ministers who wanted the Government to first prepare a draft and then seek suggestion on it.
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Darjeeling’s deliverance - Sudeep Paul, Indian Express
But, if 18 days after assuming charge, Mamata Banerjee could deliver a bipartite agreement, signed between the West Bengal government and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, there must be reason enough to feel good on the plains and in the hills.
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Young Kashmiri Pandits not keen on returning to Valley - M I Jehangir, PTI
Tulmulla (Kashmir), June 9 - Living in exile for over two decades now, the post-migration generation of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley seem to have lost the emotional connect with their ancestral land though the older generation still longs to return home. However, there is a consensus among the young and the old that unless there are iron-clad guarantees about the safety and security of the community, the dream of returning home will never turn into reality.
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If I was him, I would've apologized': Raza - Meenakshi Sinha, Times of India
Like Husain, he too had lived overseas, but at 89 Sayed Haider Raza was back in India, the motherland he left 60 years ago. Dressed in navy blue shirt and white pyjamas, Raza wheeled into his ground floor workroom to speak about his fellow artist on Thursday.
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M F Husain: A casualty of his one painting - Manoj Mitta, Times of India
"A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home — painting his canvass." These were the poignant words with which Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Delhi high court signed off his landmark verdict three years ago, referring to the intolerance that had forced M F Husain to leave the country at an advanced age for a nude depiction of Bharat Mata.
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Husain: Mother, and India - Yashodhara Dalmia, Indian Express
He was one of the foremost modern Indian artists, within the Progressive Artists Group. He was an energetic, inspired and creative leader of the group.
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The adharma of politicians - Joginder Singh, Pioneer
Having seen the CBI work from close quarters, I know for a fact that whenever a politician involved in a scam or a scandal is arrested, the standard response is that he or she has been falsely implicated and that it is a part of vendetta against an innocent person. I have also noticed that politicians and the truth rarely go hand-in-hand. Moreover, if the politician has held a position of power, his or her approach has generally been to loot as much as possible as if there is no tomorrow and he or she would never be held accountable.
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Diggy Raja back with a bang. What’s he up to now? - Sanjeev Srivastava, First Post
The conspiracy line originally taken by him targeting the anti-graft crusaders, especially against Baba Ramdev whom he attacked with the kind of venom not usually seen in public life, labeling them as communal, Right wing forces who were fronting for the BJP-RSS combine, is now the official line of both the government and the party.
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2G’s next generation - J Gopikrishnan, Pioneer
Kapil Sibal thought he could deflect public attention from the Congress’ role in the 2G scam by bringing all deals since 2001 under the scanner. Now, he has ended up trapping the DMK all over again.
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Air chief PV Naik in favour of flexing missile power - Rahul Singh, Hindustan Times
India must develop strategic missiles with intercontinental reach to deliver warheads more than 5,500 km away, the country's senior-most military commander has said, proposing a dramatic increase in the country's strike range. India plans to cap its strategic missile reach at 5,000 km, establishing a posture of deterrence against China and Pakistan.
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Amma and the cable wars - Sushila Ravindranath, Financial Express
About a 1,000 cable operators gathered in Chennai for a one-day fast against the high handedness of Sun TV and its cable operations. Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV), which is a separate company, is the cable distribution wing of Sun TV. Cable TV distribution in the state has been dominated by SCV. The cable operators flung many accusations against the Maran brothers. What they want is an end to the monopoly of SCV in the state.
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Bharti to BJP's rescue - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
Being around Uma Bharti can be exhausting: she’s such a quicksilver motormouth. Two weeks before she was readmitted into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) she was sprawled on a sofa at BJP President Nitin Gadkari’s residence.
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Do a garage sale - T N Ninan, Business Standard
Even in the protected world of India’s sick public sector units, it takes a special kind of government company to lose Rs 8 crore a day, while earning just Rs 10 crore as revenue — and that in the booming field of telecommunications.
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Bureaucracy, no more excuses for non-performance - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
In New Zealand, the inflation rate, based on Consumer Price Index (CPI), has averaged around 2.7 per cent since 2000. In the 1990s, the average had been 2.4 per cent.
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The family’s silver - Lola Nayar, Outlook
As a pitched battle between civil society and the political class plays out in the maidans and the media, the idea of “getting back” the black money stashed overseas has become the holy grail of the fight against corruption. It’s gone beyond the politically savvy strategy that the BJP, among others, unveiled in the run-up to the 2009 general elections.
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Endgame begins for Manmohan? - Swapan Dasgupta, Pioneer
Every time a political crisis hits an otherwise stable Government, Lutyens’ Delhi resonates with talk of an imminent Cabinet reshuffle. This summer — a time when the great and the good are either on holiday or engaging in meaningful study tours of countries where summers are more agreeable — an almighty political crisis has hit the UPA Government.
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The baba politics - Utpal Kumar, Pioneer
The vengeance with which the UPA has gone after Baba Ramdev shows its Emergency-like streak. However, it must understand that Ramdev and Anna Hazare are legitimate representatives of a society disgusted with corruption in high places. The authorities can suppress their voices, but the vacuum it will create will be filled by more violent and assertive forces.
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Now Congress slips on IPL muck, SRK link with Rajiv Shukla emerges - DNA
The first Congress link in the IPL scandal seems set to emerge. Film star Shah Rukh Khan, who is already under scrutiny by the taxman, seems to have been a significant investor in BAG Glamour, a company owned by Rajiv Shukla, a Congress Rajya Sabha member and member of the Indian Premier League's governing council.
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Why Baba Ramdev lost the plot - Avinash Celestine & Soma Banerjee, Economic Times
Like a profligate, Baba Ramdev blew it away. Last Sunday, he was handed a winning situation on a platter: the government ordered a police raid on the Ramlila grounds to evict him and hundreds of followers.
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'Let PM be probed by independent agency': Kejriwal - Arvind Kejriwal, Times of India
In the past, Dr Manmohan Singh had himself offered to be brought under the purview of Lokpal Bill. Then why are his own ministers opposing his inclusion in Lokpal's ambit? Is there a disconnect or communication gap within the government?
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Kalmadi appointment as OC chief vetted by PMO, ministries in 2004 - ToI
Despite sports minister Ajay Maken's claim that an agreement dating to the National Democratic Alliance's tenure in office led to Suresh Kalmadi's appointment as chief organizer of the Commonwealth Games, the decision seems to have carefully vetted by UPA.
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Munde fights for his turf in Maharashtra - Hindu
Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari has unleashed a furious factional fight in his home State Maharashtra, where the deputy leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Gopinath Munde, has expressed his unhappiness over the manner in which the Pune city president of the BJP was appointed.
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So who's in charge? - Abheek Barman, Economic Times
On May 31, teleyogi Ramdev said that he didn't want the prime minister and judges to come under the Lok Pal's scanner. "If the prime minister and the chief justice, who represent the two pillars of democracy can be corrupt, so can the Lok Pal," he said in Madhya Pradesh. This statement melted hearts in government.
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How big is the black economy? - NR Bhanumurthy, Financial Express
Existing studies, starting from an NIPFP study in the mid-1980s, have shown that the extent of black money has been growing over a period of time. One might attribute this to the nature of the growth of the economy itself, which has been uneven. Indeed, the growth of the service sector (such as retail trade) could have translated into a substantial rise in the black money. At the same time, it is also important to appreciate the role of institutions, technology and civil society that are contributing to increasing transparency in the system.
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Lokpal Bill: Blow for Centre as state govts tow party line - Ashish Sinha, India Today
The Centre's strategy to push its line on contentious issues relating to the Lokpal Bill has suffered a jolt. Different state governments and political parties have responded to a questionnaire sent to them on the Bill in a predicted manner - the Congress-ruled states have, by and large, replied they they would abide by whatever line the party high command or the Union government takes on every aspect of the Bill, while the non-Congress ruled states have withheld opinion on the matter.
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Dawood's nexus with Mumbai Police keeps his company running - Krishna Kumar, India Today
The political patronage the underworld gangs of Mumbai enjoy and the deep-penetrating reach of notorious gangster Dawood Ibrahim among the rank and file of the Mumbai Police ensure a safe and smooth 'work environment' for the perpetrators of criminal activities in the megapolis.
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Govt to agencies: Speed up probe of Ramdev’s businesses - Appu Esthose Suresh, Mint
The government welcomed yoga guru Ramdev’s decision on Sunday to call off his nine-day-old fast against corruption, but is unlikely to relax the investigation of his business affairs.
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Team Anna points out Pranab, Chidambaram's U-turn - Abantika Ghosh, Times of India
A day after finance minister Pranab Mukherjee's attack on civil society, the activists in a letter to the prime minister hit back recalling how Mukherjee as chairperson of the parliamentary standing committee on Lokpal Bill in 2001 had recommended that the PM should be covered under the ambit of Lokpal.
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Battle lines are drawn, lokpal war turns ugly - Hindustan Times
The confrontation between the Congress and civil society activists intensified on Monday, two days before a meeting of the joint panel to draft anti-corruption lokpal bill. The ruling party termed anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare an "unelected dictator", without directly naming him.
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Cong, civil society spat turns ugly - Pioneer
A day after Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee launched a frontal attack on anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare and his team, the civil society members hit back at the ruling dispensation in the Centre.
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Give Sonia foreign trip info: CIC - Tanu Sharma, Indian Express
The Central Information Commission (CIC) has asked the government to disclose details about foreign visits undertaken by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and costs incurred during these trips, besides the purpose of these visits.
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Political bigwigs capitalise on Jaya trip - Santwana Bhattacharya, Express Buzz
On Day One of her much-awaited New Delhi visit, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa finely balanced her engagements by meeting leaders across the political spectrum — Congress’ Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad and CPI MP D Raja.
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The curious case of the troubled troubleshooters - Santwana Bhattacharya, Express Buzz
On April 19, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi wrote to anti-corruption icon Anna Hazare, saying: “As for statements appearing in the media, let me assure you that I do not support nor encourage the politics of smear campaigns.” Anna had reacted to a smear campaign and written to Sonia, “Corrupt forces in the country appear to have united to derail the process of drafting an anti-corruption law through the joint committee.
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Visits by Indian leaders were better under BJP: Israel - Indian Express
Lamenting the lack of high-level visits from India under the UPA government, senior officials at the Israeli foreign ministry told US diplomats that it was "better under the Bhartiya Janata Party government," according to a classified US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
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Moily stokes black money debate, demands white paper - Pradeep Thakur, Times of India
A senior member of the UPA dispensation, law minister Veerappa Moily, has demanded a white paper on black money, stoking the fire in the ongoing debate on the issue that has paralyzed the Congress-led government at the Centre for most of its second term in office.
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The heart of power - Minhaz Merchant, Times of India
Those who question the role of civil society in India's battle against corruption should recall the words of US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, one of the great reformers of the Franklin D Roosevelt era, whose judicial tenure extended through the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman and John F Kennedy.
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To take on foes, Congress turns belligerent - Smita Gupta, Hindu
The Congress and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government have started taking the dip in their credibility, and the virtually across-the-board negative media coverage, seriously only over the last month.
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PC-Jaya rivalry older than last LS polls - Gopu Mohan, Indian Express
It was after 21 rounds of counting, then recounting, re-tallying, and several hours of high drama that Union Home Minister P Chidambaram was re-elected from his home constituency, Sivaganga, two years ago. But the dust hasn’t settled as is clear from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s statements on Tuesday.
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Jayalalithaa urges PM to act against Colombo - J. Venkatesan & P. Sunderarajan, Hindu
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday accused the Sri Lankan government of seeking to “exterminate” Tamils in the island nation and urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to initiate efforts with other countries for imposing economic sanctions against Colombo until Tamils in that country were resettled and allowed to live with dignity and with equal constitutional rights as the Sinhalese.
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BJP raps Cong as Meira rejects PAC report - Pioneer
Slamming the Congress for disrupting the proceedings of the last PAC, which forced its chairman MM Joshi to go ahead and file the report despite opposition from a majority of the members, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the country had witnessed the worst kind of partisan politics in the PAC.
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Was ex-CJI Balakrishnan a fixer? Ex-judge says he was approached - VK Shashikumar, Firstpost
Was former Chief Justice of India and current Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Konakuppakatil Gopinathan Balakrishnan, open to “fixing” cases for a consideration?
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How ex-CJI was compromised by his political lobbying - VK Shashikumar, Firstpost
It was K Karunakaran who picked up KGB and supported his candidature (to the post of High Court judge). KGB was practicing in the Kerala High Court as an advocate under P Shantalingam. Senior lawyers (in Kerala) believe that Karunakaran directed KGB to resign from judicial service when he was a sub judge and start practicing in the High Court.
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Activists in think tank? Cong doing a re-think - DK Singh, Indian Express
After its disillusionment with social activists like Anna Hazare, the Congress is learnt to be doing a re-think about setting up a think tank comprising civil society and professional experts. The party has even deferred its plan to hold a chintan shivir where the modalities of the think tank were to be discussed.
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CPM: PM mute spectator in KG basin imbroglio - Pioneer
Hundreds of letters written by Left MPs from 2007 against inflated costs in KG basin by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and dubious designs of former DG Hydrocarbons under Oil Ministry to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reveal that he remained a mute spectator — just as in the 2G spectrum scam.
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Triumphant Jaya comes calling - Kalyani Shankar, Pioneer
A decade in Opposition has done the new Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu much good. Her visit to New Delhi, where she was treated like a national leader, bears testimony to her stature.
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Husain's choice - NV Subramanian, News Insight
It is significant that no politician of consequence has spoken in favour of M.F.Husain's objectionable paintings of Hindu goddesses. Kapil Sibal insinuates that they represent the "soul of India". Sibal should be taken as seriously about matters of the soul as Charles Sobhraj apropos safety of tourists.
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‘Probe agencies delay graft cases’ - Nagendar Sharma, Hindustan Times
Delays in probing the graft cases by investigating agencies is one of the major reasons for cases of corruption remaining pending for many years, chief justices of high courts have told the government. The views of the chief justices of 21 high courts on how to put these cases on a fast track have been communicated to the cabinet secretary and the Prime Minister’s Office by the law ministry’s department of justice.
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Chidambaram should be removed: Joshi - Neena Vyas, Hindu
He demanded that Mr. Chidambaram be removed from the Cabinet for his alleged role not only in the 2G spectrum allocation case but also in the “latest” scandal related to gas in which the CAG has alleged that undue favours were shown to Reliance Industries Limited in its Krishna Godavari basin gas operations.
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On transparency, good old IAS will put the other services to shame - Smita Gupta, Hindu
If you want to know which members of the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) have not submitted their Immoveable Property Returns (IPRs) for the current year, open the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) website, click on “Submission of Immovable Property Return for the years 2009 & 2010 — List of defaulting officers of CSS” and voila, the names of 461 defaulting officers roll out.
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US works for India's membership in Nuclear Suppliers Group - Indrani Bagchi, ToI
As far as India is concerned, the NSG waiver and the commitments India undertook should be a precedent for India's membership. But nobody is under any illusion that this will take time. A recent meeting between India and the NSG Troika -- New Zealand, Hungary and Netherlands -- also focused on these issues.
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Memories of another June - Sanjay Kaul, Pioneer
The Congress’ genetic conditioning is towards snuffing out opponents. One of the legacies of Indira Gandhi has been her paranoia. This time the RSS is the object of hate — but fortunately the India of June 2011 is vastly different from that of June 1975.
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Centre gasps for Opposition bailout - Annapurna Jha, Pioneer
Tied in knots over the Lokpal Bill, the UPA Government on Saturday decided to convene an all-party meeting on the vexed issue. The move is being seen as one aimed at sharing the brunt of attack from the civil society over the Government’s unwillingness to bring the Prime Minister, higher judiciary and MPs’ conduct in Parliament under the ambit of the Lokpal Bill.
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Kerala: Cong lets League Minister off the hook - VR Jayaraj, Pioneer
The investigation into the ice-cream parlour sex scandal, in which Congress ally Muslim League’s general secretary and Kerala Industries Minister PK Kunhalikutty is allegedly involved, has practically frozen. No action worth mentioning has taken place in the probe since the Congress-led UDF came to power exactly a month ago.
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CBI unravels mystery behind missing Rs 200-crore bribe - Abraham Thomas, Pioneer
The mystery behind the missing Rs 200-crore bribe has finally been unraveled. The bribe money refunded by Kalaignar TV to DB Realty to make it appear as an "unsecured loan" has been trailed to four subsidiary companies owned by Shahid Usman Balwa, one of the accused in the 2G scam.
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CAG indictment of RIL finds echo in CBI probe against oil regulator - Amitav Ranjan, IE
Reliance Industries Ltd’s alleged gold plating of capital costs in developing the KG D6 field — as pointed out by the CAG in its draft report — also finds mention in one of the three preliminary enquiries filed by the CBI against former Director General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) V K Sibal.
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Overlords of the underworld - Kiran Tare, Shantanu Guha-Ray & S Unnithan, India Today
In the past decade, half a dozen high-profile Mumbai police officials have been under their scanner for various offenses, ranging from an alleged connection with fake stamp paper scam kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi, to links with offshore underworld dons like Chhota Shakeel and Chhota Rajan.
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Silence, or bluster, is not an answer - MJ Akbar, Sunday Guardian
In the 12 June 2011 issue of The Sunday Guardian our political editor Kota Neelima broke a story that in one of the famous taped conversations A. Raja, the Telecom Minister, told lobbyist Niira Radia that "Chidambaram has taken a lot of money".
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Clarion Call - PC Vinoj Kumar, Open
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa’s tough stand against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, which large sections of the media have failed to take note of, is likely to have far-reaching political and diplomatic consequences in the Subcontinent.
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RIL, Cairn: Govt stalled queries on favours - Anupama Airy, Hindustan Times
The ongoing CBI enquiry —initiated in 2009 — on charges against petroleum regulator Director General of Hydrocarbons for accepting favours from Reliance to approve the company’s overstated capital costs for developing KG-D6 (India’s largest gas field) is just one pointer in this direction.
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Our own 123 rule - Subhomoy Bhattacharjee, Financial Express
Between them, RIL, ONGC and Coal India make up 12% of the market cap of all listed companies on the BSE. Each of them has run into competition with the other in the last few months, ironically for bad news. Each of those relate to some policy aspect of the government of India.
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Keep PM lapses secret: Pranab Mukherjee - Kumar Shakti Shekhar, Pioneer
Central Ministers and Congress leaders may be speaking in different voices over the issue of bringing the Prime Minister within the purview of the Lokpal, but Government representatives on the Joint Drafting Committee (JDC) for Lokpal have observed that no inquiry should take place against him while he holds office.
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Left wants PM in, judiciary out of lokpal ambit - Hindustan Times
The Left decided to demand adoption of an effective lokpal legislation and establishing a separate National Judicial Commission outside the purview of the anti-corruption ombudsman to curb corruption in the higher judiciary.
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Jaipal defends PC, says he didn’t take decision alone - Hindustan Times
Petroleum minister Jaipal Reddy slammed the BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi for launching a “personal” attack on home minister P Chidambaram for his role concerning the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) observations in its draft report that has indicted the government for alleged favours to private firms.
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There's legal bar on Rahul becoming PM: Swamy - K Balchand, Hindu
Dr. Swamy, however, argued that there was a legal bar on Mr. Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister “arising from Italian law which made him a citizen upon birth. He has never renounced this inherited citizenship and that he has travelled on Italian passport all over Europe on an alias.”
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Rahul not yet, PM to stay - Pioneer
Amid reports that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was upset over noises being made by some Congress leaders to anoint Rahul Gandhi as PM, the party tried to mollify the former but at the same time projected the latter as future leader. Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said that Manmohan Singh had done an excellent job, heading the Government for the past seven years. “Manmohan Singh is our PM and he continues to be that,” she said. But she did not fail to add that Rahul is the future leader.
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Uttar Pradesh: Old rivals, new challenge - Seema Chishti, Indian Express
If Abhishek Bachchan had been old enough in the eighties, he would have certainly reacted to his superstar father’s contesting from Allahabad with, “What an idea, sirji.” Amitabh Bachchan’s stint ended oddly, but it was a good idea to throw him in the ring at the time.
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Civil servants unwilling to take risks due to fear of corruption scandals & CBI shadow - Vikas Dhoot, Economic Times
In the corridors of power in New Delhi, India's top civil servants are feeling besieged. Everywhere they look, officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) see corruption scandals erupting and the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) lurking.
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Cabinet reshuffle in the offing? - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Jun 21 - Uncertainty prevails over the much-talked about expansion-cum-reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers. The exercise could now take place before the Monsoon session of Parliament beginning August one or after the session is over on September 8, highly-placed sources said. Though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi had a meeting last Sunday, the sources said that the consultations over the reshuffle were yet to take place.
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PM out of govt draft; Lokpal panel winds up in disagreement - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Jun 21 - The civil society and the government today failed to arrive at a common draft on Lokpal Bill over which there were major differences as the official version excluded the Prime Minister from its purview. Maintaining that they "agreed to disagree", HRD Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters after an hour-long meeting that differences could not be resolved on around eight key issues.
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Exemption to CBI from RTI Act a retrogade step: Aruna - Himanshi Dhawan, Times of India
Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) member Aruna Roy said it was a matter of concern. "This is a serious issue and I will try and raise it in the NAC meeting on Wednesday," she said.
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Pranab at receiving end of bug trick that has been tried on many - Vishwa Mohan, ToI
Such episodes have been chronicled by former IB joint director Maloy Krishna Dhar, who was instrumental in quite a few bugging exercises. A separate instance was recalled by former home secretary C G Somiah who after taking over in the ministry found that even his office in high-security North Block was bugged.
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Pranab, the No. 2, insecure... shows UPA mistrust, probe his office breach - IE
The Opposition’s political chorus was that if Mukherjee, the effective No. 2 in the Cabinet, was red-flagging a security concern in his office, it only went to show the “trust deficit” in the UPA.
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It will be Team Anna vs Parliament now - Indian Express
While Hazare announced his decision to go ahead with his fast on August 16 “to teach the government a lesson”, government representatives said both versions of the draft would go to an all-party meeting on July 3 after which it would attempt sending a single draft to the Cabinet en route to Parliament.
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Eye on UPA Cabinet, BJP rebel Munde talks with Congress - Indian Express
Rebel BJP leader from Maharashtra Gopinath Munde is learnt to be engaged in “hectic negotiations” with the Congress. Munde, who arrived here from Mumbai tonight, is said to have asked for a Cabinet portfolio at the Centre.
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‘Reveal letters between PMO, Raja’ - Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
India’s transparency watchdog, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has asked the Prime Minister’s Office to release communication between former telecom minister A Raja and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in relation to the 2G spectrum scam.
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Government in search of leaders - SL Rao, Telegraph Calcutta
The prime minister gives no leadership and public responses are left to two or three ministers — Kapil Sibal, Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram. The Congress president has said nothing about the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam as partner, the election debacle in Tamil Nadu, the 2G scam, the large thefts by her partyman from the Commonwealth Games, the involvement of Congressmen in the Adarsh housing scam, or the Hazare-Ramdev agitations against corruption and the late night brutal clearing of the Ramlila grounds.
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Weird twists and turns in Maharashtra's politics - Deepak Lokhande, DNA
Growing up in one of the most humble bastis in Mumbai taught me several things. Rajkaran gajkaran hai (politics is a disease) was a favourite saying in our neighbourhood, which was totally dominated by the Shiv Sena.
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Media’s blind spot: Will maul Anna but won’t question govt - BV Rao, First Post
Anna Hazare and his team were subjected to all kinds of scrutiny, which is as it should have been, but the government and the Congress got away scot-free. Little was being asked of them and nothing was answered.
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Narendra Modi: A game-changer for BJP - Shashi Shekhar, Pioneer
There is unanimity that Narendra Modi is by far the most popular leader in the BJP. The pre-election anxieties across regional parties over a Modi-led Government are well known, given the propensity of the Congress to drive a wedge in the hope of consolidating Muslim votes. But if Modi were to do a Erdogan, it could prove to be a game-changer.
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Two ex-chiefs put it in writing: keep CBI under RTI - Tanu Sharma & Ritu Sarin, IE
Both these former directors, U S Misra and Vijay Shankar, led the agency after 2005, the year the Right to Information Act came into effect. They sent their opinions to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
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After Pranab Mukherjee, CBEC chairman bugged by tapping - Economic Times
The official, S Dutt Majumder, who is the chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), raised the issue with the head of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the agency whose officials are alleged to have carried out the interception.
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All for a lokpal with teeth - Manoj Mitta, Times of India
Far from proving to be anti-democratic or counterproductive, Anna Hazare's Jantar Mantar fast has forced the government to get serious about the anti-corruption law that has been pending for the last 45 years.
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Government cold to CAG's quest for new powers - Siddharth Varadarajan, Hindu
For the past two years, the CAG has been pushing the Finance Ministry — its nodal ministry — for crucial changes in the 1971 Audit Act. The accounting watchdog's concern is that its mandate to summon files and examine the way public monies are spent has not kept pace with new modes of governance that have emerged, especially since liberalisation.
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Congress resorting to strong-arm tactics to suppress people's voice: Advani - Hindu
He said the Congress-led government was now fearful and unsure of the consequences of people's action against corruption. This was the reason why it was resorting to strong-arm tactics to suppress people's voice, he alleged.
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Government shying away from facing Parliament: Sushma - Hindu
The ruling coalition at the Centre is shying away from facing Parliament, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said on Thursday. “They [the ruling party] do not want to face Parliament and will delay the session as long as they can.”
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Dayanidhi Maran, the real raja of telecom ministry - Manoj Gairola, Hindustan Times
The trickle is growing into a flood. With more evidence coming out on DMK heavyweight Dayanidhi Maran's decisions during his tenure as the communications minister, it is becoming clear that he was the real gainer from the ministry of telecom.
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No way to treat the PM: Digvijaya’s uncalled for statement - Inder Malhotra, Tribune
Without beating about the bush, let it be said that Mr Digvijaya Singh-led Rahul-for-PM-now chorus is offensive and unfair to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He is doubtless beleaguered and has had a bad time lately. But the fault is not his alone. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the party as a whole must share the blame. For all his limitations, the Prime Minister is a man personifying decency, diligence, ability and impeccable integrity.
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New norms on N-tech export won't affect India: New Zealand PM - Indrani Bagchi, ToI
In 2008, New Zealand led the opposition against the Indian nuclear exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). On a state visit to India this week, New Zealand prime minister John Key said the new guidelines on export of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology did not mean India would be denied access to it.
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Team Anna meets Advani, Bardhan to canvass support - Times of India
Taking their fight for the Lokpal Bill to political parties, the Anna Hazare team on Friday met BJP veteran L K Advani and CPI leader A B Bardhan. India Against Corruption (IAC) members including Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia had a brief meeting with Advani regarding their version of the Lokpal Bill.
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HC Chief Justices shying away from asset scrutiny - Abraham Thomas, Pioneer
The demand for greater judicial probity is growing shriller by the day but Chief Justices of only five out of 21 high courts in the country have declared their assets though 18 months have lapsed since the Supreme Court passed a related resolution and the Chief Justice of India wrote to Chief Justices of the high courts to make their assets public. Three Chief Justices had resolved to declare assets in September 2009 but have failed to date.
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CWC plans Hazare blot-out - Annapurna Jha, Pioneer
Unhappy over the conciliatory manner in which the Government engaged with the Anna Hazare team, the Congress Working Committee on Friday discussed the contentious issue of the proposed Lokpal Bill and advocated a tough stand against such “so-called representatives of the civil society who try to subvert the democratic polity”. The 100-minute CWC meeting, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, flayed Hazare and backed the Government’s stand that the Lokpal Bill would be finalised in consultation with various parties at the all-party meeting scheduled for July 3.
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Maran will be dropped if 2G probe points finger - George Joseph, Express Buzz
The CBI is likely to complete the initial probe in the allegations against Maran in two to three weeks and file a report, sources said. If it finds substance in the allegations, Maran is likely to be questioned. This can lead to a new cases against him.
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New NSG curbs on N-tech transfer worry India - Times of India
Sources said India's discomfiture with ENR guidelines stems less from the fact that India needs the technology right now. But the guidelines go against the entire spirit of the NSG waiver and the promise of full nuclear commerce.
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Rahul, the unready - Rajeev Deshpande & Subodh Ghildiyal, Times of India
When Rahul Gandhi was being wished a prime ministerial birthday, the young leader himself was nowhere in sight. Wary of unsolicited wishes and shows of support, he was far away from the scene, perhaps unaware that a storm had broken out over a headline he has firmly discouraged for years.
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Justices Verma and Srikrishna red-flag NAC draft anti-communal violence Bill - Seema Chishti, Indian Express
Commenting on the Bill — its amended draft was released this week — former Chief Justice of India Justice J S Verma says: “No law can eradicate communalism in the country...We need to identify lacunae in present laws, if any, and make amendments.
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Pranab for PM? Readiness is not all - Chanakya, Hindustan Times
Is Pranab Mukherjee ready to become prime minister? This isn't a question that is likely to be asked in these humid times when Digvijaya Singh is busy endorsing the fact that Rahul Gandhi is of the right age and with enough experience to handle the top job. But thanks to Digvijaya, I can't help but bring up what was once an obvious question: Will Pranab-da finally become PM?
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Katchchatheevu issue to be raised in Parliament: BJP - Hindu
After meeting AIADMK general secretary and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Saturday, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, promised to raise in Parliament the resolutions passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly on retrieving Katchchatheevu and seeking economic sanctions against Sri Lanka.
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Talking Sense - Subir Bhaumik, Caravan
One of the first to congratulate Gogoi on his near-clean sweep was United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa . “The people of Assam and those in the ULFA welcome this great victory by the Congress under the leadership of Tarun Gogoi,” he said. “We have great expectations from his government. We hope it will work for peace and a final political settlement in Assam.”
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‘Mere paas Sonia hai’: Why NAC scores over Team Anna - Sanjeev Srivastava, First Post
The irony is too stark to miss. On Wednesday, the Sonia Gandhi-led NAC approved and finalised drafts for two of the most path-breaking legislations of UPA 2, the Food Security Bill and the Communal Violence Bill.
