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Sarkozy, PM discuss ways to bolster N-cooperation
A prayer for son at Fatehpur Sikri dargah
2G loss presumptive, DoT will find exact figure, says
Sibal
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Rahul ‘effect’ in the new CWC
Arrest should be last option: SC
Saturn rings are visible again
Residents stage protest against Tata project
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Sarkozy, PM discuss ways to bolster N-cooperation
New Delhi, December 5 The two leaders are understood to have discussed ways to sort out wrinkles that have developed in their civil nuclear cooperation endeavour. They are also learnt to have briefly touched upon other issues, including cooperation in the fields of defence, space, education and health, situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan and terrorism and financial reforms. Sarkozy, accompanied by his wife Carla and a high-powered delegation, arrived in New Delhi from Agra this evening on Day 2 of his India visit. His brief meeting with Manmohan Singh came shortly before the PM hosted a private dinner at his residence in honour of the French leader and his delegation. The dinner was attended by about 20-25 persons including UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj and senior ministers Pranab Mukherjee and AK Antony. The French side was represented by the ministers accompanying Sarkozy and the French envoy to India. The PM and the French leader will have delegation-level talks tomorrow at the Hyderabad House tomorrow followed by signing of some agreements and a joint press conference. Sarkozy is also scheduled to meet other leaders and call on President Pratibha Patil tomorrow. He is flying to Mumbai on Tuesday on the final leg of his four-day India tour. Carla Bruni, meanwhile, is expected to visit an orphanage for HIV AIDS patients. The two sides are likely to sign an ambitious framework agreement between French nuclear giant Areva and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) for building two European Pressurised Reactors (EPR). The framework accord is expected to lay down broad rules for Areva that is building two nuclear reactors initially, which will eventually increase to six. Areva plans to set up two atomic power plants of 1,650 MW capacity each at Jaitapur in Maharashtra
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A prayer for son at Fatehpur Sikri dargah
Fatehpur Sikri, December 5 President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni reached the dargah at about 3.40 pm today and were welcomed by Peer Zada Rais Mian Chisthi, the Sajjadanashin of the dargah, and his two sons. Both Sarkozy and Bruni then walked barefoot to the dargah, where Rais Mian helped them offer the specially made 5x4 feet ‘chadar’ of roses. “I told them this dargah grants wishes to the jobless, unmarried and even childless. He asked me to pray for him and wish him success. While they were tying the thread, Carla said she wants a son and I prayed for them,” Rais Mian said. Sarkozy and Carla tied the thread, known as ‘Kalava’, the symbol of their wish, after asking Rais Mian to blow his breath on it. The couple, who married in February 2008, do not have children. But, Sarkozy has three sons and Carla one through their previous marriages. Before entering the dargah, the French First Couple covered their heads - Sarkozy with a skull cap and Bruni with a pink stole. “They followed all the customs and seemed very happy. It was an informal visit and they were very pleasant,” Rais Mian said. They spent about 20 minutes at the dargah and then left for Agra. Hundreds come here every day and pray for their wishes to be fulfilled. The most common is wish for a child. It is here that the dargah’s peer Sheikh Salim Chisthi had blessed the childless Mughal emperor Akbar with a child, , who went on to become Emperor Jehangir. — PTI
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2G loss presumptive, DoT will find exact figure, says
Sibal
“All the numbers that are being handed out are all presumptive as the (government auditor) CAG itself said... We must move from presumptive to certainty,” Sibal said. It (revenue loss to the exchequer) is a separate exercise in which “we have to determine net present value” of the licences, he said, adding there was no auction of 2G spectrum so “you can't determine what the market value would have been for this.” It is this exercise that needs to be done, he added. In 2008, the government had distributed 122 new telecom licences to seven operators, besides 38 dual technology licences bundled with 4.4 MHz of start-up spectrum, at a seemingly undervalued price of Rs 1,651 crore for pan-India operations. After opposition parties raised the issue of loss to the exchequer, government audit body CAG took up investigations and calculated the “presumptive” loss on account of the under-valued sale of 2G airwaves at Rs 1.76 lakh crore. The calculations were based on the amount raised from the recent 3G spectrum auction as well as the price quotations submitted by some of the operators that did not get licences. The minister has already initiated action against new operators that allegedly suppressed information to get licences or are yet to start services despite getting spectrum. Sibal has categorically stated that if it is found that wrong information was given by the firms, their licences will be cancelled. The Department of Telecom will be sending show-cause notices to nearly half a dozen firms holding licences for about 85 circle areas to ascertain the reason for non-fulfillment of the terms and conditions on which they were granted spectrum. The HRD Minister said his ministry will also send notices to errant telcos that were issued licences along with the spectrum even though they were
ineligible. He said the quantum and the nature of penalty would be considered by the
DoT. Rejects demand for JPC probe Rejecting the demand for a JPC probe into the allocation of 2G spectrum as unreasonable, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Sunday said such a process would not help achieve the objective “sought to be served” and alleged the Opposition's motive was “pure politics”.
