Karti Chidambaram's lok sabha nomination challenged by IT Officer
Link to download the complaint: http://www.elections.tn.gov.
Link to download the complaint: http://www.elections.tn.gov.
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Karti Chidambaram's lok sabha nomination challenged by IT Officer
Link to download the complaint: http://www.elections.tn.gov.
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Transparency in public life. SoniaG's family mysteries should be exposed -- MD Nalapat
But who, what and where are members of Sonia Gandhi’s family?
Information is the lifeblood of the knowledge era, but not – as has become clear from the functioning of the UPA Government – for the Congress, which sees the giving of information as a crime. Hence, the fevered reaction to Narendra Modi’s declaring in his nomination form that he is married. Until the Supreme Court made the giving of such information mandatory, it was commonplace for many to leave that particular column blank, including the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. However, none of the others pose the existential threat to the Nehruvian system that has enabled the Congress to flourish in a context where its rule, and that of its clones and offshoots, has ensured that more than three hundred million citizens go to bed hungry each night, while less than 10 per cent of the population has a standard of life that any other than a UPA-appointed Planning Commission member would deem to be adequate. In Narendra Modi, the country is witnessing an individual who bids fair to change the very chemistry of governance and politics in the country, so that those who have for seven decades fattened off the Nehruvian colonial-model system would finally face oblivion. Small wonder that there is the whiff of panic in Lutyens Delhi, leading to a reaching out for any issue that could possibly derail the chances for this son of humble but determined parentage to be sworn in by the President Pranab Mukherjee as the next Prime Minister of India.
The media, in its uppermost echelons, is very much a partner in the depredations of the Nehruvians, by whatever name they be called. Editors who once lacked the money to buy a bicycle now glide to work in BMWs and Audis from their farmhouses in Delhi.That is, when they are not in their Goa hideouts or in civilised locales such as London or
Miami. Small wonder that they are unwilling to ask of the Queen of the Nehruvian system that she be as transparent about her own affairs as her partypersons demand of others, albeit a demand sometimes expressed as shock that information gets given. That Narendra Modi is married is scarcely a secret,the fact for example having been mentioned in the Sunday Guardian some years ago, in an essay on Modi penned by this columnist. That he saw such a bond as a distraction from his tasks was again no secret, except for the illiterate, which presumably several peasant families in countries such as Italy must still be. Both the fact of his marriage, as well as details of his three brothers and sister are very much in the public domain, although a bit more publicity would have boosted Narendra Modi’s political ascent even more than is the case now. For the fact is that his being the Chief Minister of Gujarat has made almost no difference to their careers or to their pocketbooks. Modi’s family remains what they were thirteen years ago, in humble circumstances. Whether it be his family or his key officers, in their very simplicity, their rejection of the ersatz-European style of the society salons of Delhi, they exude an integrity that has long vanished under the onslaught of the Nehruvian system.
Miami. Small wonder that they are unwilling to ask of the Queen of the Nehruvian system that she be as transparent about her own affairs as her partypersons demand of others, albeit a demand sometimes expressed as shock that information gets given. That Narendra Modi is married is scarcely a secret,the fact for example having been mentioned in the Sunday Guardian some years ago, in an essay on Modi penned by this columnist. That he saw such a bond as a distraction from his tasks was again no secret, except for the illiterate, which presumably several peasant families in countries such as Italy must still be. Both the fact of his marriage, as well as details of his three brothers and sister are very much in the public domain, although a bit more publicity would have boosted Narendra Modi’s political ascent even more than is the case now. For the fact is that his being the Chief Minister of Gujarat has made almost no difference to their careers or to their pocketbooks. Modi’s family remains what they were thirteen years ago, in humble circumstances. Whether it be his family or his key officers, in their very simplicity, their rejection of the ersatz-European style of the society salons of Delhi, they exude an integrity that has long vanished under the onslaught of the Nehruvian system.
Those who read the Times of India in the 1990s would know that Sonia Gandhi has two sisters and a mother, for the same was mentioned in that venerable newspaper by this very columnist, together with details about the struggles of the three young ladies with higher education, of course at the school level. They would also have discovered that the two sisters were separated and then divorced from their husbands after the men came in possession of wealth through channels that are as unexplained as those which have propelled the entire Maino clan from penury to plenty in the twenty years since Indira Gandhi won back the Prime Ministership in 1980 and Sanjay Gandhi passed away. To trace the standard of life of Nadia and Annoushka or their surviving parent as its graph moved upwards at an accelerating clip in the middle of the 1980s (and, interestingly,in the middle of the first decade of this century as well, or around the time an “honest” Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, was chosen by Sonia Gandhi to be what this columnist had described long before Sanjaya Baru’s brilliantly written expose as a ”virtual PM”) would be child’s play for our media, except that they have been very bashful about uncovering any of the details about Sonia Gandhi’s family, in contrast to the zeal with which they have commented on Narendra Modi’s spouse who, by all accounts, seems a remarkable individual who is as willing to sacrifice a normal life as her husband has shown himself to be.
Now that Narendra Modi has himself pulled away the curtains from the only aspect of his family life that was still largely obscure, it is time that Sonia Gandhi do likewise. It is time for her to reveal details about her own Italian family, especially because she almost never has contact with her Indian relatives, including the mother of her own son-in-law. Robert Vadra has received more than a smidgen of negative publicity for having been incautious enough to have deployed his investments in India rather than squirrel them abroad the way some of his relatives have, but by credible accounts, he is a loving and dutiful son. However, it is not Vadra about which there is silence from 10 Janpath but about Sonia’s sisters,mother and their other friends and relatives, many of whom live (and it is learnt, work, if such their activity can be called) in India. Sometimes at Number Ten itself, sometimes at miscellaneous farmhouses scattered in and around the national capital. Among the reasons why they are invisible to the naked eye is their penchant for flying by chartered aircraft both within this country and while travelling to and from India. The advantage of having influential relatives is that one’s luggage never gets checked, even if they contain works of art or antiques taken away from their habitat. Manmohan Singh is not a loquacious man, except when he converses with visitors from the NATO bloc, in whose presence he ceases to be robotic and can even pass off as friendly. Small wonder that he has thus far stonewalled every query about the foreign travels of Sonia, her sisters and her children, to Istanbul or to Dubai, or to destinations further away. As the media in India or abroad is unlikely to stir themselves sufficiently to pull away the unhealthy veil of secrecy which surrounds Sonia Gandhi’s own family, perhaps it is time for The Madame to do so herself, even while exhorting her son and heir to draw attention to Narendra Modi’s family.http://www.niticentral.com/2014/04/12/but-who-what-and-where-are-members-of-sonia-gandhis-family-210643.html
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Full transcript of interview of Narendra Modi to Rajat Sharma in Aap Ki Adalat (Video: 1:17:47)
Video: 1:17:47 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RRIQvViQw0
Published on Apr 12, 2014
Watch out BJP Prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi grilled by India TV's editor-in chief Rajat Sharma in Aap Ki Adalat.
Exclusive: Read full interview of Narendra Modi to Rajat Sharma in Aap Ki Adalat (Parts 1 t0 3)
[ Updated 12 Apr 2014, 23:50:23 ]
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New Delhi: In his first exclusive marathon interview to India TV editor-in-chief Rajat Sharma on his popular Aap Ki Adalat show, BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi opened up on a range of issues - his personal life, Gujarat riots, his relations with senior party leader L K Advani and replied to charges of giving land at throwaway prices to industrialists in Gujarat.
Here is the full transcript of the interview: Rajat Sharma: Important leaders of our country - Sonia, Chidambaram, Sharad -they are all worried that wherever they go, they get to hear “Abki baar, Modi Sarkar”.Modi: I didn’t know that high profile people could be worried about such issues. If they are worried they it’s a sign of being small minded not big.RS: Sonia said that advertisements are being circulated in every corner of the country that project one man being the cure of all ailments. He is being presented as a miracle.Modi: Even I heard her saying that BJP has got a magician. I thought magicians make items vanish on stage. But these days Delhi is plagued with black magic. They have made jobs and coal disappear. Electricity has vanished. So they think this kind of magic is better than Black magic.RS: They say he pretends that there is no other patriot than himself. By chanting false slogans he wants to grab the PM’s post.
Here is the full transcript of the interview: Rajat Sharma: Important leaders of our country - Sonia, Chidambaram, Sharad -they are all worried that wherever they go, they get to hear “Abki baar, Modi Sarkar”.Modi: I didn’t know that high profile people could be worried about such issues. If they are worried they it’s a sign of being small minded not big.RS: Sonia said that advertisements are being circulated in every corner of the country that project one man being the cure of all ailments. He is being presented as a miracle.Modi: Even I heard her saying that BJP has got a magician. I thought magicians make items vanish on stage. But these days Delhi is plagued with black magic. They have made jobs and coal disappear. Electricity has vanished. So they think this kind of magic is better than Black magic.RS: They say he pretends that there is no other patriot than himself. By chanting false slogans he wants to grab the PM’s post.
Modi: Every citizen is a patriot. Neither do I doubt anyone’s patriotism nor do I claim to be the most patriotic person. RS: Rahul Gandhi says that our nation doesn’t need a single chowkidaar. Modi wants to change the entire nation. I say that the nation needs crores of chowkidaars. What can a single chowkidaar do?Modi: It a good thing that he listens to my speeches carefully and he knows that crores of chowkidar will serve him good. One could pose a problem. I am worried that if there are 150 crore chowkidaars then will they include Adarsh Scam culprits and those who have snatched lands of widows of Kargil martyrs? Their LS candidates who have been accused of land acquisition of the farmer of Rajasthan - will they also be chowkidaars? If this is the case then it seems that cat will be made in-charge of milk.RS: Their slogan goes- Har haath shakti har haath tarakki.Modi: They need to come up with ideas to put a lid on their work. Their hand that commits sin has to be portrayed in some other way. That is why, for them, it’s- Har haath loot, har honth jhooth (Every hand loots, every lips speak a lie). RS: Nitish alleges that this is mere publicity. On TV, Radio FM and on newspapers - only Modi sarkar is publicized. Modi has created his wave. It is self created.Modi: I don’t say it myself. You (audience) all are shouting my name on your own. Has anyone taught you? (Audience: Nahi) You all are chanting on your own? (Yes) Do you think that the nation is saying this on its own?(Audience: Yes) Don’t listen to me or Nitish. At least listen to the people.
RS: We get messages on our mobile phones. They go as follows: twinkle twinkle little stars, Abki baar Modi sarkaar; Rahul Gandhi ne khayi chocolate bar, abki baar Modi sarkaar, parathon ke saath khao achar,Abki baar Modi sakar, dil ka bhawar kare pukaar abki baar Modi sarkar,Sonia ji ne Manmohan se kaha ab to apna moun tod do sardar, abki baarModi sarkar.Modi: I am grateful to the creative people of this nation. Had social media not existed then we would have not been able to hear about this creativity.