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Manmohan Singh: you’ve nothing to hide, why hide? - R Jagannathan, First Post
The last few months could not but have saddened you. Your reputation has taken a knock, and today it is almost impossible to find any newspaper or media columnist talking positively about you. Your own party is thinking of you as a deadweight. Check out Digvijaya Singh’s careless comments on Rahul Gandhi’s fitness for the office you hold.
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Team Anna to e-democracy: A case for ‘mob rule’ - Venky Vembu, First Post
It’s become fashionable for politicians across the spectrum and for media commentators to mock Anna Hazare and his band of merry men for their use of the term “civil society” to describe their mass-mobilisation movement. “If they are ‘civil society’, who are we: the uncivil society?” said CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, less in jest than in malice.
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Pranab is hardly the first finance minister to have had his office bugged - Vir Sanghvi
Foreign dignitaries visiting India are always warned by their own security services that IB will bug their conversations. In his diaries, Alistair Campell, one of Tony Blair’s closest advisors during the Downing Street years, provides details of how the British Prime Minister was bugged while on an official visit to India.
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Not much longer before the Congress dumps Manmohan - Venky Vembu, First Post
But beyond the atmospherics of the Cabinet reshuffle, bigger power games are being played out in the Delhi Durbar that perhaps signal that more momentous changes are being lined up. Those changes could go right to the top – to 7, Race Course Road, the official residence of the Prime Minister.
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Wrong people sometimes elevated to higher judiciary: Ex-CJI Verma - Times of India
Acknowledging that certain individuals with doubtful integrity were elevated within the higher judiciary, former Chief Justice of India JS Verma — who had envisaged the collegium system of judicial appointments — said a national commission should be put in place to ensure greater transparency.
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Balakrishnan should have quit long back, says ex-CJI - Times of India
I have said it long back and I have no hesitation repeating. He should have demitted long back and if he doesn't do it voluntarily, the government should persuade him to do that, otherwise, proceed to do whatever can be done to see that he demits office.
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Government has no will to create a strong Lokpal: Ramdev - P Sunderarajan, Hindu
Returning to Delhi for the first time after the June 4 crackdown on his Ramlila grounds rally, yoga guru Baba Ramdev on Sunday renewed his attack on the government and claimed that it had “no will” to create a strong Lokpal to check corruption.
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Joshi demands Chidambaram's resignation over 2G scam - Kestur Vasuki, Pioneer
Senior BJP leader and chairman of PAC Murli Manohar Joshi has reiterated his demand for the resignation of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram over the 2G scam. He pointed out that the scam took shape during Chidambaram’s tenure as Finance Minister.
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2G probe: Swan trail now leads to Switzerland - Ritu Sarin, Indian Express
Sources said that while the scrutiny of the documents is still in progress what is known is that the money trail for Delphi Investment — the company to which the 9.9% stake held by Reliance Telecom in Swan was transferred in December 2007 — has now moved to Switzerland.
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Mayawati holds edge despite cracks - Appu Esthose Suresh, Mint
While Kumar and other villagers are unlikely to switch their votes from the BSP, analysts said the chief minister should be watchful, particularly after the beating the BSP administration’s image has taken following high-profile law and order disruptions as well as a face-off with farmers in western Uttar Pradesh over land acquisition for private sector projects.
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Chewing gum gate: IB on a chase after media revelations - Bharti Jain, Economic Times
After the media reports on Chewing Gum Gate, the Intelligence Bureau, or IB, has discreetly reopened the inquiry into facts that were not brought to its notice in its probe last year: that a private agency had been called in by CBDT to sweep the finance ministry premises before the prime minister tasked the IB to look up the planted adhesives found at 16 locations.
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Khursheed says Sachar report not Quran, sparks off war of words - Seema Chishti, IE
Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed’s remarks in Chennai last week questioning the Sachar report’s recommendations and urging Muslims to think of national issues, not just their narrow interests, has set off a raging debate in the community.
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UP: Congress stumbles after a good start - Liz Mathew & Appu Esthose Suresh, Mint
Analysts say the lack of a grass-roots organization is preventing the party from realizing political gains from such activism. The onus, they say, is on Gandhi and Digvijay Singh, who oversees the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, to not only reinvent the party machinery and resolve intra-party differences in the state unit, but also to inject enthusiasm among its cadres.
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Beyond the Manmohan mukhota - NV Subramanian, DNA
To quote Manmohan Singh out of context, nobody carries a “magic wand”, least of all Rahul Gandhi, Digvijay Singh’s favourite for the prime ministership. The Thakur leader was busy promoting Rahul Gandhi at the cost of Manmohan Singh till the Congress party snubbed him.
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My sinister yet brilliant plan for succeeding Manmohan Singh as PM, by Digvijay Singh - Aditya Sinha, DNA
If one were to speculate on what provoked the ex-CM of Madhya Pradesh to write this book, it would probably be the current tug-of-war between the two workhorses of UPA-2: the I’ve-shouldered-so-much-burden-yet-still-I’m-not-trusted finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, and the frighteningly-brilliant-to-the-point-of-self-destruction home minister P Chidamabaram.
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BJP sweeps Delhi polls trouncing Congress - Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar, Hindu
Fighting both anti-incumbency and infighting, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday emerged triumphant in the elections to the newly trifurcated Municipal Corporation of Delhi, winning a majority of seats in the North and East Corporations. It also emerged the leader in the South Corporation, bagging 44 of the 104 wards, but fell short of the majority mark.
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Kudos Mr Khursheed, sachar can only hold muslims back - R jagannath, First post
Salman Khursheed, Minority Affairs Minister in the UPA government, has kicked off a storm among traditional vote-bankers by speaking the unspeakable: that the Sachar Committee report on the status of Muslims need not be put on a pedestal.
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Cases against netas seldom probed properly, says Supreme Court - Dhananjay Mahapatra, Times of India
The Supreme Court has moved to plug loopholes in the judicial administration system that are exploited to undermine probe into criminal cases involving important political figures and inordinately delay their trial.
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Institute to spread Rajiv ideology soon - Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
Sriperumbudar in Tamil Nadu, the place where former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's was assassinated, will now get a national institute of excellence for youth development, first of its kind in India.
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BJP faces uphill task in UP polls - Ruhi Tewari, Mint
People get fooled only once. You can’t carry on with the sham for too long. Everyone knows the Ram mandir issue is no longer valid, at least electorally, and nobody would vote for the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) or any other political party based on this issue,” said Heeralal Gupta, who runs a small shop in the market adjoining the disputed site at Ayodhya.
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Cherry-picked print editors now govt spokespersons - Sanjeev Srivastava, First Post
In a free wheeling interaction with a group of editors for nearly 90 minutes on Wednesday, Manmohan Singh asserted that he was not a lame duck prime minister and enjoyed the full confidence and support of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.
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Inner strength first - Inder Malhotra, Deccan Chronicle
Beleaguered though it is for various reasons, some of them of its own creation, the Union government’s decision to appoint a task force on national security, internal and external, merits a welcome. It hasn’t come a day too soon. The composition of the task force is also reassuring. Its chairman, Naresh Chandra, is a former defence secretary, home secretary, Cabinet secretary, ambassador to the US and currently, chairman of the National Security Advisory Board.
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Gujarat: Land scam worth Rs 2 lakh crore exposed at Kandla Port - Harinder Baweja, India Today
For years, a scam has been going on in connivance with some local families and some senior Kandla Port Trust and Union Shipping Ministry officials. Headlines Today has exposed the mammoth land scam in which 16,000 acres of prime land were leased out for a mere pittance and the loss to the Indian exchequer has been evaluated at a whopping Rs 200,000 crore by the port's chief vigilance officer.
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I’ll ‘happily’ quit when Cong orders, says PM - Pioneer
Prodded by his party to go for a media blitzkrieg and by his advisors to defend his Government against charges of corruption, policy paralysis and his own uncertain future, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday tried to clear the air.
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Economist Manmohan failed Indians: Gadkari - Pioneer
The BJP on Wednesday refuted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s charge about Opposition’s non-cooperation and returned fire by saying that it was his (UPA) Government that did not consider it appropriate to consult the principal Opposition on an important issue like Lokpal Bill.
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Dark days of emergency - A Surya Prakash, Pioneer
We must never forget the Congress’s suppression of democratic rights during the 1975-77 Emergency. The party remains authoritarian as ever.
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PM met media to justify failure: BJP - Indian Express
The BJP on Wednesday sharpened its attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after he broke his silence and argued his was not a “lame duck” government.
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Govt proposes, Google disposes - Vshoba, Indian Express
Google Inc complied with 79 per cent of the Indian government’s requests for private user information in the second half of 2010, but with only 22 per cent of requests for removal of items, according to a report released by the web search company.
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My govt is being termed most corrupt ever: PM - Times of India
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said that his government was described as the most corrupt-ever, adding that corruption has become a big issue and has caught the popular imagination.
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A need to be fighting fit - Prakash Singh, Times of India
The home minister, writing in early 2010, expressed his confidence that "if we remain steadfast in this path of carefully controlled, calibrated operations to reclaim territories that are dominated (by) Maoists, we should be able to rid ourselves of this menace in about two-three years".
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Didi is riding a tiger now - Raghuvir Srinivasan, Business Line
Power is intoxicating, especially that drawn by a leader from the people. It takes a very balanced, mature personality to ensure that it does not go to the head. More often than not, in politics especially, this balance and maturity is absent. Political history is replete with examples where leaders, elected with massive mandates, muffed it by allowing power to get to their heads.
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Media is not your enemy Mr Singh - Headlines Today
It's a sad commentary on our democratic system; the prime minister talking to the media becomes the 'biggest story' of the day and the media (for once) can't be blamed for going overboard.
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Daughter prayer for Karuna - GC. Shekhar, Telegraph Calcutta
An election rout, loss of power and jail for a relative has sent staunch atheist M. Karunanidhi’s family running to the Almighty.
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Telangana on the boil once again - A. Srinivasa Rao, India Today
After a brief lull, Andhra Pradesh appears to be heading towards yet another bloody agitation in the next couple of weeks, if the deployment of large number of central paramilitary forces across the state is any indication.
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Jayalalithaa for PM in 2014? ‘Anything is possible’ - Venky Vembu, First Post
If Jayalalithaa plays her cards adroitly over the next three years and sets the benchmark for good governance in Tamil Nadu, without giving in to the megalomaniacal excesses that characterised her earlier tenures, she could write her political script in a way that carries her through to 7, Race Course Road.
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Law before magnanimity - Dipankar Gupta, Times of India
What was the home minister thinking of when he pressed the delete button and removed the names of 142 Sikhs from the "blacklist"? If these terrorists were killers once, they are killers now.
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Helping snoop firm: 2 ex-RAW chiefs, 1 ex-Governor, Revenue Secretary’s wife - Ritu Sarin, Indian Express
The private security company — whose managing director was called in by the Finance Ministry to sweep North Block, and which found “adhesives” in 16 key locations — has some of the biggest names among retired intelligence officials as its advisors.
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Exile on main street - Rajdeep Sardesai, Hindustan Times
Sanyas obviously means different things to different people. In 2003, soon after losing the Madhya Pradesh elections, Digvijaya Singh rather dramatically announced, “I have decided to take political sanyas for the next 10 years.”
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Manmohan ignored ruling on CAG's rights - B. Muralidhar Reddy, Hindu
In questioning the propriety and legality of the Comptroller and Auditor-General holding a news conference on its 2G report, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ignored not only past precedents but also a court ruling upholding the CAG's right to do so.
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Hill Council demarcation divides WB govt and Gorkha leaders - Madhuparna Das, IE
The contours of a new autonomous Gorkha Hill Council territory, which the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) sees as a steppingstone to Gorkhaland, remain a contentious issue in negotiations between the GJM and the state government.
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We want strong Lokpal bill, BJP tells Team Hazare - Deccan Herald
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)on Friday assured civil society activist Anna Hazare that it was in favour of a strong Lokpal (ombudsman) bill and emphasised that members constituting the Lokpal should have impeccable credentials.
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The Praful Patel Guide to destroying AI – Revised Edition - R Jagannathan, First Post
But for all this, the airline still won’t be able to make a profit till 2017-18. Air India, it seems, has been fixed – and fixed for good – by former Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, who has often been accused by the unions of batting for Air India’s rivals till the ministry was prised away from his grip last January.
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Lokpal bill and the Prime Minister: V.R. Krishna Iyer responds - Hindu
Lord Acton, the great British jurist, rightly said: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The Prime Minister is the custodian of the considerable state power. He has to be under public scrutiny.
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PMO reveals PM’s ‘off-the-record’ swipe - Shubhajit Roy, Indian Express
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “off-the-record” comments —that were on the PM’s website for over 30 hours — have led to a controversy impacting New Delhi’s relations with Bangladesh, as it comes barely a week before External Affairs minister S M Krishna’s visit to Dhaka.
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Bengal’s transition between dystopias - Udayan Namboodiri, Pioneer
One of the many clichés used as a balm by liberal intellectuals to soothe India’s mass discontent with everything that comes with bad governance is “in a democracy, people have the power to change a government”. Actually, this is worse than an untruth — it’s a conspiracy.
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Killing fields of Bengal - Saugor Sengupta, Pioneer
At times, an exhumed skeleton can speak louder than one tumbling off the closet. In post-poll West Bengal such a predicament has hit the state’s former political masters, the CPI(M), with full force.
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Criminalisation of CPI(M) a fact of life - Kshiti Goswami, Pioneer
The large-scale recovery of arms and ammunition after the elections is quite disconcerting. I am sure it is not a good advertisement for Bengal which wants to invite investment. What has made matters worse is the bunch of skeletons dug out from various places, particularly from a place at Garbeta in West Midnapore, which has witnessed a number of bloody clashes over the past one decade.
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East by north-east - Sunanda K Datta-Ray, Business Standard
If development means the influx of plainsmen and bureaucratic controls, it won’t meet the young Manipuri student’s grumble that India is leapfrogging the north-east to reach south-east Asia.
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Upping the ante - Manjari Mishra & Pravin Kumar, ToI
It has been an unusually busy summer for politicians in Uttar Pradesh. Suddenly, they seem to be turning up everywhere, with TV cameras in tow. But, no one has been quite as busy as Rahul Gandhi.
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From encrypted email, Skype to chat: Home wants to tap all - Ritu Sarin, Indian Express
The Department of Telecommunications has virtually turned down an unprecedented request from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Intelligence Bureau to help intercept a sweeping range of encrypted communications taking place through mobile phones and the Internet.
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United opposition to take on Govt at all-party meet - Manoj CG, Indian Express
The stage is set for a showdown between the Government and a united Opposition at the all-party meeting to discuss the contours of the proposed Lokpal Bill on Sunday, with the NDA, Left and a host of other parties making it clear they would convey their strong “displeasure” for keeping them out of the consultation process so far and deciding not to reveal their cards unless the Government comes up with a “cabinet-approved” draft of the legislation.
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CAG to go public with audit reports on flagship schemes - Joe C Mathew & Akshat Kaushal, Business Standard
All set for more public interactions even as PM has been critical of the apex auditor recently. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may not be happy with the way the apex auditor of the country, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, goes public with its findings, but the office of the CAG is bracing up for more public interactions in the coming days.
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Govt draft worse than 'jokepal', says Jaitley - Dhananjay Mahapatra, Times of India
BJP on Sunday tore into the government nominees drafted Lokpal bill on the ground that it proposed to create an institution worse than "jokepal" and said the prime minister must be included in the ambit of the watchdog with the exception of his decisions and actions relating to national security and public order.
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Backing for bill, not govt: Oppn - Times of India
India is set to get a tough anti-corruption Lokpal by the end of the year. Faced with a deep crisis of credibility, the political class on Sunday came together to pledge a "strong and effective" Lokpal bill in the monsoon session beginning on August 1.
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NCW offers carrot to Sheila, stick to Maya - Pioneer
Police lathicharge and subsequent violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Bhatta-Parsaul villages saw human rights bodies — National Commission for Women (NCW) and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) gang up against the police and State, wasting no time to even dispatch an enquiry team to probe the incident.
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Rajnath tasked to reclaim UP - Pioneer
In a surprise move on Sunday, BJP’s central leadership requested former president Rajnath Singh to pay “special attention” to Uttar Pradesh where the party is desperate to make a comeback in the 2012 Assembly polls.
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Temple of boom: Rs 1 lakh crore and counting - Ananthakrishnan G, Times of India
Call it the mother of all treasure hunts. The stock-taking by a panel of experts at the Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple has catapulted the shrine located at Thiruvananthapuram to the country's richest, with reports claiming that the value of recoveries may have touched close to Rs 1 lakh crore, more than Kerala public debt of Rs 70,969 crore.
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UDF looks at new law to prevent change in temple administration - Appu Esthose Suresh, Mint
To avoid taking sides on an issue that could become politically controversial, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government in Kerala is considering legislation to preserve the right of an erstwhile royal family to oversee the administration of a centuries-old temple in the state capital.
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Don't let Kalmadi run riot, Aiyar had warned PM - Economic Times
Three Union sports ministers had warned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh against the structure and functioning of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee headed by Suresh Kalmadi, letters accessed by a Right to Information activist has revealed.
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Manmohan Talks - Vir Sanghvi
It makes you wonder about the times we live in --- and the country we live in --- when the news that the Prime Minister is going to talk to five journalists is such a big deal that it makes page one of major newspapers and is a headline on TV news.
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Kerala: Now terror's own backyard in India - Vicky Nanjappa, Rediff
According to the Union home ministry, the annual remittance through hawala channels into Kerala is a whopping Rs 20,000 crore. This figure tells the story of a state, which has today become a hub for extremists.
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Murli Deora tried to pre-empt probe into Essar-Loop case: CBI - Sanjay K Singh, ET
The Central Bureau of Investigation has complained to the Supreme Court that Company Affairs Minister Murli Deora's department attempted to "preempt investigations" into the Essar-Loop association case. CBI's charge prompted the court to direct it to ignore the opinion given by the ministry.
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Saxena in Sun city: Resourceful, polite but ruthless operator - Times of India
Politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats and journalists who need to talk to Sun Network managing director Kalanithi Maran have a common name on their speed dial: Sax. The name is W Hansraj Saxena, but the man is known by his moniker.
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Reveal names of Liechtenstein account holders against whom probe is over: Supreme Court - J Venkatesan, Hindu
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Union government's claim of absolute immunity and directed it to disclose the names of those with bank accounts in Liechtenstein, as revealed by Germany, against whom investigations were concluded, either partially or wholly, and show-cause issued and proceedings initiated.
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MLAs, MPs quit but AP govt is safe - Ashok Das, Hindustan Times
Andhra Pradesh plunged into a political crisis on Monday with 79 legislators from Telangana slipping in their resignations to browbeat the Centre to concede their demand for a separate state. The day started with 37 Congress MLAs, including 11 ministers, putting in their papers.
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The many faces of Civil Society - Vandita Mishra, Indian Express
Rewind and tune in to the national conversation since Anna Hazare went on fast for the Lokpal bill in the first week of April, and the impression is inescapable: Its address may vary, from Jantar Mantar to the television studio and fleetingly at Ramlila Maidan in between, but Civil Society is here.
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Amma's band steps in to stop Sun dance - Sriram Srinivasan & Prem Shanker, ET
For the third time this year, Sun TV's stocks have had the rug pulled from under their feet. Kalanithi Maran, the founder of Sun TV and one of South India's most prominent industrialists, is still standing.
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PM should be under Lokpal: BJP - Economic Times
A day after it refrained from spelling out its stand on the Lokpal bill at an all-party meeting, the Bharatiya Janata Party broke its silence, opposing immunity to the Prime Minister's post and suggesting a national judicial commission to deal with corruption in judiciary.
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A VVIP state guest who shuns red carpet - V Sudharshan, Express Buzz
It is not very well known that it took five years, after Interpol traced Kim Davy to Denmark in 2002, for Denmark to consider his extradition. That was after the attacks on New York forced changes in Denmark’s terror laws.
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PM & a world of uncertainties - Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Asian Age
Opinion is divided on whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh refurbished his image after addressing television editors on February 16 and his session with five senior editors from the print media on June 29.
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Gamesmanship - Ashok Malik, Asian Age
At his now-famous interaction with a quintet of editors this past week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a few somewhat strange remarks about the Commonwealth Games of 2010 and the serial scandals that preceded it.
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SC disbands Salwa Judum, anti-Naxal ops may be hit - Dhananjay Mahapatra & Supriya Sharma, Times of India
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Chhattisgarh government to disband and disarm 6,500 special police officers (SPOs) engaged in anti-Maoist operations, putting the state which has borne the brunt of ultra-Left violence in a fix on how to deal with the threat.
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Where no sunlight goes - Nikhil Dey & Aruna Roy, Indian Express
If actions speak louder than words, then the government has just spoken loud and clear. There could be no stronger indication of the government’s lack of serious intent in building an effective anti-corruption regime than the decision to remove the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) law.
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'Isolated' Chidambaram avoids media - Pioneer
With the Opposition seeking his resignation for allegedly "colluding" with former telecom minister A.Raja in spectrum allotment, and his ministry under scanner for "bugging" of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram is keeping media at bay, so much so that he even avoided his routine monthly briefing on the affairs of his Ministry.
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Treasure belongs to temple, says M.G.S. Narayanan - R Madhavan Nair, Hindu
While there is no bar on spending the treasure found in Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple for public welfare, only the temple authorities, including the erstwhile Maharaja of Travancore, is competent to decide how it should be spent, according to the former Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, M.G.S. Narayanan.
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Rs 42,000-cr foreign funds for NGOs in last 5 years - Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
Indian Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have received Rs 42,200 crore from foreign donors in the last five years, more than what the central government had spent on the world's largest social security scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in 2009-10.
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A Louvre in Kerala? - Joe A Scaria, Economic Times
The Louvre in Paris, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Vatican Museums in Rome could just find themselves rubbing shoulders with a new competitor in the world's top league of museums.
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Cable around Maran's residence: Jaya to take action - Times of India
After TIMES NOW reported about a private fibre cable network laid right from 2G scam embroiled Dayanidhi Maran's residence to the Sun TV office, while he was the Telecom Minister, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa said that she will take appropriate action on the same.
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An Image Is Flipped - Pushpa Iyengar, Outlook
The self-assigned label of “protector of Tamils” worn by M. Karunanidhi, former chief minister and DMK supremo, is no longer finding endorsement among those fighting for the Tamil cause.
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In Mamata’s Bengal, Maoists are regrouping; Centre worried - Santanu Banerjee, DNA
With mounting pressure from the Centre and the alleged ‘regrouping of the Maoists’ in affected districts, the disconnect between Kolkata’s Writers’ Building and political initiatives to achieve normalcy is widening.
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Ambani’s 2007 Swan stake sale involved $4m Swiss funds - Raman Kirpal, First Post
The Supreme Court has got into the bring-back-the-black-money game by appointing its own Special Investigation Team (SIT), but there’s little doubt that it is going to be a long haul.
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Supreme Court order deals a big blow to Centre's anti-Maoist operations - Krishnakumar Padmanabhan, DNA
Tuesday’s Supreme Court judgment directing the Chhattisgarh government to immediately stop recruiting local tribal people as Special Police Officers for operations against Maoists will be a major operational blow for the Centre’s anti-Maoist policy, state government officials and security officers have told DNA.
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Chhattisgarh: Future tense in Naxal fight - Supriya Sharma, Times of India
With the Supreme Court asking Chhattisgarh government to "immediately cease and desist" from deploying SPOs in anti Maoist operations and recall their firearms "forthwith", confusion prevails over the future of these four thousand odd young, fit, trained fighters.
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Karuna shuffles PM’s Cabinet - J Gopikrishnan, Pioneer
Jolted by the CBI disclosure in the Supreme Court about a prima facie case against Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran in the Aircel-Maxis-Sun TV deal, DMK chief M Karunanidhi has decided to drop him from the Union Cabinet and replace him with TR Baalu.
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SC order will hurt; will disarm SPOs, won’t sack them: C’garh top cop - Vivek Deshpande, Indian Express
The Supreme Court order striking down the appointment of special police officers (SPOs) will be a setback to operations against the Naxals in Chhattisgarh, state police chief Vishwa Ranjan said today.
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The treasure of Trivandrum - Madhav Khosla, Indian Express
Even if one tries, it cannot be made to sound more like an adventure. The brother of a dead king alleges that he is now the ruler, and argues that an old law gives him the power to control a powerful temple.
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CBI says Maran forced Aircel to sell shares to Malaysian firm - J Venkatesan, Hindu
There is prima facie material to suggest that there is an element of coercion by the “former Telecom Minister” [Dayanidhi Maran, now the Textiles Minister] in Aircel selling its shares to a Malaysian telecom company, the Central Bureau of Investigation told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
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When the vault was opened in 1931 - A Srivathsan, Hindu
Sixty-nine years ago, long before the latest discovery of phenomenal treasures in the Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, at least one of the several vaults of the temple had been opened and an inventory made of the precious objects found inside.
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Spectrum storm scalps Maran, may hasten Cabinet reshuffle - ToI
Allegations of corruption have scalped another Union Cabinet minister. Textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran put in his papers on Thursday, yielding to the persistent clamour for his removal over CBI's probe into allegations that he, as telecom minister, arm-twisted the promoter of mobile service provider Aircel to sell out to Malaysian telecom firm Maxis.
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No minutes of PC-Raja meetings on spectrum pricing: DEA - Rajeev Deshpande, ToI
There are no formal recorded minutes of meetings between jailed former telecom minister A Raja and then finance minister P Chidambaram relating to consultations that led the two ministries to report concurrence on spectrum pricing issues to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
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Telangana crisis: Hong Kong model for Hyderabad may work - Kingshuk Nag, ToI
Hyderabad's MP Assaduddin Owaisi is a much sought-after man by protagonists of united Andhra. Owaisi may be not able to stem the Telangana movement but can help to keep Hyderabad away from Telangana.
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From the margins, Dalits watch Rahul yatra - Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Indian Express
The Bahujan Samaj Party is seeking comfort in the fact that Rahul Gandhi’s walkabout doesn't touch many Dalit homes. In fact, all along his Kisan Sangharsh Yatra focusing on farmland acquired by the UP government along the Yamuna Expressway, you have to search hard to find affected Dalit landowners.
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BJP trains guns on Chidambaram, PM - Indian Express
The BJP on Thursday once again demanded Home Minister P Chidambaram’s resignation claiming that he as the Finance Minister in the UPA I had approved former Telecom Minister A Raja’s controversial allotment of 2G spectrum licences.
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2G scam: Finance Ministry went along with A Raja: DEA tells JPC - ET
The Finance Ministry resisted A Raja's decision not to auction the 2G spectrum, but eventually went along Telecom Ministry's views, a presentation by the Department of Economic Affairs before the Joint Parliamentary Committee probing the scandal said on Thursday.
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Tangles of Telangana - Ajay Gudavarthy, Indian Express
The sudden spate of developments in the Telangana issue reflect, more than a concern for the backwardness of Telangana, an attempt on the part of both the TDP and the Congress to make sure they do not stand to lose in either region if Telangana is granted statehood.
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The meeting, call that could help CBI nail Maran - Sunetra Choudhury, NDTV
Sources in the CBI say that Mr Sivasankaran has shared critical details of a meeting that help boost their case against Mr Maran. The former Aircel owner has said that at a meeting in November 2005, he met Kalanidhi Maran at the Sun TV office in Chennai and "was threatened to sell my Aircel stake to Maxis."
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The provenance of the temple treasure - T S Subramanian, Hindu
The collection being unearthed at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram principally comprises contributions from the Travancore kings over a long period, say researchers.
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In Valley, it's OK to slam govt but not separatists - Randeep Singh Nandal, ToI
"When freedom of speech is subjected to strangulation..." goes M C Kash's rap song, "I protest". Written at the height of last summer's protests, the rapper captured the imagination of the youth in Kashmir.
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Rahul plays the high stakes game on land acquisition - Subodh Ghildiyal, ToI
By the time Rahul Gandhi returns to Delhi on Saturday evening, he would have stoked the already prevailing anger among farmers along Yamuna Expressway in western UP.
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2 resignations: Then and now - Saubhadra Chatterji, Hindustan Times
On November 14 last, six top Congress leaders met at PM Manmohan Singh’s chamber in the Parliament building. Apart from Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, home minister P Chidambaram and Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel were present.
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PM yet to accept Maran's resignation as Prez is out? - Kumar Shakti Shekhar, Pioneer
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not yet accepted the resignation of Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran, who has been accused by the CBI of misusing his position as Telecom Minister in the 2G scam.
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Murli Deora: Business as usual - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
In India between the 1960s and the early 1990s, it was essential to know a few phrases if you wanted to do business. When you heard “aapka kaam ho jayega” (your work will be done), no matter how much you might have had to pay, you smiled, returned to the office to tell your boss that it was all clear on the India project and knocked back a healthy Scotch-and-soda or two in the evening to celebrate.
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Snooping on Ministers - A Surya Prakash, Pioneer
The Prime Minister told a select group of regional media editors the other day that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had complained to him that his office had been bugged. On receiving this complaint, the Prime Minister asked the Intelligence Bureau to investigate and report back to him directly.
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Nowhere to go, Karuna clings to UPA - Pioneer
Though upset with the fate of his Ministers and his own daughter and Rajya Sabha member M Kanimozhi’s incarceration, Karunanidhi has decided to stay with the Congress realising that the DMK was neither in the position to pressurise the Congress nor afford to lose power at the Centre after the party’s electoral debacle in Tamil Nadu.
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'Wise getting rid of sinking UPA' - Annapurna Jha, Pioneer
CPI general secretary AB Bardhan on Saturday lashed out at the UPA Government for corruption saying that it was in a drift with no definite policy and “wise” Ministers are abandoning the Government like rats jumping out of a sinking ship.