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Rahul ‘effect’ in the new CWC
New Delhi, December 5 "Certainly, if India cannot ignore its demographic profile so also Congress party has never ignored the young India," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.He was asked whether the Rahul impact would be there in the reconstitution of the CWC with the young leader making a strong pitch for a greater say to the youth in party affairs.He, however, preceded his remarks by noting: "These are matters for the supreme leader to decide, but you can be rest assured that Congress has always taken all regional, political, social and economic criteria into consideration while making the CWC a real representative of the diversity of India itself." The talk in party circles is that the age profile would be lower in the new body with some of the old non- performers not finding a place in the reconstituted affair.Among the younger leaders whose profile has grown in recent years are Home Minister P Chidambaram, HRD and Telecom minister Kapil Sibal and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. Chidambaram is already a member of the Congress Core Group, referred to in party circles as the ‘Super CWC’. The developments in Andhra Pradesh have resulted in the growing importance of Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy. —
PTI
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Arrest should be last option: SC
New Delhi, December 5 “The arrest should be the last option and it should be restricted to those exceptional cases where arresting the accused is imperative in the facts and circumstances of that case,” the apex court said in a judgment. “Personal liberty is a very precious fundamental right and it should be curtailed only when it becomes imperative according to the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case,” the court said. A Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and K S Radhakrishnan also said that anticipatory bail granted to a person should continue till the conclusion of the trial and no conditions should be imposed on the accused to surrender for obtaining a regular bail. “A great ignominy, humiliation and disgrace is attached to arrest. Arrest leads to many serious consequences not only for the accused but for the entire family and at times for the entire community. Most people do not make any distinction between arrest at a pre-conviction stage or post-conviction stage,” they said. “The proper course of action ought to be that after evaluating the averments and accusation available on the record, if the court is inclined to grant anticipatory bail then an interim bail be granted and notice be issued to the public prosecutor,” Justice Bhandari said. The Bench said the tendency of courts to grant anticipatory bail with conditions like asking the person to surrender before a court for regular bail was contrary to the statute and ruling set by a Constitution Bench. "The court would certainly be entitled to impose conditions for the grant of bail. The public prosecutor or complainant would be at liberty to move the same court for cancellation or modifying the conditions of bail any time if liberty granted by the court is misused,” the apex court said. The apex court made the remarks while granting anticipatory bail to Siddharam Satlingappa Mhetre, a Congress leader allegedly involved in the killing of a BJP worker on September 26, 2009, in Maharashtra. Mhetre had moved the apex court after the Bombay High Court dismissed his anticipatory bail plea. — PTI
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Saturn rings are visible again
New Delhi, December 5 The planet went through ‘Ring Crossing’ on September 4 last year wherein its rings were aligned along the Earth’s line of sight, making it difficult to see them. “The phenomenon occurs after every 14.7 years,” RC Kapoor, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, said. As the yellowish planet moves round the Sun, its rings, made of countless bodies ranging in size from micrometres to metres, are best seen when the planet reaches opposition-when the Saturn rises just as the Sun is setting, he said. Of late, scientists said, the Saturn is tilting and favourably for viewers from the Earth. “The planet’s north pole is tilting towards the Earth with the rings bending 4.9 degrees in January 2010. Since June this year, the tilt has been increasing and will reach 10 degrees this month to present a wider face while the planet rises in the east post-midnight and can be observed till the sunrise,” Kapoor said. The Saturn, currently in the constellation of Virgo, about eight degrees west of the bright star Spica, can be seen along with its rights with a powerful binocular (20x or more) or a small telescope, he said. As the ring system opens up, it adds to the brightness of the planet. The rings shall present their widest aspect in 2017. “On Dec 17, 2002, the rings of the planet were favourably tilted for us to have a glorious view of its ring system even though the Saturn drew closer to the Sun and the Earth only in late 2003.” However, on September 4, 2009, Saturn had been so oriented in its orbit that its rings were seen edge-on, he said, adding, “These could not be seen at all as its axis of rotation became perpendicular to our sight line”. — PTI
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Residents stage protest against Tata project Chandigarh,December 5 The decision was taken at FOSWAC’s executive committee held here today. “FOSWAC has decided to continue its struggle and organise a rally of RWAs in the near future to expose the politicians defending the project against rules and regulations. Members expressed serious concern about the coming up of 19 high-rise towers in complete violation of the New Capital Periphery Control Act in which Punjab political and bureaucratic big wigs are beneficiaries, FOSWAC chairman PC Sanghi
said in a press statement issued here.
