Mr Javadekar’s Tryst With A 3.0 Litre White Fortuner

It is said that Corruption is a hydra-headed monster. it is a monster that spreads its tentacles everywhere — be it the government sector or the non-government sector. And asking for illegal money is not the only form of corruption. Today’s smart set ask for favour in kind, not cash. Yesterday’s Indian Express report tells us that Prakash Javadekar is one of those ‘smart’ men in Modi government who believes in dealing in ‘kind’, not ‘cash’.

In Arun Jaitley’s case, in his role not as a minister but as a DDCA president, ‘in-kind’ deals are part of the allegation, subject to enquiry and prosecution. The Prakash Javadekar case is a classic example of quid pro quo that the political executive seeks for ladling out favours. What is noteworthy is that the Minister sought the benefit for himself from a Public Sector Organisation, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL).

Here are the facts. “On May 30,2014 — barely days after the (Modi) government was sworn in — the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry (of Environment and Forests)recommended (to the Ministry) Stage -1 clearance for SAIL’s Barsua (Iron) Mines (in Odisha), along with a series of penalties for alleged violation of the Forest Conservation Act. These included penal compensatory afforestation, disciplinary proceedings against officials and legal proceedings against SAIL.”

After about six months, when Mr Javadekar became familiar with the functioning of various departments in his Ministry, his Ministry decided to issue the clearance to the SAIL for its Barsua Mines, but the Minister added a proviso: “User Agency (SAIL) will provide permanent vehicular mobility to the Ministry’s regional office at Bhubaneswar for periodic monitoring of the project already existing and those coming up in the area.”

The clause was added at the behest of the Minister himself, because as per rules, only the Minister is authorised to change the conditions of the FAC.

This letter was issued to SAIL on February 10, 2015. The letter did not mention what model of a vehicle the Ministry needed for doing inspection work, but clearly the SAIL was told, by oral communication, that it had to be a ‘Toyota Fortuner 3.0 litre White’.

It was evident that the pressure was on SAIL for the express delivery of the vehicle.

An exasperated SAIL Liaison officer wrote to the ministry why was it in such a hurry for a vehicle ‘Toyota Fortuner 3.0 litre white’ for inspection work as the “conditions imposed in the in-principle approval (to the Barsua Mines) may take approximately two years to be complied with”. He clearly meant that the vehicle would be needed, if at all, only after two years.

But, evidently, top officials of SAIL must have been read a riot act by the top honchos of the Environment Ministry that it was the Minister’s wish and the SAIL could lose a lot if it went slow on it.

And the threat worked. SAIL expeditiously purchased a Rs 20-lakh Fortuner and delivered it not at Bhubaneswar (as the Ministry letter had envisaged), but at Delhi (as the Ministry officials had told SAIL officials orally).

The vehicle was registered in the name of an Under Secretary in the General Administration Division of the Ministry; it was fitted with the beacon light and given to Javadekar for use for himself and his family.

Will you call it corruption?

Or, is it just governance by other means?

 

http://www.firstpost.com/business/nairobi-wto-why-nirmala-sitharamans-defensive-statement-is-a-clear-letdown-for-india-2555672.html

Why did then India, and for that matter, China and South Africa, not put on hold the export competition pact that the US and EU pushed through?

Source: http://www.firstpost.com/business/nairobi-wto-why-nirmala-sitharamans-defensive-statement-is-a-clear-letdown-for-india-2555672.html

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/the-national-herald-case-wont-help-sonia-do-an-indira-for-the-congress-2552902.html

Despite all the Congress celebrations, the National Herald case will not help Sonia Gandhi do an Indira for the party by portraying herself as a martyr.

Source: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/the-national-herald-case-wont-help-sonia-do-an-indira-for-the-congress-2552902.html

http://www.firstpost.com/india/jnu-was-always-hospitable-to-conflicting-ideas-the-new-culture-of-coercion-is-the-change-2494636.html

JNU was hospitable to conflicting ideas: there were vigorous, sometimes virulent, debates but nobody tried to foist his idea by force. There was intolerance to the very idea of getting one’s way by force.