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Salwa Judum: Left in the lurch - Vivek Deshpande, Indian Express
Salwa Judum, which means a purification hunt in Bastar’s tribal dialect, started as a spontaneous uprising against Naxals in Ambeli village in Kutru block of Bijapur district on June 4, 2005. Tired of constant harassment by the police who came looking for Naxals, people from Ambeli and a few neighbouring villages decided to hunt them out themselves.
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Change in Kashmir - AG Noorani, Dawn
In mid-2011, the political situation in Kashmir has undergone a change as fundamental as the one which overtook it in 1989, when militancy erupted. Now militancy is on a steep decline and the leaders of the factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference are devising a new strategy in this new situation. Set up in 1993, the APHC, even before it split in 2003, was clueless about an appropriate strategy and tactics.
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Moily wants to bail out tainted officer - Yatish Yadav, Sunday Guardian
The Ministry of Law headed by Veerappa Moily has advised the Ministry of Finance that it should withdraw the sanction it has given to the CBI to prosecute Ashok Agarwal, a former deputy director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a corruption case.
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World’s richest gold-jewel collection? - TJS George, Express Buzz
One thing is now clear: India is a very rich country, perhaps the richest in the world. Gold reserves play a decisive role in central banking around the globe, which makes the yellow metal a currency rather than a commodity. India has more of this currency than any other country.
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Gujarat for list of central funds to states - Rathin Das, Pioneer
The Gujarat Government on Tuesday dared the Congress-led UPA to release a comparative chart of Central assistance to Congress-ruled States and the Opposition-ruled States.
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In divided JPC, daggers drawn, chinks in armour exposed - D K Singh, Indian Express
It is called a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), but minutes of the deliberations of 30-member group of MPs looking into the 2G spectrum scam reflect a disjointed exercise with sharp divisions along political lines.
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Adamant Sibal fuels SG crisis - Abraham Thomas, Pioneer
In an atmosphere of complete mistrust between the Government and its top legal adviser, Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium refused to take back his resignation letter on Sunday even as Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal appeared in no mood to allow Subramanium to represent him before the Supreme Court in the PIL filed by Prashant Bhushan on R’Com waiver.
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NHAI rejig gathers dust as Ministry naps - Kumar Shakti Shekhar, Pioneer
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has failed to carry out restructuring of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) even in four years despite directives from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Cabinet, Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
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Telangana activists to return to streets, stop trains on 14 July - Anil Penna, Mint
Telangana activists will return to the streets this week to ratchet up pressure on the central government after mass resignations by members of Parliament (MPs) and Andhra Pradesh state lawmakers from the region underlined rare unity of purpose behind the cause of a separate state and opened another front against the embattled United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
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Cong-BSP duel must lead to a better UP - Mahesh Rangarajan, India Today
The four-day padyatra through Western Uttar Pradesh by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has excited much comment. Much of the focus has been on the implications of this for the revival of the Congress in its one-time bastion.
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Do the treasures belong to the temple? - R Nagaswamy, Express Buzz
The question whether the treasures (temple offerings) recently brought to light in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple belong to the state or the temple is debated, with some asserting they belong to the state while others claim they belong to the temple.
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Rahul Gandhi’s uphill march - Bharat Bhushan, Mail Today
To a question about how long a padyatra ( a political walkathon) should last, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is believed to have replied, “ Pad milne tak ( Till you get the seat of power).
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Fill in the blanks and you get the reshuffle - Prabhu Chawla, Express Buzz
Opposition parties are calling Manmohan Singh India’s weakest prime minister. But they are missing the trees for the woods. As the frivolous cacophony over the New Look Cabinet gets louder, Manmohan’s spin-doctors are busy spinning their own yarns about its real purpose.
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Track tragedy: A ministry held hostage by coalition politics - Akshaya Mishra, First Post
Blame it on the politics of expediency and culture of ad hocism, and the criminal disregard for human life in the political establishment.
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Calcutta: HC asks govt to reconsider minority quota - Telegraph Calcutta
Calcutta High Court today directed the state government to reconsider its decision to reserve 10 per cent government jobs for economically backward Muslims, saying the move was initiated in “haste”.
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Politics makes Delhi-Howrah route corridor of death - Mahendra Kumar Singh, Times of India
Sunday's rail accident that killed at least 68 and injured 181 occurred on the Delhi-Howrah route — one of the busiest routes — thanks to successive ministers from the eastern part of the country.
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Rail ministry an orphan, says BJP - Times of India
Opposition BJP on Monday held Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also holds the railways portfolio, responsible for the two train mishaps that left scores of people dead and alleged that lack of political will on the part of UPA had rendered the ministry an "orphan".
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LDF undid award named after Hindu god in 2007 - Ananthakrishnan G, Times of India
Over three years ago, before the discovery of billions in the shrine's cellars, its presiding deity was almost shunned by the state's intelligentsia which dubbed an "endowment award" in his name as "anti-secular".
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US, UK top list of donors to NGOs - Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
The US, UK and Germany are the biggest donors for Indian voluntary sector, but contributions from smaller countries like Luxembourg and Liechtenstein are on the rise.
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High technology ties with U.S. have underperformed, says Nirupama Rao - Sandeep Dikshit, Hindu
India has sought to counter the U.S.' bid to seek more market access for its companies by pointing out that high technology transfer has not been up to expectations.
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Kalmadi, Chavan innocent: Digvijay - Amruta Byatnal, Hindu
Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Monday came out in support of the former Commonwealth Games Committee chairman, Suresh Kalmadi, saying the latter was innocent.
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Meeting asymmetric security challenges - Syed Iqbal Hasnain, Economic Times
Even though India, the world's largest democracy, is an aspiring global power, the country continues to pursue a reactive foreign policy.
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Maniben’s diary reopens Sardar’s rift with Nehru - Rathin Das, Pioneer
The Congress had always sought to underplay the differences between Nehru and ‘Iron Man’ Sardar Patel whose legacy gradually diminished with increasing stranglehold of one family in the party since Independence.
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Didi sidekick snubs PM on reshuffle eve - Maneesh Pandey & Anirban Roy, Mail Today
AJUNIOR minister in the railway ministry on Monday defied the PM’s directive to visit the train accident site in Assam, and instead chose to accompany his party chief, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee to Jangalmahal.
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Home-grown jihadis, now in Pak, under scanner - Rajesh Ahuja, Hindustan Times
In an intelligence-led operation in May 2005, the Maharashtra police recovered 16, AK-47 rifles, 3200 cartriges, 43 KG RDX explosive, 50 hand grenades and 40 magazines in Aurangabad district.
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The Sitaram Kesri case: How dynasty trumped ethics - DNA
The Sonia camp said that the Congress had failed to capitalise on Sonia’s charisma because of organisational weaknesses. Sonia accepted the argument and started toying with the idea of taking over the party.
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Caste factor in Census 2011 will pollute India’s governance - P Radhakrishnan, DNA
It was LK Advani, home minister in the BJP-led NDA government, who proposed, for reasons best known to him, the inclusion of caste in the “millennium Census” of 2001.
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Cabinet reshuffle unsettles PM's pack - Times of India
Open griping over the changes carried out by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cast a shadow on the exercise on Tuesday, with Gurudas Kamat deciding to resign from the government while Veerappa Moily made no secret of his pique by hitting out at "vested interests".
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Efficient governance: Centre wants to emulate Delhi - Hindustan Times
After successfully bringing accountability and efficiency in several of its departments, the Delhi government will now explain to the Centre how to successfully implement service level agreement (SLA).
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Disappointing, reflects PM’s helplessness: BJP - Indian Express
Calling the Cabinet reshuffle “disappointing” and “directionless”, the Opposition BJP targeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday, saying the exercise once again reflected his “helplessness”.
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Tired old party, tired old moves - Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Indian Express
The only signal that the Congress party gives these days is that it does not know what signal to give. This cabinet reshuffle was perhaps the most anticipated in recent times.
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I cannot be hanged for the sins of other Ministries: Moily - Hindu
Hours after he was shifted from the Law Ministry to Corporate Affairs, a visibly unhappy M. Veerappa Moily said he was a victim of a “campaign by vested interests” and asserted that he could not be “hanged” for the “sins” of other ministries.
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Maoists join hands with South Asian sister outfits - Bharti Jain, Economic Times
Even as the West Bengal government explores the option of brokering peace with the Leftwing extremists, the Maoists have resolved to work with their sister outfits in Nepal and other South Asian countries to fight the "Indian expansionist hegemony" and make South Asia a base for the "world proletarian revolution."
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S-G stand on black money had irked government - Rohini Singh, Economic Times
The government's unhappiness with Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam was crystallised by parts of the Supreme Court's order setting up a Special Investigation Team to investigate black money issue, which described Subramaniam arguments.
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Pills that won't cure govt's ills - Manoj Joshi, India Today
When the body, as much as the body politic, is ill, it sometimes needs to take a bitter medicine. With apologies to those who believe in alternative medicine, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, in the anodyne reshuffle he has conducted, taken recourse to passing out those little sweet pills that homeopaths are known to dish out.
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All-weather road to Leh after 10 yrs - Aman Sharma, Mail Today
The Centre has now fixed March 2021 as the new targeted completion date of the critical 292- km Nimu- Padum- Darcha road in J& K, which is crucial to convert the Manali- Leh highway into an all- weather road.
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Telangana tailspin - Inder Malhotra, Asian Age
Of all the wounds that the Congress-dominated United Progressive Alliance has inflicted on itself in its second tenure (UPA-II), arguably the worst is the dithering over the burning Telangana issue.
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Media mercilessly trashes reshuffle - Sanjeev Srivastava, First Post
It’s difficult to remember the last time a Prime Minister received the kind of double whammy Manmohan Singh is getting after his ministerial reshuffle yesterday. He has achieved the near impossible.
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Were Mumbai serial blasts aimed at Gujarati community? - DNA
After the Zaveri Bazaar and Opera House bomb blasts on Wednesday, questions arose similar to those after the July 2006 terror attacks on the city’s suburban trains — was the Gujarati community targeted?
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Vishwaranjan goes, Maoists may gain turf - Shivanand Shukla, Pioneer
Transfer of Vishwaranjan, a 1973 batch IPS officer, from the post of Chhattisgarh’s Director General of Police is bound to deal a major blow to the anti-Maoist operations and give happiness to Naxal sympathisers who were baying for the blood of this no-nonsense supercop.
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Af-Pak, nuke deal to dominate Hillary-Krishna talks - Chidanand Rajghatta, Times of India
India and the United States will resume high level contacts next week with the visit to New Delhi by secretary of state Hillary Clinton for the second "strategic dialogue" amid a broad upswing in ties despite niggles and wrinkles in some areas.
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On Day 1, Ramesh backs NAC proposal - Prasad Nichenametla, Hindustan Times
A day after Jairam Ramesh was made cabinet minister for rural development, Jairam Ramesh said a single legislation on land acquisition and relief will be introduced instead of two separate bills on the same.
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Kamat out, Moily takes charge, Jena ‘missing’ - Hindustan Times
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Gurudas Kamat, who was reportedly sulking over the portfolio allocated to him.
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Azad rubbishes Srikrishna report, invites Telangana fury - Economic Times
A day after Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad rubbished the Srikrishna Committee report saying that the six options suggested by it were not a solution and that a unanimous resolution must be passed by the Andhra assembly for forming Telangana, Congress leaders from the region termed his statement as "irresponsible" and began a 48-hour hunger strike in Hyderabad to press for a separate state.
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Why top 4 ministers not touched in reshuffle, asks BJP - Economic Times
The BJP on Wednesday took a dig at the UPA government asking why the top four ministers were "sacrosanct". "I fail to understand what is so sacrosanct about the four ministers - defence, finance, external affairs and home - that they have not been moved during the Cabinet reshuffle.
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Karuna on back foot as son digs in heels - MC Rajan, India Today
With an impatient heir apparent complicating the matters further for his father by taking the challenges head on, DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi now has to confront a revolt in the family at an inopportune time. The realignment of forces within his extended clan and the defiance of his younger son, M. K. Stalin, have unnerved the octogenarian leader.
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Indian Mujahideen: Regrouped, reinvigorated - Roxy Gagdekar, DNA
The unresolved blasts in Pune, Delhi and Varanasi in 2010 seem to have helped the Indian Mujahideen (IM) regroup and plan more attacks in the country.
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How IM spearheads India's jihadist movement - CNN-IBN
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said all groups hostile to India were suspects in the Mumbai serial blasts that killed 17 and injured almost 100 on Wednesday.
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Right to recall a dangerous idea - Avinash K Mishra, Business Line
The debate regarding the representative character of our politicians has led to knee-jerk reformists such as Anna Hazare and his band of followers demanding the right to recall. The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Mr S. Y. Quraishi, has rightly opposed the idea, on the ground that it cannot be implemented and that it could “destabilise” the country in areas “where people already feel alienated”. But the demand also doesn't have basis for another reason — it could undermine the democratic rights of a number of individuals and communities in a pluralist society such as ours.
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Inter-agency turf battles cripple India's war on terror - Rajeev Deshpande & J Joseph, ToI
The glaring lack of intelligence on the 13/7 attack underlines how inter-agency turf wars, political fault lines in the government, and privacy issues are enmeshing India's war on terror in a web of competing interests.
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Talk of judicial overreach is bogey: Supreme Court - Hindu
Rejecting the criticism of judicial activism, the Supreme Court has said the judiciary has stepped in to give directions only because of executive inaction what with laws enacted by Parliament and the State legislatures in the last 63 years for the poor not being implemented properly.
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Jaitley bats for TADA-like laws to deal with terror - Pioneer
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Thursday insisted on the need to have special laws like Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) to deal with terrorism.
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India better off than Pakistan, says Digvijaya Singh - Economic Times
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh has said that India was better off than Pakistan, where terror attacks happened, "every day, every week".
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The Centre cannot hold - Dhirendra K Jha, Open
Two ministers boycotted the swearing-in, a third one blamed “vested interests” for the loss of his portfolio, and yet another called the Cabinet reshuffle “a game of kho-kho”. All this was unheard of in the past.
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What we need: A Pota-like law, and an elite intelligence wing - RK Raghavan, First Post
Every Indian heart bleeds whenever terror strikes any part of the country. Our agony over the latest tragedy in Mumbai is beyond words. All of us pray that this civilised city should not have to mourn again.
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Inept rule makes India a soft target - Ramesh Thakur, Australian
In words made famous by Ronald Reagan during a presidential debate with Jimmy Carter in 1980, here we go again. Three serial blasts in 12 minutes tore through India's commercial capital, Mumbai, on Wednesday evening, leaving 21 dead and more than 140 injured.
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Congress erred in gifting Home to NCP: Chavan - Pioneer
In a development that may cause strains in the ruling DF, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday said that it was a “mistake” on the part of the Congress to have given the key Home portfolio to its ally, NCP, when the two parties formed a coalition Government for the first time in Maharashtra in 1999.
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Govt, SC face-off heats up over SIT - Abraham Thomas, Pioneer
The judiciary and executive are set for a royal battle next week after the Centre on Friday filed an application demanding a recall of the Supreme Court decision to appoint special investigation team (SIT) to probe black money cases.
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Team Anna sticks to guns, to hold referendum on Lokpal - Kumar Shakti Shekhar, Pioneer
The tussle between the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption (IAC) and the Government has reached a new plane. IAC has decided to hold a referendum, possibly later this month, on the most contentious issues even though the Government may have outright rejected their demand.
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Judiciary taking over executive's functions: Govt to SC - Dhananjay Mahapatra, ToI
The Centre on Friday vented its strong opposition to what it termed the judiciary taking over the executive's function and moved the Supreme Court seeking recall of the black money order to oversee a probe that includes alleged hawala operations of Hasan Ali Khan and Kashinath Tapuria.
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Mumbai lessons: How not to fight this war - Prafulla Marpakwar, ToI
A quick glance at the security steps taken by the Congress-NCP government since 2008 makes it clear that the government is not serious about fighting terrorism at all. Three years have passed but the plan to install CCTVs exists only on paper, while the crucial recommendations made by the Pradhan Committee are gathering dust in the Mantralaya.
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Multiplicity of agencies hurting India's war on terror - Rajeev Deshpande, ToI
The lack of a seamless approach to terrorism, with investigation and intelligence gathering split and spread between multiple Central agencies and state governments, is hurting India's efforts to check terror threats to the mainland.
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Inclusion of RAW chief in SIT highly objectionable: Centre - Krishnadas Rajagopal, IE
The government finds it “highly objectionable” that the Supreme Court included the Director, Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), in a Special Investigation Team set up to investigate black money cases.
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Darul Uloom gags its Ataturk's eulogy - Parvaiz Sultan, Pioneer
With the three-member enquiry committee so far unable to substantiate any of the charges levelled against incumbent Mohatmim of Darul Uloom — the seminary of the Wahabi school of Islam —Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi, the no changer group on the campus is once again getting restive.
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Pak trains women for J&K terror - Rahul Datta, Pioneer
Adding a new element to its terror tool, Pakistan has opened three training camps for women militants in Manshera, Tarbela and Chhattar in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) for engineering violence in Jammu & Kashmir.
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Chavan comment betrays coalition dilemma - Ketaki Ghoge, Hindustan Times
Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan has tried to quell the controversy over his remarks that giving the home portfolio to the NCP was a mistake by saying he has faith in home minister RR Patil. But Chavan’s actions following the blasts show otherwise.
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Analysis: How to wipe out Islamic terror - Subramanian Swamy, DNA
The terrorist blast in Mumbai on July 13, 2011, requires decisive soul-searching by the Hindus of India. Hindus cannot accept to be killed in this halal fashion, continuously bleeding every day till the nation finally collapses.
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Reddy is not shy of confronting government - Nitish K Singh, Sunday Guardian
The numbers are mind-boggling. Stud farm owner Hasan Ali alone has hidden $8 billion in a Swiss bank account, based on a bank's letter reported by India Today in January.
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PPP projects out of RTI, CIC knocks on PM door - Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
With the government serving a severe blow to transparency in the Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects worth one trillion rupees the Central Information Commission has decided to seek Prime Minister’s Manmohan Singh’s intervention.
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Outsourcing terror - Ajit Doval, Hindustan Times
When a government fails to prevent, identify or neutralise terrorists, it indicates inefficiency and systemic inadequacy. But when terrorists refuse to own responsibility of an attack, the causes are much more complex and sinister.
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Behind UP doctors’ killings, multi-crore health fraud - Teena Thacker & Surbhi Khyati, IE
In April this year, Babu Singh Kushwaha resigned as Uttar Pradesh’s family welfare minister, taking moral responsibility for the scam involving misappropriation of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) funds in the office of Lucknow’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) — a racket that was exposed after the murder of incumbent B P Singh.
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Wide open: DMK struggle to choose between sons - Gopu Mohan, Indian Express
Factional undercurrents within the DMK are threatening to send the various groups drifting farther apart, even as the party grapples against serious issues ahead of the crucial general council meeting at Coimbatore next week.
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UPA must act on black money - Kuldip Nayar, Sunday Guardian
I do not think there is any top civil servant or leading politician in South Asia who can escape the blemish of having a foreign bank account. No one in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka protests this. But in India, the Manmohan Singh government has been under relentless pressure to bring back the black money stashed abroad.
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After DMK, Congress ties with NCP turning sour - Kay Benedict, India Today
Though the relationship between the two parties has never been cosy, of late the mistrust has only swelled giving rise to speculation whether this would impact the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra and the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre.
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Dirty money net snares powerful Cong rebel Jagan - A Srinivasa Rao, India Today
A multi-disciplinary team will investigate the allegations of illegal investments in the business empire of YSR Congress president and Kadapa MP Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
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Tightrope walk for Mamata in Darjeeling hills - Anirban Roy, India Today
Within less than two months of taking over as the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee is all set to add a new feather on her cap - taming the valiant Gorkhas of Darjeeling, and guiding them to a peaceful settlement of the Gorkhaland issue.
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Prithviraj Chavan may face roadblocks from NCP - Sanjay Jog, Business Standard
The Congress party has not only distanced itself from Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan but also made him clarify his recent statement that the party’s decision to give the home ministry to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — its ally in the state — was a mistake.
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Anna takes war to Sibal constituency - Times of India
Gearing up for the August 16 showdown, activist Anna Hazare and his team are mobilizing public opinion through a referendum in Cabinet minister Kapil Sibal's constituency while reiterating that the government table their version of the Lokpal bill in the monsoon session of Parliament.
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Jaya's land grab cells open Pandora's box - Swati Das, Pioneer
The newly-elected Tamil Nadu Government’s move to set up Land Grabbing Cells in the State seems to have opened Pandora’s box. As complaints pour in against the DMK functionaries, their support groups and real estate agents, an alarming picture of land frauds during the previous Karunanidhi Government is coming to light.
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Government flounders as terrorists strike - Pioneer
At least 18 people were killed and 131 others injured as three simultaneous blasts rocked India’s financial Capital Mumbai on July 13.
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Government draft a joke on the nation, Hazare tells PM - Gargi Parsai, Hindu
Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare on Monday dubbed the government's draft Lokpal bill as “weak and full of loopholes” and urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bring in Parliament the Jan Lokpal Bill proposed by civil society members.
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2G scam: Moily says will re-open Essar-Loop case - Sreenivasan Jain, NDTV
In an exclusive interview to NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain, Mr Moily said that since there had been controversy, "I want to very much re-look at the Essar Loop case... I don’t want the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to cover up anything."
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Ties too big for Delhi table - K P Nayar, Telegraph Calcutta
Hyderabad House, the 36-room, butterfly-shaped Nizam’s palace which has comfortably hosted visiting dignitaries for 64 years without any hitch is creaking in anticipation of receiving Hillary Clinton’s delegation on Tuesday.
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Govt, Oppn set to face off again on cash-for-vote scam - Mohua Chatterjee & Akshaya Mukul, Times of India
With Delhi Police now admitting to evidence of bribe having been given in the cash-for-vote scam for the trust vote over the nuclear deal on July 22, 2008, a major confrontation is building up between the government and the main Opposition parties -- BJP and the Left.
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Govt waters down NAC draft of food law - Samar Halarnkar, Hindustan Times
New tensions are emerging between the government and its think tank, with the food ministry making major changes to a National Advisory Council (NAC) draft of a new law slated to become the blockbuster social-security scheme of the UPA's troubled second tenure.
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Splurging on Madani, crumbs for 26/11 hero! - J Gopikrishnan, Pioneer
The Karnataka Government is forced to cough up huge sums on spa treatment of Bangalore blast accused Abdul Nasser Madani, but the authorities are not ready to reimburse a paltry `4,000 a month on Ayurvedic treatment of a NSG commando, who was paralysed in the Mumbai 26/11 operations.
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Back to the cash, 3 yrs after the vote - Pradeep Kaushal, Indian Express
In the first few months after it broke, the cash-for-votes scandal was probed by a parliamentary probe and saw a police case registered.
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Revenge of the scapegoat - M.J. Akbar, India today
The slings and arrows of fortune, or more accurately misfortune, are a periodic affliction of high office. Serious politicians, however, are not flippant about fate. They do not attribute to divinity what can be measurably sourced to humanity.
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Bridging the trust deficit in Darjeeling - Sudipta Datta, Financial Express
Mamata Banerjee is in a hurry. She made that clear on May 20, the day she was sworn in as West Bengal chief minister. When names of only two of her Cabinet colleagues were announced, industry minister Partha Chatterjee and finance minister Amit Mitra, the chief minister said the state government had decided to return 400 acres of Singur land to unwilling farmers.
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Darjeeling provokes talk of J&K division - Ishfaq-ul-Hassan, DNA
The granting of autonomy to Darjeeling has reignited the demand for division of the strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir on religious and regional lines.
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Jagan Mahal: 60 rooms across 42000sqft - G S Radhakrishna, Telegraph Calcutta
A palatial house that Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy is building in Hyderabad is under the scanner of the CBI, which has been asked by Andhra Pradesh High Court to probe the politician’s assets.
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Pawar gets another ‘No’ - Cithara Paul, Express Buzz
It seems NCP leader Sharad Pawar is getting used to hearing ‘No’ for an answer from his fellow Congress ministers. After the Food Ministry’s refusal to Pawar’s request to grant subsidy to wheat exporters, the Rural Development Ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh has decided against the Agriculture Ministry’s demand to cancel NREGA activities during the peak farming season.
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Indo-Japan N-deal hit by Delhi's dithering - Sachin Parashar, Times of India
Just when India is having to deal with the Nuclear Suppliers Group's (NSG) restrictions on the supply of ENR technology and equipment, its attempts to have civil nuclear cooperation with Japan have also run into rough weather.
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L'affaire Fai: US lawmakers, Indian liberals come under scrutiny - Chidanand Rajghatta, Times of India
A number of US lawmakers and Indian liberals are coming under scrutiny for their ties to alleged ISI stooge Ghulam Nabi Fai following the FBI expose of his connections to Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency in its quest to reverse Kashmir's accession to India.
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Sonia panel member pans UPA minority plan - Subodh Ghildiyal, Times of India
In what could touch off a controversy, a study by a member of Sonia Gandhi-chaired National Advisory Council has dubbed the Centre's minority welfare schemes and the PM's 15-point programme as non-starters, blaming government's timidity in declaring the schemes as Muslim-oriented for fear of opposition campaign of minority appeasement.
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Statehood cries pour in from all over once again - Ashok Das & Pankaj Jaiswal, HT
A pact providing unprecedented autonomy to Gorkhas was signed in West Bengal earlier this week. But if it has left the Gorkhas less than ecstatic, leaders of other statehood movements openly scoffed at the idea of mere autonomy.
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The Indian fine art of faking security - Praveen Swami, Hindu
“Policing a country of a billion people,” lamented Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, in a speech delivered last summer, “is not an easy task.”
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Dr Fai, ‘ambassador’ for Kashmiri separatists - Muzamil Jaleel, Indian Express
For over two decades, Dr Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, 62, has been an “overseas ambassador” for Kashmiri separatists. Fai, now an American citizen, has been arrested in the US for using Pakistani funds to sway US policy against India on Kashmir.
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US to India: Get assertive with China - K Sreedevi, Asian Age
The United States on Wednesday sought to enlist Indian cooperation in its global strategy to contain China, with secretary of state Hillary Clinton urging New Delhi to go beyond its “Look East” policy and play “a more assertive” role in the Asia-Pacific region.
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China ‘uniting’ anti-talk factions of N-E outfits - Manoj Anand, Deccan Chronicle
In what may have serious implications over the security scenario of trouble-torn northeastern states, the anti-talk factions militant outfits of the region have started joining hands at the behest of Chinese security agencies and decided to intensify their armed struggle in close coordination.
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Terror of apathy - Bharat Karnad, Deccan Chronicle
Terror bombings in Mumbai are, by now, a periodic occurrence, like the cyclones that hit India’s east coast every other year which nobody can do much about.
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CAG to keep going after the ‘big fish’ - Tamal Bandyopadhyay, Mint
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) will not stop chasing the “big fish” despite the unhappiness within the government on the nation’s top audit body questioning serious irregularities in policies and dealings with public enterprises.
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You Tarzan, me Jane - Ekalavya, Business Line
For the last two weeks, the Capital was filled with the rumour that the Prime Minister's media advisor had quit. About time too, said the meanies. One school believed that he had been asked to go. Another believed that he had resigned on his own. Both gloated.
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RTI-based book claims to expose Rs1000-crore Sun TV empire - Kumar Chellappan, DNA
In India, to be identified as a KD is not pleasant. And to describe two brothers as KD Brothers will be more irritating and humiliating. The word is the abbreviation for Known Depredator and the police in Indian cities maintain a list of Known Depredators involved in crimes ranging from house-breaking to robbery to contract killings.
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In Jaya’s shadow, the other power centre - Gopu Mohan, Indian Express
Behind the monolithic facade of the AIADMK and its government in Tamil Nadu is an alleged shadow network of influencers, all connected to a family that operates away from public glare and attention. This is the Mannargudi family with “Chinnamma” Sasikala Natarajan as its matriarch, the group that has now faced the wrath of party leader J Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister. Sasikala, highly controversial and a constant companion of Jaya for over two decades, and her family members including her husband, brother and nephews, were unceremoniously expelled from the party on Monday, a surprise move considering the clout they have built within the organisation over the years.
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CBI not independent... should not come under Lokpal: Justice Verma - Maneesh Chhibber, Indian Express
Even as the UPA government betrays its nervousness in completely unshackling the CBI, the judge who authored the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court that called for making CBI independent of pressures from political masters on Monday asserted that the CBI was “anything but independent”. “Most certainly not. The CBI is anything but independent,” was former Chief Justice of India J S Verma’s response when asked if 14 years after the judgment delivered by his Bench in the Vineet Narain case CBI had been made independent.
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A Vision for the U.S. and India - India Speech by Hillary Clinton, LensOnNews
I want to thank Chief Librarian Naresh for welcoming me to this absolutely extraordinarily impressive facility, and for telling us all to the largest public library in India. And I am delighted to finally be here in Chennai. I've been coming to India since the 1990s as my country's first lady, as a senator from New York, and as a Secretary of State in the Obama Administration.
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Fai sponsorship splits J&K panel, Ansari slams Padgaonkar - Maneesh Chhibber, IE
The fact that Dileep Padgaonkar, one of the three Central interlocutors for J&K, attended an “international conference” organised by US-based Kashmiri separatist Ghulam Nabi Fai, arrested by the FBI for illegally lobbying for Pakistan and ISI, has not gone down well with another interlocutor, former CIC M M Ansari.
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BJP slams Fai’s ‘guests’, says nobody was gullible - ManojCG, Indian Express
The BJP on Thursday turned the heat on those who had attended the conferences organised by separatist leader Ghulam Nabi Fai.
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Cong veterans flay coterie around Sonia and Rahul - Aurangzeb Naqshbandi, HT
A group of Congress veterans assembled at the Constitution Club on Thursday for a brainstorming session on “how to revitalise” the party.
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Fixer fixed; what about money trail? - Pramod Kumar Singh, Pioneer
Delhi Police may try to put the blame on Suhail Hindustani for the cash-for-vote scam but it would find it difficult to explain the money trail without questions being asked about the role of bigger fish.