RS: Akhilesh Yadav said in Aap Ki Adalat that Narendra Modi had hired an American agency to create such slogans for publicity. He is giving Rs 1000 crore to that agency.
Modi: I have not done anything as such. This lie has been circulating for quite some time. Had I hired such a company, is it possible that it would have been in the newspapers. They would have managed it.
RS: Anand Sharma, Congress Union Minister said in a press conference that BJP has spent Rs 10000 crore on publicity.
Modi: The first thing that Anand Sharma needs to do is to write to the EC. Then there is a govt agency named Enforcement Directorate. Since they don’t do anything, I’m giving them an idea of doing some work. Let them fully investigate it. Let Anand Sharma do it as fast as possible. If there is any objection from EC, I’m willing to writing to EC to let them do it.RS: But Rahul Gandhi says that you are a person who can sell combs to even balds.Modi: I used to sell tea. I never sold combs but the information that I can do it has reached them, is sort of achievement for me.RS: Rahul mentions in his public speeches that you are filling balloons and it will burst the same way it got deflated in 2009.Modi: They said the same thing in 2002, 2007 and 2012 when Gujarat assembly elections took place. Their balloons got deflated. They have been defeated in primary match. Now the people will decide the outcome in the final match.RS: Sonia Gandhi says that you are being presented as if nothing has been done in the past and you will change things overnight.Modi: I have already said that everything has vanished because of black magic. In the first decade of 21st century, we had such a good opportunity to take off in this era of globalization, from the point Vajpayee had left things. But instead of taking off, we collapsed on the runway itself. It has caused a great damage to the country. Have you ever seen a country that exports wheat and import breads? We are exporting iron-ore and importing steel. In this country, power units of 20,000 mw capacity are closed down. On the other hand, coal mines are also closed down. Why? Because the files have disappeared. For them, files have disappeared but for me, the life of nation has disappeared. Had coal been available, we would have got power. Small industries could have been set up that would have given employemt to youth. When we raise these questions they think that they are ruling the nation for four generations, how can a ‘chaiwallah’ challenge them? In a democracy, everybody including kids have the right to ask questions from rulers.
Rajat Sharma: Their problem is that a ‘chaiwallah’ is trying to become the prime minister.Narendra Modi: I am a person who never dreamt of becoming anything. And I tell the youth don’t dream of becoming anything. You should always dream of doing something. I come from a background that my mother would have distributed sweets had I become even a school teacher. It’s the blessings of people in a democracy that can decide the future of a person. In a democracy, no one can decide his future. Even today, I have dreams of doing things but not one dream of becoming anythingRS: Rahul has said that Modi can go to any extent to become the PM. He says that if you come to power then you will break nation into pieces. You will create infighting among people.Modi: I think he has borrowed this (cutting into pieces) from his candidate in UP. We will sacrifice our lives for the unity and integrity of nation. Look at the history of the Congress. Look at their track record. Who got the reins of power first? Who divided the country? Who spread the poison of casteism? Who created communal tension? For the first time, the govt asked the army to provide info on the basis of religion. Fortunately, the army refused to share the info saying the army consists of Indians only. They refused to count Hindus and Muslims in army. They should look within themselves.In Gujarat, I talk about 5 crore Gujaratis only. I talk of 125 crore Hindustani only. I have tried to avoid the sectarian terminology. Gradually every Chief Minister has started doing the same thing.
RS: Omar Abdullah says that you went to Punjab and accepted their attire, you went to Arunachal and wore their cap, you went to Assam and wore their dress but you refused to wear skull cap offered by Imam.
Modi: I have never seen Gandhi, Patel or Nehru wearing such skull cap. Indian politicshas deteriorated. They can do anything for appeasement. I believe in respecting traditions of all religions. But at the same time, I have to respect my own tradition as well although I respect all traditions. I can’t hoodwink people by wearing such skull caps. But I believe in taking action against those who show disrespect to other’s caps.
RS: Nitish Kumar said that in public life, you have to wear both tilak and skull caps. You have to take care of sentiments of others.
Modi: If he thinks that it helps in taking care of sentiments then it’s his thought. I believe that their children should get better education. They should have Quran in one hand and computer in the other hand.
RS: Azam Khan said that after 60 years of independence, we are being called puppies.
Modi: Whoever said this was wrong. I will not say anything like this.
Modi: I have never seen Gandhi, Patel or Nehru wearing such skull cap. Indian politicshas deteriorated. They can do anything for appeasement. I believe in respecting traditions of all religions. But at the same time, I have to respect my own tradition as well although I respect all traditions. I can’t hoodwink people by wearing such skull caps. But I believe in taking action against those who show disrespect to other’s caps.
RS: Nitish Kumar said that in public life, you have to wear both tilak and skull caps. You have to take care of sentiments of others.
Modi: If he thinks that it helps in taking care of sentiments then it’s his thought. I believe that their children should get better education. They should have Quran in one hand and computer in the other hand.
RS: Azam Khan said that after 60 years of independence, we are being called puppies.
Modi: Whoever said this was wrong. I will not say anything like this.
RS: You had said, “we are human beings. It pains even when a puppy comes under my car.”
Modi: In our country we say it pains even if an ant dies. These are proverbs. This should not be interpreted otherwise. And you should know that the person who had taken myinterview, despite being a foreigner, had tweeted that I did not mean anything like that. But the news traders, and am not talking about media, used this to sell their stuff.
RS: Azam Khan while referring to you has said today that we don’t need the sympathy of Modi, the elder brother of puppies.
Modi: I should say- thank you very much- to him because the loyalty of dogs is unparalleled. I’m proud that somebody saw this quality in me that will benefit the country.
RS: Manmohan Singh said that it will be disastrous if you become the PM.
Modi: I think his own partymen, including his cabinet ministers said that he should not have said that. And now he has stopped saying that.
Modi: In our country we say it pains even if an ant dies. These are proverbs. This should not be interpreted otherwise. And you should know that the person who had taken myinterview, despite being a foreigner, had tweeted that I did not mean anything like that. But the news traders, and am not talking about media, used this to sell their stuff.
RS: Azam Khan while referring to you has said today that we don’t need the sympathy of Modi, the elder brother of puppies.
Modi: I should say- thank you very much- to him because the loyalty of dogs is unparalleled. I’m proud that somebody saw this quality in me that will benefit the country.
RS: Manmohan Singh said that it will be disastrous if you become the PM.
Modi: I think his own partymen, including his cabinet ministers said that he should not have said that. And now he has stopped saying that.
RS: He actually reminded people that it will be disastrous for people if a person, under whose regime killings took place on the roads of Ahmedabad, becomes PM.
Modi: He should have remembered, there was attack on Akshardham temple in September 2002, so many people were killed inside the temple, yet Gujarat maintained peace. Gujarat maintained peace even after serial blasts. There was a time when Gujarat used to have riots over kite flying and cricket matches. Gujarat has not witnessed riots for last 12 years. The children of Gujarat don’t know what is curfew all about? Gujarat has progressed because of peace and harmony. And this is what the nation needs for growth as these things will have catalytic effect in achieving that.
RS: Akhilesh Yadav recently said in ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ that Muzaffarnagar riots were incited by Narendra Modi.
Modi: I don’t know whether he is having a sound sleep these days. I have been to UP 4-5 times in recent times and I can understand his real concern. He sees Modi in everything- from lion to laptop. This is his problem.
Modi: He should have remembered, there was attack on Akshardham temple in September 2002, so many people were killed inside the temple, yet Gujarat maintained peace. Gujarat maintained peace even after serial blasts. There was a time when Gujarat used to have riots over kite flying and cricket matches. Gujarat has not witnessed riots for last 12 years. The children of Gujarat don’t know what is curfew all about? Gujarat has progressed because of peace and harmony. And this is what the nation needs for growth as these things will have catalytic effect in achieving that.
RS: Akhilesh Yadav recently said in ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ that Muzaffarnagar riots were incited by Narendra Modi.
Modi: I don’t know whether he is having a sound sleep these days. I have been to UP 4-5 times in recent times and I can understand his real concern. He sees Modi in everything- from lion to laptop. This is his problem.
Question from audience: What will you do for education sector in your first 100 days of rule?
Modi: In our country, we should think about poor first. Whenever I meet a person, like a driver, I ask about his family and life. He tells me that he has taken loans for better education of his kids. Nowadays even drivers are taking loans for the better education of their kids. We have always focused on degrees only. Now is the time to focus on skill development that will bring employment to our youth. If we have to compete with China then we have to focus on three things- skill,scale and speed. We need better skill, greater scale and faster speed.
Modi: In our country, we should think about poor first. Whenever I meet a person, like a driver, I ask about his family and life. He tells me that he has taken loans for better education of his kids. Nowadays even drivers are taking loans for the better education of their kids. We have always focused on degrees only. Now is the time to focus on skill development that will bring employment to our youth. If we have to compete with China then we have to focus on three things- skill,scale and speed. We need better skill, greater scale and faster speed.
Question from audience: You are campaigning relentlessly for last two months. From where do you get the motivation?
Modi: I had started the campaign from 15th September. So now it’s 6-7 months since I started the campaign. I am a laborer and my childhood was very tough and physically I am used to all this. I also do my Yoga and Pranayam. But the important point is that I believe you never get tired by doing work. You get tired when you don’t work. When youclean your house, you don’t get tired, it gives you satisfaction.
People’s blessings give you the power to work tirelessly. The only thing required is commitment. The love and affection that I have received from people in last 6 months keeps me running.
Question from audience: When will we come out of caste based politics?
Modi: That’s why I say unless we start using saying - we the 1.25 crore people- the poison of caste will keep creating fissures in the society. There is no harm in feeling proud of your caste but the poison of casteism that creates hatred does not benefit anyone.
Rajat Sharma: But Sonia ji says that you do what she calls ‘zeher ki kheti’.
Modi: It’s good that you have given me the opportunity to speak on this. In Jaipur in last June-July, there was Congress convention going on where Rahul made a speech. He said that I went to Mom’s room this morning and I found her crying. She told me that power is poison. Now the question is who has been in power for the longest time? Who tasted the poison for the longest time? Who has the maximum amount of poison in the stomach? So who will spew poison the most?
Rajat Sharma: Maulana Madani has said that Muslims are being made to feel scared in the name of Modi. You talk about national integration but it can actually break the country.
Modi: What he said was that those who are saying all this are trying to break the nation.