Source: http://www.firstpost.com/india/jnu-was-always-hospitable-to-conflicting-ideas-the-new-culture-of-coercion-is-the-change-2494636.html

Why Bullet Trains Are A Convoluted Priority?

We, Indians, should oppose Bullet Trains: for both need and cost reasons.

We must ask: whether the need of 25 million daily passengers of Indian railways criss-crossing the entire country should be a priority or the comfort of a thousand elite passengers in a cosmopolitan Mumbai-Ahmedabad stretch?

After all, Anil Kakodkar Committee, which had been set up to review the safety conditions in Indian railways, had recommended measures that would make the entire length of the track (1,15,000 kilometres) relatively safe: but the recommendations remain largely unimplemented because that would cost Rs 1,00, 000 crore and the government says that it cannot mobilise so much money at one go.

But, then, the same government has the dynamism and the diplomatic muscle to raise Rs 1,00, 000 crore for a bullet train to cover a length of 500 kilometre and which would possibly cater to a thousand (or a couple of thousand) cash-rich passengers who can afford the stiff fare of a bullet train.

We have to take a call — Rs 1,00, 000 crore should be spent for the benefit of 25 million passengers or for just 2500 elite passengers?

We need to ask a second question: if countries with a per capita income of 50,000 dollars are baulking at the idea of a bullet train as unaffordable, why we, Indians, with just 1500 dollars per capita income, are prepared to splurge our scant resources on a ‘dream project’?

Can there a more convoluted priority?

Some of us who are semi-literate would argue that we do not need to ‘afford’ a bullet train as we do not have to pay for it; the money will come from the Japan government. They buy this argument because our government has tried to sell it that way: that we managed to get this giveaway from Japan with our diplomatic skills.

But we should know that no country offers a free lunch to another; it always extracts its pound of flesh in the bargain.

Japanese coffers are slush with money. That is why they advance money to their citizens free of interest with a view to rev up both production and consumption. If they earn even 0.1 per cent interest by lending money to India, then for them it is a sweet deal. For us, too, it would have been a sweet deal if it would have been just a soft loan.

But then the loan is tied up with conditions — that India would buy the entire rolling stock for the bullet train from Japan. Additionally, India is obliged to buy the bulk of equipment and the locomotives from Japan itself for safety reasons — otherwise they say they could not guarantee the safety record of the Japanese Shinkansen railways. So Japanese have ensured that their money (Rs 80,000 crore out of the total project cost of Rs 1,00,000 crore) is well-spent — on buying Japanese goods and investing in Japanese skilled personnel.

Again, Japan is not transferring the technological know-how. If and when India goes for a second bullet train project, it would again have to look to Japan.

After the first bullet train project is completed, Japanese will go back happy, their money having been well spent. India will be left with the onerous task of repaying the money (principal and interest) to Japan and then make up for the operational cost of running a bullet train.

What should be the extent of resources to be generated from the project to make it profitable or at least to make it break even?

Assuming that there would be no cost escalation in the project, Rs 200 crore would be spent per kilometre (Rs 1,00, 000 crore for 500 kilometres).

What should be the ticket price for travel between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in two hours — let us remember that the managing body will have to cover the recurrent operational expenses and recover the cost of one-time investment from the ticket price.

In Japan, where the government refuses to subsidise the Shinkansen trips, an hour-long journey costs 100 dollars. Average Japanese is rich (50000 dollar per capita income) and the benevolent employers in Japan pick up the entire travelling tab of their employees.

Can an average Indian afford 100 dollars ( almost 6800 rupees at current rate) even for a two-hour journey?

How many Indian employers will be ready or able to bear such expense for their employees?

Or, do we have the deep pockets like that of China? Chinese Railways is struggling with 318 billion dollars of debt and 1.6 billion dollar of annual loss on account of its 10,000 mile long High Speed Rail (HSR).

This is the situation in China despite the stiff ticket price.