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Fai managed to rope in Indian journalists and intellectuals - Lalit K Jha, LensOnNews
Washington, Jul 21 - Separatist Kashmiri leader, Ghulam Nabi Fai, who according to the FBI was a paid agent of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, had roped in several eminent Indian journalists and intellectuals during his more than two decades of high-profile operations.
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Army's 'Cold Start' doctrine gets teeth - Ajai Shukla, Business Standard
India’s ability to win a quick, pre-emptive war against Pakistan has been enhanced by a useful new set of teeth. This morning, at a missile test range in Balasore, Orissa, the Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) launched its first-ever Prahaar missile, a mobile, truck-mounted rocket that can strike within 10 metres of a target 150 km away.
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Eager police’s move to clear Congress name - Prawesh Lama & Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, Mail Today
Delhi Police on Thursday appeared to have absolved the Congress and Samajwadi Party leaders of their role in the cash- for- votes scam, pinning the entire scandal on ‘ master orchestrator’ Suhail Hindustani.
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Maybe, the BJP needs its own Kalmadi to serve as scapegoat - Anant Rangaswami, First Post
The wolves are baying for blood; Yeddyurappa must resign, they say, based on leaks of the Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde’s imminent report naming him in the mining scam.
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Yeddy, steady go: The race for next Karnataka CM begins - Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, First Post
The knives are out. Now that it has become more-or-less apparent that BS Yeddyurappa’s days as Chief Minister of Karnataka are numbered following the indictment of his government by the state’s Lokayukta, Justice N Santosh Hegde, for his alleged complicity in illegal iron ore mining in Bellary district, both party and Chief Minister are working on a succession plan.
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Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa fast running out of options - Economic Times
Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa's options to stay on in power are dwindling, with the Lokayukta naming him in the report on illegal mining and police beginning to probe corruption cases against him.
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Team Anna exposes govt's dirty tricks - Arvind Kejriwal & Mayank Gandhi, DNA
Machiavellianism means ‘employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct’. Today, the 16th century Italian diplomat, Niccolo Machiavelli, who formulated this art, would have admired some of India’s proponents of cunning.
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Katrina was not aiming for Rahul, Tiwary ji - Anshul Chaturvedi, Times of India
Am I supposed to be ashamed that I am half Asian, half European? I mean, no! Rahul Gandhi is half Indian, half Italian. So? I am very proud of what I am and I just don’t understand the confusion – as if I’m trying to hide the fact that my mother’s British. Why would I?
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It’s the army now: How many institutions will survive UPA? - R Jagannathan, First Post
The UPA government’s sustained assault on institutions has taken another toll. The defence ministry decided on Thursday that Army Chief Gen VK Singh was born in 1950, and should, therefore, retire a year earlier than planned in May, 2012. In doing so, it has politicised the army. Just as it has the police, the regulatory agencies, and other institutions.
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Exposed! The Rs750 crore Tatra scam - Daily News & Analysis
Top officials of BEML Limited, a Bangalore-based company, and the defence ministry have siphoned off at least Rs750 crore in bribes and commissions over the past 14 years in the purchase of components for Tatra trucks, backbone of the army’s artillery and transportation wings.
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Biggest intelligence scam confirmed - Times Now
Hundreds of crores lost during the purchase of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) from an Israeli company, by an agency that is expected to safeguard our internal and external security by providing intelligence inputs carrying out hi-tech surveillance jobs.
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Pressure mounts on BJP brass as defending Yeddyurappa gets tough - Times of India
The B S Yeddyurappa headache is growing bigger for the BJP even as the party takes the line that it is awaiting release of Karnataka Lokayukta's report on illegal mining with a sizeable section of the party leadership worried that defending the chief minister is becoming untenable.
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Guv itching for next round - Kestur Vasuki, Pioneer
Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde’s indictment of Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa has come as a Godsent opportunity to Governor HR Bhardwaj, whose previous attempts to destabilise the BJP Government in the State had failed miserably. Now that the Lokayukta has decided to directly submit his report to the Governor, by passing the Government, Bhardwaj is unlikely to miss the chance to compound the Chief Minister’s woes.
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Congress ginger group holds ‘chintan shivir' of its own - Smita Gupta, Hindu
The Congress' official machinery has been pipped at the post by a group of its own members — which included several ex-MPs, some former Ministers and party functionaries and one sitting MP.
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How about a land transfer code? - Shubhashis Gangopadhyay, Business Standard
Last month I had written about the similarity between the Singur land acquisition case and something that happened in the US more than 20 years before the West Bengal fiasco (“Whose land is it anyway?” June 25).
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Iron ore-rich Bellary belt a blessing and a curse for state - Jaishankar Jayaramiah, IE
Illegal mining of iron ore in Karnataka is now a hotly debated issue across the political and administrative circles in the country, but there is plenty of history to it. The iron ore-rich Bellary belt of Karnataka has been a blessing as well as a curse for the state.
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Heat on BJP to replace BSY as Karnataka CM - Anil Kumar M, ToI
Although the chief minister continues to be confident about warding off yet another crisis, the BJP does appear keen to carry the Yeddyurappa baggage in case Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde's indictment is as categorical as reports suggest.
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Big chinks in our security armour - Gurmeet Kanwal, Times of India
The lack of inter-ministerial and inter-departmental coordination on issues like border management and Centre-state disagreements over the handling of internal security are particularly alarming.
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What next in Karnataka? - Kestur Vasuki, Pioneer
Karnataka is witnessing the aftershock of political developments after the indictment of Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa in the Lokayukta report which went in to probe illegal mining since 2000. The report which is yet to be submitted to the Government by the Lokayukta, Justice N Santhosh Hegde, who is demitting office on August 2, has cast a shadow on the ruling BJP.
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Why Modi magic continues - DP Sharan, Pioneer
Narendra Modi will complete a decade as Gujarat Chief Minister this November. Indeed, it has been a successful, yet arduous, journey for him. And, he remains as much a divisive figure as a unifier. Modi, the politician, continues to arouse contrasting emotions — some find a new-age ‘fascist’ in him, while others regard him as a modern-day Sardar Patel.
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Bhagat Singh vs Sobha Singh - Cithara Paul, Express Buzz
Freedom fighters and Left parties are up in arms against the PM’s name-changing move. They feel that Sir Sobha Singh had deposed against Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh in a Lahore court which led to his martyrdom.
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Civil society's double standards exposed - Balbir Punj, Express Buzz
Two recent incidents, one in Lahore and the other in Kerala, have virtually been ignored by the national media. And the utter indifference of the self-proclaimed civil society to these incidents has brought to fore the double standards it has been practising for long.
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The knives are out in 2G JPC - Anita Saluja, Express Buzz
The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) investigating the 2G scam is pushing the Congress and the BJP to confrontation over the issue of press briefings by its Chairman P C Chacko. Peeved by what they call Chacko’s prejudicial media briefings, BJP members have warned him to refrain from doing so or else they would also hold a parallel press conference after every meeting of the panel. Fearing a major embarrassment, Chacko hasn’t been able to summon the JPC as often as he was expected to do.
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Come out and play - Seema Sirohi, Times of India
But more important was the American eagerness to see India loom larger on the world stage. Clinton's basic message was "We Want More India" in the world - in Southeast Asia, in the Indian Ocean, in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, in Central Asia, in Latin America.
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Vastanvi forced out as V-C, says will take Darul Uloom to court - Seema Chishti , Deepu Sebastian Edmond, IE
Emerging from the meeting, a defiant Vastanvi said he would drag the influential seminary to court for his dismissal. The Shoora had asked him to resign, he said, but he had refused. “I said, ‘No, I will not give (my resignation). You remove me’. I will remain a member of the Shoora. The Darul Uloom is not anyone’s personal property. It is for all Muslims.”
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DMK avoids stir: No change in leadership, no pulling out of UPA - Gopu Mohan, IE
Despite strong reservations by a section of the lower-rung leaders, the party has also decided to continue its alliance with the Congress and remain a part of the UPA. There was no word in the resolutions on the replacement for Union ministers A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran, who were forced to resign from the Cabinet after their names figured in damaging scam allegations.
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What's in a name? A whole lot in Telangana - Uma Sudhir, NDTV
Andhra Bank has become Telangana Bank, the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC) has been rewritten as Telangana Tourism Development Corporation (TGTDC).
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De-link national security from vote-bank politics, says Jaitley - Hindu
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley said here on Sunday that people should de-link issues of national security from vote-bank politics. “It is the society which creates the attitude for tackling terrorism. Anywhere else in the world, if any political party grows weak in its fight against terrorism, it would not be able to be in power. But in India, growing weak apparently becomes important in attracting vote-bank,” he said.
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Anti-Naxal Op in a fix - Shivanand Shukla, Pioneer
The much-hyped joint operation against the Maoists is gasping for breath as the Red brigade is taking advantage of the lack of political will to reassert its supremacy. In the three districts — Rajnandgaon, Kanker (both in Chhattisgarh) and Gadchiroli (Maharashtra) — where the joint operation involving State police and Central forces started in December 2009, the Naxal menace continues unabated.
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UPA in minority in Public Accounts Committee, may not get SP-BSP support - ET
With the panel, which came out with a damning report on the 2G scandal, expected to take upCAG reports on theCWG scandal and the aircraft purchases this year, the Opposition is certain to get fresh opportunities to put the government in the dock.
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2G case: Raja seeks to rope in PM, Chidambaram - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Jul 25 - Former Telecom Minister A Raja today sought to rope in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then Finance Minister P Chidamabaram in the 2G case, telling a court the issue of sale of equity by spectrum licencees was discussed with them. Defending himself against corruption charges in 2G scam, the 47-year-old DMK MP also submitted before Special CBI Judge O P Saini there was nothing wrong in his decision of not auctioning 2G spectrum and that he was merely following the policies pursued by his predecessors and the NDA government.
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Delhi Police takes blame to shield Chidambaram - Abraham Thomas, Pioneer
The Delhi Police has stepped in to shield the Centre, especially Home Minister P Chidambaram, for unleashing a midnight crackdown against thousands of supporters of yoga guru Ramdev at the Ramlila Maidan on June 4.
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NAC's Bill will kill harmony - A Surya Prakash, Pioneer
Determined to promote its minority-appeasement agenda, the United Progressive Alliance regime is readying itself to introduce an obnoxious Bill that could disturb communal harmony, wreck the federal features of the Constitution and give the Union Government a fresh set of excuses to interfere in the governance of States.
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Fai funded terror in Kashmir valley - Rajesh Ahuja, Hindustan Times
Apart from ‘raising awareness about the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination’ in the US and Europe with generous monetary help from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, Ghulam Nabi Fai and associates also sent money through hawala channels to fuel the separatist fire in Kashmir in ‘90s.
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Shourie refutes Raja's claim of following NDA policy - Hindu
The former Telecom Minister, Arun Shourie, on Monday agreed with A Raja that the latter had discussed the 2G spectrum issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram before going ahead, but refuted his claim of following the National Democratic Alliance policy.
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PMO wanted to evade row - Mail Today
Former telecom minister Arun Shourie has stirred up a storm by alleging that a key official in the Prime Minister’s Office had wanted the PMO kept at “ arm’s length” on the 2G issue.
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For not getting 2G issue probed by GoM, PM too guilty: Raja - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Jul 26 - Former Telecom Minister A Raja today dragged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh again in the 2G case, alleging he too could be held guilty of "conspiracy" and dereliction of duty for not forming a GoM to examine the spectrum allocation issue. Raja's submission before a court came just hours after the DMK MP said he did not seek to implicate Manmohan Singh and former finance minister P Chidambaram in the 2G case on the basis of his arguments yesterday.
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Court can ask CBI to probe PM & Chidambaram: Experts - Dhananjay Mahapatra, ToI
Legal experts feel the trial court can ask the CBI to probe spectrum scam accused A Raja's allegation that the prime minister and then finance minister P Chidambaram were in the loop about decisions on allotment of spectrum and dilution of stake by the licencees.
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Raja goes after AG, ‘legally illiterate’ CAG - Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Indian Express
Former telecom minister A Raja today took on Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati, saying as the then Solicitor General, he had approved the contentious press release on issuance of telecom licences.
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Prompt with Balkrishna, CBI drags feet in Subba case - Rahul Tripathi, Indian Express
While the CBI has lost no time in issuing a lookout circular against Baba Ramdev’s aide Acharya Balkrishna and is in the process of revoking his passport, the agency has failed to show such alacrity in a similar case reported a few years ago involving former Congress MP from Assam M K Subba.
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PM knew it all, says Raja - Sana Shakil, Pioneer
For the second day in a row, former Telecom Minister A Raja attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the alleged irregularities in allotment of 2G spectrum, and pressed before a special CBI court that the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram be made a witness in the case.
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Bombay sitting duck - Ashok Malik, Hindustan Times
Some years ago, an American multinational corporation (MNC) was looking for office space in Mumbai. It had almost finalised a rental deal in a prominent, well-located business tower.
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2G scam: PM smelled something fishy but stayed away, says Arun Shourie - Sruthijith KK, Economic Times
The telecom minister during the NDA regime, Arun Shourie , has been tracking developments on the 2G trial. In an interview to ET , Shourie discusses what he believes the PM knew, going by the file notings, Raja's defence that he inherited the policy, and other related issues.
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A Raja starts to Singh - DNA
A Raja, former telecom minister and an accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, on Monday dragged the prime minister and the home minister into the case, naming them in the court trying the 2G spectrum cases.
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Wider Jagan probe - G S Radhakrishna, Telegraph Calcutta
The Central Bureau of Investigation is likely to seek directives for a full-fledged probe into Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s assets as preliminary investigations had thrown up evidence of money laundering on a “mind-boggling” scale, sources in the agency said.
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2G case: Name dragging on as Behura names RBI gov D Subbarao - PTI
New Delhi, Jul 27 - Jailed former Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura today dragged RBI Governor D Subbarao in the 2G case accusing him of not revising the spectrum licence fee and claimed he had no role to play except implementing the government's policy. Behura's submission before a court targeting the former Finance Secretary reflected the trend of the 2G scam accused naming top leaders and officials after former Telecom Miniser A Raja named Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Attorney General G E Vahanvati over the last two days.
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Indian state: Crisis of credibility - Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Indian Express
The escalating war of words between the Congress and the BJP is further evidence that our political class is digging itself into a deeper hole.
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BJP in no haste on BSY fate - Kumar Uttam, Pioneer
Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa appears to be in serious trouble over ‘indictment’ by Lokayukta Santosh Hegde’s report on illegal mining.
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Why didn't the dog bark? - T K Arun, Economic Times
In this country where anniversaries are celebrated with gusto, the 20th anniversary of India's economic reforms went by almost unnoticed. There were no celebratory speeches or seminars, frenzied gobbling of globular sweets, advertisement blitzkrieg by theCongress party hailing successive Gandhis for having given us our daily reform.
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Mining scam ends Yeddyurappa innings as CM - Press Trust of India
Bangalore, Jul 31 - Rocked by a spate of scams and in the wake of a damning indictment by a Lokayukta report on illegal mining, the 38-month tenure of Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa as Chief Minister of the first ever BJP government in the South came to an abrupt end today.
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Yeddyurappa, the master survivor grounded by mining scam - PTI
Bangalore, July 28 - From a rice mill clerk and a farmers' leader to heading the first BJP Government in the South, B S Yeddyurappa has been a master survivor emerging unscathed through much turbulence in his three years in office before the Lokayukta report on illegal mining scam did him in. Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa(68), who completed three years and two months in office as the first saffron party chief minister of Karnataka, ushered in a bumper harvest for the BJP in the state during the 2008 Assembly Elections.
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Laluspeak: India is being disrobed by western culture - Aarti Dhar, Hindu
The decriminalising of homosexuality in India came under sharp criticism from Lalu Prasad, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, who said such things “destroyed the culture and tradition” of the country.
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BJP defends objection to exclusion of PM from Lokpal ambit - Money Control
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj today justified her objection to exclusion of Prime Minister from the purview of the Lokpal Bill saying government has given no reasons for his exemption and insisted that nobody was above criminal law.
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Why sarkari Lokpal is a big dud - Times of India
Unlike other legislations, the proposed Lokpal law is different. It concerns the conduct of politicians and bureaucrats - the very people who are claiming the right to give the law its final shape. It's an obvious conflict of interest. That is why TOI has lent support to Team Anna and tried to create a public debate on the Lokpal's office, writes Manoj Mitta. The debate is still not over. In fact, it will not be until we have an effective law that checks corruption.
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Trinamul out to gobble up the Congress - Sanjay K Jha, Telegraph Calcutta
The Congress high command has asked chief minister Mamata Banerjee not to give any government assignment to its leaders without the party’s approval.
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Lokpal draft too weak to deter corrupt: Anna Hazare - Manjiri Damle, Times of India
Social activist Anna Hazare said the Lokpal bill draft approved by the Cabinet on Thursday was so weak and ineffective that the corrupt would not be afraid of the watchdog and the poor would never get justice.
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BJP's southern dilemma - Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan Times
The fear of Karnataka governor HR Bhardwaj and sheer lack of clear numbers on either side are reasons why BS Yeddyurappa and the BJP leadership cannot afford a divorce — though they have no love lost.
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Bhatt & Congress hand-in-glove - Pioneer
The credibility of senior Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has come under a cloud following a set of incriminating documents showing how the officer — who named Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi guilty in the 2002 Gujarat riots — was in constant touch with State Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil and Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhvadia.
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Step towards Gorkhaland - Sunanda K Datta-Ray, Pioneer
Addressing a victory rally in Darjeeling last week, Mr Bimal Gurung of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha triumphantly compared the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration with the Bodoland Territorial Council.
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Deoband wants to keep them backward - Economic Times
Darool Uloom Deoband's new Vice-Chancellor Maulana Abul QasimNomani has said that the Islamic seminary will oppose theRight to Free and Compulsory Education.
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The prince who tends to stop at the door - Kunal Majumder, Tehelka
With the Uttar Pradesh election coming up in less than a year, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s focus appears to be on that state. He seems to be perpetually on a padyatra or addressing a mahapanchayat.
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Karnataka: Gowda, Acharya frontrunners for CM's post - Anil Kumar M, Times of India
D V Sadanand Gowda and V S Acharya seem to be emerging as front runners to succeed B S Yeddyurappa after a rollercoaster of a day of maneuvers of the outgoing chief minister and the counter-measures of the BJP leadership.
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HD Kumaraswamy: Karnataka’s real showman - Saritha Rai, Indian Express
As B.S. Yeddyurappa prepares to exit the Karnataka chief minister’s chair, newspapers are having a field day with headlines like “Yeddy, unsteady, go” But in the noise surrounding the Lokayukta mining probe and Yeddyurappa’s fall, what is forgotten is that the chief minister was not felled by one report.
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BSY fate sealed, BJP now seeks Dikshit's removal - Pioneer
As it is been clear now that Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa will step down after the State’s Lokayukta Santosh Hegde indicted him in a mining scam case, the BJP has started demanding resignation of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
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Yeddyurappa will have say in CM choice - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, July 30 - Outgoing Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa has reportedly suggested a list of names to succeed him after the BJP central leadership made it clear today that he will not be heading the state party unit. Party sources said the choice for chief minister is still open and negotiations were on between the central observers Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and the Yeddyurappa camp.
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Parading MLAs, Yeddyurappa shows he still counts, works out exit plan - Johnson T A, Indian Express
Late on Saturday, however, signs emerged that Yeddyurappa may have prevailed upon senior BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh to create a Vokkaliga-Backward Caste-Lingayat leadership combination within the party to ensure that the BJP does not lose ground in Karnataka.
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DMK feeling heat of crackdown on land grabs - Press Trust of India
Chennai, Jul 31 - Already at a cross roads after the electoral rout and the 2G scam taint, the DMK is feeling the heat of the AIADMK Government's crackdown on land grabbing with an increasing number of its functionaries and senior leaders coming under the police net. The Jayalalithaa government's action has raised the hackles of DMK, provoking it to cry foul and call for a state-wide protest tomorrow.
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Gag order - Sohini Chattopadhyay, Open
Till the last week of June, The Beautiful and the Damned was a 264-page book, hardbound and elegant. Striking even, because of that woman in pink sari standing unsmiling on the cover. The contents consisted of an introduction and five essays, narrative non-fiction, printed on 70 gsm book printing paper in Bembo font. It was priced at Rs 499.
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Conference call, was it? - Arindam Mukherjee, Outlook India
Even battle-scarred veterans embroiled in the 2G spectrum scam voiced their grudging approval of the slugfest started by former telecom minister Andimuthu Raja in the special CBI court presiding over India’s biggest scam.
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Manmohan does U-turn, says no to PM under Lokpal - ToI
This is the first time Singh has come out openly in favour of keeping the PMO out of the Lokpal's ambit. Incidentally, Singh had been overruled by his own Cabinet to exclude the PM from the anti-corruption bill.
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Emotional BSY bows out - Kestur Vasuki, Pioneer
Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa resigned on Sunday, ending a 38-month tenure marked by consolidation of BJP’s base in the southern State, a series of electoral victories in by-polls and civic body elections, his bitter trysts with Governor HR Bhardwaj, and his success in changing the investment climate of the State. After submitting his resignation, BSY publicly proposed the name of DV Sadananda Gowda as his successor.
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Has BJP leadership lost authority in Karnataka? - Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan times
Central BJP leaders may have tried to salvage their image by insisting that Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa resign first before they announced his successor. But the authority of the party "high command" never looked more dented — since BJP parliamentary board decision that he must quit "immediately" in the wake of his indictment by lokayukta report.
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BSY plans new outfit? - Deccan Chronicle
With the BJP central leadership looking firm on seeking seeking Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa’s resignation as chief minister first and then working out a negotiation formula, the Yeddyurappa camp is mulling on floating a new regional party in the next six months.
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How UPA's Chidambaram, Sibal, Khurshid, Ambika Soni, Pawan Bansal, Ghulam Nabi, Narayanasamy manage media - Soma Banerjee, Economic Times
Between them, these seven ministers run nine ministries. Yet, at noon every weekday, they leave their ministries and assemble at the conference room on the fifth floor of Shastri Bhavan, home to the information and broadcasting ministry, to take on an additional responsibility: Managing the media.
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Peace Party may play a spoiler role in UP assembly elections - Liz Mathew, Mint
As Uttar Pradesh heads closer to the assembly elections, the Peace Party, established to consolidate the votes of backward class Muslims, is gaining momentum by accommodating other lower castes and roping in smaller parties.
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Legal test for Right to Education law - Nikhil Kanekal & Prashant K. Nanda, Mint
Private schools around the country are waiting for the Supreme Court to issue a judgement in a constitutional challenge to a 15-month-old law that enforces free and compulsory education as a fundamental right, after hearing was concluded last week.
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Deadlock on succession plan after Yeddy's departure - PTI
Bangalore, Aug 1 - Deadlock continued in the ruling BJP in Karnataka over finding a successor to B S Yeddyurappa, whose exit as Chief Minister has triggered an intense power struggle in the party.
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PM’s entirely uncalled for belligerence - Pioneer
The consensus of sorts that was reached at Sunday’s all-party meeting chaired by the Lok Sabha Speaker to ensure the smooth functioning of Parliament during the Monsoon session which began on Monday has been rendered meaningless by the Prime Minister’s subsequent belligerence.
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Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray: Igniting the nationalist mind - Priyadarsi Dutta, Pioneer
Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray (1861-1944), a contemporary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, may not receive a fraction of the tribute that the poet is being proffered on his 150th birth anniversary. But that does not diminish his work and legacy in any manner. Like Tagore, he appeared a sage recalled from the age of the Upanishads. Unlike Tagore, he worked out of Presidency College and College of Science & Technology in Kolkata and not sylvan Santiniketan.
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The India we have never known - Rahul Devrani, Pioneer
Perhaps it’s time our history books got a revision. Indian scientists have now gathered enough evidence to brush aside the “Indo-Aryan invasion” ideology, claiming that we have been “brainwashed for more than 150 years” by the Western theories on our civilisation. Fact is there was no Aryan invasion or migration, it is only a misnomer.
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Explain your talks with Raja, BJP tells Pranab - India Express
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s statement that he had nothing to do with the pricing of 2G spectrum has drawn sharp reaction from the Opposition BJP, which sought an explanation from him about former telecom minister A Raja’s claims in his letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he had held discussions with the then External Affairs Minister regarding these issues.
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Former SC judge KT Thomas praises RSS - PTI
Kochi, August 1 - Former Supreme Court judge K T Thomas praised the RSS for its discipline and said the propaganda that the organisation is anti-minority is “baseless”. Speaking at a function here, attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, he also said the “smear campaign” against the RSS that it was responsible for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi must end.
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Karnataka: Shettar throws hat in CM ring - ManojCG , Johnson T A, India Express
In a sign that there will be many twists and turns before the BJP chooses a successor to B S Yeddyurappa in Karnataka, senior state party leader and Minister for Rural Development in Yeddyurappa’s Cabinet Jagadish Shettar on Monday publicly staked his claim to be the Chief Minister, opposing Yeddyurappa’s candidate D V Sadananda Gowda.
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Andhra link in Hegde report - Sreenivas Janyala, India Express
In neighbouring Karnataka, the Lokayukta report on illegal mining has led to the resignation of B S Yeddyurappa as Chief Minister and put the BJP on the defensive. What has been little talked about, so far, is the report’s mention of the crucial role played by ports in Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh in the export of illegally mined iron ore.
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On eve of BJP meet, race for Karnataka CM's post hots up - PTI
Bangalore, Aug 2 - As BJP leadership grappled with the Yeddyurappa
succession issue, the race for Karnataka Chief Minister's post hotted up
today on the eve of its legislature party meeting with D V Sadananda
Gowda and Jagadish Shettar being propped up by rival camps.
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CAG: Documents tampered with to help Kalmadi get OC chief’s job - Pradeep Thakur, ToI
In what appears to be the Prime Minister's Office's determination in giving Suresh Kalmadi the lead role as chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, the Comptroller and Auditor General's report underlines how the reservations of three successive sports ministers were overlooked.
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To let Rajiv trust get land, Haryana kept it out of acquisition process - Chitleen K Sethi, IE
The Haryana government dropped from acquisition proceedings over 5 acres of panchayat land leased to the Sonia Gandhi-led Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust in Gurgaon’s Ullahawas village. The land was leased for 33 years to the trust by the panchayat for Rs 3 lakh per acre per year. The trust intended to set up on it an eye hospital similar to the one it runs in Amethi, UP.
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Central firm rubbishes Hegde's mining report - Pioneer
The Congress may be flagging the Karnataka Lokayukta report on illegal mining to corner the BJP, but a major Central Government corporation has rubbished Santosh Hegde’s findings on several counts.
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‘Cong can’t have two standards’ - Hindustan Times
The Bhartaiya Janata Party (BJP) and Bhujan Samaj Party (BJP attacked the Congress government in Haryana on Tuesday, charging the state government with “unlawful” release of acquired land in Ullahawas village in Gurgaon to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust.
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CAG heat on Sheila and L-G for CWG mess - Dalip Singh, India Today
Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) Tejendra Khanna have been rapped by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) over the execution of Commonwealth Games-related projects.
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The Politics Of Deoband - Arshad Alam, Outlook India
Deoband Madrasa was established a decade after the failure of the 1857 revolt. Islamic scholars had rationalised by then that the loss of Muslim power was Allah’s way of punishing Muslims of the subcontinent for straying from the tenets of Islam. It was felt that if Muslims started following ‘true’ Islam, power and glory would again be theirs.
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Close proximity to BSY makes luck smile on DVS Gowda - PTI
Bangalore, Aug 3 - His efforts to save B S Yeddyurappa from being toppled during two rebellions within the party fold in Karnataka paid rich dividends for D V Sadananda Gowda, who is all set to become BJP's second Chief Minister in the southern state.
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CWG: Kalmadi issue embarrasses both Cong and BJP - CNN-IBN
New Delhi: Suresh Kalmadi's
elevation as Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chief is proving to
be an embarrassment for both the Congress and the BJP.CNN-IBN has got copies of letters written by former sports
minister Sunil Dutt suspecting foul play in appointment of Suresh
Kalmadi as Chairman of the Organising Committee.
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TOI Poll gives thumbs down to government's Lokpal bill - Times of India
On Monday, Team Anna released the results of a "referendum" carried out by it on the Lokpal Bill in the constituency of HRD minister Kapil Sibal, Chandni Chowk. An overwhelming 85% of respondents, they claimed, preferred the Jan Lokpal Bill - or the one drafted by civil society members - to the government version.
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Yashwant Sinha ieads oppn charge: ‘Cut prices, or for God’s sake, go’ - Indian Express
The Opposition today warned the government that it would be forced to tell it to “go, for God’s sake”, if it failed to check the price rise spiral at the earliest.
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Why ballot rare moment in Indian politics - Vandita Mishra, Indian Express
The secret ballot by the BJP in Bangalore to choose its new chief minister today may have confirmed outgoing CM BS Yeddyurappa’s power to choose his own successor but at another level, it marks a rare departure in the process of selection of a state leader in a national party.
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Month before Rajiv trust got land, Haryana said lessees will be owners - Raghav Ohri, IE
A lmost a month before the release of five acres of land in Gurgaon to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, the Haryana government had issued a memo saying the leaseholder of a piece of land would be considered the owner.
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Sadananda Gowda: A genial but canny politician - PTI
Bangalore, Aug 4 - True to his name, the man with a disarming smile who
was sworn-in as the new chief minister of Karnataka today, D V Sadananda
Gowda is a "people's man" but a canny politician. The mild and soft spoken Gowda, popularly known as 'DVS' in party
circles, is a seasoned politician and is considered as a deft crisis
manager. From humble origins as an ordinary member of the erstwhile Jan Sangh to
occupying the hot seat of the chief minister, he has come a long way.
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Great Games exposé - Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times
As opposition parties stepped up pressure on the Sheila Dikshit government over financial irregularities in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games, fresh details of the CAG report emerged on Thursday that revealed "serious irregularities" in procurement of medical equipment including related stories CAG report out today; Dikshit in the line of fire ambulances.