RS: He says that Muslims are being made to feel scared in your name. What is it in you that scare Muslims?
Modi: I don’t think they feel scared. In Gujarat, Muslims feel greater enthusiasm when my name is mentioned.
Modi: I had started the campaign from 15th September. So now it’s 6-7 months since I started the campaign. I am a laborer and my childhood was very tough and physically I am used to all this. I also do my Yoga and Pranayam. But the important point is that I believe you never get tired by doing work. You get tired when you don’t work. When youclean your house, you don’t get tired, it gives you satisfaction.
People’s blessings give you the power to work tirelessly. The only thing required is commitment. The love and affection that I have received from people in last 6 months keeps me running.
Question from audience: When will we come out of caste based politics?
Modi: That’s why I say unless we start using saying - we the 1.25 crore people- the poison of caste will keep creating fissures in the society. There is no harm in feeling proud of your caste but the poison of casteism that creates hatred does not benefit anyone.
Rajat Sharma: But Sonia ji says that you do what she calls ‘zeher ki kheti’.
Modi: It’s good that you have given me the opportunity to speak on this. In Jaipur in last June-July, there was Congress convention going on where Rahul made a speech. He said that I went to Mom’s room this morning and I found her crying. She told me that power is poison. Now the question is who has been in power for the longest time? Who tasted the poison for the longest time? Who has the maximum amount of poison in the stomach? So who will spew poison the most?
Rajat Sharma: Maulana Madani has said that Muslims are being made to feel scared in the name of Modi. You talk about national integration but it can actually break the country.
Modi: What he said was that those who are saying all this are trying to break the nation.
RS: He says that Muslims are being made to feel scared in your name. What is it in you that scare Muslims?
Modi: I don’t think they feel scared. In Gujarat, Muslims feel greater enthusiasm when my name is mentioned.
Audience: America had banned your entry in that country. Will you go to US if you become PM?
Modi: When it happened in 2005, I had told media that we want to create an Indiawhere Americans will have to stand in queue to seek visa.
RS: American ambassador Nancy Powell had to leave after she met you. What did you do?
Modi: (Laughs)...This is something that journalists should investigate.
RS: You opponents allege that all your developmental claims in the state are hollow. Mulayam Singh yadav recently asked you to explain whether Gujarat, like UP, also has free irrigation, free education andfree medicines.
Modi: He should have taken it further- free goondaism, free killings of innocents.
RS: He responded when you said that it takes 56 inch chest for running the government.
Modi: I had responded to him when he said that he will not allow UP becoming another Gujarat. It is then that I had said, “Neta ji, it takes 56 inches chest to make Gujarat. And then I went on to say, in order to make a state like Gujarat, you need to give electricity for 24 hours and 365 days. Most houses in Gujarat have the facility of drinking water from taps, 99% roads in rural regions have proper roads. I said, “You don’t have that kind of stamina. You continue with caste oriented politics because you cannot go beyond that.” Today Ram Manohar Lohia must have been very upset with his disciples.
RS: Rahul Gandhi alleges that you have created Gujarat’s image just through marketing as far as facilities like electricity, water and employment are concerned.
Modi: Okay, we can go to Delhi, Bengal and Assam for marketing. But I cannot do that in front of the people of Gujarat, right? They can see through right away. I say that I have constructed roads and if there are no roads, then the people there will never believe me. They would call me a liar if I had not done anything for the agricultural sector. Then I would have not won elections in 2002, 2007and 2012. I did not lose a single election. Gujarat is the only State that can fight the elections with the agenda of development. Even today our agenda is development and others are running away from this zone.
They don’t have courage to touch this issue. Because they feel that they will be answerable for this. When I had gone to visit Gujarat in 2001, people gathered to meet me. I hadn’t visited my State for quite some time. I had nothing to do there. Before becoming the CM I had not even seen the CM’s chamber. I was not even an MLA and I had not even fought teacher’s elections.
People would come to me and say, we are not asking for anything big.
But at least provide us electricity during dinner time so that we don’t have to eat in the dark. That means, during that period, Gujarat didn’t even get electricity in the evening for dinner. Today Gujarat has electricity all around the year. This cannot be proved through marketing. When people switch on their bulb and see light, it is then that they believe that Modi has provided electricity.
Modi: When it happened in 2005, I had told media that we want to create an Indiawhere Americans will have to stand in queue to seek visa.
RS: American ambassador Nancy Powell had to leave after she met you. What did you do?
Modi: (Laughs)...This is something that journalists should investigate.
RS: You opponents allege that all your developmental claims in the state are hollow. Mulayam Singh yadav recently asked you to explain whether Gujarat, like UP, also has free irrigation, free education andfree medicines.
Modi: He should have taken it further- free goondaism, free killings of innocents.
RS: He responded when you said that it takes 56 inch chest for running the government.
Modi: I had responded to him when he said that he will not allow UP becoming another Gujarat. It is then that I had said, “Neta ji, it takes 56 inches chest to make Gujarat. And then I went on to say, in order to make a state like Gujarat, you need to give electricity for 24 hours and 365 days. Most houses in Gujarat have the facility of drinking water from taps, 99% roads in rural regions have proper roads. I said, “You don’t have that kind of stamina. You continue with caste oriented politics because you cannot go beyond that.” Today Ram Manohar Lohia must have been very upset with his disciples.
RS: Rahul Gandhi alleges that you have created Gujarat’s image just through marketing as far as facilities like electricity, water and employment are concerned.
Modi: Okay, we can go to Delhi, Bengal and Assam for marketing. But I cannot do that in front of the people of Gujarat, right? They can see through right away. I say that I have constructed roads and if there are no roads, then the people there will never believe me. They would call me a liar if I had not done anything for the agricultural sector. Then I would have not won elections in 2002, 2007and 2012. I did not lose a single election. Gujarat is the only State that can fight the elections with the agenda of development. Even today our agenda is development and others are running away from this zone.
They don’t have courage to touch this issue. Because they feel that they will be answerable for this. When I had gone to visit Gujarat in 2001, people gathered to meet me. I hadn’t visited my State for quite some time. I had nothing to do there. Before becoming the CM I had not even seen the CM’s chamber. I was not even an MLA and I had not even fought teacher’s elections.
People would come to me and say, we are not asking for anything big.
But at least provide us electricity during dinner time so that we don’t have to eat in the dark. That means, during that period, Gujarat didn’t even get electricity in the evening for dinner. Today Gujarat has electricity all around the year. This cannot be proved through marketing. When people switch on their bulb and see light, it is then that they believe that Modi has provided electricity.
Modi: When it happened in 2005, I had told media that we want to create an Indiawhere Americans will have to stand in cue to seek visa.
RS: American ambassador Nancy Powell had to leave after she met you. What did you do?
Modi: (Laughs)...This is something that journalists should investigate.
RS: You opponents allege that all your developmental claims in the state are hollow. Mulayam Singh yadav recently asked you to explain whether Gujarat, like UP, also has free irrigation, free education andfree medicines.
Modi: He should have taken it further- free goondaism, free killings of innocents.
RS: He responded when you said that it takes 56 inch chest for running the government.
Modi: I had responded to him when he said that he will not allow UP becoming another Gujarat. It is then that I had said, “Neta ji, it takes 56 inches chest to make Gujarat. And then I went on to say, in order to make a state like Gujarat, you need to give electricity for 24 hours and 365 days. Most houses in Gujarat have the facility of drinking water from taps, 99% roads in rural regions have proper roads. I said, “You don’t have that kind of stamina. You continue with caste oriented politics because you cannot go beyond that.” Today Ram Manohar Lohia must have been very upset with his disciples.
RS: Rahul Gandhi alleges that you have created Gujarat’s image just through marketing as far as facilities like electricity, water and employment are concerned.
Modi: Okay, we can go to Delhi, Bengal and Assam for marketing. But I cannot do that in front of the people of Gujarat, right? They can see through right away. I say that I have constructed roads and if there are no roads, then the people there will never believe me. They would call me a liar if I had not done anything for the agricultural sector. Then I would have not won elections in 2002, 2007and 2012. I did not lose a single election. Gujarat is the only State that can fight the elections with the agenda of development. Even today our agenda is development and others are running away from this zone.
They don’t have courage to touch this issue. Because they feel that they will be answerable for this. When I had gone to visit Gujarat in 2001, people gathered to meet me. I hadn’t visited my State for quite some time. I had nothing to do there. Before becoming the CM I had not even seen the CM’s chamber. I was not even an MLA and I had not even fought teacher’s elections.
People would come to me and say, we are not asking for anything big.
But at least provide us electricity during dinner time so that we don’t have to eat in the dark. That means, during that period, Gujarat didn’t even get electricity in the evening for dinner. Today Gujarat has electricity all around the year. This cannot be proved through marketing. When people switch on their bulb and see light, it is then that they believe that Modi has provided electricity.
RS: Rahul Gandhi says that Gujarat’s credibility cannot be proved because the state does not have RTI, the biggest information right that he has given to the citizens.
Modi: These days he goes around saying that he has given this law and that law...ask him, does RTI apply to J&K? Do Right to education and Anti - corruption Bill apply to Kashmir? First he should see what his government has done. Moreover, Gujarat has RTI and there have never been any complains in Gujarat on RTI.
RS: Now that you have mentioned Supreme Court I will have to take my case back.
Audience: If your government is formed, will you give an assurance to Christianbrothers and sisters that their churches will not be broken down?
Modi: I have never heard of such incidents taking place...
Audience: That they won’t be burnt...?
Modi: I have never heard of such instances. Our country does not believe in the concept of your God and my God. We believe that all Gods are one. We have different ways ofaccepting Him. All ways lead to Him. That is why our constitution does not allow any discrimination. We cannot have communal discussions. We can be religious but not communal. That is why BJP’s moto is Sarva Panth Sambhav. In Gujarat we have the world’s smallest community - Parsi. They even have a pilgrimage centre there. Look at the rich history of India. We have never tried to bring down any community’s place of worship through sword or violence. Castes and religious divides are holding the nation backfrom growing. I want you all to be at peace.
RS: You have given consolation to Parsis and Christians. Can you give assurance to Muslims?
Modi: Every citizen of this nation has those rights and privileges that Narendra Modi has.
RS: So nobody has to fear you.
Modi: Some people will have to be afraid. Those who plunder the nation, deliver injustice, will have to feel scared of me. And I am not afraid of admitting this. Government cannot be so lenient that it forgives them. People must have sense of security. This does not exist and that is what causes all the trouble. You have to maintain some decorum even at home. And if it is a crime to maintain discipline then I admit my crime.
RS: There’s one man’s rule in BJP. Modi’s name is chanted everywhere. Even on all theposters. It appears that there is no other leader left in BJP.