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Jantar Mantar Much has been said and written about how Trinamool chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee stood out among the glamorous crowd in her cotton sari and 'chappals' at the inaugural function of the recently-concluded International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa.
Not just that, the Railway Minister had sent prior word to the organisers to make sure they did not line up a big air-conditioned car for her or put her up at a five-star hotel during her stay there. Consequently, rooms were booked at the Port Trust guest house while a non-AC Santro car was dutifully earmarked for Mamata, who makes a fetish of her simple "aam admi" ways. But even as Mamata was enjoying the natural sea breeze during her drive from the airport to the guest house, she was followed by a cavalcade of air-conditioned 'sarkari' vehicles. Apparently, the entire top brass of Konkan Railways was at the Goa airport o receive their "mantri". Not to be outdone, officials from the Port Trust and shipping department had also turned up in large numbers to welcome the railways minister, especially since she was their guest in Goa. It does cost a lot, it seems, to keep Mamata poor. Political niceties
The Congress and the BJP-led opposition may be slugging it out in Parliament over the latter's demand for the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G spectrum allocation, but they continue to observe social niceties outside. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quick to congratulate Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on his victory in the recent Assembly polls while Rahul Gandhi was spotted last week at the wedding of BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy's nephew. Senior Congress leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi was also present on the occasion. It was only recently that BJP leader LK Advani and the Gandhis had occasion to shed their old animosity towards each other. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul had a brief chat over a cup of tea in Advani's Parliament House office after Obama's speech to MPs in the Central Hall. When it was revealed in the course of their conversation that it was Advani's birthday, Rahul dropped in the next day again with a bouquet of flowers. |
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Centre Stage The leak of 140 private conversations of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, the phone-tapping authorised by the government and submitted to the Supreme Court, has created a storm and exposed the nexus between the media, the market and the
political establishment. An in-depth look at the lady with friends in the right places and the shockwaves she caused
The personal telephone numbers of India's top industrialists, politicians, ministers and editors are on her speed-dial. Her consultancy fees from two industrial houses are said to be in the region of Rs 60 crore. She heads not one or two but apparently four companies engaged in 'managing the environment’ for clients who can afford their services. And not surprisingly, a clutch of former bureaucrats have made the smooth transition from the North Block to her companies, as Associates, advisors or employees. Corporate lore has it that Niira Radia arrived in India some ten years ago after having burnt her bridges in England. Her family migrated to England from Africa when she was very young. Niira grew up in England and dabbled in several business ventures, according to corporate gossip in Mumbai. They did not do too well and she apparently had to file for bankruptcy. She shifted base to India in the early 1990s after her divorce from a Gujarati Kutchi businessman Janak Radia. At first, Radia signed up with the Sahara group's airline business before attempting to launch her own airline. She even applied for a licence to take over the troubled ModiLuft airline. However her venture named Crown Air did not take off despite then Union Civil Aviation Minister Ananth Kumar of the BJP batting for her. According to other reports, she was involved in lobbying to smoothen the entry of Singapore Airlines to India, with Tatas as partners. In the year 2000 she tried to get a licence for her own airlines through a company that did not meet the eligibility criteria. Her fledgling corporate communication business received a windfall when she persuaded Ratan Tata to appoint it as the sole agency to handle corporate communication and advocacy for the entire Tata group. Radia's Vaishnavi Communications played a major role in damage control throughout the past decade when the Tata group was at the receiving end of some very bad press. According to insiders, Radia's formidable communications and networking skills enabled the Tata group to emerge unscathed from its battles with the troubled Tata Finance boss Dilip Pendse and Ajit Kerkar who once headed Taj Hotels. But she scored a coup of sorts when