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'Govt spineless in tackling terror' - Pioneer
The BJP on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the UPA Government for being soft on terrorists and expressing “helplessness” while dealing with Pakistan, which has emerged as the epicentre of terrorism in the world and has become the “country of deceit”.
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UPA, BJP agree: SC’s Naxal order guided by ideology - Indian Express
Finding fault with the recent Supreme Court order banning the use of Special Police Officers (SPOs) in the fight against Naxalism, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said the order seemed to have been guided by the “ideology of its authors” and stepped on a subject that fell exclusively in the domain of the government.
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Lokpal Bill in House, BJP asks ‘why is PM holy cow’ - Indian Express
Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanasamy introduced the long-awaited Lokpal Bill in the Lok Sabha today amidst objections by Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj over the exclusion of the Prime Minister’s office from its ambit.
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And the judges said - Krishnadas Rajagopal, Indian Express
The imperialist’s formula of philanthropy plus five per cent is the accepted norm. Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is (its) latest mantra. Justice Aftab Alam in Mahanadi Coalfields vs Mathias Oram and others, July 19, 2010.
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Deoband row part of a larger churn - Aditya Menon, India Today
Though much of the mainstream media presented the removal of Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi from the post of Mohtamin (Vice-Chancellor) of Dar-ul-Uloom as a conservative backlash against a modernist Vice-Chancellor, the tussle was more about power politics, than ideology.
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Parliament panel questions role, rationale of Planning Commission - G Srinivasan, Business Line
A House panel has questioned the role and rationale of the country's supreme policy-making body, the Planning Commission, stating point-blank that “planning in the country has failed to deliver the desired results owing to disjunction between planning and budgeting, lack of synchronisation between the plans/policies and implementation and monitoring”.
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CAG drags PMO in CWG mess, faults Sheila Dikshit - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Aug 5 - The CAG today dragged the PMO in the CWG mess by saying that Suresh Kalmadi, who is jail for alleged irregularities, was appointed as Organising Committee chief at its behest in 2004 despite "serious objections" from within government. The auditor also blamed Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's "active involvement" for causing a loss of Rs 31.07 crore (rpt) Rs 31.07 as it highlighted how wasteful expenditure worth several hundred crore of rupees was caused in conduct of the CWG through "irregularities", "favouritism" and "bias" in award of contracts for projects.
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Once a staid auditor, CAG turns assertive - Times of India
Soon after the contents of the CAG report indicting the Delhi government and the PMO for letting Suresh Kalmadi control preparations for the Commonwealth Games became known, government appeared to be bracing for another blow from the auditor: its report on the civil aviation ministry, particularly the purchase of aircraft for Air India and Indian Airlines.
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Market rate was Rs60L/acre, but Rajiv Gandhi trust got it for Rs3L - Sukhbir Siwach, ToI
The land lease for Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust in Gurgaon was "awarded" by the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government just about a month ahead of the Haryana Assembly polls in October 2009, which saw Hooda return as chief minister.
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Cong defends, BJP demands Sheila's scalp - Pioneer
With the CAG report on the CWG scam indicting the Sheila Dikshit Government for wasteful expenditure of public money, the BJP demanded the Congress to sack her if she refuses to quit. On the other hand, the Congress came out in support of the beleaguered CM and said the report should be discussed in Parliament.
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India all at sea over coast security - Pioneer
The Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) has punched holes in India’s coastal security preparedness, which was, in fact, supposed to be shored up considerably post-Mumbai attacks. Pulling up the Government for not devising clear cut directions and guidelines for ensuring coastal security, it said post 26/11 response of the Coast Guard and Government was ad hoc.
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Antony first among equals in Cong quartet - Aurangzeb Naqshbandi & Saubhadra Chatterji, HT
A party in which all authority derives from the Gandhi family, how close a leader is to the family matters. The reason why, the appointment of a four-member panel to "look after all matters related to the Congress party" by Congress president Sonia Gandhi during her absence has prompted various analyses within the party.
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Karnataka: A self-interested embrace? - Seema Chishti, Indian Express
For those used to looking at politics in Karnataka with a little more than passing interest, recent events have been most intriguing. A proudly Lingayat leader like B.S. Yeddyurappa rooting for a Vokkaliga; and the same leader, out of power, indicted by the Lokayukta, yet somehow managing to swing things his way — all quite extraordinary.
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The Karnataka conundrum - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa was holidaying with his family in Mauritius when the report by Karnataka Lok Ayukta Santosh Hegde, indicting the chief minister for criminal conspiracy in illegal mining, came out.
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Ullawas villagers protest land lease to Gandhi Trust - Sreelatha Menon, Business Standard
Ram Singh, a venerable former sarpanch of Ullawas village, looks around unceasingly, boiling with despair as the void stares back at him. Like Singh, every face in the village is contested by many feelings at once — from agony to anger, staring straight at their face an uncertain future.
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Karnataka: Battle on for new Cabinet formation - Express Buzz
Even as the stalemate in the faction-ridden BJP continues over the Cabinet formation, former CM B S Yeddyurappa's camp is seriously trying to engineer a defection in the rival group, led by BJP national general secretary HN Ananthkumar and former minister Jagadish Shettar.
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In Tamil Nadu, DMK’s 'sons of soil' land party in trouble - Gnani Sankaran, DNA
Dravidian parties are deemed to be the sons of the soil in Tamil Nadu unlike the Congress or the BJP or even the Left parties who have the control buttons in 'Aryan' Delhi. DMK leaders from top to bottom took this in the literal sense and thought that since they belong to the soil, the soil belongs only to them!
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India squandering global role: Ex-NSA Mishra - Indrani Bagchi, Times of India
Brajesh Mishra, former national security adviser, said the lack of governance in India was having an adverse effect on India's national security. "We have two enemies on our borders who are keeping us embroiled in South Asia. This reduces our ability to contribute in world affairs."
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4 previous lokpal bills had covered PM - Nagendar Sharma, Hindustan Times
The government's decision to exclude the prime minister from the ambit of the lokpal contradicts the position taken by previous governments on this issue between 1989 and 2001, in their failed attempts to get the bill passed in Parliament.
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Govt must not appeal SC order banning use of SPOs against Naxalites: Digvijaya - IE
Hailing the Supreme Court order banning the use of Special Police Officers (SPOs) in Chhattisgarh in the fight against Naxalites, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh has said that the Centre should not appeal against the order.
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France hands over list of 700 bank accounts in Switzerland, Govt probes - Ritu Sarin, IE
After the list of bank accounts of Indians in Liechtenstein, it is the turn of HSBC accounts in Geneva. The government last month received a list of some 700 bank accounts in Switzerland from the French government and investigations are already underway to determine whether any of the account holders evaded taxes.
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2G scam: Joshi fires fresh salvo against PM, PC - Pioneer
As if the CAG report on CWG games was not a big headache for the UPA Government, it is now again going to face another major challenge. BJP leader and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Murli Manohar Joshi has circulated a new, stronger and comprehensive report indicting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram yet again in the Rs 1.75 lakh crore 2G spectrum scam.
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Catcher is the Rai - Pradeep Thakur & Sidhartha, Times of India
Whispers don't work anymore. One has to scream to be heard in the din caused by loud TV anchors, preachy civil society activists and pompous spokespersons of political parties. In all this, the deep, measured tone of Vinod Rai stands out; he understands the importance of pitch perfectly. He also has the art of saying the right things at the right moment, sometimes even keeping quiet when he has to.
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British wanted Padmanabha temple watched for Netaji - Lekshmi Gopalakrishnan, PTI
Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 7 - The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple here, now in the limelight for the huge treasures discovered in its vaults, was once closely monitored at the behest of the British rulers who suspected freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose lived there secretly for a while, according to a little known archival record. The temple was brought under surveillance after an anonymous letter came to the attention of a senior British official in Madras (Chennai), the Southern headquarters of the British administration in pre-independence India.
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Sparks to fly as Joshi re-circulates 2G report - Times of India
The Public Accounts Committee is set for a showdown with chairperson M M Joshi recirculating the report on the 2G scam and the changed dynamics of the panel giving the two Bahujan Samaj Party members the key to tipping the scales against the ruling coalition nominees.
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Tough SC, CAG prompt clamour for strong Lokpal - Dhananjay Mahapatra, ToI
Law minister Salman Khurshid chose to fall back on the "Mere pas maa hai" dialogue, which was used as a clincher in Bollywood blockbuster 'Deewar' during a tense verbal duel between two brothers.
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Time for interlocutors to pack up from J&K? - Randeep Singh Nandal, Times of India
They were supposed to prepare a roadmap for settling the Kashmir issue. But today, with open disagreements among them, the three Central interlocutors are apprehensive of visiting the state and facing local media questions. Because one of the panelists, M M Ansari, refuses to withdraw his remark against his colleague, Dileep Padgaonkar, criticising him for attending conferences organised by Kashmiri American Council. KAC's executive director Ghulam Nab Fai was arrested by FBI last month for alleged financial links to Pakistan's ISI.
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Sachar panel members doubt govt will, methods - Seema Chishti, Indian Express
Nearly five years after the Sachar committee submitted its report on the social, educational and economic status of Muslims, showing that the community remained among the most backward social groups in the country, its members sense a lack of political will to fundamentally alter structures that give rise to prejudice against the community and perpetuate it.
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Asked in Assam: if objective was this, why 30 yrs of bloodshed? - SG Kashyap, IE
Among the various reactions evoked by Friday’s first round of formal talks between New Delhi and leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), one is a question, being asked by a section in Assam, as to why the outfit had indulged in “useless violence” when it was only reiterating the same issues the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) did three decades ago.
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Sadananda: The smiling new CM - Saritha Rai, Indian Express
Gowda go, Yeddy come. Yeddy go, Gowda come. That sums up the bizarre game that Karnataka politics has been over the past few years. Sadananda Gowda has succeeded his mentor B.S. Yeddyurappa as chief minister. This latest Gowda is a Vokkaliga all right, one of the two dominant communities (the other is Yeddyurappa’s Lingayat community) that each roughly account for a fifth of the state’s population.
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Rise of the satraps in BJP - Bharat Bhushan, India Today
Less than a decade ago it would have been unthinkable that a regional leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be able to challenge the central leadership of the party as B S Yeddyurappa has done in Karnataka. Not only did he continuously defy the central leaders, he was in fact able to dictate terms to them. When they refused to appoint his nominee as the new chief minister, by opting for a secret ballot he once again proved he was the boss.
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CNN-IBN Poll: The popularity stakes - Yogendra Yadav, Hindu
State of the Nation Poll: Rahul Gandhi emerges as the most popular political leader and the preferred choice as the next Prime Minister.
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Wages of War - Jimi Dey Gabriel, Tehelka
He held the dreaded ‘love-letter’ in trembling hands. His heart raced. Line by line, the 40-year-old Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO) read the extortion note with a sinking feeling that there was no choice but to pay. Twenty-five percent of his salary and that of every other employee in his department was to be handed over to the Naga Underground (UG) — or the safety of their families would be jeopardised.
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The deadly secrets of sting Singh - Shantanu Guha Ray, India Today
No one doubts that Amar Singh was at the heart of the operation that saved the UPA I government in 2008. In 2011, that political coup could foreshadow the doom of UPA II, since the principal beneficiaries of 2008 are still in power. Amar Singh maintains he is innocent. His opponents are equally certain of his guilt. The moot point now, however, is much larger than the fate of a controversial politician: if Amar Singh, for any reason, chooses to say that money was paid to the MPs to save Manmohan in 2008, it would destroy the prime minister today.
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Trinamool throws spanner in land Bill - Archana Jyoti, Pioneer
UPA’s key ally All India Trinamool Congress has thrown a spanner into the Government’s plan to introduce the Land Acquisition & Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011, in the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament. Sources said that in addition to West Bengal, Punjab and Haryana have also opposed the blanket ban on acquisition of multi-crop irrigated plots in the draft land acquisition Bill.
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Communal Bill: Centre as the Big Brother - A Surya Prakash, Pioneer
Apart from generating communal strife and pitting religious minority communities against the majority community in every State and Union Territory, the proposed Prevention of Communal and Targetted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, prepared by the National Advisory Council, incorporates some extremely dangerous provisions which seek to re-impose the ‘dadagiri’ of the Centre on the States and even promote insubordination in the administration in the States.
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CNN-IBN Poll: Corruption is the Big issue - Hindu
The results of the poll on the theme 'Corruption and the Lokpal' show the Central government being overwhelmingly perceived as being corrupt and shielding those who have stashed money abroad.
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A poor country, rich in corruption - Rasheeda Bhagat, Business Line
By their corrupt acts, politicians are snatching morsels from the mouths of hungry, malnourished children, and denying a lifeline called education to millions of others. For how long are we going to tolerate this shamelessness?
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Corruption accusations against two CMs turn heat up on Cong - Liz Mathew, Mint
The political woes of the ruling Congress party were compounded as two of its chief ministers came under the corruption scanner. In Parliament, the opposition sought the resignation of Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit over her alleged role in irregularities related to Commonwealth Games (CWG) projects.
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CWG: Dikshit took important decisions, says CAG report - Kumar Vikram, India Today
The Delhi cabinet may be defending chief minister Sheila Dikshit by claiming she took only policy decisions while they were implemented by bureaucrats, but the CAG report clearly nails their lie.
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Cash-for-votes scam: Amar Singh's letter exposes his lie on Saxena links - India Today
Amar Singh 's lie has been exposed. The former general secretary of the Samajwadi Party had denied knowing Sanjeev Saxena , one of the key accused in the cash-for-votes scam.
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CNN-IBN Poll: Worries on the economic front - Hindu
The Hindu presents the findings of the CNN-IBN & CNBC-TV18 ‘State of the Nation Poll’, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. The results of the poll on the theme ‘Economy, Price Rise & Land Acquisition’ show there is an overwhelming feeling that the price rise situation has worsened; more people hold the Centre than their State governments responsible.
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CWG scam: BJP links Sonia, Manmohan to corruption - Indian Express
Armed with the CAG report on the Commonwealth Games, the BJP had a field day in Parliament today as it accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Home Minister P Chidambaram of being directly responsible for financial mismanagement during the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG).
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Pranab v/s 'PM' - Rohit Bansal, Pioneer
An anecdote confirmed to me what goes on between the ears of Pranab Mukherjee. A media owner wanted something from the old man. Mukherjee appeared unresponsive. So, the supplicant played his final card. “Sir, if you won't, who would? I only know one PM in this country!'' Mukherjee's cold glare could have been fatal. But then came the punchline, “Sir, the only PM in this country is 'P'ranab 'M'ukherjee!!''
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BG Deshmukh: The man who served three PMs - A K Bhattacharya, Business Standard
B G Deshmukh, who died last Sunday, made a mark as a bureaucrat with a difference. The last few years of his service with the central government coincided with economically as well as politically turbulent times. Not surprisingly, his journey from Pune – where he spent his childhood days and breathed his last at 84 – to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on Raisina Hill is a story that will inspire many young bureaucrats.
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Conspiracy to wreck India's growth: Prime Minister - Sruthijith KK, Economic Times
An international conspiracy is afoot to destabilise India's economic growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a delegation of CPM MPs, as he settled for casual conversation with his erstwhile ally on Monday.
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PIB release shows UPA appointed Suresh Kalmadi - S. Kannan, India Today
As the debate rages as to who appointed Suresh Kalmadi as the chief of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, Mail Today has accessed a document which shows that he was elevated to the post on January 30, 2005 by the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by the late Arjun Singh.
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How Congress undermines democratic institutions - Poornima Joshi, Mail Today
The Congress’s public denigration of the Comptroller and Auditor General ( CAG) is further evidence of the ruling party’s routine practice of undermining democratic institutions for partisan ends.
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Keep your word, we will keep ours, India tells NSG - Indrani Bagchi, Times of India
India wants nuclear suppliers to honour their commitments on transfer of nuclear technology. In the clearest signal yet to the NSG, post its controversial June decision to tighten ENR technology exports, India indicated it would strictly follow the reciprocity principle in implementing legal obligations by countries who have signed nuclear agreements with India.
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CNN-IBN Poll: Hardening mood on terrorism - Hindu
"The Hindu" presents the findings of the CNN-IBN & CNBC-TV18 ‘State of the Nation Poll’, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. The results of the poll on the theme ‘Terrorism’ show that the level of approval of the government's handling of terror has fallen as compared to early-2009.
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Team Anna asks Standing Committee to reject Bill - Gargi Parsai, Hindu
Social activist Anna Hazare on Wednesday asked the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice to summarily reject the “structurally weak” Lokpal Bill and recommend to the government to come up with a revised legislation.
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Differences among J&K interlocutors resurface - Vinay Kumar, Hindu
Growing differences among the three interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir resurfaced on Wednesday with two of them – chief interlocutor Dileep Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar – meeting Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram. Their colleague in the panel M. M. Ansari was not present at the meeting which lasted for about an hour.
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For Kalmadi’s OC job, PMO note listed precedent, host city pact - Swaraj Thapa, IE
Incarcerated Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi’s elevation as the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairperson in 2004 had almost become fait accompli, not just because of the language of the Host City Contract signed in 2003 but a series of other factors including precedent set by the 1982 Asiad Games, an internal PMO note accessed by The Indian Express has indicated.
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The hour of reckoning - Coomi Kapoor, Indian Express
The chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Hamid Ansari, thought he had found a solution to the problem of raucous scenes, disruptions and adjournments during Question Hour: shift it from 11 am to 3 pm. At the start of the day’s business, members are impatient to ventilate their grievances.
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No immunity to Ministers from public scrutiny - Annapurna Jha, Pioneer
To check corruption at the highest level, a parliamentary panel has recommended that members of the Council of Ministers, judiciary, regulatory authorities and even defence/intelligence and security agencies should be brought under the ambit of a Bill, which is aimed to receive complaints about corruption and misuse of power and provide protection to whistleblowers.
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BJP asks Ananth to mend his ways - Deccan Chronicle
Bengaluru South MP and BJP national general secretary H.N. Ananth Kumar, who made an unsuccessful bid to get his protégé, Jagadish Shettar, installed as chief minister, has been sternly warned by the central leadership to amend his ways and desist from attempts to encourage groupism in the state unit.
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BJP won't have prime ministerial candidate in next elections - Shekhar Iyer, HT
In a major change of its electoral policy, the BJP has decided not to project any of its leaders as a prime ministerial candidate in the next Lok Sabha polls due in 2014.
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Sohrabuddin: Interrogating the media - S Gurumurthy, Express Buzz
The facts unfolded here reveal a conspiracy – a hostile political strategy to communalise, thus weaponise, an illegal encounter killing to demonise a selected State; to oust its leader, outside ballot process. That State is the least sinner in fake encounters, just one in a hundred. Yet, its leader is vilified as ‘Mauth Ka Saudagar’ [merchant of death]. So, the selected State’s leader is the target, not fake encounters as evil.
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Sheila ki nishani: All Rs 100 cr CWG projects cleared by her - Raman Kirpal, First Post
The centre of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) scam has shifted from Suresh Kalmadi to Sheila Dikshit, the high-profile Delhi Chief Minister who brought the Congress electoral victory three times consecutively in the capital.
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Former Sebi member Abraham’s claims under CVC lens - Appu Esthose Suresh, Mint
Mint has reviewed a copy of this letter obtained through a Right to Information application made to the Prime Minister’s Office. In the nine-page letter to the PM, Abraham lists four high-profile cases in which the Sebi chairman asked him to compromise, citing pressure from Mukherjee’s office.
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PC Alexander: Getting along with the Gandhis - Inder Malhotra, Indian Express
Although P. C. Alexander attracted the limelight only in 1981, when Indira Gandhi handpicked him as her principal secretary after returning to power a year earlier, his record ever since joining the IAS in 1948 had been shining. No matter where he was posted and whatever his job, he drew praise for being upright, efficient and hardworking.
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Bluster and beyond - Swapan Dasgupta, Deccan Chronicle
hose who followed last Tuesday’s debates on the ongoing Commonwealth Games controversy were near-unanimous on one point: it was a one-sided slaughter of the government. Facing a privilege motion, sports minister Ajay Maken may have been nominally in the dock but it was the Manmohan Singh government that was on trial.
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CBI betrays court, bails out Congress - S Gurumurthy, Express Buzz
The Supreme Court entrusted the Sohrabuddin case to the CBI for two reasons: one, to identify the conspirators from Andhra Pradesh police; two, to ensure fair probe in Gujarat. The Attorney General had told the court that the CBI alone could probe AP police. Result, the court trusted the CBI to identify the offenders from AP police. See how the CBI honoured the court’s trust.
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Chidambaram sparks Centre-BJP war over Gujarat - ToI
A heated political spat broke out between the Centre and BJP over home minister P Chidambaram offering to help police officers facing disciplinary action at the hands of the Narendra Modi government and the saffron party warning that the move will become a bone of contention.
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Chidambaram gets Opp rap for bid to boss around Gujarat - Pioneer
The UPA Government’s attempt to open a new front against the Narendra Modi Government by suggesting the officers to approach the Centre if they felt victimised by the State regime has brought Home Minister P Chidambaram in the line of BJP fire.
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Rahul clueless, Govt eats humble pie - Pioneer
With little evidence to support Rahul Gandhi’s wild claims about rape in Bhatta-Parsaul, the Government has been forced to admit in Rajya Sabha that no such incident took place in the Greater Noida village. Replying to a question, Women & Child Welfare Minister Krishna Tirath said no specific case of rape has been confirmed by the inquiry committee constituted by National Commission for Women (NCW).
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'We're not aam adami', MPs demand beacon, toll tax relief - Annapurna Jha, Pioneer
Asserting their "right" for a privileged treatment and differentiation from the common man, around 100 MPs on Friday demanded that they be allowed to have red beacons atop their cars across the country to save them from being challaned by traffic cops. In a petition to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and Chairman of Privilege Committee PC Chacko, the MPs cutting across party lines - barring the BJP - also reiterated their demand that they should not be asked to pay toll tax at National Highways. The demand had earlier also been made by a section of Parliamentarians.
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CNN-IBN Poll: The political pulse - Hindu
The vote share projections from the poll are presented here. In a paradoxical finding, it emerges that UPA-II is a couple of points higher than where it was two years ago in the ratings.
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SC Naxal order: Govt files review - Maneesh Chhibber, Indian Express
In the petition filed in the SC registry today, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sought recall of the two paras, 75 (ii) and 76, on the ground that they were in violation of the spirit of the Constitution. Sources said the Centre is of the view that this part of the judgment is an example of judicial overreach into executive functions.
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How Maya govt won political loyalties, case by criminal case - Manish Sahu, IE
Apart from a clean-up of its own stables, the BSP government has used registration and withdrawal of criminal cases as a means to tackle opposition MLAs. In at least two cases, it ordered withdrawal of criminal cases registered by its own government against Samajwadi Party MLAs when they changed their loyalties. Both formally joined the BSP last week.
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Biggest threat to freedom? Corruption, says young India - Praveen Dass, ToI
Twenty years after it was set in motion, what do liberalization's children think of their fast-changing country? A survey conducted exclusively for TOI sought to find out and its results shed light on four clear trends: young urban Indians greatly cherish the various freedoms our country offers; look forward to the many economic opportunities available; vehemently despise corruption; and, predictably, are patently cricket-mad.
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Sold on Anna Hazare, cricket & job scene - ToI
When asked 'Which right/freedom do you enjoy most', 38% nationwide listed 'the right to live and work anywhere in India', with 'free speech' and 'right to vote' garnering 27% and 22% respectively.
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Fixing Shah, by fabrication - S Gurumurthy, Express Buzz
The climax of the CBI story is how it smuggled Amit Shah into the Sohrabuddin case. Here is a brief, simple account of the complex episode.
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Gadkari House hint to BJP leaders - Radhika Ramaseshan, Telegraph India
BJP president Nitin Gadkari has made it clear to leaders of Opposition Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj that their writ need not necessarily run all the time over parliamentary affairs. Gadkari’s presence at a meeting of the BJP’s parliamentary party last Tuesday forced a change in its strategy on the CAG’s report on the Commonwealth Games. It pushed Jaitley and Sushma to switch from conciliation to aggression in their respective Houses, the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha.
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Defiant Anna Hazare tells PM to ‘show courage’, Singh says not his call - Indian Express
Two days before Anna Hazare begins his protest over the Lokpal Bill, he and the government appeared headed for a showdown. Hazare shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his intervention over the strict conditions imposed on his fast by the Delhi Police; in a late-night response, the PM said he should take his grievances to the “statutory authorities” who have taken the decision.
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PC is backing delinquent cops, says BJP - Indian Express
A day after Home Minister P Chidambaram asserted that the Centre has the right to look into the cases of two senior IPS officers in Gujarat, the BJP on Saturday returned fire, saying that he was backing “delinquent” officers. It also came out in full support of the Narendra Modi government and justified its action against both Rahul Sharma and suspended officer Sanjiv Bhatt.
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Why Sonia Gandhi is the most powerful person in India - Sir Mark Tully, BBC
The sudden announcement that Sonia Gandhi, the president of India's ruling Congress party and head of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, had left for America to undergo an operation has highlighted the extraordinary powers she enjoys and brought to the fore the question of her successor.
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Emergency redux, say legal experts - Dhananjay Mahapatra, Times of India
Constitutional experts on Tuesday slammed the Delhi Police's decision to arrest Anna Hazare to prevent him from fasting to protest against corruption and said it was excessive and a reminder of the dark Emergency days when right to free speech and protest was stifled.
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2G scam: PMO kept in the loop on Raja's licence issuance - Rohini Singh & Joji Thomas Philip, ET
The Prime Minister's Office had come around to accepting the methodology being followed by former telecom minister A Raja in allocating airwaves to cellphone companies though it had initially expressed reservations, according to a note prepared by a senior bureaucrat in the PMO.
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Govt gagging anti-graft voices: Opposition - Pioneer
The BJP and the Left parties have accused the UPA Government of trying to throttle the voices of protest against corruption and acting undemocratically in disallowing Gandhian Anna Hazare to sit on fast in the national Capital.
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Rahul set to take over, Congress top brass gets first look - DK Singh, Indian Express
Rahul Gandhi is set to take charge of the Congress, with the timing reportedly only a matter of detail. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who underwent major surgery in a US hospital early this month, could remain indisposed for a prolonged period. And Rahul, who returned to India on Sunday, is reportedly getting a new, redefined role within the party organisation.
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Maken vs Dikshit gets a fillip - Nistula Hebbar, Financial Express
The histrionics during last week’s debate in Parliament over sports minister Ajay Maken’s defence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Commonwealth Games (CWG) imbroglio made for riveting television. The sight of the normally calm and affable Maken dramatically taking off his ear phones in anger as senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha taunted and chided him was, to say the least, eyeball grabbing.
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Indian leader’s illness prompts questions, but also restraint - Jim Yardley, NYT
It has been 11 days since the announcement of the disappearance of Sonia Gandhi, the most powerful political figure in India. From all corners of the country, people have offered prayers and good wishes, even her political enemies. Yet what is most intriguing is that so few people are demanding that she be found.
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Time to get real about real estate - R Srinivasan, Mail Today
A FUNNY THING happened on the way to Bhatta- Parsaul — Rahul Gandhi developed political savvy. One would have thought the Englishspeaking, Western- educated icon of ‘ new India’ would have taken up cudgels on behalf of that constituency — as represented by the thousands of middle- class home buyers who suddenly discovered that their dream homes had been spun out of fairy dust, when the courts suddenly cancelled the acquisition of the land on which their flats — for which they had already parted with their life savings — were supposed to have come up.
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Winds of change in BJP a warning for leadership - Prabhu Chawla, Express Buzz
If leaders fail to lead, their followers will take over the leadership and lead instead. This is what is precisely taking place in the faction-ridden Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Last week, when the 140-member-strong BJP Parliamentary Party met to decide its conduct and stand for the current session of Parliament, the deliberations reflected the sudden winds of change that shook the entire leadership. For the first time in decades, people sitting in the audience and not those occupying the dais, dictated the tone and tenor of the dialogue.
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Dynastic rule not part of a true democracy - Vivek Gumaste, Express Buzz
The thought never seems to go away. I have attempted to banish it from memory with the polemic that if the entire nation has accepted the inevitable as a fait accompli and made peace with themselves, why shouldn’t I ditto the same and let go. But to no avail. Time has not wasted its intensity or mitigated the political conundrum that it poses, let alone wash away the opprobrium attached to it. It continues to pop up, mocking my self-esteem and that of my country. It is a thought that has serious ramifications for the political health of India—the intertwining of dynasty and democracy and its deleterious consequences.
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Narendra Modi remains first among equals in BJP's gennext - Rajeev Deshpande, ToI
Despite the controversies shadowing him, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is seen as the tallest of BJP's 'gennext' leaders and a strong showing by the saffron party in the next Lok Sabha election can make him a formidable contender for prime minister.
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How CBI betrayed Court to save Congress - S Gurumurthy, Express Buzz
The CBI’s dishonest U-turn is perfidious too. Its final report (Para 21-24) makes it clear that far from identifying the co-conspirators, CBI has worked to ensure that none of them was exposed. First, the CBI tells a blatant lie to the Court that despite strenuous efforts, it could not trace the “crucial witnesses”, Kalimuddin and his sister Salima Begum. It is a shocking falsehood.
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Govt’s dirty tricks dept probes Team Anna record - Raman Kirpal, First Post
In a series of goof-ups, the UPA government led by the Congress Party
has launched a hush-hush preliminary inquiry into Anna Hazare and Kiran
Bedi’s pasts. Soon after the first episode of Hazare’s indefinite fast
for instituting an effective Lokpal bill ended, the government sent
feelers to the personnel department of the Army Supply Corps to dig into
Hazare’s past. Hazare had joined the Indian Army in 1963 and served as a
soldier for 15 years. The Indian Army reveal that Anna had left the
Indian Army in 1978 and such old records are not maintainable in the
Army Supply Corps.
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Shiv Visvanathan's open letter to the PM - Shiv Visvanathan, IBN live
There are moments when protest is a form of duty. When citizens realize
that a government has abdicated its responsibility. So at this new
virtual Jantar Mantar I light my candle and send my SMS message of
protest against a regime that denies the dream of the future. Civil
disobedience is my right and now my duty. You give me no alternative, Mr
Prime Minister. In arresting Hazare, you have made a mockery of
democracy.