Modi: This is not true. BJP is a huge organization. It works in that structure. There is a galaxy of leaders who are equally competent. During elections we have to set a goal and prioritize issues. Even for this there is a committee of which Modi is not a part. Previously we worked under Atal ji’s guidance. Then we worked under Advani ji, Harshvardhan in Delhi, Shivraj Singh in MP and in Rajasthan we worked under Vasundhara Raje. So responsibilities are distributed according to the party’s goal. Right now I have been given this role and I have to do what the party has asked me to do. I am a worker of the party. We are a team.
RS: If you are a team then why did Advani get upset three times?
Modi: I don’t think he is angry.
RS: He was first annoyed when Narendra Modi was made the national convener for the elections in Goa. Then the party went to appease him. Next he was upset when Narendra Modi was declared BJP’s PM candidate. He didn’t attend that meeting and once again the party had to persuade him. Recently he was upset over ticket distribution in the Lok Sabha elections. He wanted to fight from Ahmedabad and party insisted that he contests from Bhopal.
Modi: All these three issues have been clarified by Advani and the party. They were all fiction. Because after Goa meeting, he called me up to congratulate me. He was not well so he couldn’t come to Goa. But this made juicy news for media.
RS: And Jaswant Singh...
Modi: Jaswant Singh has just written a review of one of my biographies.
RS: And you didn’t give him ticket...
Modi: I don’t distribute tickets. State election Committee sends its recommendations. Central committee approves of it. Recently we helped his son win elections. BJP has lakhs of workers. It becomes difficult to manage when tickets are distributed.
RS: But the situation is so grave that Rahul Gandhi is worried that influential leaders like Jaswant Singh, L K Advani have been sidelined by Narendra Modi.
Modi: These are people who held Modi’s hand to make him walk. And even today I seek their advice by sitting at their feet. BJP does not work that way. But in their party, look what happened to Sitaram Kesri. He was the President of All India Congress Committee. They threw him out of his office to bring in Sonia Gandhi.
RS: But now that culture is creeping into BJP. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi tweeted- Sabir Ali has joined the party, now Dawood Ibrahim is next in line.
Modi: Let those exchanges remain between them only.
RS: Party workers say that very few people like you within the party although you have fan following outside. Raj Thackeray said that he will make Modi the Prime Minister.
Modi: First part of your statement is not correct. Today there are senior and more experienced members than me in the party. But they have handed immense responsibility to me. My party workers are working relentlessly. If I am anything today, I owe it all to my party workers. That is why I cannot think that my party people do not support me because I would have not even been even at grass root level had it not been for them.
RS: I have heard that Kumar Vishwas has been praising you and dedicating poems to you. He said that Narendra Modi used to talk to him.
Modi: Now that is true. I used to talk to a lot of people. Many say that Modi does not talk to anyone, but at least he is honest in claiming that I talked to him.
RS: But there is no confusion on the leadership in Congress...
Modi: ...That is what has led to Congress’ fall. Instead of improving the economy of the nation, they are busy generating income for one family.
RS: Dr Manmohan Singh has said that Rahul Gandhi has outstanding credentials to become the Prime Minister and I am willing to work under his guidance. Has any big leader in your party made such a statement in your favour?
Modi: There’s a reason for that - I say, I am willing to work under theirguidance. I work under them.
RS: But one such leader, Murli Manohar Joshi, wanted a ticket from Varansi but you went there.
Modi: I was given that offer. And he is fighting from Kanpur. I believe he is going to win with largest number of votes this time.
Audience: Sir your clothes are very stylish, who is your designer?
Modi: I left my house when I was very young. I could fit all my belongings in a small bundle. I kept wandering for 40 - 45 years and I spent over 40 years begging for food. I had to wash my own clothes. So I thought my shirt occupied too much effort in washing and space too. I cut the sleeves myself. So my shirt became half sleeved. I have been wearing such clothes for over 25 years. Yes, I like to dress up well and stay clean. God has gifted me the sense of mixing and matching colors. So I manage everything on my own. Since I’m God gifted I fit well in everything. I have no fashion designer but I’m happy to hear that I dress well.
RS: You are secretive about your personal life. Only recently we got to know that you used to sell tea at the Railway stations.
Modi: It is true that I don’t talk much about my personal life. People of Gujarat know a lot. But Media today is so vibrant that even if something falls off from the pocket they come to know. Then one day I’d come to Delhi and some Congressmen went about saying silly things about me, they even abused me. They said that Modi was an American agentand what not. I was hurt. I had my rally in Rohini (Delhi). I said, do you even know me? I have spent my childhood selling tea at railway stations and you are throwing such allegations on me? That’s how you all got to know about me. Other than that, so many things keep happening; I can’t go around telling everything.
RS: You were so naughty that when you were a child you used to catch crocodile babiesfrom the lake and take them home.
Modi: I was brave, not naughty. There was a pond in my village and I loved to swim in that pond. I even had to wash my clothes there. So one day I picked up a crocodile baby and took it home. Later on I even took it to school and my teachers were very upset.
RS: You left your home when you were very young and went up to the Himalayas.
Modi: Yes I’ve left my home on several occasions. I wanted to lead a spiritual life. Like I said I spent some years begging for food for sustenance. Even now I desire that. I was greatly influenced by Swami Vivekananda. I visited Ramakrishna Mission and several other places. I
recently visited Swami Atmaghanananda. That was another world which I have loved.
RS: It’s astonishing that a man who used to sell tea and beg for food has now become a brand himself. Comics are written on you, chips and vegetables are sold in your name. Miscellaneous goods are sold in your name.
Modi: It is astonishing, I admit. If you consider my background - I am the Chief Minister of Gujarat and my mother still resides in a small house in the village. I am surprised myself as I don’t have any background. It’s like a miracle that has worked in my life. I don’t understand what people want out of me or the party, I don’t know.
RS: Congress feels that you have prepared a huge underground team who work constantly on social media to create Narendra Modi’s image.
Modi: Congress is right for once. I have worked underground in 1975 and 1977 - two years when Mrs Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency on the nation and had imprisoned important leaders. Police were hunting for me too. Then I would wear a turban and stay dressed as a Sardar to hide my identity. Since then Congress is scared of me. My life is an open book. It is true that lakhs of people ae associated with me in this election who have got nothing to do with BJP, politics. They are only concerned about the nation. Over 10000 people have come from
overseas to assist. I met around 400 youngsters. They are all IITians. They have been putting efforts in their own way. I don’t even know those people. But if I don’t know that doesn’t not mean it’s underground.
Audience: If you become Prime Minister then will Advani become the next President?
Modi: If Modi becomes Prime Minister, it would mean that Advani has made him so. Those who give me position, how can I give them anything?
Audience: I know that you will become the PM. I have full confidence. I don’t wish to ask you a question. All I want you to do is to remove black magic from this country with your magic.
Modi: If there are millions of others like you then black magic will anyway vanish.
Audience: After 2002 Gujarat riots, Indian, International media, politicians - were all after you. How did you cope with all of this?
Modi: If you are dependent on truth, then you get the strength to face all accusations. Even today I face all sorts of indictments. Maybe my life’s strife has made me strong. Had I not been so strong,maybe I would have not won the hearts of millions of people. I’m privileged to have suffered. I now convert all strife into an opportunity and so far I’ve been successful.
RS: You had strength and were supported by truth, so why didn’t you discuss this before. Why are you saying all this today in Aap Ki Adalat ?
Modi: First of all, whenever I was asked on this issue, I answered all the questions. But I feel that some people do not want answers to questions. They want to hear what they have to say. And their problem is that they don’t do their homework. That’s why they can’t ask me much.
RS: They just want Narendra Modi to apologize.
Modi: Even when I step down from my bed in the morning, I ask mother earth for her forgiveness. Who am I? I’m just a child of this earth.
Audience: All the parties have stressed on women protection in their manifesto. What will you do that women feel secure?
Modi: If you get the opportunity, in October on Navratri, we have a ceremony that continues till over midnight. You can walk around. You will see young girls, clad in jewellery, will be hanging out and riding their scooties. Everything is possible.
RS: Mulayam Singh Yadav has made a statement at a public meeting that rape is a minor offense and capital punishment is not justified. He said that I become the Prime Minister then I’ll change this law.
Modi: If you start collecting such mean statements then, after Mumbai’s terror attack, aCongress minister had said, such minor incidents keep happening. This mindset is very dangerous for the country. Don’t we feel the pain when such crimes take place? I understand that it takes time to bring about social change. But how can we be so insensitive. For a moment imagine that you are that girl who has been raped. Will you then think that it is a small incident? Or think that your own daughter has been raped and then you’ll understand. Every daughter of India is our daughter. The kind of things that we are hearing nowadays, are so troubling to the mind. And even then some ministers add salt to the wound because of their ignorance. It is very painful. I don’t want to give a political answer for this nor do I want to score a political point. I pray to God that at least he doesn’t give us such mentality.
(Concluded)
http://www.indiatvnews.com/politics/national/exclusive-interview-narendra-modi-rajat-sharma-aap-ki-adalat--16534.html
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Kapil Sibal hides wife’s meat business from Election Commission -- Sandhya Jain
Kapil Sibal hides wife’s meat business from Election Commission
After his explosive statement that the Congress’s Amritsar Lok Sabhacandidate Captain Amarinder Singh had failed to declare the foreign bank accounts of his wife and son before the Election Commission, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy fired another salvo at the party’s Chandni Chowk candidate Kapil Sibal, accusing him of will-fully suppressing information about companies owned and administered by his wife, Promilaa Sibal.
The suppression of his wife’s abattoir and thriving meat export business has possibly been done to avoid public attention to this aspect of their wealth in a largely vegetarian nation, particularly after the BJP’s Prime Ministerial contender Narendra Modi began to publicly attack mutton subsidies given by the UPA and the subsequent denudation of animal wealth in the villages.
In a meeting with Election Commissioner HS Brahma at the Nirvachan Sadan on Saturday, Subramanian Swamy claimed that while filing his nomination papers, Kapil Sibal deliberately failed to disclose in his affidavit of assets and liabilities, three companies which are owned and administered by his wife. These include Arshiya Exports Private Ltd; Arihant Farmhouses Private Ltd; and Hacker Electronics Private Ltd. The firms figure in the details of spouses’ assets that the Minister furnished to the Prime Minister’s Office!
One of the impugned companies, Arshiya Exports Pvt Ltd, is one of the biggest meat exporters in Asia. Originally called Arihant Export Pvt Ltd, the firm’smeat processing plant is approved by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India.