she added Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries to her client list. Ambani hiring an outside agency to handle lobbying and PR efforts was nothing short of a revolution since the secretive conglomerate had handled these tasks in-house since the days of founder Dhirubhai Ambani. A number of big corporates like the Mahindras, ITC, Unitech and even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation soon followed by signing up with Radia's clutch of PR/Communications/lobbying entities. According to the PR grapevine, Radia's Vaishnavi Communications and allied entities are now India's biggest in their field with revenues estimated to be in the region of several hundred crores. Following leaks of the Radia tapes, the entire gamut of services Radia offered her clients is coming to light. The smooth-talking Radia pulled no punches in furthering her clients' interests. Arm-twisting the management of the country's biggest media house to get an editor grovel before her was a mere child’s play for Radia. Radia's role in the 2G licenses scandal is an illustration of the role India's nascent lobbying industry can play in the corridors of power. To further her clients' interests, Radia hired senior bureaucrats on the payroll of her companies. The A-listers who migrated from the telecom ministry to Radia's hothouses include former TRAI chairman Pradip Baijal, former economic affairs secretary CM Vasudev, former DIPP secretary Ajay Dua and former TRAI member DPS Seth, SK Narula, former Airports Authority of India chairman, and Akbar Jung, the former civil aviation secretary and others. Apart from political lobbying, Radia reportedly offered services that would easily fall in the realms of merchant bankers and investment banks. Reports say the Income Tax department is probing Radia for transfer of funds to entities like real-estate developer Unitech which made a killing by selling spectrum bagged under the 2G licences scandal. The telephone taps also allegedly have Radia advising the beneficiaries of the 2G licence scam on how to manage the windfall gains they made selling the spectrum to other companies. But what is more illuminating is the crowd that was not in Radia's official payroll but those who bent over backwards to do her bidding. Top journalists like Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi have been caught on tape talking to Radia like old pals. Radia's ability to make inroads into the homes of politicians also emerge from the telephone transcripts. Her initial attempts by wooing the Bal Thackeray family failed though. Amongst her first ventures after coming to India was the funding of Agnishaakshi produced by Binda Thackeray, son of the Shiv Sena supremo. Unfortunately for Radia, Binda passed away and her attempts at political lobbying received a setback. Similarly, Radia was also close to the late Pramod Mahajan who played a major role in Tatas bagging cash-rich Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL). In later years as the tapes show Niira Radia went on to win over Kanimozhi, daughter of Karunanidhi, who seems to have opened her home and heart to the lobbyist providing her intimate details of her father's household. According to the reactions surfacing in the media following the publication of Radia tapes, the lady also took on herself to do fire-fighting on behalf of politicians. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who was effectively rendered an outcaste in the wake of the post-Godhra riots got more than a veneer of respectability thanks to Radia. If Radia had not played the role of an effective go-between for Ratan Tata and Modi over shifting the production of the Nano to Gujarat, the controversial Chief Minister would still be looking for that halo over his head. The grapevine has it that in addition to politicians and journalists from cash-strapped media houses perpetually looking for fund infusion to stay afloat, a number of prominent and controversial godmen too have fallen to the charms of Radia. Though no names have come out in the open so far, some of the holy men who frequent Radia's farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi have helped open doors for the lobbyist. So will Radia survive the scandal arising from the 2G scam? Right now, it appears that the woman is on a tough wicket fielding cases filed by the Income Tax department, the Enforcement Directorate and a host of other agencies. But Niira Radia is certainly not short of friends going by her past records. Going by her reputation, Radia may have begun sweating her network long ago and come up with a damage-control plan to get her out of the jam she finds herself in. Ratan Tata has come out batting for Niira Radia giving her a clean
chit for her work as a lobbyist. Other players could be working behind
the scenes and if the past is anything to go by, one should not be
surprised to find the cases against her quietly being buried. In which
case the woman will be back having the last laugh.