Ruchir Sharma, noted investment banker and columnist, writes in his book, “Breakout Nations — In Search of the Next Economic Miracles” that he once, out of curiosity, took ‘the maglev train that zips from Longyan Road in Shanghai to Pudong International airport in eight minutes’. He paid 13 dollars for travel in first class ( first class travel in the standard metro trains for the same distance would cost 1.5 dollars); it would have been 8 dollars for standard coach in the bullet train. (this was the cost in 2009 when Ruchir Sharma had undertaken the journey).

Mr Sharma writes that in his coach “my colleague and i were the only riders apart from the conductor, who was dressed like a flight attendant”.

Clearly, the average Chinese chooses to travel by ordinary trains.

The Chinese government can afford to bleed.

But many rich European nations have found the cost unaffordable. Britain “ran a maglev in Birmingham from 1984 to 1995, and Germany pondered one for Berlin in the 2000s, but both gave up for cost reasons.”

Even in the United States (the biggest economy of the world), the High Speed Rail project for high population density and high employment corridor of Los Angeles-San Francisco was hotly debated and won a public mandate with just 52% votes.

If British, German and American can hardly afford it, can we gloat over the idea that we will create an illusion of world class status by running bullet trains?

Argentina, under a flashy leader in 2008, took a decision to embark on HSR trains, with a long-term soft loan offered by the French government. But a mass rebellion against such wasteful expenditure put paid to the idea. Argentina has, now, undertaken a Chinese-funded project for a major upgrade and renovation of the national rail network without the bullet trains. This covers the entire country and is far less expensive.

Will sensible Indians also rise to protest against the idea of the bullet train and demand our  government to re-negotiate with the Japanese government for the loan to cover the upgradation of the rail network of the entire country?

Will that not demonstrate the true intent of both the governments, Indian as well as Japanese : whether they are for the well-being of all Indians or for only a handful of them?

 

Salman Khan Judgememt — A Blot On The Judiciary

 

The judgement by a gentleman called A R Joshi (it would be a travesty to call him Justice A R Joshi)  acquitting Salman Khan of all charges in the 13-year-old hit-and-run case is a sad reflection on India’s criminal justice system which is usually skewed in favour of the rich and powerful; but with judges like Joshi, it appears as if criminal justice is deeply compromised in our country.

Not surprising that morally unscrupulous socialites like Suhel Seth and Shobha De, who would have no qualms to bay for the blood of the poor to ingratiate themselves with the rich and the glitzy world, find the judgement a victory for the judiciary.

Look at this gentleman A R Joshi — how quickly he delivered the judgement. The sessions court had held Salman guilty in May this year. In barely six months, this high court judge has set aside the trial court findings and set Salman free. Well, fast delivery of the judgement is a welcome thing in a country burdened with millions of pending cases, but when the fast delivery happens selectively only to exonerate the rich and powerful, then it raises uncomfortable questions.

Look at the judgement of Mr Joshi and see how ridiculous some of his contentions are. The sessions court judge , D W Deshpande, had found the evidence of Ravindra Patil, a policeman, deployed as Salman’s security guard (as Salman had given in writing to police then that he was facing threat from the underworld), crucial to nail Salman guilty on both the counts — that he was drunk and that he was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident in that fateful night of 2002.

Ravindra Patil was a reliable witness — he was in the Land Cruiser with Salman when the accident happened. He called the police when Salman and his friend fled the place after they found out that a number of people sleeping on the pavement have come under the wheel of the car. Patil had given his version in the FIR; he had given his evidence in the court of the metropolitan magistrate where Salman’s lawyers had cross-examined him. The metropolitan court held up his testimony.

But, unfortunately, before the trial began (in 2008), he died (it was in 2007; his death was also a mystery).

In the process of the trial, I think in 2011, the charge against Salman was changed from rash and negligent driving causing death to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. It was a more severe charge denoting that the accused knew the consequences of his action (that such driving may cause death on the street).

And, pray, what does Mr Joshi say? Since Patil was not there to give evidence after the charges were differently framed, his evidence was not admissible. Mr Joshi castigated the sessions judge for accepting Patil’s evidence.