As ‘Arihant’ is one of the most sacred terms in Jainism – the Tirthankaras are also known as Arihants – the Jain community agitated against the firm some years ago, particularly after hearing rumours that the firm may also be exporting beef. This prompted the change in name to Arshiya Exports Pvt Ltd. However, the Arihant name has been retained for the second firm, the business of which is not known.
Subramaniam Swamy has charged that as these companies comprise substantial assets, failure to disclose them is a serious perjury under thecriminal law. He urged the Election Commission to forward his complaint with its recommendations to the Magistrate for cognisance and issue due process. In support of his claims, the BJP leader furnished records from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs which show Promilaa Sibal as a director in the three firms from March 1981, February 1987 and May 1987 respectively.
In his affidavit to the Election Commission, Kapil Sibal has furnished details of his PAN number and that of his wife, along with income shown in the last financial year 2012-13. Giving details of bank accounts, mutual funds, shares, fixed deposits, gold and jewellery, he has declared a gross total value of these assets to be Rupees 1,03,89,794.22/- for himself and Rupees 1,34,90,422.56/- for his spouse.
In terms of immovable assets, Kapil Sibal has declared two agricultural properties, two non-agricultural properties, five commercial properties and seven residential properties in various parts of the country. The net worth of the couple is approximately Rupees 110 crore. Neither spouse has anyliabilities. Kapil Sibal has furnished detailed annexures of all his holdings and savings and current bank accounts, all of which would have required the services of a professional chartered accountant. Even if one assumes that he merely copied the disclosures previously submitted to the Prime MinisterManmohan Singh, it is difficult to believe that the omission of his wife’s commercial interests is accidental.
Interestingly, more than two days after Subramanian Swamy’s bombshell against the former Punjab Chief Minister, there is complete silence from the Congress and Amarinder Singh. At his Barmer rally on Saturday morning, BJP’s Prime Ministerial contender Narendra Modi challenged theGovernment of India to clarify the situation so that the Captain did not suffer if he was innocent; he suggested that such accounts could reflect the ill-gotten money from India that has been stashed in banks abroad and needs to be brought back to the country.http://www.niticentral.com/2014/04/12/kapil-sibal-hides-wifes-meat-business-from-election-commission-210935.html
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Tribute to Rashbehari Das Adhikari: Hero of the 2014 polls -- Devadeep Purohit
| Sunday , April 13 , 2014 |
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140413/jsp/frontpage/story_18186201.jsp#.U0oN11WSySo
Cop who grabbed beast by its throat- Toil and 90 stitches, for Rs 170 | ||
Rashbehari Das Adhikari’s name will not ring a bell amid an election booming with big guns. But it’s people like this 57-year-old Calcutta cop who are fanning across the country to ensure with their sweat — and sometimes blood — that people can vote without fear and the politician can win his seat. All for a daily allowance of Rs 170. Early on Friday morning, the Calcutta Armed Police assistant sub-inspector was mauled by a mountain bear at a Gangtok polling station and survived only because the five-foot-eight Bengali, of average build, fought back bravely. Das Adhikari, who has 90-odd stitches in the face and head and deep gashes in the chest and legs, described the most harrowing two minutes of his life to Devadeep Purohit of The Telegraph at Siliguri airport on Saturday afternoon. After reaching Calcutta, he has been admitted to the CMRI hospital. I had come to Sikkim on election duty from my home at Barjora in Bankura, leaving behind my 18-year-old son Ronny and wife Kalyani. By 5.15am on Friday, when the attack took place, I had been feeling pretty happy. There were just 45 minutes to go before the end of my assignment — supervising the securityof electronic voting machines at Gangtok’s TN Academy, sandwiched between the chief minister’s bungalow and Sikkim High Court. I remember standing near the sentry’s post and saying “Our job is almost over” before stepping out to relieve myself on the hillside. Then I saw the bear. I had just finished relieving myself and turned back —and there it was right before me, standing at least 5.5 feet tall, growling menacingly. I hadn’t yet emerged out of the shock when the beast landed a kick on my chest, knocking me down. The summer sun was rising and there was enough light for me to figure out that the black furry animal with smouldering eyes was too big for me. I later learnt that the bear weighed 250-300kg, against my weight of around 70kg. Before I could get up, it pounced on me and began mauling me. The first few swats, around my face and head, hurt so much that I thought I was going to die. But then, perhaps the survival instinct that lies deep within us all took over. I grabbed the animal by its throat, which somehow seemed to partially incapacitate its arms. While the bear snarled in anger, I screamed for help. As the security supervisor of a team that included five ASIs, one subedar, 18 sepoys, a cook and a sweeper, I had a 9mm pistol tucked in my holster. But to reach it, I would have had to take my hands off the bear’s throat — and it would have torn me to shreds. My screams brought a few security men running. But they didn’t dare shoot lest they hit me as I wrestled with the bear on the ground. But the fact that I had been able to hold the animal off for a few moments emboldened me and seemed to give me new strength. I dug my fingers harder into its throat. My colleagues too had started yelling at the bear. The combined effect seemed to unnerve the beast and it ran away. As far as I can recall, the duel lasted around two minutes. But those two minutes were the longest of my life. In over 35 years of service, I have seen many difficult situations — I have travelled to the remotest corners of militancy-hit Assam and Chhattisgarh — but this was so different. My faith in God was reinforced when doctors at (Gangtok’s) STM Hospital said they couldn’t believe that I had gone head-to-head with a bear for two minutes and survived. I have been describing these two minutes, but let me also tell you that an experience like this cannot be described. My colleagues, who had seen the duel, are still in shock. (Das Adhikari’s colleagues cannot stop talking about the mental strength he showed through the ordeal. He didn’t lose consciousness for a moment even after the assault, and carefully handed over his pistol and bullets to his colleagues before being wheeled into the hospital. He hasn’t been told how long the government will pay for his treatment or whether or when he can go back to work. But he dodged a query about his future, merely saying: “The most important thing is that I am alive.”) |
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India’s Nehruvian secularism is a one-way street -- MD Nalapat
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Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor -- Joe Bonometti (Video 56:17 Google Tech Talk)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8
Electrical power is, and will increasingly become, the desired form of energy for its convenience, safety, flexibility and applicability. Even future transportation embraces electric cars, trains, and chemical fuel production (jet fuel, hydrogen, etc.) based upon an abundant electrical supply. Although existing energy sources can and should be expanded where practical, no one source has shown to be practical to rapidly fulfill the world's energy requirements effectively. Presently there is an existing source of energy ideally suited to electrical energy production that is not being exploited anywhere in the world today, although its existence and practicality has been know since the earliest days of nuclear science. Thorium is the third source of fission energy and the LFTR is the idealized mechanism to turn this resource into electrical energy. Enough safe, clean energy, globally sustainable for 1000's of years at US standards.
This talk is aimed at explaining this thorium energy resource from fundamental physics to today's practical applications. The presentation is sufficient for the non-scientist to grasp the whole subject, but will be intriguing to even classically trained nuclear engineers. By providing the historical context in which the technology was discovered and later developed into a power reactor, the story of thorium's disappearance as an energy source is revealed. But times have changed, and today, thorium energy can be safely exploited in a completely new form of nuclear reactor.
The LFTR is unique, having a hot liquid core thus eliminating fuel fabrication costs and the need for a large reactor. It cannot have a nuclear meltdown and is so safe that typical control rods are not required at all. This design topples all the conventional arguments against conventional energy sources in such areas as:
* Waste Production
* Safety
* Proliferation
* Capital Costs and Location
* Environmental Impact
* Social Acceptance
* Flexibility
* Grid Infrastructure
* Efficiency
Should America take this step toward a New Era in Nuclear Energy Production? Hear the case for "The Electricity Rock" and then decide.
Speaker: Dr. Joe Bonometti
Dr. Bonometti has extensive engineering experience in the government, within industry, and in academia over a 25-year career. Recently completing an assignment as the NASA Chair Professor at the Naval Post graduate School, he supported a ship design study that utilized advanced nuclear power derived from thorium. Working at NASA for ten years as a technology manager, lead systems engineer, nuclear specialist, and propulsion researcher, he lead several NASA tiger teams in evaluating the Nuclear System Initiatives fission demonstration vehicle and missions. He managed the Emerging Propulsion Technology Area for in-space systems, the Marshall Air Launch team, as well as a variety of other power and propulsion assignments and is now the Lead Systems Engineer for the Ares I-Y flight. After earning a Doctorate degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Alabama in Huntsville, he spent several years as a Research Scientist & Senior Research Engineer at the UAH Propulsion Research Center where he served as a Principal Investigator and manager for the Solar Thermal Laboratory. He has worked as a Senior Mechanical Designer at Pratt & Whitney supporting aircraft engine manufacturing and at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory within the laser fusionprogram. A graduate from the United States Military Academy, at West Point, where he studied nuclear physics and engineering, Dr. Bonometti served as an officer in the United States Army Corps of Engineers; both in combat and district engineering management assignments. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Virginia, and has authored numerous aerospace technical publications, particularly propulsion and space systems technologies. His technical expertise includes nuclear engineering, specialized mechanical & materials research, space plasmas & propulsion, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and space systems engineering.
Uploaded on Nov 19, 2008
Google Tech Talks
November 18, 2008
ABSTRACT
This talk is aimed at explaining this thorium energy resource from fundamental physics to today's practical applications. The presentation is sufficient for the non-scientist to grasp the whole subject, but will be intriguing to even classically trained nuclear engineers. By providing the historical context in which the technology was discovered and later developed into a power reactor, the story of thorium's disappearance as an energy source is revealed. But times have changed, and today, thorium energy can be safely exploited in a completely new form of nuclear reactor.
The LFTR is unique, having a hot liquid core thus eliminating fuel fabrication costs and the need for a large reactor. It cannot have a nuclear meltdown and is so safe that typical control rods are not required at all. This design topples all the conventional arguments against conventional energy sources in such areas as:
* Waste Production
* Safety
* Proliferation
* Capital Costs and Location
* Environmental Impact
* Social Acceptance
* Flexibility
* Grid Infrastructure
* Efficiency
Should America take this step toward a New Era in Nuclear Energy Production? Hear the case for "The Electricity Rock" and then decide.