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Hazare stir: Intellectuals draw parallels with Emergency, JP movement - ToI
The arrest of Anna Hazare on Tuesday morning caused widespread outrage in the capital. Whether they support his methods or not, Delhi's notable citizens were unanimous in their condemnation of the police action. Many who were around at the time, feel the anti-corruption movement carries shades of 1975 and the Emergency.
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BJP eyes returns from agitation, Sangh calls strategy baithak - Vandita Mishra, IE
The BJP has raised the pitch against the UPA government on Anna Hazare’s arrest but beneath the rhetoric lie hard-nosed political calculations. Top sources in the party said that far from feeling upstaged by Anna, the BJP is content, for the moment, to let him be the face of the opposition to the government on the issue of corruption.
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CPI talks ‘boycott’ with BJP, CPM red-faced - Manoj, Indian Express
The CPM today found itself in a spot, courtesy CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta, whose proactive initiative resulted in the Left parties ending up in a huddle with the BJP and reluctantly becoming part of a common Parliament floor strategy with it.
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Opp unites, Cong looks for way out - Pioneer
The Anna Hazare tremor shook Parliament on Tuesday giving an extraordinary opportunity to the BJP and the Left to join hands openly — for the first time in the UPA regime — to create an anti-Congress forum that even attracted pro-UPA groups like the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
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Hazare to drag Govt to people's court - Pioneer
Team Anna has decided to bank on the snowballing public protest against the arrest of Hazare, who has refused to be released from Tihar Jail. It will not approach Supreme Court against a crackdown on him and his supporters and let people force the Government to reply on denial of right to protest in the capital.
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National Advisory Council slams Government for Anna Hazare's arrest - ET
In a major embarrassment for the government, members of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council - the body that advises the government on policy issues - on Tuesday came out in the open to protest the arrest of Anna Hazare. "I'm appalled at the government's action. Anna Hazare has every right to protest. One might agree or disagree with the specifics. But his right should never have been compromised . Dissent is what deepens democracy. Non-violent dissent should never be crushed," said Harsh Mander.
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The Cong plan to neutralise Anna is still on course - Mahesh Vijapurkar, First Post
The first politician to shoot from his lips on Tuesday morning, after Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi and Arun Kejriwal were taken into custody, was BJP’s Prakash Jawdekar. He said the government had ‘gone berserk’. He could be well wrong. The government seems to have chosen to deliberately provoke and measure the actual visible public support Hazare and his civil society colleagues generate across the country.
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Hazare's arrest: UPA scores a self-goal - Sheela Bhatt, Rediff
While tackling the differences over the Lokpal Bill with social activist Anna Hazare and his team, the Manmohan Singh government has landed in a bigger mess by sending Hazare to Tihar jail. Sheela Bhatt explains why.
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Govt isolated as DMK, Trinamool keep off Anna - Saubhadra Chatterji, Hindustan Times
Key UPA allies including, Trinamool Congress and NCP, shunned the Congress while the coalition government received flak both inside and outside Parliament on Monday over the Anna Hazare issue. Top UPA sources told HT, Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee specifically asked her party MPs to maintain silence on the controversy. Sharad Pawar, the NCP boss, privately conveyed his disappointment over Anna’s arrest to the Congress.
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In and out of jail - Nistula Hebbar, Financial Express
Anna redux, or the second wind for civil society activist Anna Hazare, began bright and early on Tuesday morning, when he was picked up by the Delhi Police from the East Delhi suburb of Mayur Vihar before he could undertake his programme of a hunger fast in Central Delhi.
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Congress sees foreign hand behind Anna - Business Standard
Unable to control the swelling crowds supporting Anna Hazare’s campaign against corruption, the Congress party on Wednesday turned to the usual suspects for allegedly trying to destabilise a country making rapid progress.
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Jaitley tears into Government defence - Pioneer
The BJP-led Opposition on Wednesday slammed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for lacking political will to tackle corruption and instead taking “refuge behind Delhi Police Commissioner” for Anna Hazare’s arrest on Tuesday. The UPA Government was also charged with trying to engineer a confrontation between Parliament and civil society.
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Behind the impeachment: Advocate’s history catches up with judge - Kanchan Chakraborty, Indian Express
On April 10, 2006, Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta of the Calcutta High Court directed a colleague, Justice Soumitra Sen, to return an amount that he had collected in 1993 as a court receiver. Newspapers in Kolkata reported the order in November, setting off a chain of events that saw the matter reaching Rajya Sabha in 2009 and Justice Sen facing impeachment proceedings on Wednesday.
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So who's next? brand Yeddyurappa? - TJS George, Express Buzz
Actually Anna Hazare is not an issue at all. The right to enact laws is not an issue. The only issue is corruption. This is the issue that brought masses of Indians out into the rain. To them, Anna Hazare is just a straw of hope. They clutch it, because they do not get even a straw from the Government’s side. As the public perceives it, Anna is fighting corruption, the Government is fighting Anna, therefore the Government is supporting corruption. How foolish of the Government to spread such an impression.
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Anna Hazare's fight for change has inspired millions of Indians - Chetan Bhagat, Guardian
The arrest of the anti-corruption campaigner has brought people from all walks of life together to demand an end to the old ways.
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It's the middle class, stupid - Swagato Ganguly, Times of India
Nobody within the government saw it coming. The middle class has risen massively in support of Anna Hazare, upsetting the government's calculations about being able to manage the anti-corruption movement easily. In doing so, the middle class has upended the received wisdom that it is politically apathetic.
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Why BSP voted for Sen - Hindustan Times
The BSP sprang a surprise in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday when it supported an embattled Justice Soumitra Sen during a vote to impeach him. The Calcutta High Court judge, charged with misappropriation of funds, was impeached by a margin of 189 votes to 17.
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It has become a common man's protest - Smriti Kak Ramachandran, Hindu
On a good day she earns up to Rs.300, stringing colourful beads together and making trinkets. For the past few days, there has been a slight increase in her business at India Gate here as someone helpfully suggested that she make Anna bracelets.
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Judges can't appoint judges parties agree - Economic Times
The political class' unease over the courts' itch to encroach on the terrain of legislature found an expression in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. Parties across the aisle backed leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley's demand for revisiting the process of judicial appointments and clear measures to ward off undue interventions in the government's functioning.
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Anna Hazare to affect assembly poll results in UP? - Manjari Mishra, Times of India
Already in election gear, the UP netas had factored in everything -caste combinations, regional aspirations, law and order goof ups and land acquisition loopholes. But none of them had a wildest clue that a 73-year-old Gandhian sitting 497 kilometres away in Delhi, could spoil their poll arithmetic within a matter of days. As Anna Hazare prepares himself for a marathon at Ramlila Maidan, every small move he makes is causing huge ripples in political camps here.
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Varun Gandhi’s Anna Bill, a way out for UPA - Sanjay Basak, Deccan Chronicle
In an attempt to get out of a self-created mess, the government has pressed into operation a backchannel group to parley with sympathisers of the anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare.
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The war against graft - Business Standard
Ahead of the jan lok pal bill being inroduced in parliament by a private member. Business Standard lists issues that are at the centre of the debate.
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Will the Anna wave last? - Sreelatha Menon, Business Standard
Over 2,500 people happily detained in Chatrasal stadium in Delhi; thousands drenched in a downpour outside Delhi’s Tihar jail; countless others protesting on streets across the country and on college campuses and courts—these were the scenes that greeted the nation this week as the country’s most famous ex-Jawan-turned-Gandhian defied the government order to leave his current quarters at Tihar jail.
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Without Sonia Gandhi, Congress at sea over Anna Hazare - Kay Benedict, India Today
With its captain Sonia Gandhi recuperating from an ailment in an American hospital, the Congress finds itself all at sea in the prevailing political turbulence. The party was in a state of utter confusion not only because of Sonia's absence but also because some of its senior leaders and ministers were miffed at being cold-shouldered in the present party set-up, depriving the party of political sagacity in its hour of crisis.
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Manish Tewari abandoned by Congress after anti-Anna remark - Mail Today
Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari is the first casualty of a flawed political strategy. Tewari is currently being pilloried in the media as well as Parliament for his now infamous "Anna is corrupt from head to toe" spiel. He was singled out for criticism by the Leader of the Opposition, Sushma Swaraj, in the Lower House on Wednesday and the media has been gunning for him for what was arguably an intemperate attack on the veteran Gandhian.
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A Series of errors - With Anna Hazare, the government dialled a wrong number - Swapan Dasgupta, Telegraph
Among my most enduring memories of the Emergency — which, mercifully, I experienced fleetingly, being overseas for most of the time — was an overheard conversation between two ‘progressive’ faculty members of Delhi University in early July, 1975. One of the two gleefully told the other of the strange shortage of teachers in the Sanskrit department. “Most of them have been arrested,” he chuckled. There was neither outrage nor fear in his voice, just a puerile delight.
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From Hazare to Hazareji in 24 hours flat - Seema Mustafa, DNA India
The last few days of the Anna Hazare drama have been like a movie, unbelievable and almost surreal. It started with loud assertions by Congress ministers and spokespersons that the 74-year-old Gandhian and his small group of advisers were clothed in corruption, and had no right to take away Parliament’s power (read the Congress and its cronies); went on to threaten action against all those taking law into their own hands and trying to blackmail the government by threatening to go on a fast unto death (wonder what Gandhi would have to say about that!); and within 24 hours of facing the people’s wrath across India changing the language from “Hazare” to “Anna Hazareji” and crawling to meet his demands.
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Anna Hazare rides wrath yatra, ups ante on Jan Lokpal Bill - Himanshi Dhawan, ToI
Emboldened by the swelling crowds at Ramlila Maidan, Gandhian anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare upped the ante within hours of emerging from Tihar Jail on Friday. He set a three-week deadline for Parliament to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill, pending which he wouldn't budge from the ground. This was not only contrary to his group's commitment to vacate the protest site by August 31, but was also seen to be brushing aside parliamentary processes as no such deadline is set for standing committees to study draft legislations in detail.
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Nine opposition parties call all-India protest on Aug 23 against corruption - ToI
With government feeling the heat generated by the Anna Hazare agitation, it will face a coordinated attack from the opposition that has called for an all-India protest on August 23.
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Left & Co junk govt’s Lokpal Bill - ManojCG, Indian Express
On a day Anna Hazare launched his fast from the Ramlila Maidan, nine non-NDA opposition parties led by the Left echoed the civil society sentiments and pitched for withdrawal of the Lokpal Bill that has been tabled in Parliament.
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The bigger problem - TN Ninan, Business Standard
The government deserves every bit of the stick it has been getting on the corruption issue. First it allowed ministers and others to run amok and swindle thousands of crores of rupees, then it refused to take action until its hand was forced, tried to shoot those holding up a candle to the misdeeds (the Comptroller and Auditor General or CAG, the media, judges, and of course Anna Hazare), suggested dark conspiracies against the country, and served up a Lok Pal Bill that did not measure up. Even now, it seems to have no conviction in the steps it is taking to deal with the widespread public outrage.
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Aruna Roy's bill seeks to fine-tune clauses in Anna's Jan Lokpal - Manoj Mitta, ToI
For all the dissensions within civil society, the third version of Lokpal, authored by the network that had campaigned for RTI, has more in common with Team Anna's draft than the bill introduced by the government in Parliament.
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The Beginning of the End? - Hartosh Singh Bal, Open
What Anna Hazare could not achieve in months, what the continued
revelations in the 2G and Commonwealth scams could not ensure, the
Congress party has managed in a moment of suicidal decisiveness. The
arrest and subsequent attempts to release Hazare have isolated the
Government in Parliament, where the BJP, the constituents of what was
once the Third Front and the Left have come closer together. And they
have isolated the Congress outside Parliament, with even those who have
set no store by the Anna movement left aghast by this arbitrary display
of government might.
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Modi is BJP's hot favourite for PM post - Rajeev Deshpande, Times of India
New Delhi: Despite the controversies shadowing him, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is seen as the tallest of BJP's 'gennext' leaders and a strong showing by BJP in the next Lok Sabha election can make him a formidable contender for Prime Minister. The BJP pecking order is unclear with an RSS-imposed arrangement that places party president Nitin Gadkari, the two leaders of opposition Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj and a couple of other senior leaders on roughly equal footing. But the party sees Modi as an in-house favourite.
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Pass our Bill by Aug 30: Team Anna - Kumar Shakti Shekhar, Pioneer
Still struggling to reach a common ground on the provisions of the Lokpal Bill, the stand-off between the Government and the Team Anna on Saturday shifted focus to the deadline of August 30, set by the Gandhian, for the passage of their version of the Lokpal Bill. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said there were “difficulties” given the “dynamics” of legislative process, Parliamentary Standing Committee Chairman Abhishek Singhvi made it clear that it was not possible to complete the consultation process by the end of this month. The two, however, said they were open to “discussion and dialogue”.
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Now, Anna demands poll reforms, farmers’ rights - Indian Express
As his fast entered the fifth day
Saturday, Anna Hazare expanded the ambit of his fight on the Lokpal Bill
to include electoral reforms and a farmer-friendly land acquisition
law. Addressing the gathering at Ramlila Maidan, Hazare
said: “I want to tell the youth of this country that this fight should
not be stopped with Lokpal alone. We have to fight for removing the
faults of the present electoral norms.
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Lokpal Bill: Anna Hazare's power cripples UPA - S Prasannarajan with Priya Sahgal, India Today
On August 17, battered by the Opposition in Parliament and rattled by the awesome popular support for the civil rights revolution, the Government asked Delhi police commissioner B.K. Gupta to strike a deal with the fasting Anna. The prime minister's favoured interlocutors-Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Telecom Minister Kapil Sabil-retreated, suddenly out of sight after dominating the limelight.
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YSR, Jagan Mohan indulged in systematic looting, says CBI - Raman Kirpal, First Post
Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister late YS Rajasekhara Reddy and his MP son YS Jagan Mohan Reddy indulged in ‘systematic looting’. They leased out mines and prime land in the state, allowed cement manufacturers to draw millions of gallons of water from the Krishna and provided several concessions to private industries in exchange of benefits.
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Ratings race prompts rethink in Congress - Prabhu Chawla, Express Buzz
Both the Congress and the Prime Minister’s Office are seriously concerned about the rising acceptability of Narendra Modi—their prime political target for the past few years. Not only has he beaten both Manmohan and Sonia in a recent opinion poll, but he doesn’t seem to be considered a pariah among the minorities in most parts of India. More Muslims support him for the top job than they do even for Nitish Kumar.
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Bukhari calls stir anti-Islam, tells Muslims to stay away - Abantika Ghosh, Times of India
NEW DELHI: Syed Ahmed Bukhari, Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, has called upon Muslims to stay away from the Anna movement saying his war cry - Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata Ki Jai - are against Islam.
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The long way home - Minhaz Merchant, Times of India
The summer of 2011 has been kind to Kashmir. It has spared the Valley the violence that led to the deaths of over a hundred young stone-pelters last summer. The mood in the Valley is turning: tourists are back, the army has largely retreated to its barracks and the necklace of stalls that rings the banks of Dal Lake does brisk business late into the evening. The number of tourists this year (7,54,588) has for the first time surpassed the number in 1988 (7,22,035) - the year before militancy hijacked the Valley.
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NCSC plays politics, backs rape claims - Pioneer
In a carefully orchestrated move intended as a face saver for Congress
general secretary Rahul Gandhi, National Commission for Scheduled Castes
(NCSC) — has inexplicably revived the controversy by demanding
prosecution of the guilty cops accused of rape at Uttar Pradesh’s
Bhatta-Parsaul village. In a major embarrassment to Rahul,
allegations of rape at Bhatta-Parsaul village was dumped as farce by the
UPA Government in Parliament based on the report of National Commission
for Women, another Central body.
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Illegal immigration: Silent invasion of India - Joginder Singh, Pioneer
Illegal immigration from Pakistan and Bangladesh poses a serious threat to our internal security. Thanks to vote-bank politics, our politicians are indifferent. Our international border is around 15,318 km long, of which our boundary with Bangladesh is 4,000 km long, running along West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura. It is the Government of India’s responsibility to guard the country’s international border and prevent foreigners from entering our territory illegally as well as control the entry of those travelling with valid documents.
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Anna won't go back on PM, judiciary, Jan Lokpal demand - Amitabh Sinha , D K Singh, IE
As the numbers in Ramlila Maidan swelled on the first Sunday since Anna Hazare began his protest there, the Hazare camp tonight claimed to have received a “proposal” from the government — a proposal that they said was “nothing new”. With Anna and his aides rejecting the three-page note, government sources said no such proposal had been sent by them.
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Politics : The reformer - Anil Padmanabhan, Live Mint
Arjun Sengupta, economist and former member of Parliament, famously dubbed Yashwant Sinha the “original reformer”. It is a tag that would baffle most, especially those fed on the steady chorus of self-appointed cheerleaders of Manmohan Singh, who delivered the epoch budget of 1991.
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Anna issue: Cong fears losing the battle of minds - Sheela Bhatt, Rediff
The team that is forming the strategy to take on Anna Hazare is so confused and incoherent that in spite of Team Anna's few missteps, the UPA government is unable to counter them. Says a senior minister and a leader with political sense, "We are worried about losing the battle for minds."
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PMO faces largest strategically targeted cyber attack - Saikat Datta, DNA
On July 12, some of the top officials in the Prime Minister’s Office
(PMO), including principal secretary to the PM TKA Nair and national
security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, received a flurry of calls from the
National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), India’s technical
intelligence agency.
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Anti-Anna Hazare cleric cuts lonely figure - Times of India
Delhi's Jamia Masjid chief cleric Syed Ahmed Bukhari has drawn flak from community leaders for asking Muslims to stay away from Anna Hazare's movement. Bukhari described Anna's slogans as "anti-Islam" and accused him of working at Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and BJP's behest a day earlier.
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Sri Sri calls on NDA leaders, seeks support - ManojCG, Indian Express
With Anna Hazare continuing his fast, spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar met the top leadership of the BJP and NDA on Monday, urging them to help break the deadlock. But the Opposition was not keen to play the role of a peacemaker, opting instead to put pressure on the UPA government and let it battle its way out of the crisis.
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Building a submarine fleet - Ajai Shukla, Business Standard
The Indian Navy has acted decisively over the years to create the capability and infrastructure needed for building surface battleships, but it has dithered in setting up an industry that could build submarines. Consequently, even as India’s 140-ship surface fleet is an imposing presence across a swathe of the northern Indian Ocean Region (IOR) from the Gulf of Hormuz to the Strait of Malacca, its 14 diesel-electric submarines hardly provide a matching underwater capability.
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Demystifying brand Anna Hazare - Mayank Austen Soofi, Mint
In an apartment in Ghaziabad, Delhi’s satellite town, lives a family that regularly watches Zee TV’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L’il Champs, a singing talent show for children. On 12 August, the mother, father and their 12-year-old daughter were pleasantly surprised to see Anna Hazare, the 74-year-old man who has shaken India, as the show’s special guest. Each member of the family has their own reason to adore Hazare.
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The Insurgent - Mehboob Jeelani, Caravan
Shortly after Anna Hazare broke his fast-unto-death on 9 April, a group of young people encircled a small man with a black moustache at Jantar Mantar and began shouting the famous pre-independence slogan: Inquilab Zindabad! (Long Live Revolution!). He continued walking toward a group of cars when a young man wearing a red bandanna pushed through the crowd, blocking his way and screaming out, “Sir, don’t call off the fast. Repeat the revolution.” The man returned the smile, and slid into the car.
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It’s now or never for desperate Jagan Mohan - Sanjeev Srivastava, First Post
The central leadership of the Congress may be committing a political blunder by underestimating Jagan Mohan Reddy‘s capabilities and resolve to bring down the party’s government in Andhra Pradesh.
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The fast and the curious - Economist
THOUGH August 22nd was a national holiday in India, a crowd of tens of thousands gathered in the Ramlila Maidan, a public ground in central Delhi, to cheer on Anna Hazare, a populist anti-corruption crusader who has tied the government in knots. They gathered in the dust and sunshine, some seated beneath enormous awnings, most wearing white Gandhi caps and badges proclaiming "I am Anna". Dozens of television trucks lined up outside the grounds, as cable channels feverishly broadcast every moment of Mr Hazare’s hunger strike. He is poised to complete his first week without food on August 23rd.
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The AICC mentors: Janardan Dwivedi, Ahmed Patel and AK Antony losing plot - ET
They were hand-picked by Sonia Gandhi to protect and groom Rahul Gandhi in her absence. Hit by the Anna storm, the four-member AICC standby panel has lost its drive with mentors Janardan Dwivedi, Ahmed Patel and A K Antony no longer seen strategising with Rahul at 24, Akbar Road.
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Arundhati on Anna: Losing her moral compass - Lakshmi Chaudhry, First Post
Arundhati Roy is many things to many people: shrill, disloyal, paranoid, righteous, or naïve. Her greatest strength is also her fatal flaw: an ideological clarity that brooks no contradiction. Roy is rarely confused. Her latest outing in The Hindu then marks an uncharacteristic moment of befuddlement.
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PM's letter to Anna Hazare - PMO
"Over the last few days, I have watched with increasing concern the
state of your health. Despite the differences between the Government and
your team, I do not think that anybody is or should be in any doubt
about the deep and abiding concern which I and our Government share
about your health, arising from your continuing fast. I have no
hesitation in saying that we need your views and actions in the service
of the nation, from a robust physical condition and not in the context
of frail or failing health.
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TN will secede if Rajiv Gandhi assassins are hanged: Vaiko - DNA
Vaiko, general secretary, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and a popular Tamil politician has warned the Union government that Tamil Nadu would soon secede from the Union of India. "If Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan, the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case are executed as per the court order, it will jeopardise Indian unity."
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'PM within ambit’; Team Anna too sheds rigidity - KS Shekhar & R Ranjan, Pioneer
As Anna Hazare’s fast entered the eighth day on Tuesday and the Opposition queered the pitch for the ruling dispensation, a nervous Government scampered to engage Team Anna in direct talks and arrived at the brink of a solution by late evening — in a major climbdown from its stated position. Team Anna reciprocated by shedding its rigidness over a couple of contentious issues.
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Opposition presses for Bill withdrawal, debate on graft - Pioneer
As the Opposition upped its ante against the graft-hit Manmohan Singh regime by stalling Parliament on Tuesday over the issue of corruption, the Government called an all-party meeting to break its political isolation on the Lokpal Bill and arrive at a consensus over dealing with Anna Hazare’s movement.
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Supreme Court seeks Centre's stand on dalit creamy layer - Dhananjay Mahapatra, ToI
The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Union government on a PIL seeking exclusion of 5-10 communities from the Scheduled Castes and Tribes list complaining that they were the creamy layer who cornered 99% of quota meant for advancement of 1,677 other dalit castes and tribes.
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Coastal cities under threat from pan-Islamic terror groups: Government - Times of India
The government on Tuesday said terror threats to coastal cities still existed and it was reviewing security arrangements to face emerging challenges. "Inputs received by security agencies show threat to coastal cities from pan-Islamic terrorist outfits," the home ministry told Lok Sabha in reply to a written question.
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The rise of middle India - NR Krishnan, Business Line
Anna Hazare's agitation against corruption has caught the imagination of the youth not only in India but abroad as well. His message and non-violent protest to press for its acceptance seem to be highlighting a new path for the civil society. It is worth examining the reasons underlying its success in the Indian context.
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Traitors run this country: Anna Hazare - Economic Times
"I feel there are only 5-6 people in the government who are running the country and if such people, who do not have a social or national perspective, run the nation, then what will happen to this country...This is something to worry about," Hazare said.
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New strike corps for China border - Ajai Shukla, Business Standard
In 2009, New Delhi acted decisively in sanctioning two new army divisions, about 35,000 troops, to strengthen Indian defences in Arunachal, which China claims as a part of Tibet. It can now be revealed that New Delhi has also sanctioned a new mountain strike corps, of an additional 40,000 soldiers, to be permanently located in bases in northeast India.
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Excess of sunlight - M J Antony, Business Standard
Ardent admirers of the Supreme Court will credit it with starting three revolutions in the past three decades. In the 1980s the public interest litigation (PIL) movement opened the doors of the court to every citizen, especially those who could not reach it due to poverty, illiteracy or backwardness.
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Where are the Congress leaders? - AK Bhattacharya, Business Standard
The government’s decision yesterday to nominate Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as its chief negotiator to hold talks with Anna Hazare should expedite an early resolution of the stalemate over the Lok Pal Bill. However, the decision is also likely to trigger a question that would surely embarrass the top leadership of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
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Revealed: How govt finally reached out to Hazare - Rediff
It was on the fifth day of activist Anna Hazare's indefinite fast for the Jan Lokpal Bill that efforts for back-channel talks started gaining momentum. The strategy was to try and establish a direct connection with the 74-year-old, sans his close aides Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi or Prashant Bhushan.
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Vote hamara aur fatwa unka? Muslims snub imam's boycott call - DNA
Faith buried religious beliefs on Tuesday, the eighth day of Anna
Hazare's fast. Faith in the veteran Gandhian and his fight for a strong
Lokpal Bill saw Hindus and Muslims shouting slogans together — from
Mumbai to Delhi. Be it a 25-year-old Muslim woman giving an
impassioned speech at Ramlila Maidan or the Mufti talking to campaigners
at Azad Maidan in Mumbai, everyone voiced their support and said the
protests showed the spirit of India.
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Team Anna says they are victim of Congress' internal politics - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Aug 25 - As Anna Hazare's fast entered the 10th day today, his team accused "some strong elements" in the government of nullifying the entire dialogue process and said they have become victims of Congress' "internal politics".
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Sudheendra Kulkarni: Scam kingpin or whistleblower? - Neeraj Chauhan, Times of India
Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former close aide of senior BJP leader L K Advani and a media columnist, who had taken a pole position as a whistleblower in the 2008 cash-for-vote scam case has been named as the conspirator. The Delhi Police chargesheet indicts Kulkarni for bribes being paid to three BJP MPs to abstain from the trust vote against the UPA-I in 2008.
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You are sitting on a volcano of people's ire, Joshi tells Centre - J Balaji, Hindu
All major Opposition parties, led by the BJP, on Wednesday hit out at the United Progressive Alliance-II government for the series of corruption charges it was facing, and warned that there would be no escape if it failed to take steps to come out of the “very alarming situation.”
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Modi-baiters stand unmasked - Sandeep B, Pioneer
A sizeable section of the English media has been suspiciously enthusiastic about touting allegations as proof as far as the 2002 Gujarat violence is concerned. Recent revelations about those agitating against Narendra Modi and his Government have exposed them for what they are: Liars and myth-mongers. IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt is one such ‘crusader’ who should be shamed and shunned by all.
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Is Modi gearing up for mid-term Lok Sabha poll? - Daily Bhaskar
'Exactly what's cooking?' This is the question that keeps cropping up in conversations of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and workers. The reason - chief minister Narendra Modi seems to have been on a poll alert for the past few months, driving party leaders and workers into poll mode. If sources are to be believed, Modi has been driving and closely monitoring BJP's political activities across state, keeping elections in mind. This, even as he juggles with a host of judicial issues and the usual tasks of governance.
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Why the Ramlila surge worries minorities and those on margins - Seema Chishti, Indian Express
In the unseen and unheard margins of Team Anna’s Ramlila Surge, there’s a growing sense of disquiet —especially among minority and marginalised groups.
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Graft everywhere, people’s anger fair - Indian Express
Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Wednesday slammed the government for “erosion of credibility” of politicians among the public and said that people have the right to protest and their anger against rampant corruption is “fierce and fair”.
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A Million Mutinies outside, a million vacancies inside! - Devika banerji & Smriti Seth, ET
Critics of reform gripe that five years of scorching growth failed to create as many jobs as it should have, but behind India's 'jobless growth' story there's a far more intriguing tale. There are over a million vacancies for the country's most coveted jobs - employment in the Central government - and they're just not getting filled.
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Telangana is on the boil - Prashanth Chintala & B Dasarath Reddy, Business Standard
A general strike planned by Telangana supporters in September promises more violence. Is there a solution in sight? In just a few weeks, the Telangana issue is once again destined to roil the country. The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Telangana representing various pro-Telangana outfits, has given a call for a general strike on September 5 th.
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Has Anna really come out a winner? - Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Aug 28 - "House bows to Anna whip", "Parliament yields to Anna", "Anna wins it for the people" are some of the screaming headlines in newspapers today. But has he really achieved? Opinion is divided among politicians, journalists and others with majority feeling that while the issue of corruption he projected may have drawn national attention, the methods he employed may not have been appreciated.
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Congress’s habit of squandering ‘easy’ mandates - GVL Narasimha Rao
Corruption scandals like the 2G scam and Commonwealth games scam in the past year have seen a precipitous fall in the standing of the Manmohan Singh led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre. The UPA government is experiencing a midlife crisis. These developments are reminiscent of the political situation in the country in the mid-80’s when Rajiv Gandhi was the country’s prime minister.
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A night full of Lokpal-related drama - Saikat Datta, Vineeta Pandey & Manan Kumar, DNA
The gloves are off. The government on Wednesday night took a tough stand and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, said a source, made it clear to Anna Hazare’s associates that if anything happened to the fasting Gandhian, they would be held responsible. Also, the source said, the government was thinking of an evacuation operation late at night at the Ramlila Maidan.
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P Chidambaram changes rules of game, says don't yield to Anna's pressure - Mayank Aggarwal, DNA
Team Anna’s hopes of a quick solution came crashing down on Wednesday when the UPA government refused it a written commitment on the Jan Lokpal Bill even as Hazare’s fast completed nine days. Sources told DNA that all issues that had been agreed upon were all but reversed after the stormy CCPA meeting on Tuesday night.
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2G: Pranab note blames Raja, Chidambaram - Sumon K Chakrabarti, IBN
New Delhi: An official Finance Ministry document has cast doubts over
the role of Home Minister P Chidambaram, who was then finance minister,
in the January 2008 decision of former telecom minister A Raja to issue
2G spectrum licences.