CREDIBILITY AT CROSSROADS The scandal has highlighted the emergence of a 'fifth estate' enabled by technology and the need for self-governance by the media, writes noted media commentator
SEVANTI NINAN
Willy-nilly the Radia Tapes disclosures have had an unintended fallout. They have turned the spotlight not just on how sections of the media deal with other estates in course of their professional work, but also on what has been a longstanding, not-so-healthy tradition: self censorship on matters concerning their own. The story broke on a Thursday, and for another five days after that no news channel or major newspaper thought it fit to give it normal news treatment. They carried minor references to it on their websites and pretended that it did not happen. The exceptions were in the South: notably the New Indian Express which carried excerpts from the transcripts, the Deccan Herald which editorialised on the subject, the Deccan Chronicle, and so on. The big Hindi papers were silent too. Then The Hindu responded with an article, and CNN-IBN with a programme. Thereafter it took another week for the Indian Express to have full coverage on the issue, and for other media houses to start opening up. A full fortnight and no thundering on the subject from Arnab Goswami on Times Now! Contrast that with the alacrity with which corruption in other sectors has recently been reported. It could be argued that the Radia Tapes reveal hubris, indiscretion and a willingness to please that is now embarrassing the profession. And that they do not reveal corruption. Also that the media was inhibited by issues of privacy and the right to reply. But other audio and video tapes over the years exposing other kinds of public figures have not met with such coyness, though privacy was invaded there too. So let us recognise the truth for what it is: the media follows a dog-does-not-eat-dog principle. There is a huge to-do about plagiarism by a chief editor in cyberspace, it does not find its way into the press or TV. There is a simple index to judge by: TV columns and review programmes on television on showbiz abound. How many columns or programmes are there countrywide on issues thrown up by media practice? CNN-IBN has just ventured gingerly into this area with its weekly programme on the media by Karan Thapar. The first two editions were vegetarian, the third, on the Radia Tapes, finally got into stride. If the Radia Tapes revealed less than scrupulous professional behaviour by top dogs in the media, does not that also indicate that the profession suffers from an absence of watchdogs? When the paid news scandals broke in May and November last year, did that not demonstrate the same problem? And is that not partly so because the media does not consider its own sector a professional beat like any other, deserving of open scrutiny? The other reason for corruption of the paid news kind, or for a blurring of lines between reporting and participating is because the government-appointed watchdog, the Press Council, has members from the profession who think they are there to guard the self interest of their industry, rather than its professional conduct. So Outlook and Open have done us a service, even if they will end up in court as a result. There are already reports of media organisations taking a re-look at their own codes of ethics, and of individual journalists like Vir Sanghvi having to pay a price. One column he wrote, he says, he has stopped himself, in order to do some thinking. But another column he wrote has been unambiguously dropped by the New Indian Express, a day or two after the scandal broke and Sanghvi figured in it. Barkha Dutt, TV journalism's leading star, has participated in a public examination of her conduct as revealed by the tapes. Let us just say that the recordings have helped to make media ethics an issue, despite the media's best initial efforts to pretend that there was no issue. And it has sullied the credibility of some leading journalists. As academics have begun to point out, the whole incident also underscores the emergence of new watchdogs, amounting to a new estate. A fifth estate, enabled by technology, spycams, audio-recording technology, Internet-enabled fora for exposure and criticism, and self-appointed web watchdogs, currently personified by WikiLeaks. What sort of ethics will govern this is still to be worked out, and it makes governments as well as corporates, including corporate media, rather nervous. The Radia Tapes, paid news, plagiarism and TV news and entertainment excesses also underscore Indian society's inability to come up with effective regulation where the media is concerned. At one end of the spectrum, there is legislation which is cumbersome and therefore seldom resorted to. At the other end, there are codes of ethics which remain unimplemented. We need an effective via media, regulators that other countries have put in place, or at least complaints bodies whose rulings cannot be ignored. As media outlets continue to burgeon, the need for correctives for errant behaviour will grow. Finally, how do you have clean media in a country where corruption surfaces every day in the conduct of all the other estates? And where corporates and governments provide the funding for media houses through advertising and investment? By, at the very least, beginning to put media of all kinds under the scanner, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. When journalists and media owners find that their community is no longer willing to cover for them, they will begin to self govern more than they do now. Post-liberalisation journalism has
become a lucrative profession. One suggestion made in the debate under
way since Radiagate broke, is that journalists should declare their
assets. If that happens, it will reveal the huge gap between the top
dogs and the district correspondents and stringers. The information may
help to answer some other questions: why the ones at the top have lost
their connect with ordinary people. And why those at the bottom of the
ladder are forced to racketeer—because their employers do not pay
their foot solders enough. |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tonight had restricted talks with visiting French President Nicholas Sarkozy amid concerns expressed by Paris over India’s Civil Nuclear Liability Law.
New Delhi, December 5