Speaker: Dr. Joe Bonometti
Dr. Bonometti has extensive engineering experience in the government, within industry, and in academia over a 25-year career. Recently completing an assignment as the NASA Chair Professor at the Naval Post graduate School, he supported a ship design study that utilized advanced nuclear power derived from thorium. Working at NASA for ten years as a technology manager, lead systems engineer, nuclear specialist, and propulsion researcher, he lead several NASA tiger teams in evaluating the Nuclear System Initiatives fission demonstration vehicle and missions. He managed the Emerging Propulsion Technology Area for in-space systems, the Marshall Air Launch team, as well as a variety of other power and propulsion assignments and is now the Lead Systems Engineer for the Ares I-Y flight. After earning a Doctorate degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Alabama in Huntsville, he spent several years as a Research Scientist & Senior Research Engineer at the UAH Propulsion Research Center where he served as a Principal Investigator and manager for the Solar Thermal Laboratory. He has worked as a Senior Mechanical Designer at Pratt & Whitney supporting aircraft engine manufacturing and at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory within the laser fusionprogram. A graduate from the United States Military Academy, at West Point, where he studied nuclear physics and engineering, Dr. Bonometti served as an officer in the United States Army Corps of Engineers; both in combat and district engineering management assignments. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Virginia, and has authored numerous aerospace technical publications, particularly propulsion and space systems technologies. His technical expertise includes nuclear engineering, specialized mechanical & materials research, space plasmas & propulsion, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and space systems engineering.
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Quantum neural computing theory of consciousness -- Subhash Kak (Video 17:04)
Sages and Scientists 2013 -- on the essence of Indian civilization and connections with science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnO45AtGrM0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnO45AtGrM0
Published on Apr 11, 2014
Topic: Neuroscience, Quantum Mechanics, & Vedic Wisdom
We describe the confluence in the understanding of wholeness, paradox, and transformation from the perspectives of neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and Vedic wisdom.
Our understanding of reality occurs in the mind and, therefore, it is a construction of the mind. According to quantum mechanics, we cannot know what reality is, we can only interact with it and speak of our observations. What the state function of a system or universe gives us upon probing depends on what the instruments can elicit. We are like individuals in Plato's cave who must infer the true forms from the shadows on the wall. Reality, at its deepest level, is a superposition of mutually exclusive attributes. At the experiential level this superposition is characterized by complementarity. In physics and biology this is summarized in the polarities of particles and waves, and the living and the dead; within the individual's heart, the polarities are that of freedom and subjection, grandeur and abjectness, Eros and Thanatos. Wholeness transcends complementary categories, and in our reductionist commonsensical conception, we see paradoxes. Self-transformation is the process in which we journey to greater wholeness from the fragmented views that we are conditioned into by materialistic culture, classroom education and the media. That mind constructs its reality is obvious considering people from other cultural areas and in extreme emotional states view events very differently, and autists perceive the world in their own unique ways. Sages and scientists provide us visions of the whole.
Speaker Bio:
Subhash Kak is Regents Professor of Computer Science at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Born in Srinagar, Kashmir, he was educated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His current research is in the theories of neural networks and quantum information. He has also worked on archaeoastronomy and written on history of science and on art. He has made the surprising discovery that the ancient Indians knew that the sun and the moon are approximately 108 times their respective diameters from the earth. This knowledge was coded into temple architecture, in the 108 poses of Indian classical dance, and the 108 prayer beads of the japa mala.
His work has been showcased in the popular media including Discovery and History channels, PBS, Dutch Public TV OHM, and in a documentary on music called Raga Unveiled. His writings on the philosophy of mind show how recursion plays a fundamental role in art, music and aesthetics. He is the author of twenty books which include six books of verse. The distinguished Indian scholar Govind Chandra Pande compared his poetry to that of William Wordsworth.
He coined the term quantum neural computing which is a theory of consciousness that is partly classical and partly quantum. In this theory, neural networks do conscious and pre-conscious processing whereas the virtual particles associated with the quantum dynamics of the brain are the ground for the unconscious.
We describe the confluence in the understanding of wholeness, paradox, and transformation from the perspectives of neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and Vedic wisdom.
Our understanding of reality occurs in the mind and, therefore, it is a construction of the mind. According to quantum mechanics, we cannot know what reality is, we can only interact with it and speak of our observations. What the state function of a system or universe gives us upon probing depends on what the instruments can elicit. We are like individuals in Plato's cave who must infer the true forms from the shadows on the wall. Reality, at its deepest level, is a superposition of mutually exclusive attributes. At the experiential level this superposition is characterized by complementarity. In physics and biology this is summarized in the polarities of particles and waves, and the living and the dead; within the individual's heart, the polarities are that of freedom and subjection, grandeur and abjectness, Eros and Thanatos. Wholeness transcends complementary categories, and in our reductionist commonsensical conception, we see paradoxes. Self-transformation is the process in which we journey to greater wholeness from the fragmented views that we are conditioned into by materialistic culture, classroom education and the media. That mind constructs its reality is obvious considering people from other cultural areas and in extreme emotional states view events very differently, and autists perceive the world in their own unique ways. Sages and scientists provide us visions of the whole.
Speaker Bio:
Subhash Kak is Regents Professor of Computer Science at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Born in Srinagar, Kashmir, he was educated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His current research is in the theories of neural networks and quantum information. He has also worked on archaeoastronomy and written on history of science and on art. He has made the surprising discovery that the ancient Indians knew that the sun and the moon are approximately 108 times their respective diameters from the earth. This knowledge was coded into temple architecture, in the 108 poses of Indian classical dance, and the 108 prayer beads of the japa mala.
His work has been showcased in the popular media including Discovery and History channels, PBS, Dutch Public TV OHM, and in a documentary on music called Raga Unveiled. His writings on the philosophy of mind show how recursion plays a fundamental role in art, music and aesthetics. He is the author of twenty books which include six books of verse. The distinguished Indian scholar Govind Chandra Pande compared his poetry to that of William Wordsworth.
He coined the term quantum neural computing which is a theory of consciousness that is partly classical and partly quantum. In this theory, neural networks do conscious and pre-conscious processing whereas the virtual particles associated with the quantum dynamics of the brain are the ground for the unconscious.
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Car Runs For 100 Years Without Refueling - The Thorium (Video 11:13)
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India must know the real Modi -- Ram Jethmalani
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http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/india-must-know-the-real-modi
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China's call for thorium reactors by 2024
Chinese scientists urged to develop new thorium nuclear reactors by 2024
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PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 18 March, 2014, 11:42pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 19 March, 2014, 4:50pm
Beijing wants to cut its reliance on coal-fired power. Photo: AP
The deadline to develop a new design of nuclear power plant has been brought forward by 15 years as the central government tries to reduce the nation's reliance on smog-producing coal-fired power stations.
A team of scientists in Shanghai had originally been given 25 years to try to develop the world's first nuclear plant using the radioactive element thorium as fuel rather than uranium, but they have now been told they have 10, the researchers said.
"In the past the government was interested in nuclear power because of the energy shortage. Now they are more interested because of smog," said Professor Li Zhong, a scientist working on the project.
Premier Li Keqiang told the national legislature in Beijing on March 5 that the government had declared "war on pollution", and measures to tackle the problem included closing coal-fired power stations. About 70 per cent of China's electricity was produced by coal-fired plants last year, according to government figures. Nuclear power stations generated just over 1 per cent.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences set up an advanced research centre in Shanghai in January with the aim of developing the world's first industrial reactor using thorium molten-salt technology, according to a statement from the academy's Bureau of Major Research and Development Programmes.
All commercial nuclear plants in China, whether in operation or underconstruction, are designed to use uranium as fuel, but the country has run short of uranium and depends on imports from other countries.
The technology under development in Shanghai involves burning the radioactive element thorium in a salty "soup" to, in theory, release heat many times greater than today'sreactors.
Other potential advantages of the technology are that China has large thorium reserves, at least the world's third-largest, according to some experts. The process may also produce less radioactive waste.
Professor Li, director of the project's molten salt chemistry andengineering technology division, said the smog crisis had provided huge impetus for their research.
"The problem of coal has become clear. If the average energy consumption per person doubles, this country will be choked to death by polluted air," he said. "Nuclear power provides the only solution for massive coal replacement and thorium carries much hope."
Researchers working on the project said they were under unprecedented "war-like" pressure to succeed and some of the technical challenges they faced were difficult, if not impossible to solve in such a short period.
They would also probably face opposition from sections of the Chinese public after the nucleardisaster at Fukushima in Japan and also from some senior officials with interests in the coal industry who were unlikely to give their backing to a new form of nuclear energy, they said.
One of the technical difficulties is that the molten salt produces highly corrosive chemicals such as fluoride that could damage the reactor.
The power plant would also have to operate at extremely high temperatures, raising concerns about safety. In addition, researchers have limited knowledge of how to use thorium.
"We are still in the dark about the physical and chemical nature of thorium in many ways," said Li. "There are so many problems to deal with but so little time."
Western countries such as the United States have experimented with thorium reactors but gave up on the technology because of the engineering difficulties.
Analysts have also suggested the US lost interest in thorium as a fuel for reactors because uranium was a more suitable material to produce nuclear weapons.
Interest, however, has been revived in recent years and research projects have been established in several countries, including the United States, France and Japan.
"This is definitely a race," said Li. China "faces fierce competition from overseas and to get there first will not be an easy task", he said.
The thorium reactor is not the only technology China is researching in an attempt to upgrade its nuclear power programme.
These projects are beautiful to scientists, but nightmarish to engineers
The Hefei Institute of Physical Science in Anhui province finished construction last month of the world's largest experimental platform for an accelerator reactor that burns nuclear fuel with a powerful "particle gun".
An experimental fast reactor is also operating in Beijing, and construction has started of a demonstration plant for a very-high-temperature reactor at Shidao Bay in Shandong province.
Professor Gu Zhongmao, an official at the China Institute of Atomic Energy, said so-called fourth-generation reactors were troubled by technological uncertainties, and to solve the smog issue the central government should approve and start construction of new nuclear power plants using existing technology as soon as possible.
The thorium reactors would need years, if not decades, to overcome the corrosion issue and the stability of accelerator-driven plants was also in doubt, he said.
"These projects are beautiful to scientists, but nightmarish to engineers," he said.
Smog would be reduced noticeably if nuclear power produced 5 to 10 per cent of the nation's electricity, according to Gu. China has about 20 nuclear reactors and is building nearly 30 more.
Its use of nuclear power is tiny compared with countries such as France, which produces about 75 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power plants.
After the Fukushima nuclear disaster three years ago, the central government withheld approval for new nuclear plants.
Part of the resistance came from the public, as many people were worried that nuclear plants would cause more serious contamination than the pollution created by coal-fired stations, Gu said.
Government agencies such as the Ministry of Water Resources also opposed the construction of nuclear plants in land-locked areas over concerns that radioactive waste would worsen river pollution.
"To completely get rid of smog, nuclear power is the only option," according to Gu.
"If we build as many nuclear power stations as there are in France and Japan, we will also enjoy blue skies and clean air like they do."