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Not just the Government, Opposition too shows moral bankruptcy - Rajniti, LensOnNews
As Anna Hazare’s fast enters its tenth day, it seems that the Government has got its act together, finally. Without making any significant concessions, it has made an ass of the entire opposition into getting them to collectively assert the supremacy of Parliament in an all-party meeting yesterday and converted the Anna-UPA government standoff into a Parliament vs. Anna Hazare face-off.
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Congress in a fix over Anna's demand - Himanshi Dhawan, Times of India
Hopes of a resolution to the Anna-government standoff flickered from time to time on Thursday but eventually it remained unclear when the Gandhian would call off his 10-day fast. The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation was continuing till midnight.
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Harried in Hyderabad - Ajay Gudavarthi, Indian Express
When the Congress, under Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, returned to power in Andhra Pradesh in 2009, it was believed that the party would be a force to reckon with for a long time. But YSR’s death in a helicopter crash in September 2009 dramatically changed the state’s political environment. In less than two years, the Congress seems to have lost its hold on the politics of the region and that, in turn, is leading to new developments that are redefining electoral equations.
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Anna Hazare has made his point - Manmohan Singh, Indian Express
That we should collectively work to find credible approaches, credible solutions to deal with the scourge of corruption is a matter which unites all sections of thinking public opinion in our country. Madam, I share that perception; and on behalf of our government, I would like to assure this august House that, in the two-and-a-half years left to us, we will do everything in our power to clean the system of this country.
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Hazare offers Sangh another opportunity - Rajesh Ramachandran, India Today
The greatest story of deceit in war ever told is that of the killing of Bhishma, during the mythical Mahabharata war. The Trojan horse of the Greek imagination pales into insignificance in comparison. The pitamaha or patriarch majestically put his weapons down on being confronted by a person who was not a man, only to be slain by Arjun who had been hiding behind Shikhandi.
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Some half-lies, half-truths, and the Lokpal business - R Jagannathan, First Post
The truth is, only Team Anna actually had a complete draft bill – the Jan Lokpal Bill – apart from the government. No other civil society group had a complete draft. In fact, the so-called Aruna Roy version of the Lokpal Bill is a complete myth. The National Campaign for the Right to Information (NCPRI) has several suggestions and positions and critiques of the Jan Lokpal Bill and the sarkari Lokpal Bill, but it has no bill of its own as yet.Unfortunately, sections of the media fell for this whispered Congress suggestion that there may be an Aruna Roy draft...
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Hero of zero-hour: Why Rahul Gandhi made that speech - Mahesh Vijapurkar, First Post
There was nothing in what Rahul Gandhi said during zero-hour on Friday that could not have waited for the discussion on the Lokpal Bill promised to Anna Hazare to get him to abandon his fast.
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Anna exposes BJP’s leadership crisis - NV Subramanian, DNA
The Congress party’s dual leadership experiment, of Sonia Gandhi heading the party and Manmohan Singh the government, has been a crashing failure. But is the BJP, moving to a collective leadership phase, at least up to the 2014 elections (if they aren’t held earlier), any better placed? Hardly, although it may still win the next national polls because of the people’s peaking anger against UPA corruption.
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BJP missed chance to corner govt on Lok Pal: RSS - Business Standard
Even though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership has finally backed Anna Hazare’s Jan Lok Pal Bill, there is a growing rift between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political arm, since RSS feels the BJP has lost the opportunity to corner the Union government both inside and outside Parliament with the help of a social activist.
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Gujarat sues Guv for skirting CM - Rathin Das, Pioneer
In a controversial move, Gujarat Governor Kamla Beniwal unilaterally appointed a retired Justice of the Gujarat High Court RA Mehta as the Lokayukta of the State without taking Chief Minister Narendra Modi into confidence. The State Government quickly moved the High Court seeking quashing of the gubernatorial order.
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Maya dares Anna to fight poll, bring law - Pioneer
Playing the Dalit card, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday said that the Lokpal draft Bill should have had the stamp of BR Ambedkar’s vision and also representation of Dalits, backwards and minorities in the panels that will be formed after the Bill is adopted by Parliament for legislation.
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Skeletongate: The shame of Indian democracy exposed - S Sengupta, Pioneer
The timely explosion of the Anna bomb has kept one of the most shameful developments in India’s recent history out of media focus: “kankalkand” (loosely translated as “Skeletongate”) or the discovery of skeletons in mass graves all over West and East Medinipur districts of southern West Bengal. This provides clinching evidence that genocide was indeed carried out by the CPI(M) throughout its 34-year term which ended in May 2011.
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Debate won’t do, accept key demands: Team Anna - Hindustan Times
Lok Sabha will discuss on Saturday the issues arising out of various versions of the lokpal legislation including social activist Anna Hazare’s three key demands, on the basis of a statement that will be made by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, political parties agreed after protracted negotiations.
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Gone with the Wind - Dhiraj Nayyar and Priya Sahgal, India Today
Between blowing hot and blowing cold on the Anna Hazare movement, the Congress leadership has lost its breath. The sheer absence of leadership has ripped apart the credibility of the Government and raised questions about whether the prime minister can continue. Rahul Gandhi has been unable to fill the vacuum. Sonia Gandhi is abroad recovering from surgery. The Opposition parties are delighted to see the Government twisting in the wind.
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Lokpal : Time has come to raise bar of accountability, says Arun Jaitley - NDTV
There is a movement going on in our country which has given us a clear message: people no longer willing to accept present status quo - that corruption in many areas has almost become a way of life. People in higher position have a tendency to get away...there are cover-ups...where accountability norms are not very high and the average man has to confront corruption as a way of life.
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Anna superfast arrives - Dwaipayan Ghosh & Shreya Roy Choudhury, TOI
In victory, more than ever before in his memorable 12-day-long fight for a Jan Lokpal, Anna was a figure of humility. As he took the mike at 9.10 pm, clutching the prime minister`s letter that had been just read out to the crowd by science and technology minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, he credited the public for the momentous win.
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If Rajiv's killers escape gallows, so may 21 others - Vishwa Mohan, Times of India
NEW DELHI: If 'delay' in disposing a mercy petition is taken as the ground to commute the death penalty of those convicted of heinous crimes, it will have a bearing on the fate of 21 people on the death row, whose pleas have been pending for over five to 10 years.
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Why Anna says ‘half victory’: Govt gives in, but not much - Indian Express
Parliament’s resolution on Saturday has paved the way for Anna Hazare to end his 12-day long fast but the government has managed to get out of the crisis zone without offering much to Team Anna.
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No takers for Rahul idea, LS criticises vilification - Indian Express
“While the Prime Minister demonstrated statesmanship one day, the Congress general secretary (Rahul Gandhi) poured cold water over it the other say,” Swaraj said, referring to Rahul’s self-claimed “game changer” position enunciated in the Lok Sabha yesterday. “I am happy that the Prime Minister has wrested control again.”
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Ex-judge raises questions over Gujarat Lokayukta's integrity - Rathin Das, Pioneer
A day after the Gujarat Government moved high court, seeking quashing of the Governor’s order to appoint retired Justice RA Mehta as Lokayukta, many questions have been raised on the whole episode. Former Justice BJ Sethna, who had resigned from high court following false allegations against him few years ago, has not only questioned the process leading to the controversial appointment but also hinted that Mehta is not as much a man of ‘integrity’as he is touted to be by the State Congress leaders.
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'Game changer' Rahul remains absent from House - Pioneer
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, who had on Friday demanded that Lokpal should be made a constitutional body like Election Commission, was conspicuous by his absence on Saturday when both Houses of Parliament extensively debated on the three demands put forward by Gandhian Anna Hazare for making the anti-graft institution Lokpal more effective. And his absence was noted by everyone especially with the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj making a dig at him for his intervention during the Question Hour and wondered whether it was an address to the Nation which was aimed to "pour cold water on statesmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh."
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Whose Side is He on, Really? - Atul Chaurasia, Tehelka
His Reputation hanging rather precariously, Swami Agnivesh is under severe strain. His video is a hot topic on the Internet nowadays. Newsrooms are abuzz with this 80- second clip where Agnivesh is seen talking to a ‘Kapil’ in the video. Some say the person on the other side was Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal. In the conversation, it is clear that Agnivesh is opposing Anna Hazare’s agitation and advising that the government shouldn’t soften its stand. At the same time, he is also embarrassed by the soft stand taken by the government.
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When power outstrips ability - MJ Akbar, Sunday Guardian
The eloquence of Jawaharlal Nehru at the approach of the midnight hour of 15 August 1947 was so magnificent that it has overwhelmed the contributions of other great Indians to that memorable evening, a landmark in the history of democracy and its institutions. Sixty-four years later, let us also hear the member from United Provinces, the philosopher-academician and later President, Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan.
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Agnivesh in eye of YouTube storm - Hindustan Times
Anna Hazare's former aide Swami Agnivesh is in trouble over accusations that he betrayed the social activist by holding secret talks with the government, where he urged them not give more concessions to the team.
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Jagan Rocks the Congress - Anil Budur Lulla, Magazine
With the Centre sending the CBI after Jaganmohan Reddy, and the Enforcement Directorate expected to follow, the late Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s son has displayed his survival skills by drawing first blood and splitting the beleaguered Congress in Andhra Pradesh.
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Battle is won, but war just begun: Anna Hazare tells supporters - D Ghosh, ToI
The crusader in him is not ready to rest yet - this was Anna Hazare's message to the overflowing Ramlila Maidan crowds after he broke his fast on Sunday.
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Collegium system lacks in appointing judges of quality and integrity: Jaitley - Dhananjay Mahapatra, Times of India
Fresh from tackling the Anna onslaught on polity to act towards Lokpal, the BJP on Sunday said it was time Parliament seriously introspected and devised ways and means to rid higher judiciary of the menace.
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Anna becomes an icon, Irom Sharmila forgotten - Anubha Bhonsle, IBN Live
Anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare's 13-day fast might have attracted thousands and captured the imagination of an entire nation, but in sharp and dismaying contrast is the iconic struggle of Irom Sharmila in Manipur.
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With Anna stir off, BJP looks to regain oppn space - Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan Times
With Anna Hazare calling off his fast and crowds vacating Ramlila Maidan, the BJP hopes to resuscitate its 'anti-corruption' campaign against the UPA. The objective, as BJP leaders concede, is to regain the space, which analysts believe was taken from the main opposition party.
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Kiran praises BJP, calls it game-changer - Hindustan Times
Anna Hazare's key aide Kiran Bedi on Sunday credited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for being the game-changer when the talks were at a crucial stage. Heaping praise on the party, the former IPS officer said, "Nothing would have happened had the BJP not taken a stand.
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MoD flouts offset rules, favours foreign vendors - Ajai Shukla, Business Standard
Whistle-blowers in the ministry of defence (MoD) have briefed Business Standard about the ministry’s flagrant violation of rules in almost every recent offset contract. Some of these striking offset irregularities relate to contracts for upgrading the IAF’s MiG-29 fighters by RAC MiG of Russia; the purchase of C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft and P8I Neptune long-range maritime reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft from US giant, Boeing; and the procurement of AW-101 helicopters, from Anglo-Italian company, AgustaWestland, for VVIPs, including the Prime Minister.
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Mera Bharat still mahaan - Prabhu Chawla, Indian Express
It may sound a trifle absurd, but the person who coined the slogan ‘Mera Bharat. Mahaan’ deserves a Noble prize for fiction. For the past few months, each and every institution of good governance has been systematically demolished. The legitimate authority of the state has been compromised.
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I’ll expose Justice Santosh Hegde soon, says Kumaraswamy - Deccan Chronicle
The war of words between former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and former Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde, has taken a turn for the worse with the JD(S) state president ruling out the possibility of tendering an apology and asserting that he would soon expose Justice Hegde by releasing ‘incriminating evidence’ against him.
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Two of a kind: Why China is betting on Narendra Modi - Venky Vembu, First Post
Yet, in faraway China where electoral politics as practised raucously in India, is an alien beast, Communist Party leaders and policymakers may have read their own tea leaves and come to two conclusions on the Indian polity. The first: given the changing political dynamics in India, the BJP stands a reasonable chance of coming to power in 2014. Second, in the event of the BJP coming to power, Narendra Modi’s chances of becoming prime minister are considerably better than headlines indicate.
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Victorious hunger striker shakes a political status quo - Jim Yardley, NYT
NEW DELHI — For the nearly two weeks that Anna Hazare staged his hunger strike, the question hanging over India had been, “When would it end?” After Mr. Hazare triumphantly broke his fast on Sunday, a different question arose: “What now?”
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Don’t push for Rahul’s idea - Shekhar Iyer & Saroj Nagi, HT
Two days after Parliament agreed to consider Anna Hazare’s key demands in a new Lokpal Bill, the Congress appears to be thinking along a different line. The party is seriously considering Rahul Gandhi’s call for the proposed anti-corruption body to be a constitutional entity, accountable to Parliament like the Election Commission.
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Anna & company hijacked NAC's lokpal idea: Jairam - Subodh Ghildiyal, ToI
Congress tried to put Rahul Gandhi's authorship on the Lokpal Bill, expressing its resolve to enact a strong ombudsman with constitutional status as its final objective. Rahul had demanded constitutional status for Lokpal, in a belated bid to extricate the party which was painted as the villain by Anna Hazare's agitation. It was expected that the elevated status for the body would bolster its credentials.
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Singhvi to push Rahul line in panel - Annapurna Jha, Pioneer
Parliamentary Standing Committee chairman Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Monday made it clear that Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s suggestion for making Lokpal a Constitutional body ranks high on the agenda of his panel. He termed it as the “ultimate desirable object or destination” but clarified that it was not a “delaying/derailing tactics”— a charge levelled by Gandhian Anna Hazare’s associates.
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Jinxed Lokpal Bill spelt death knell for Govts - Kumar Uttam, Pioneer
The Lokpal Bill, which captured the imagination of the nation due to Anna Hazare’s movement, has had a jinxed effect on successive Governments and even on the Congress since 1968 — barring an exception. Governments having tryst with this legislation have either failed to complete their full term or didn’t return to power.
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Can't commute death sentence: Jaya - Swati Das, Pioneer
Appeals from various quarters to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to get the death sentence against three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case has forced the latter to make a suo motu statement under Rule 110 in the Assembly on Monday, that she did not have the powers to commute the death sentence of the three convicts, especially after the President of India had rejected their plea.
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WB: Skeletons in the cupboard - Shikha Mukerjee, Pioneer
The CPI(M) finds itself defending the indefensible as skeletons of victims of the party cadre’s excesses literally come tumbling out of its cupboard — or, more specifically, are exhumed from the backyards of the homes of its leaders. The Trinamool Congress is leaving no stone unturned to expose the CPI(M), but there is nothing that the Marxists can complain about. If the Left Front had acted in time, such crimes would not have gone unpunished.
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Gujarat unites Opp - Pioneer
Gujarat Congress’ “pressure” on the Centre not to revoke the “unconstitutional appointment” of the State Lokayukta claimed another day of Parliament on Monday, which saw Left parties joining ranks with the BJP in Parliament on an issue related to Gujarat for the first time since 2002 post-Godhra riots.
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ISI rekindling Punjab militancy - Rakesh K Singh, Pioneer
The recovery of explosives from Punjab militants in Ambala recently is just the tip of the iceberg as a classified intelligence report suggests that the terror group, Babbar Khalsa International, is suspected to have transshipped consignment of arms and ammunition for terror acts, including attacks on VIPs and police brass, mass killings through bomb blasts and attacks during the forthcoming Assembly election in Punjab.
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Hounded by Cong Jagan tilts BJP way - A Srinivasa Rao, Mail Today
Isolated in Andhra Pradesh politics, YSR Congress party president Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy, it seems, is trying to cosy up to the BJP at the national level. Addressing a meeting in Krishna district as part of his Odarpu Yatra on Sunday night, Jagan virtually thanked the BJP for coming to his rescue in Parliament by questioning the propriety of the UPA government in ordering a CBI probe against him.
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Anna glass is half full - Poornima Joshi, Mail Today
The Congress has certainly lost political ground in the last two weeks but even for Anna Hazare it was only a "half victory". The fasting Gandhian summarised the culmination of his movement as the battle only half won and he was not very far from the truth.
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Rajiv killers: Why Madras HC should have stayed out of this - R Jagannathan, First Post
It is tempting to say fools rush in where angels fear to tread. But the judges of high courts are not fools. Even so, the Madras High Court did a foolhardy thing by staying the execution of three condemned persons – Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan – in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The court has compounded a problem that is already mired in politics and procrastination.
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Why is Karunanidhi getting a pass in the Rajiv killers’ case? - Sandip Roy, First Post
Karunanidhi shamelessly hides behind the victim himself saying had Rajiv Gandhi been alive today, “that noble man” would have listened to the “voice of true Tamils” and gone along with “the golden saying of Anna, forget and forgive.” Sonia Gandhi has done her share of forgiving by getting Nalini’s death sentence commuted to life. That’s more than Karunanidhi has ever done. As Amma was quick to point out — he had recommended rejecting the same trio’s mercy plea when he was the CM back in 2000.
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2G: Public loss, private gain? - Bhupesh Bhandari, Business Standard
If there is no loss to the government in the 2G scam, and telecom firm owners have made no money, what really is the CBI probing? So the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI has said that it does not have any evidence of a money trail between Sanjay Chandra of Unitech and former telecom minister A Raja to suggest a quid pro quo. Mr Chandra and Mr Raja are in jail over the so-called 2G spectrum scam. Unitech conspired with Mr Raja, the allegation goes, to get telecom licences (and inexpensive spectrum) ahead of others, and then made pots of money by selling a majority stake to Telenor of Norway — the money that should have accrued to the government was fraudulently pocketed by Mr Chandra. But now, after CBI’s confession, the conspiracy theory looks shaky.
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On recall option, CEC Quraishi bats for politicians - Chetan Chauhan, HT
Chief election commissioner SY Quraishi described electoral reforms issues - right to reject and right to recall - as "ticklish affair". He called for a national debate before a final decision is taken.
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Bofors ghost hovers over artillery deals - Josy Joseph, Times of India
The ghost of Bofors seems to be haunting the artillery plans. It was in 1986 that India last signed a deal for new artillery guns, with Bofors of Sweden. A year later, allegations emerged of kickbacks in the deal, freezing the artillery gun contract, and resulting in an anti-corruption wave across the country that swept aside the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress party in the 1989 elections. Since then, several efforts to buy new artillery guns have all run aground over the past 25 years.
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WikiLeaks intensifies CPM feud - Arun Jayan, Express Buzz
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Express revelations on the WikiLeaks cables regarding the closed-door meeting between US officials and the CPM leaders have snowballed into a major controversy and the factional war in the CPM is set to hot up over it. Indications on this score came after the official channel of the CPM itself revealed on Tuesday that the then Chief Minister V S Achuthanadan had also met the US diplomat on August 29-30, 2008.
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Adarsh scam: Another blow for Ashok Chavan? - Alok Deshpande, DNA
Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, one of the chief promoters of the Adarsh CHS, has revealed that the decision to include civilians was finalised in a meeting headed by the then revenue minister Ashok Chavan in 2000.
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BJP's poll dilemma: To name or not name PM - Mohua Chatterjee, Times of India
NEW DELHI: Most BJP leaders do not seem to agree with party chief Nitin Gadkari's view that the saffron outfit can face the next national election without projecting a "face" for the prime ministerial post.
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No unity with MoD: Forces tell PM - Josy Joseph, Times of India
Authoritative sources said the Chiefs of Staff Committee, comprising the three Service chiefs, has complained to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the lack of integration between the ministry of defence and the three Services, saying it was contributing to prolonged delays in procurement and hampering other higher defence management activities.
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Pawar aims for UPA wicket - HT
Union agriculture minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar's readiness to approach Congress president Sonia Gandhi against the National Sports Development Bill - which he expressed in Tuesday's cabinet meeting - entailed an "implicit threat" to the alliance between the two parties. Sources familiar with the deliberations in the cabinet said although Pawar did not state it explicitly, his expressions did adequately make the point that he "was willing to part ways if push comes to shove."
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China Rising: Ministries work on action plan - P Vaidyanathan Iyer, Indian Express
India has prepared a draft “action plan for China” to strategically counter the increasing economic clout of its Asian rival. The five-pronged strategy seeks to: get China to invest and produce in India, not just trade; raise duties on products where India is not dependent on it; create non-tariff barriers where dependence is high; ensure Chinese state-owned procurement agencies buy in bulk from Indian companies; and leverage the huge domestic market to gain access to Chinese markets, at least in areas where India has significant strengths.
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On commuting death, SC walks the tightrope - Krishnadas Rajagopal, IE
As the eight-week wait for the government’s response on the delay in execution of death sentences of the killers of Rajiv Gandhi starts, a series of Supreme Court decisions show a court torn between empathy for the condemned man and an inability to lay down “hard and fast rules” on the executive to prevent the delay.
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Gujarat Lokayukta tussle: Raj Bhavan pushes the envelope - Parimal Dabhi, IE
Controversy over Gujarat Governor Kamla Beniwal’s appointment of the state Lokayukta has reached the Centre. Parimal Dabhi explains what led to it. On August 25, Kamla (she uses her first name) issues a warrant appointing Justice (retd) R A Mehta as the Lokayukta. It is the first time the governor has directly issued a warrant appointing a person as the Lokayukta in her name. Generally, the warrant for the appointment of a Lokayukta is issued by the state government in the name of the governor.
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Turf war erupts over sports Bill - Pioneer
A day after a sharply-divided Union Cabinet failed to clear the National Sports Development Bill, it’s an all out war over the issue. Sports Minister Ajay Maken on Wednesday directly attacked the all powerful and cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for refusing to come under the RTI Act. Maken’s argument was that since the board got tax exemptions and land it needed to be accountable to the people.
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Right to recall practical only when electorate is small, say Ex-ECs - Bharti Jain, ET
Rahul Gandhi and Team Anna may have opened the debate on electoral reforms such as state funding of polls and introducing the option of recall of elected people's representatives, but former Election Commissioners as well as key government panels including the Indrajit Gupta Committee on electoral reforms are against the ideas.
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Delhi blast: The pillars of the Indian state are crumbling - Venky Vembu, First Post
On the face of it, a court where ordinary people flock for redressal of mundane disputes may seem an unlikely target for terrorists. No cause is meaningfully advanced by blowing to bits people who are just going through the timeless grind of the legal system.
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Always hungry for more - Murad Ali Baig, Hindustan Times
According to 2007 data, India today has about 5,600 IAS officers who, with about 80,000 category 1 officers, are supposed to manage some 18 million babus. For the common man, the government is the tehsildar, thanedar, patwari, dealing assistant and inspector - officials who have few compunctions about fully exploiting the opportunities provided by their positions.
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MHA raises concern over UIDAI proposal - Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times
The home ministry has raised concerns that a fresh proposal of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to independently collect biometric details could lead to duplication of effort and lead to wastage of public funds.
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SC cited wrong case law to justify black money SIT: Govt - Krishnadas Rajagopal, IE
A 209-page compilation of case laws placed on record by the government argues that Justice B Sudershan Reddy may have relied on the wrong case laws to form his decision to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the black money case. In fact, the government says that the “four” precedents cited by Justice Reddy say the exact opposite, and, indeed, reject the idea of courts setting up SITs. Attorney General G E Vahanvati today told a bench led by Justice Altamas Kabir that the “four” case laws in paragraph 48 of the July 4 order, in fact, contradict Justice Reddy’s decision to form a SIT in the black money case.
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To avoid impeachment stain, Justice Sen quits - Kanchan Chakraborty, IE
Two weeks after the Rajya Sabha voted in favour of his impeachment, and days ahead of Monday’s scheduled appearance in the Lok Sabha, Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court resigned on Thursday, marking the end of years of defiance after his conduct had come under a cloud.
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The playing field: Maken vs ministers - Swaraj Thapa, Indian Express
Section 6(1) of the Bill makes it mandatory for government approval to be taken by national sports federations, barring those which do not avail of grant-in aid from government, for its long-term development plan spanning over four years. The clause says: every national sports federation shall, in collaboration with the Sports Authority of India and with the approval of the central government, develop a long-term development plan for a period of four years in accordance with the guidelines specified.
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Bad manners, good democracy - Dipankar Gupta, Times of India
Kiran Bedi and Om Puri types populate all liberal democracies. As they come with the territory, politicians are expected to suffer them and, if possible, outwit them. A well-behaved public and tea-party style journalists exist only in autocracies, dictatorships, and worse. When a democracy has its ducks forever in a row, it is time to get worried.
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2G scam: BJP slams CBI for selectively 'picking evidence’ - Economic Times
BJP reacted sharply to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) turning the spotlight on the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) term in office, saying the agency is ignoring evidence connecting home minister P Chidambaram to the 2G scam and instead gunning for the Opposition.
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Setback for UPA: CBI finds no fault with Shourie, Mahajan - Pioneer
The clamour by the UPA Government to probe spectrum allocation during the NDA regime seemed to grow weak on Thursday with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) finding little or no evidence of irregularity against Pramod Mahajan and Arun Shourie. Submitting the status report of CBI before a bench of Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly, senior advocate KK Venugopal said that the investigation into alleged irregularities during the tenure of Mahajan and Shourie has yielded little, although investigations in this regard is expected to complete by September 30.
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Jagan denies link as case gets 100-cr Luxembourg twist - Sreenivas Janyala, Indian Express
Investigators say they have evidence that a sum of Rs 100 crore allegedly belonging to Kadapa MP Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy moved through a bank in Luxembourg. Sources said the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-India) passed on this information to the CBI and Enforcement Directorate after obtaining it from counterparts in Luxembourg. Sources said a part or all of the sum appears to have been moved from the bank.
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A rudderless Congress - Kalyani Shankar, Pioneer
With party chief Sonia Gandhi still abroad for treatment, the Congress feels alienated from the Government it leads. The UPA’s handling of the Anna Hazare crisis has only exacerbated their differences. It seems like the differences between the Congress and the Government it leads have peaked in the past few days, particularly after Anna Hazare began his movement. Today, with a leadership vacuum plaguing the Congress, the differences have gotten out of hand.
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Michhami Dukkadam to you all - Narendra Modi, Times of India
September 5 is celebrated as Teacher’s Day in India. It is customary to celebrate India’s former President Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan‘s birthday as Teacher’s day. This celebration gives the teaching world an opportunity to self-introspect. It also gives an opportunity to teachers, students and the education world to do something new and innovative.
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CPM must change or perish, Buddha told US - Manoj CG, Indian Express
There is more Wikileaks embarrassment for the CPM. After the revelation that CPM leaders from Kerala wooed US investments while screaming about its ‘imperialism,’ confidential cables released by the whistle-blower website today said former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had told the US ambassador in 2009 that communist ideology and his party needed to “either change or perish”.
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Reached back-channel Kashmir deal with Musharraf, PM said - Manu Pubby, IE
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a senior visiting American delegation that India and Pakistan had reached a “non-territorial solution” on Kashmir, a leaked US diplomatic cable has revealed. While several Pakistani politicians and diplomats have said that an agreement had been within reach before Pervez Musharraf’s ouster in 2007, the leaked cable provides rare insight and comment from the Indian government on the peace formula.
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ISI funded terrorists in Valley, US knew in 1997 - Manu Pubby, Indian Express
US Intelligence agencies knew as early as 1997 that terror groups conducting attacks in Kashmir as well as the rest of India were being run and funded by the Pakistani spy agency ISI, latest cables released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks reveal.
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Anna escalates war with ‘govt of fools’ and ‘liar’ Chidu - R Jagannathan, First Post
From all accounts, the government versus Anna battle has not ended. It is only getting worse. In recent days, we have seen Team Anna — Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi — come under attack for various sins of omission and commission. One has been sent a bill for Rs 9 lakh from his former employer (the IT department, where Kejriwal worked earlier), another (Shanti Bhushan) has been targeted with a doctored CD, and the third faces contempt of parliament for doing the clown act on MPs at Ramlila grounds when the Anna fast was still on.
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Manmohan's crorepati cabinet - Samay Live
Union Cabinet Minister of Urban Development Kamal Nath is the richest cabinet minister in UPA-II whereas Minister of Corporate Affairs Veerappa Moily is among the poorest. Cabinet ministers have disclosed their assets that has been published on the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh website. The Ministers have to furnish annually by 31st August to the Prime Minister a declaration regarding their assets and liabilities for the previous financial year.
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Wikileaks: India was never serious about Headley's extradition - Hindustan Times
The new set of US cables released by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks state that India was never serious about extradition of Mumbai terror attacks accused David Coleman Headley from America. According to the cables in December 2009, the then National Security Adviser MK Narayanan had told former US ambassador to India Timothy Roemer that the Indian government was not seeking David Headley's extradition and that the demand was to merely pacify the public.
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Wikileaks: US feels India has 180m Muslims - Times of India
NEW DELHI: The United States believes that there are many more Muslims who live in India than is being officially stated here through census, and 'Islam' here presents a series of dichotomies like most issues affecting the world's largest democracy.
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The Congress needs to shed its feudal skin - Minhaz Merchant, Times of India
Historically, the unanimous resolution adopted by both Houses of Parliament on August 27, 2011, committing the government to a strong Lokpal Bill, will be seen as heralding a new era in political reforms just as Manmohan Singh's interim Budget on July 24, 1991 marked the beginning of economic reforms. An empowered electorate will increasingly reward political parties that practice good internal governance and punish those that don't.
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Rahul proposed NREGS for Afghanistan, Assam model for Palestine: WikiLeaks - Manu Pubby, Indian Express
From his opinion that NREGS could be a model for development in Afghanistan to the view that the Naxal problem is due to a “political disconnect” and how Assam can be a model for reconciliation in Palestine, leaked US diplomatic cables provide rare insight into the foreign policy and developmental interests of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
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‘Yoga is a spiritual subject and should not be mixed with politics’ - Sunanda Mehta, Indian Express
People want to stay fit and healthy and everyone is trying to take advantage of this. In a democratic country like India, you cannot do much to stop it. People who go to such institutes should be able to judge whether they are getting the right knowledge or just a pleasing methodology wrapped in nice and kind words.