One does not know where Mr Joshi learnt his law; his deficient learning clearly expressed itself in his judgement.

Mr Joshi dismissed another evidence of the prosecution that the sessions judge had accepted: that Salman Khan had gone to the Rain Bar with his friend and the bar bill showed that they had consumed several pegs of Bacardi Rum. The defence counsel made the absurd claim that Salman’s friend drank all the liquor and Salman drank only water (because no other soft drink has been ordered) throughout an hour and a half he was in the bar. The sessions judge had dismissed this claim, but Mr Joshi lapped up this contention. He asked the prosecution; what was the evidence that Salman was drinking liquor in the bar, and not water. You cannot establish beyond reasonable doubt that Salman was drinking, so the case is dismissed, Mr Joshi thundered.

Throughout the judgement, Mr Joshi appeared to hold a brief for the defence counsel and kept indicting the prosecution for not able to establish its case beyond reasonable doubt.

But then as the celebrated police officer and a former Bombay police commissioner, Julio Ribeiro, asked rather rhetorically after the judgement — what standard of proof was to be provided to satisfy the judge?

For Mr Joshi, no proof could establish Salman’s guilt ‘beyond reasonable doubt’  and that is why he was destined to be set free.

But then if Salman was not guilty, who was?

Look at the strange response of Mr Joshi: that it was not his job to bother about the identity of the guilty. (He had taken upon himself the only job to exonerate Salman). Can you call this man a Justice, a man who is not bothered about punishing the guilty?

An anguished P K Kode, a former Bombay High Court judge, had this to say after the Joshi judgement: A crime was committed; there is a need to find the guilty… the court has power to see if there is any more evidence to be brought (to nail the guilty).

That is what judges are for — to find the guilty. Punishing the guilty is what justice is all about.

If you declare someone not guilty but refuse to find out who is guilty, you are doing a hatchet job, Mr Joshi. You are besmirching the fair name of the judiciary.

If Mr Joshi was in a tearing hurry (he wanted to complete his mission before his retirement on December 19 this year), he could have at least ordered for a re-trial, asking for more evidence to be brought before the trial court to establish the identity of the guilty.

This has happened many times and even in some much-discussed hit-and-run cases.

In the Sanjeev Nanda case in 1999, the trial court in Delhi first acquitted Sanjeev Nanda, almost in the similar vein  as that of Mr Joshi, that the prosecution could not establish its case beyond reasonable doubt. But the high court asked for a re-trial with more evidence to present before the court. The re-trial found Nanda guilty and he was sentenced to five year imprisonment. The high court upheld the conviction, but found loopholes in the prosecution case, just as Mr Joshi did.

But Delhi high court did not exonerate Sanjeev Nanda; it convicted him under 304(A) — causing death by negligence — instead of 304(II)  — culpable homicide not amounting to murder — under which the trial court had convicted him. His sentence was reduced to two years.

The defence counsel pleaded before the court that Sanjeev Nanda was a compassionate man and that he had already paid Rs 65 lakh compensation to the victims of the car accident and that he was prepared to dole out more for them. He should be shown leniency and set free.

The judge asked the counsel: If his client was really so compassionate towards the victims, why did he take to his heels after causing the accident?

Salman Khan’s lawyers also sang paeans to him saying that he was doing a lot of charitable work (though he had not paid money to the victims of the accident) Mr Joshi did not bother to ask that question as to why Salman fled from the scene if he was sober and he had an armed police bodyguard with him?

Clearly, Mr Joshi wanted to tell the world what a twitter post said, tongue-in-cheek: “To err is Human, to go unpunished is Being Human.”

Mr Joshi had the discretion of either reducing the sentence, by changing the charges from 304(II) to 304(A), or he could send the case for a re-trial’

That would have been in the larger interest of justice.

But, unfortunately, he had an agenda to subvert the justice.

Thank God, Mr Joshi is retiring; otherwise, he would have continued to remain an embarrassment to the hallowed judicial credibility of our country.

Do you agree?