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Call for thorium reactors by 2024
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1452011/chinese-scientists-urged-develop-new-thorium-nuclear-reactors-2024?page=all
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More proof on Robert-Vadra links, Swamy demands probe
See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/04/request-for-cvc-probe-investigation-of.html
Request for CVC probe & investigation of SoniaG son-in-law Robert Vadra in Rs. 10,000 crore Lutyens scam, endangering national security -- Dr. Swamy writes to President
More proof on Robert-Vadra links, Swamy demands probe
The News Minute | April 14, 2014 | 5.15 pm IST
Bangalore: BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has written to the President asking for CBI and CVC probe on Robert Vadra's connection with real estate giant DLF. Swamy alleges that Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra is engaged in massive violations land grabbing, illegal money-parking by floating several companies.
Swamy says that it was already known that five companies owned by Vadra mademoney transfers and huge investments with DLF Group.
Read Economic Times- DLF did Rs 446 crore deals with Robert Vadra in 50:50 hotel venture.
Swamy alleges that there is proof to show that Robert Vadra floated another set of sixnew companies between June to August 2012 at the same address: 268, Sukhdev Vihar, Delhi – 110025.
Swamy says in his letter that in five of these companies, one Amit Mehta, a DLF official, is the Director.
"The RoC documents of Greenwave Agro Private limited exposes that Amit Mehta is a DLF’s nominee. His email id given to RoC is : corporateaffairs @ dlf.in is the email id of all DLF Group Directors to RoC," Swamy mentions in a note attached to letter. (RoC is the Registrar of Companies)
Swamy claims that the floating of these companies between June-August 2012 is linked to the permission to use 23 acres of dairy land near Rashtrapati Bhavan for construction of high rise building to Keventers Co. a company which is now owned by DLF.
Subramanian Swamy had first written to the President in March 2014 about 23 acres of dairy land which was converted to land for building a luxury apartment buildingnear the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
The land was made available for building high rise apartments for Keventers and Co, which was by then acquired by DLF at a price of Rs. 65 crores after prolongedlitigation. Swamy had opposed this on two counts:
- The value of land in 2012 when permission was granted for the conversion, should be worth not Rs. 65 crores but more than Rs.10,000 crores.
- High rise buildings would seriously compromise the security of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. A number of departments including the PMO had put in written objections to this deal from the security angle.
Swamy told The News Minute, "I have now established the nexus between DLF and Robert Vadra. President should take action."
A Congress spokesperson we approached, declined to comment.
The six new companies are and the dates on which the companies were registered:
- Lifeline Agrotech Private Ltd on June 15, 2012
- Greenwave Agro Private Limited on July 23, 2012
- Rightline Agriculture Private Ltd on July 31, 2012
- Future Infra Agro Private Limited on August 3, 2012
- Best Seasons Agro Private Limited on August 14, 2012
- Prime Time Agro Private Limited on August 27, 2012.
DLF did Rs 446 crore deals with Robert Vadra in 50:50 hotel venture
(These dealings raise further…)
NEW DELHI: DLF Ltd, India's largest real estate company, has carried out three transactions worth Rs 446 crore with its hotel joint venture since giving Robert Vadra a 50% stake in it for Rs 35 crore in October 2009, an ET investigation has uncovered.
These dealings, many experts say, raise further questions about the depth of the business relationship between DLF, a listed company, and entities owned by the son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
These transactions find no mention in the documents released in the past week by activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal on the business dealings between DLF and Vadra, which have ignited a political and media firestorm.
According to DLF annual reports, the first of these three transactions took place in 2009-10, when it soldassets for Rs 150 crore to the 50:50 hotel JV, Saket Courtyard Hospitality. The hotel JV is yet to pay DLF for this transaction.
In an emailed response, DLF says this transaction related to the transfer of ownership rights of the HiltonGarden Inn in Delhi, the JV's sole hotel property. "The valuation was done by independent chartered engineers and government-approved valuers," it says.
Next, in 2011-12, DLF sold development rights - essentially, the rights, with regulatory clearances, to build on a plot of land - for Rs 161 crore to Prowess Buildcon Pvt Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the hotel JV.
DLF says this related to the development of an "affordable housing project" spread over 44 acres in Haryana. The project, DLF says, was cancelled because it was financially unviable due to escalating cost of construction and lack of government incentives.
As a result of these problems, DLF decided to covert this venture into plotted or group housing projects. "These projects are underway and would take another three to four years to complete," the company statement says.
The third transaction, in the same year, is a Rs 135-crore loan shown in the 2011-12 annual report of DLF.
Explaining this transaction, the company says "no further loan" has been extended. Instead, it adds, the amount outstanding for the hotel transfer - the first transaction - has been converted into a loan.
"The outstanding amount of DLF Limited was intended to be paid back to DLF by obtaining a loan from a bank/financial institution, which could not materialise due to partnership structure and change in lending regulations," the company says. "DLF continues to charge interest at 12% per annum, compounded quarterly."
The latest annual report of DLF also shows that, as of March 31, 2012, it was yet to receive Rs 132 crore of the total Rs 311-crore proceeds from the two sale transactions.
Questions Terms of Vadra-DLF Relationship
Since the receivables figure in the DLF annual report is on a consolidated basis, it nets out transactions involving DLF.
So, in this case, DLF will not include half of what Saket Courtyard Hospitality owes it as it holds 50% in the JV. Thus, this Rs 132 crore is effectively the amount owed by Sky Light Hospitality - the Vadra entity that holds 50% in the JV - to DLF.
An email sent to Vadra's personal secretary, Manoj Arora, seeking his response to all three transactions, remained unanswered.
While these dealings disclose no apparent illegality, they raise questions about the terms of the relationship between Vadra and DLF, experts say.
A former chief financial officer of a real estate company, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says if advances are due for more than six months, the standard practice is for the auditor to ask the management for an explanation. "If not satisfied, it should disclose it in the notes to accounts," he adds.
No financial documents of Saket Courtyard Hospitality, an unlisted company, are available in the public domain. Although unlisted companies have to file their annual accounts with the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA), Saket Courtyard Hospitality has not done so yet because it existed as a partnership firm till May 2011, which exempted it from this requirement. Subsequently, it became a private limited company, and came under the MCA ambit, but its first annual report is not yet available on the MCA website.
However, in its 2011-12 annual report, DLF stated its share of several financial metrics of Saket Courtyard Hospitality, which can be extrapolated to gauge the hotel JV's numbers.
Such an extrapolation shows that, in 2011-12, Saket Courtyard Hospitality posted revenues of Rs 25.4 crore and a net loss of Rs 6.8 crore. And, as of March 31, 2012, it had fixed assets of Rs 142.5 crore and current liabilities of Rs 140 crore.
An auditor from a multinational firm, not wanting to be named, says the key question in such a transaction involving the transfer of assets and development rights to a JV is this: "When DLF decided to transfer, did it consider the JV's ability to pay back, given its cash flows?"
According to MCA filings, DLF has also extended an unsecured loan of Rs 27 crore to Prowess Buildcon in 2010-11, which has since been repaid. At the time of the loan, the company was a 50:50 JV between the DLF group and Vadra's Sky Light Hospitality.
Another DLF group company, DLF New Gurgaon Home Developers Ltd, extended a loan of Rs 15 crore to Prowess Buildcon during the same period. "The amounts must have been utilised to acquire development rights or pay government charges," a DLF spokesperson said.
(With inputs from Sruthijith KK & Ravi Teja Sharma)
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Gujarat model is antidote to failed Bengal model of Nehru and Mahalanobis -- R Vaidyanathan
FIRST POST –BIZ- 14-04-2014
Gujarat model is antidote to failed Bengal model of Nehru and Mahalanobis
Jawaharlal Nehru's model of the heavy-handed state had the backing of Bengali intellectuals like PC Mahalanobis. It has failed miserably. Time to take up the freedom oriented Gujarat model. AFP
Whenever someone talks of the Gujarat model of development, experts on both sides of the political divide pounce on statistics to appreciate or condemn the state’s performance. But the issue goes beyond some statistics about power production or enrollment in government schools. It goes beyond mere growth or social indicators.
After independence, and particularly after the Avadi Congress (1955), the Congress party decided to adopt the “socialistic pattern of society” as our development mantra. The country opted for economic planning under the tutelage of PC Mahalanobis and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. We essentially opted for the Soviet model in Devnagari script.
The entire planning process and the role of the state was hijacked by different shades of Left-wing thinkers, with some criticising the others for not being adequately red. From Mahalanobis downwards, Bengali intellectuals played a very large role in this leftward tilt for more than 40 years and, during the entire period, economists from the other side were denied space or official patronage.
If you go back in history, the theoreticians of this failed model - which we can call the Bengal model for simplicity and also because most of its proponents were (and still are) from that province - dominated national discourse. Even today, we can say that Amartya Sen is the ultimate guru of this idea of development where the state plays a domineering role.
In simple terms, the Bengal model suggested that the state owed every individual something – from womb to tomb. Family responsibility was nationalised and everyone, from children to senior citizens, had a right to expect something from the state.
The word 'duty' was abolished from the dictionary and a rights-based society evolved. Some sections of the middle class lapped it up, since the Soviet Union gave legitimacy to this draconian idea and the public sector provided job opportunities to the educated. Nehru called public sector units the temples of modern India. The system was built on layers of regulations and a solid licence-permit-quota raj was created to administer it all. It accentuated corruption and government employees and middlemen became extortionists. Politicians became experts at stealing public funds.
Entrepreneurship was frowned upon and profit became a dirty word. Businessmen were derided as “banias” and metaphorically threatened with hanging from the nearest lamp-post. For example, price increases have always been blamed on hoarding by banias – the solution to inflation is thus to go after the banias. However, the system began to crumble once it failed to produce results and the country went near bankrupt in 1991. Once the economy was opened up, people began to demand products and services, which was beyond the comprehension of the government system. Newer opportunities sent public sector units scurrying for subsidies, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s destroyed the theoretical underpinnings of the socialist system.
If, in the sixties and seventies, the dream of every new engineer was to join one of the public sector units like BEL, Bhel or HMT, in the 1980s and 1990s, their preferences underwent a sea change.
But the massively corrupt system refused to die and the Frankenstein state, created over 60 years, found new ways to extend itself by conferring new rights on the people: right to information; right to work (MNREGA), right to food; right to education and now right to health. This is nothing but the state seeking new ways to retain the system of loot based on public resources.
The moth-eaten state structure has been unable to cater to these rights, and people, anyway, found ways to buy their way into the system. With huge resources now being devoted to sustaining these rights, klepto capitalists have found ways to manipulate the free market and the state to fatten themselves.
It is in this bleak and degenerate scenario that we have seen the emergence of the Gujarat model with an alternate vision of a new polity, enabled by a minimal state. The idea has always been around – with the late C Rajagopalachari being one of its backers – but in essence the Gujarat model is about having the state play a lesser role, and the people a larger one.