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BJP in huddle mode to protect Narendra Modi - Business Standard
Fears the Gujarat CM may be drawn into a controversy before 2014 elections. At a time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership wants the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to decide the probable prime
ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections, the party has come
together to protect Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, fearing the
UPA government and the Congress might try to frame him.
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Wikileaks: Rahul widely viewed as empty suit - Times of India
NEW DELHI: A 2008 US cable
noted that not much was known of Rahul Gandhi's political beliefs and
that he has avoided making a significant intervention in Parliament."Little is known about Rahul Gandhi's personal political beliefs, if any. He is reticent in public, has shunned the spotlight and has yet to make any significant intervention in Parliament. His singular foray to centerstage during the UP elections was unremarkable," it said.
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Agnivesh was like a govt mole, says Bedi - Times of India
NEW DELHI: Former IPS officer and Anna Hazare aide Kiran Bedi has said that social activist Swami Agnivesh was like a government mole in the India Against Corruption team. Asked about Agnivesh's charge that had it not been for Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal, Hazare's fast would have been over long ago, Bedi told a TV channel, "If you are going by what Mr Agnivesh says, then better let it be. He is still to establish his own credentials.
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Anna stir: Covert war on Rahul Gandhi? - Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr, DNA
The Anna Hazare movement is not really against corruption. It is not
even against the Congress. It is aimed at undermining Rahul Gandhi’s
growing youth base, a Congress party office-bearer has alleged.
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A political task for Team Anna - Nitin Pai, DNA
It’s the season for game-changers. Everyone is proposing one. Here’s
mine. After ending his fast at New Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan last month,
Anna Hazare announced that ‘electoral reforms would be next on his
agenda, followed by issues of decentralisation of power, education
reforms, labour and farmers’ issues.’ If that sounds like a political
manifesto, it is. For that reason it must be pursued politically.
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Jairam tables new land Bill, credits it to Rahul’s padyatra - Ravish Tiwari, IE
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday introduced in the Lok Sabha a comprehensive Bill to repeal the archaic Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and replace it with a fresh Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) law. The Lok Sabha had passed two separate Bills — Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill — in February 2009, after which they lapsed for want of clearance from the Rajya Sabha.
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Privilege notices issued but Team Anna won't say sorry to MPs - India Today
The lawmakers have hit back at Team Anna with vengeance and confrontation is in the air. The core members of the team - Prashant Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi - have been served privilege notices for allegedly making derogatory remarks against MPs. In an apparent bid to tighten the noose around the activists, the Delhi Police are also mulling action against them for flouting four conditions of the undertaking given by them before the start of the indefinite hunger strike by Anna Hazare at Ramlila Maidan.
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WikiLeaks: Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury charmed US officials in 2007 - Poornima Joshi, India Today
The latest WikiLeaks exposé of secret cables sent from Delhi and other embassies almost turns the infamous American misgiving about Indian communists on its head. Contrary to popular perception that capitalist US looks at Indian communists with suspicion, the embassy staff in Delhi was charmed by their two frontline leaders - Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury. Karat was described as "skillful" and adept at interpreting nuanced political affairs, while Yechury was dubbed by the fawning Americans as the "thinking man's Marxist".
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Govt coming around to considering Gujarat Lokayukta's removal? - PTI
New Delhi, Sep 5 - Government seems to be coming around to considering BJP's demand for removal of Gujarat Lokayukta who was appointed by the Governor without taking the Narendra Modi government into confidence. After disrupting Parliament for the third consecutive day today over the "unconstitutional" appointment of R A Mehta as Lokayukta by Governor Kamla Beniwal, BJP has alleged that Mehta is an activist who has spoken often against the Modi government. Sources said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has himself conveyed to BJP Parliamentary Party Chief L K Advani, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley that the government is mulling over removing Mehta from the Lokayukta post.
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Mayawati sent empty jet to Mumbai for sandals: WikiLeaks - Times of India
New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh chief minister and head of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Mayawati sent her private jet to pick up a pair of sandals, according to leaked US diplomatic cables. US embassy cables from 2007 to 2009 released by the WikiLeaks website in recent days describe Mayawati, 55, as "a first-rate egomaniac" who "is obsessed with becoming prime minister".
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Economic integration: Real challenge of PM's Dhaka trip - Indrani Bagchi, TOI
New Delhi: For a country with most of its land boundaries tangled in long-standing disputes, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's maiden visit to Dhaka this week is likely to be historic.
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Reddys' Obulapuram struck gold under YSR patronage - Kingshuk Nag, TOI
If you click on Bramhani Steels on the internet, the site will not open. But this wasn't so a year ago. Promoted by Gali Janardhana Reddy, this proposed steel plant located in Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh was to be set up to initially produce 1.7 million tonnes of steel a year, ramping up its capacity to 20 million tonnes in a few years. Strangely, this huge Rs 6,850-crore project was to be established without any bank loans or equity from the public.
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Cong trying for truce, but Gujarat unit says no - Shekhar Iyer and Aurangzeb Naqshbandi, Hindustan Times
A bid to settle the Congress-BJP row over appointment of the Gujarat Lokayukta in order to end the stand-off in Parliament has met with strong resistance from Governor Kamla Beniwal as well as state Congress leaders. Gujarat Congress leaders have conveyed to the Centre that they cannot rollback a big political battle against CM Narendra Modi when they were on the “right side” of the law.
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After Reddy, CBI heat on Jaganmohan - Sreenivas Janyala, Indian Express
The arrest of G Janardhan Reddy on Monday dealt a big blow to Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, even as the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, which had initially sought the CBI investigation into illegal mining in December 2009, remained silent. The same team from CBI’s Hyderabad Zone led by Joint Director V V Lakshminarayana, which is investigating the illegal mining case and arrested Janardhan Reddy on Monday, is also investigating Jaganmohan.
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The case against Janardhan Reddy - Johnson T A, Indian Express
Between the financial year 2006-07 and 2010-11, the Andhra Pradesh-based Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) of former Karnataka minister G Janardhan Reddy did not receive a single permit from the mining department in Karnataka to export iron ore. Yet, data gathered by investigating agencies from 10 different ports in south India for the period shows that the OMC — with iron ore mining leases only in Andhra Pradesh — exported 71,61,455 MT of iron ore by claiming its point of origin as mines in Karnataka.
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Why Was Hazare Such a Media Hit? - Margherita Stancati and Krishna Pokharel, WSJ
As the drama of Anna Hazare’s anticorruption hunger strike unfolded, India was glued to its television screens. In the two weeks that surrounded his fast, the viewership of news channels skyrocketed: Around 2.5 million more people a week turned to news channels during the Hazare agitation than in earlier weeks. The figures were measured for the weeks starting Aug. 14 and Aug. 21.
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Divorced from its city, global Bangalore struggles on - Samar Halarnkar & Sridhar K. Chari, Mint
Bangalore : As Karnataka’s latest political scandal unfolded—the discovery of a 30kg stash of gold and Rs. 1.5 crore in cash at the home of arrested mining baron and former minister G. Janardhan Reddy—a senior executive of Infosys Ltd explained the municipal skills of India’s fourth largest information technology (IT) company.
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From Bollywood stars to Tihar, Amar Singh's fall from grace - DNA
Amar Singh, who stole the limelight as a political heavyweight and a friend of corporate honchos and Bollywood stars, fell a long way from grace on Tuesday when a court sent him to Tihar Jail on charges of corruption. For years, Amar Singh, now 55, was among the most vocal voices in Indian politics and parliament, one who took on all and sundry, just about anyone who disagreed with him.
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Enough, no more ‘party’ing - KV Ramana, DNA
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which has arrested mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy and the managing director of Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) BV Srinivas Reddy, seems to have pre-empted yet another political consolidation in South India by the Reddy brothers. According to sources, the Reddy brothers, along with their key aide B Sriramulu, were planning to formally announce a political party in the name and style of BSR Congress. The resignation of Sriramulu from Karnataka assembly is being seen as a prelude to the setting up of the political party.
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Lady luck smiles again on DV Sadananda Gowda - Hemanth Kumar, DNA
As the CBI sleuths swooped down on the residences of mining baron Janardhana Reddy, his brother-in-law B Srinivas Reddy and their close confidant B Sriramulu, Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda was a relieved man. The CBI raids came within 24 hours of Sriramulu quitting from the state assembly and announcing a Swabhiman Yatra as part of the Reddys’ strategy to force their way into the cabinet.
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After Amar Singh, nab beneficiaries: Opposition - Times of India
New Delhi: The Opposition jumped upon the trial court's decision to send MP Amar Singh to judicial custody saying that the investigation by Delhi Police has established that Manmohan Singh government used bribes to win the July 2008 trust vote. BJP and Left along with Amar Singh's former colleagues in the Samajwadi Party said that the probe should not stop at Amar Singh but reach the leaders of the government and Congress who were the real beneficiaries of the cash-for-vote scam.
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Government planned to crush my agitation: Hazare - Hindu
Anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare on Tuesday said the Union government had planned to crush his agitation, by putting him under house arrest in his village Ralegan Siddhi, right after he came out of Tihar Jail. Mr. Hazare said the Centre had also kept an Air Force plane ready at the Delhi airport.
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BJP-Cong war of words over Gujarat Lokayukta - Indian Express
Amid claims and counter-claims by different stakeholders in Gujarat over the controversial appointment of R A Mehta as Lokayukta by Governor Kamla Beniwal, the UPA government was learnt to be awaiting the views of the High Court — where the Narendra Modi government has challenged it — before taking a call on this issue.
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BJP smells rat in Congress’ truce request - Pioneer
Parliament failed to break the deadlock over the ‘unconstitutional’ appointment of Lokayukta by the Gujarat Governor, leaving the Union Government worried about the fate of pending Bills. Even as both Houses of Parliament remained disrupted for the fourth consecutive working day, Government’s chief trouble shooter and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee reached out to BJP leader LK Advani seeking “time till Wednesday evening” to sort out the matter.
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Centre-ULFA pact: A sell-out at gunpoint? - Rahul Karmakar, Hindustan Times
Assam is not Nagaland, and the Ulfa is no NSCN. But many in Assam are drawing a line between the Shillong Accord and the tripartite agreement Arabinda Rajkhowa’s Ulfa signed with the Union and Assam governments. They see the agreement as one between the conqueror and the conquered, because Ulfa chairman Rajkhowa and members of his core group are on parole after their capture since December 2003. And because it is a pact that leaves out key leaders of the outfit — military chief Paresh Barua, for instance — as was the case with the Nagas in 1975.
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Harkat says we did it, but LeT, IM also suspect - Times of India
Although an email sought responsibility for the Delhi High Court blast on behalf of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, the role of Lashkar-Indian Mujahideen - with a track record of bomb attacks in the Capital - is not being ruled out while investigators keep "all options" open.
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Terror strikes in India: 11/7, 26/11, 13/7, 7/9...Numb & Number - Avijit Ghosh, TOI
Terror strikes snuffing out dozens of innocent lives are meant to provoke anger, trigger outrage. But psychiatrists and sociologists say over the years there's been an emotional numbing of society, especially in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, which have witnessed a series of lethal bomb blasts over the past two decades.
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Politics made Mamata pull out, hints Manmohan - Indrani Bagchi, Times of India
ON BOARD THE PM'S AIRCRAFT: "Some other factors came into play" for West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to pull out of the Bangladesh visit at the last moment, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, hinting that her intransigence had more to do with politics.
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WikiLeaks: Sonia Gandhi chose Pratibha Patil as President solely for 'pliability' - India Today
In getting Pratibha Patil elected as the first woman President, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had placed a "loyalist" in the country's top office who would have served the party's cause after the 2009 general elections. This was mentioned in the latest set of WikiLeaks disclosures of classified US cables. A cable of July 2007 had said that there was a "very realistic likelihood" of no party or coalition winning a clear majority in the 2009 elections.
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YSR Reddy helped built son Jaganmohan's kingdom - Dalip Singh, India Today
Kadapa MP Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy may accuse the Congress of a witch-hunt against him. But investigations have revealed that his father, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, allegedly abused his official position to help his son build his business empire. Jaganmohan amassed wealth by pressuring companies to "invest" in his businesses in return for various favours from the YSR Reddy government.
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Game changer! Lens Poll finds Anna Hazare’s campaign has badly damaged standing of Congress and PM - K Balakrishnan, LensOnNews
August 2011 will likely turn out to be a watershed month in Indian politics, particularly in respect of the fortunes of the UPA Government at the Centre. Politics in India will never be the same again, and Anna Hazare’s campaign against corruption and the way it was handled by the Congress-led UPA government surely has been a game changer.
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LensOnNews Poll shows steady erosion in standing of PM, UPA Government - K Balakrishnan, LensOnNews
The credibility of the scandal-ridden UPA Government has touched an all-time low as it flounders from crisis to crisis and seeming not able to put one foot right - the latest instances being its callous indifference as Telangana burns, and its cluelessness about the alarming coal shortage and near-death situation in power plants all over the country.
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Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal Congress’ Anna scapegoats - NV Subramanian, DNA
While Anna Hazare has won the battle of ethics against the government, can the UPA government redeem itself at all? Yes and no. Yes, if it drops P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal for starters, and orders Digvijay Singh to zip up. And no, because whatever the UPA regime does, it cannot alter the perception that it is the most corrupt since India’s independence. Being so tainted, the regime shan’t even dare to bring a strong Lokpal law.
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The Patel effect: CAG nails the reasons for Air India’s failure - R Jagannathan, First Post
The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on Air India confirms that Praful Patel presided over its demise in the six years he was Civil Aviation Minister. The minister is not specifically named in the report, but there’s little doubt that it was his stewardship that did Air India in. At last count, Air India had a working capital loan of Rs 21,200 crore, long-terms loans for aircraft purchases of Rs 22,000 crore and accumulated losses of over Rs 20,320 crore. Losses in 2010-11 are reported to be in the range of Rs 7,000 crore.
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A monsoon awakening - Dilip Bobb, Indian Express
Rarely does the Indian middle class abandon its material comforts and studied sense of complacency to take to the streets — literally getting their feet wet — as they did last month. The innumerable talking heads we were subjected to 24/7 over those 12 days of drama and suspense were of one view: enough was enough, corruption had gotten out of hand and that was the sole collective motivation for the middle classes to have bought the t-shirt, topi and tricolour and abandoned the nearest air-conditioned mall in favour of the slushy, sweaty crush of a massive public rally.
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CAG indicts RIL, Oil Ministry and DGH for violations in KG basin - Sujay Mehdudia, Hindu
The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG) has charged the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry and the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) of shelling out ‘undue benefits' to Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) for its blocks in KG basin.
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Advani surprises BJP, says will go on another rath yatra - Shekhar Iyer, HT
In a move that stunned the BJP, senior party leader LK Advani announced on Thursday that he would undertake yet another rath yatra across the country. His decision took party colleagues by surprise because the yatra would bring the focus back on him in a scenario where the BJP had resolved not to project anyone as its prime ministerial candidate for the next Lok Sabha elections in 2014.
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Target 9% growth. Riders aplenty - MK Venu, Financial Express
The draft approach paper to the Twelfth Five Year Plan does well to recognise some hard realities that face India’s political economy in the 12th plan period (2012-17). The well-crafted chapter on ‘Macroeconomic Framework’ admits at the very outset that the global crisis of 2008-09, and its aftershocks, has created conditions which are less benign and more uncertain than the macroeconomic environment that prevailed during the Eleventh Five Year Plan.
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CAG: Praful Patel blamed for grounding Air India - Tarun Shukla, Mint
New Delhi: A report by the government’s auditor has blamed former aviation minister Praful Patel for pushing through an untimely merger of Air India Ltd and Indian Airlines; forcing Air India to buy aircraft it didn’t need; and signing off rights the airline held to fly certain routes to international carriers.
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CAG: Huge traffic rights to gulf hit AI - Business Standard
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on Thursday criticised the
civil aviation ministry for granting “massive increases” in bilateral
air traffic rights to Gulf nations in 2004-05, despite Air India’s (AI)
“strong reservations
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CAG: Why Nacil was a non-starter - Financial Express
The main objectives of the performance audit of civil aviation were to ascertain (1) whether the acquisition of aircraft by erstwhile Air India (AIL) and Indian Airlines (IAL) was planned and implemented with due regard to economy, efficiency and accepted norms of financial propriety, (2) whether their merger into NACIL was properly planned and implemented, (3) the impact of the liberalised policy of GOI on grant of air traffic rights to other countries through Air Service/bilateral agreements and permitting Indian private carriers to fly international routes, (4) the main reasons for the poor financial and operational performance of the pre-merger airlines and the merged entity, and (5) whether MoCA exercised its oversight role effectively.
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CAG: How to bring home the barrel - Financial Express
The main objectives of the performance audit of hydrocarbon PSCs were to verify a) whether the systems of MoPNG and DGH to monitor and ensure compliance by the operators and contractors of the blocks with the terms of the PSCs were adequate and effective, and b) whether the revenue interests of the Government (including royalty and share of profit) were properly protected, and whether effective mechanisms were in position for this purpose.
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PC bears brunt of Jaitley fire for soft-pedalling terror - The Pioneer
Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley led BJP’s attack against the Home Minister and noted that little headway had been made in major terror attack cases of Sheetla Ghat in Varanasi, Chinnaswami Stadium in Bangalore, German Bakery in Pune, Mumbai blasts and those outside Jama Masjid and Delhi High Court.
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Communal Bill set to rock NIC meet - The Pioneer
“The agenda for the meeting include measures to curb communalism and communal violence, approach to the Communal Violence Bill, measures to promote communal harmony; measures to eliminate discrimination, especially against minorities and Scheduled Tribes; how the State and the police should handle civil disturbances; and how to curb radicalisation of youth in the name of religion and caste,” said a press communiqué released by the Government.
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Chhattisgarh gets around SC order, clears law for anti-Naxal armed force - Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Indian Express
Two months after the Supreme Court held that the deployment of Special Police Officers in the fight against Naxals was illegal, the Chhattisgarh Assembly last evening passed an Act authorising an “auxiliary armed force” to “assist security forces in dealing with Maoist/Naxal violence” and legalising existing SPOs by inducting them as members.
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House committee punches holes in Plan panel role - Priyadarshi Siddhanta, IE
The parliamentary standing committee on finance has said that the Planning Commission’s policies have failed to deliver the desired results and has suggested that an expert group be constituted immediately to evaluate the Plan panel’s role and re-define its objectives.
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Ralegan assumes new identity as Hazare leaves Yadavbaba temple - PTI
Pune, Sept 10 - After his historic Ramlila Maidan fast last month, anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare's address in his native village of Ralegan Siddhi has changed...at least for the time being. From the now famous Yadavbaba temple in the village, where Hazare used to reside earlier, he has been shifted to a hostel for security reasons. Once a sleepy village that followed routine chores associated with the life in rural Maharashtra, Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district has now emerged as a focal point of a movement that appears to be changing the conventional equations between the rulers and subjects. It is all thanks to Hazare, whose roots and presence here has propelled the place on the international map.
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Political parties get bulk of funds from unnamed donors - Pradeep Thakur, TOI
NEW DELHI: Political parties are sourcing a major chunk of their funds from unidentified donors, according to their income-tax returns. Donors' lists and tax returns filed by the Congress, BJP, NCP and BSP for the past five years show they have not identified those who account for most of their funding.
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Setback for NAC, govt relook at draft likely - Subodh Ghildiyal, Times of India
NEW DELHI: The overwhelming opposition to the communal violence bill dealt a setback to the Sonia Gandhi-chaired National Advisory Council (NAC), with an estimate that the proposed law may be opened up to include all communities as "victim group" as against the present provision of only minorities and SCs/STs. The virtual veto of the draft legislation at the National Integration Council (NIC) on Saturday shocked NAC members because it involved "secular ally" like Trinamool Congress and ``secular opposition" like BJD and JD (U). Only BJP was expected to slam the proposal in keeping with its ideological position.
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Communal Violence Bill: Didi’s stand puts govt in a spot - Times of India
The key UPA ally Trinamool Congress opposed the bill although the party did not cite any specific reason. West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra who represented the state in the absence of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, said the Bill in its current form was not acceptable. UP chief minister and BSP leader Mayawati conveyed a similar message. Both parties are sensitive to minority sentiment and UP goes to the polls next year.
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Communal Violence Bill treads on States' rights, says NDA - Smita Gupta, Hindu
The Communal Violence Bill — drafted by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council — was vigorously opposed at the National Integration Council here on Saturday, largely by the NDA-ruled States, with even West Bengal, now ruled by the Congress' ally, the Trinamool Congress, joining the naysayers.
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Govt in tight corner on Communal Bill - Kumar Shakti Shekhar, Pioneer
In a major jolt to the Government’s bid to evolve a consensus on the proposed Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice & Regulations) Bill 2011, drafted by the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council (NAC), Congress’ key ally Trinamool Congress on Saturday joined ranks with the Opposition to strongly oppose the legislation. At the National Integration Council (NIC) meet, held after three years, leaders of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley dubbed it as a “dangerous” Bill that would destroy the federal structure of the country. They took on the NAC saying its draft was “non-secular and denies equivalence even in terms of communal law”.
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How 9/11 inspired India’s jihadis - Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times
Among the many SIMI members who attended the rally were two brothers, Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal of Kurla, who later went on to become the co-founders of Indian Mujahideen terrorist group. The two brothers were in regular touch with now infamous Indian Mujahideen bomb maker Abdus Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer and Pakistan trained Sadique Israr Sheikh.
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Indo-Bangla Teesta water-sharing deal put off - MJ Akbar, India Today
Dr Manmohan Singh, vegetarian by preference, went to Dhaka to eat some hilsa fish. He returned, alas, with a bit of ash in his mouth. But this failure to sign an accord over Teesta water is a story that makes no sense.
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Narendra Modi urges PM to resolve Centre-state problems - Mohua Chatterjee, TOI
NEW DELHI: A day after the National Integration Council (NIC) meeting ended in disarray after several states, including some ruled by Congress or UPA partners like Trinamool Congress, opposed the government's proposed communal violence bill for "coming in the way of federal relations between the Centre and the states, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi suggested that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh form a committee of chief ministers to resolve festering problems between the Centre and the states.
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United we stand - Narendra Modi, Times of India
True development therefore has to be all-round' inclusive' comprehensive and sustainable. We have often heard the prime minister addressing us from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15 as Hindus' Muslims' Christians' Sikhs and so on. I wonder why he cannot address us simply as 'my dear countrymen'' rather than breaking us up like this? Isn't this important to maintain the unity of our nation!
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Lokpal referendum: Team Anna plans to take battle to netas’ constituencies - Manoj More, Indian Express
Team Anna said on Sunday that it would hold a referendum on the Jan Lokpal Bill in the constituencies of the standing committee members, party presidents and other important political leaders. This decision was taken after a marathon eight-hour closed-door meeting of the core committee here. “We will ask people whether they will vote for these leaders if they do not support the Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament,” said Arvind Kejriwal. He said the referendum would be held in the next two-and-a-half months before the winter session of Parliament.
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Advani’s yatra to cover 8,500 km - Kumar Uttam, Pioneer
Senior BJP leader LK Advani has chosen October 11, the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan, the father figure of anti-Congressism, to roll out from Gujarat his month-long Rath Yatra that will criss-cross different parts of the country. Good governance and clean politics will be the central theme of the 8,500-km yatra against corruption.
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Hounded by the UPA - Balbir K Punj, Pioneer
Former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh has been charged for his role in the cash-for-vote scandal under the Prevention of Corruption Act for conspiring to bribe these three BJP MPs. Yet, is it not true that Mr Singh is only a bit player in this affair? Obviously the cash he offered did not belong to him. He clearly had no interest whatsoever to save the Government by investing his own money.
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UPA and the season of blame game - Anil Padmanabhan, Mint
Last week, India got egg on its face, when the government flip-flopped on its commitment to forge a deal on the sharing of waters of the Teesta river with Bangladesh. It left a sour note on the bilateral engagement between India and Bangladesh. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for the snafu and she promptly returned the favour. This was but just the tip of the iceberg of the business of blame game that has been playing out for most of the tenure of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
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Government fast-tracks polls reforms to beat Team Anna - Nagendar Sharma, HT
The government, keen to avoid a repeat of Hazare’s agitation on the lokpal bill, has decided to go-ahead with its agenda to decriminalise the electoral system and check the flow of black money in elections. “Following the PMO’s advice, we are in the process of finalising the date and agenda for an all-party meeting in mid-October, keeping in mind that it is a month of festivals,” said a law ministry official.
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WikiLeaks: US embassy felt AI-Boeing deal was 'well-scripted' - Joe C Mathew, Business Standard
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) may not agree, but for the US embassy in New Delhi, the Air India–Boeing aircraft purchase agreement of 2005 was perfect, a scripted plan, jointly executed by its officials and those of the US aircraft manufacturer. The Boeing deal, worth $8.5-billion (Rs 39,500 crore), was to supply 50 wide-body B777-B787 aircraft, powered by GE engines, to government-owned AI. The embassy observations are part of a confidential official cable released by whistleblower website Wikileaks on August 30.
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CAG: Two more damning reports - Business Standard
The government’s troubles mount, with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) coming out with two more damning reports, one on Air India/Indian Airlines and the other on oil and gas. The criticism has been long anticipated (parts of a draft report had leaked), and many of the findings reflect what has been aired earlier in the media. What view Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) takes of the reports is, of course, another matter; the PAC has been split down the middle on the telecom spectrum issue, and become more partisan than in the past.
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BJP downplays ‘Modi-for-PM’ talk - Shekhar Iyer, Hindustan Times
The Supreme Court order in the Gulberg Housing Society case created excitement among BJP cadres about the possible entry of Narendra Modi - the party's poster boy - in the race for the top job ahead of the next Lok Sabha polls.
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Intelligence: A dried up source - Jatin Anand & Karn Pratap Singh, Hindustan Times
Electronic surveillance and myriad technological are important for generating ground-level intelligence. But, they can, by no means, substitute a thriving network of human intelligence.
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Election countdown’s begun - Seema Chishti, Indian Express
The curse of interesting times continues to be with us. As the countdown to the series of key state elections in 2012 begins, the overhang of “people’s movements” has alerted political parties that there is potential to woo and build public opinion, and the first movers are off the starting blocks.
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India not serious on black money - Times of India
Rudolf Elmer, a rare whistleblower who has brought out much information on secret Swiss banks accounts, has accused the Indian government of not being serious enough in getting details of black money stashed away in Swiss banks.
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Team Anna says higher judiciary must be under Lokpal ambit - Pioneer
Team Anna and the Government are headed for another showdown. The former on Monday did a U-turn to reiterate its demand that higher judiciary should be kept within the purview of the Lokpal Bill. Team Anna had during Hazare’s fast agreed to forego its demand in this regard after the Government’s “assurance” for bringing in a strong Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill.
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Document: Supreme Court verdict on Narendra Modi - Pioneer
Deferentially concurring with the dictum of this Court, we are of the opinion that in the instant case we have reached a stage where the process of monitoring of the case must come to an end. It would neither be desirable nor advisable to retain further seisin over this case. We dispose of this appeal accordingly.
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If exonerated, Modi likely to shift to national stage - Hindu
If there were any doubts earlier on the timing of Narendra Modi's entry into the national political arena, the Supreme Court verdict asking the trial court in Ahmedabad to make a determination on the guilt or innocence of the Gujarat Chief Minister in the Zakia case has certainly brightened the chances of an early entrance.
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Cheer masks fear of Modi’s Delhi rise - Radhika Ramaseshan, Telegraph
New Delhi, Sept. 12: The BJP “celebrated” the Supreme Court order in the Gujarat riot case in varying degrees. But beneath the victorious proclamations lurked fears over what the “relief” meant and, specifically, if it would legitimise and strengthen Narendra Modi’s Delhi ambitions.
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The man who could be king - Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard
Two events have come about in happy conjunction for Gujarat Chief Minister (CM) Narendra Modi. The Supreme Court has asked the widow of Ahsan Jaffrey, who was burnt alive by a mob in the 2002 Gujarat riots, to go back to the trial court with her plea that Narendra Modi was culpable in her husband’s murder because he did nothing to stop the rioting—and in fact abetted it.
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PM sweepstakes: Lens Poll finds Narendra Modi gains momentum as Rahul Gandhi falters - K Balakrishnan, LensOnNews
As we were planning to publish the results of the September round of the LensOnNews monthly tracking poll, news has come in that the Supreme Court has handed Narendra Modi a reprieve in the Gulberg Society case, sending the reports of the SIT and the amicus curiae to the trial court in Gujarat for consideration and whatever action it deems warranted.
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Narendra Modi's letter to citizens - Narendra Modi
Yesterday, the Apex Court of the country delivered an important judgment regarding the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. Everyone is interpreting this judgment in his own way. For political analysts it has one meaning and for legal experts it has another meaning. Someone is interpreting it as victory someone else as defeat. Everyone has his own point of view.
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Keep reservation out of Lokpal panel: Team Anna - Pioneer
A face-off between Team Anna and MPs from several regional parties is imminent on the issue of reservation in Lokpal. While at least five regional parties have demanded reservation in the institution of Lokpal, Team Anna has expressed strong reservations over the issue.
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Telangana ‘last battle’ derails Andhra - Pioneer
The decades-old struggle for Telangana on Tuesday entered into a completely new and drastic phase with the entire region going on an indefinite mass-strike derailing normal life and bringing the administration’s work to a grinding halt.
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For peace, Modi won’t eat for 3 days beginning his birthday - Indian Express
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today took the celebration of the Supreme Court order on Zakia Jafri’s plea one step further, announcing that he would undertake a three-day fast to “strengthen Gujarat’s environment of peace, unity and harmony” as part of a “Sadbhavana Mission”.
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Charges against me are false: Modi - Manas Dasgupta, Hindu
Breaking his silence for the first time on the 2002 communal riots, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that the charges that he and his government were involved in the riots were “unfounded and false.”
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