The model is simple. Entrepreneurship is encouraged and celebrated. People should have huge opportunities for employment, but not necessarily in government jobs. Individuals and families should work/earn/eat and live on their own efforts instead of depending on a benevolent state. Individuals are responsible for their actions.
The concept of a small state means having fewer regulations and more self-regulation. A self-regulatory framework policed by an effective law enforcement machinery which guarantees swift and severe punishment for violations can be the best form of governance.
The Gujarat model, for example, is to charge for power but provide it 24 hours. The Bengal model is to provide power free or with heavy subsidies - with the people getting more power cuts rather than power. Unfortunately, the Bengal model has become the norm all over India. It is the Gujarat model, whatever its shortcomings, that offers a different paradigm and different set of possibilities.
The battle between Nehruvian socialism and Rajaji’s self-restrained market economy has just been joined. It is a tectonic shift and it need not be trivialised by looking only at growth numbers or indicators based on one’s ideological preferences. The fact is Nehru’s vision has failed completely and it is Rajaji’s that needs to be given a chance now. The Gujarat model is an antidote to the flawed Bengal model.
The author is professor of finance at IIM, Bangalore. The views are personal
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Vadra linked to DLF, has illegal money. Swamy seeks CBI probe into Vadra's 6 new firms
SWAMY SEEKS CBI PROBE INTO VADRA’S 6 NEW FIRMS
Tuesday, 15 April 2014 | PNS | New Delhi
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BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Monday urged President Pranab Mukherjee to direct the CVC and CBI for an immediate probe into the six new companies floated by Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra.
In a letter to Mukherjee, Swamy alleged that the six new companies formed by Vadra were involved in the dubious transfer of 23 acres ofprime land near the Rashtrapati Bhavan to real estate major DLF.
Swamy alleged that the six companies floated by Vadra in mid-2012 were during the same time the Urban Development Ministrydubiously allotted the prime land nearRashtrapati Bhavan to a DLF Group company. Providing documents with his complaint to Mukherjee, Swamy said one Amit Mehta is the Promoter and Director of all the new companies of Vadra and his email id given to the Registrar of Companies (RoC) was the same id used by the corporate directors of the DLF Group.
“This is in continuation of my earlier letter of the scam arising from de-classification of the Keventer Diary Ltd land for residential use to the benefit of a real estate company called DLF. It was obvious that without political influence this change in land use breaching national security and providing windfall profits would not have been possible.
“I have appended documents, which show that companies owned by son-in-law of Ms Sonia Gandhi, viz Robert Vadra, the DLF executive Mr Amit Mehta was Director. Form 32 copy of RoC proves this by Mr Mehta’s email address. Please take necessary steps including referring this letter to the Chief Vigilance Commissioner for probe and subsequent CBI investigation,” said Swamy in his letter to the President of India.
During June-August 2012, Vadra floated six companies with him as the Managing Director at the same address -- 268, Sukhdev Vihar, Delhi - 110025. These companies are: Lifeline Agrotech Private Limited, Greenwave Agro Private Limited, Rightline Agriculture Private Limited, Future Infra Agro Private Limited, Best Seasons Agro Private Limited and Prime Time Agro Private Limited.
Later, releasing the letter and documents to media, Swamy said these companies were floated during the same period when the UPA Government allotted the strategic prime land near the Rashtrapati Bhavan at a pittance to Vadra’s partner DLF in July 2012. “Amit Mehta is a Promoter and Director of all these companies according to Form 32 filed to Registrar of Companies by Vadra.
His email id given is corporateaffairs @ dlf.in. This is the same email id given by DLF Group to otherDirectors of their other companies. How come DLF’s email id is in Vadra’s companies? A thief will makemistakes during the loot by putting his stamp accidently,” said Swamy.
“President should direct CVC to launch an immediate CBI probe. Vadra floated these companies to pocket the quid-pro-quo from the dubious allotment of 23 acre prime land near Rashtrapati Bhavan to DLF. His six new companies were floated during the same time with a DLF executive when the Centre allotted Rs 20,000 crore worth land to DLF for just Rs 65 core. This is the last attempt of loot of the family in the fag end of UPA’s tenure,” said Swamy.
Comment:
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Meddling with national security? -- MG Devasahayam
Revelations made by Baru and Parekh in their Books summarise that the Government at Delhi has been a great threat to national security.
Read on Devasahayam's views on meddling with national scurity. The subtitle: Corruption and treason are the worst forms of threat to national security. Are we sure that this combine is not in place in India?
From Gfiles: Vol. 8, Issue 1 April 2014
Kalyanaraman
Meddling with National Security?
Read on Devasahayam's views on meddling with national scurity. The subtitle: Corruption and treason are the worst forms of threat to national security. Are we sure that this combine is not in place in India?
From Gfiles: Vol. 8, Issue 1 April 2014
Kalyanaraman
Meddling with National Security?
M.G.Devasahayam
Some weeks ago a group of Kashmiri students in Meerut were slapped with sedition charges just because they cheered the Pakistani cricket team when it won a match against India in the Asia cup. Some months ago sedition cases were registered against hundreds of fisher-folk in the coastal villages of southern Tamil Nadu, just because they raised their voice against the unsafe and livelihood-killing Russian-built Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant. Some years ago sedition charges and National Security Act were invoked against Dr. Binayak Sen just because he had in his possession some ‘Naxalite’ leaflets and letters.
Section 124A of Indian Penal Code describes Sedition thus: “Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in India….” In common parlance this is called treason, the most severe offence against the state, punishable with imprisonment for life. This provision of law is a powerful instrument to safeguard nation’s integrity, security and sovereignty and need to be used sparingly and with utmost diligence. But, in the virtual police state that we are, low level functionaries at the behest of fascist-type leaders and crony vested interests misuse this provision indiscriminately to suppress genuine dissent and protests that cause no threat to national security.
But when it comes to big bandicoots who openly and flauntingly indulge in activities that undermine nation’s security and sovereignty there is not a whimper as if they have total impunity. How else does one interpret the total inaction by the Government on the explosive formal complaint lodged by none other than a former Chief of the Indian Army to the Union Minister of Home Affairs on 13 November 2013? Probably this has happened for the first time in the annals of a democratic country. This shows the deep deprivation to which India’s governance has descended.
The array of charges in the complaint commence with the April 4, 2012 front-page banner-headlines in the Indian Express about the movement of a Hissar (Haryana) based mechanized infantry unit ‘towards Delhi’ on January 16, 2014 coinciding with the day General VK Singh approached the Supreme Court on his date of birth issue. The news report deliberately linked this move to “June 1984 when some mutineers from Sikh units had moved towards the capital in the wake of Operation Bluestar,” suggesting in a devious manner that the Hissar troop movement is also part of mutiny. The news report insinuated that the military leadership had turned politically incorrect and non-professional and Central Government has come under threat from our own Army. This is a clear case of ‘abetting mutiny by an officer, soldier in the Army and attempt to seduce any such officer and soldier from his allegiance or his duty’ attracting Section 131 IPC. This act being prejudicial to the defence of India and the security of the State also attracts Sections 3 (1) and (2) of the National Security Act 1980. The mens rea to commit the offence is evident from the fact that it had taken nearly three months to concoct, fabricate and put out a non-existingcoup d'état news story!
The second charge relates to a unit called the Technical Service Division (TSD). It was a covert operation agency, activities of which are directly related to the safety of the soldiers fighting on the borders, retribution on the enemy and the security of the citizens. By its very nature TSD operation was ‘top secret’. In that event, even the existence of TSD should never have been publicised. Further, if there is exposure of the actual working of the top-secret unit, leaking information about it could be treacherous, regardless of whether information is true or not.
Yet on March 2, 2012 India Today published a story that inter alia reads as below: “Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials say they are also concerned about the activities of a shadowy unit called the Technical Support Division within MI, which has reportedly been equipped with surveillance equipment. Who the targets were and for what purpose, are still not clear.” On 20thSeptember 2012 Indian Express reported that the Army has appointed Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia to head a panel that will review the functioning and efficacy of TSD that had gained notoriety following several allegations of irregularities. On 20thSeptember 2013 the same newspaper published a front page banner headlines story titled, “Unit set up by VK Singh used secret funds to try and topple J&K government, block Bikram Singh: Army probe” claiming to be a leak of a ‘Top Secret’ Army ‘Board of Officers inquiry’ report on the working of TSD. Even knowledge of the existence of TSD can help the nation's enemies and subvert the security of the country.
Indian Express made a blatantly false allegation that Army had paid money to J&K politicians to overthrow the duly elected Government of the State. The intention was to promote enmity between officers and soldiers of the Indian Army serving in Jammu & Kashmir and the government/people of that state thereby causing disturbance to harmony and national-integration.
Picking up from the Indian Express leak on TSD, on 24 September 2013 ‘The Hindu’ published a news story titled “VK Singh counters charges, admits ‘pro-India NGOs’ were funded”. This story inserted a blatantly false claim that ‘the panchayat elections of 2011 was a major achievement of the TSD’, a statement which the General never made. What is more, Editor of the Hindu went into a frenzy, got a story generated from the J&K Bureau Chief and published it on the Newspaper’s front page on 25 September 2013 stating that “an extremely serious apprehension of militant attacks on more than 33,000 panches and sarpanches had arisen because General VK Singh had completely discredited and maligned the panchayat elections of 2011.”
The General moved an application under Right to Information Act, 2005 before the Ministry of Defence asking for a copy of the said report of the Board of Officers and the details of the action taken in the wake of the same. While the same Report was freely floating among the select media, MoD informed him that the information so sought under the RTI Act cannot be provided as it was classified as secret under the section 8 (i) of the RTI Act!
Earlier, in March, 2012, someone in Government deliberately leaked out a top-secret letter from the COAS to the Prime Minister stating that “the army's tanks have run out of ammunition, the air defence is as good as obsolete and the infantry is short of critical weapons”. This leakage has been reportedly traced to an official in the Cabinet Secretariat and nothing is known as to what action has been taken in this regard so far.
The charges detailed above deal with very serious crimes of: promoting enmity between people of India, officers and soldiers of the Indian Army serving in Jammu & Kashmir and the people of that state; causing disturbance to harmony and national-integration; deliberately compromising the safety of the soldiers fighting on the borders and security of the citizens; abetting mutiny by an officer, soldier in the Army and attempting to seduce any such officer and soldier from his allegiance or his duty; willfully disclosing top-secret documents thereby threatening the sovereignty and integrity of India and the security of the State; deeply impacting the fighting capability and effectiveness of our Armed Forces in protecting citizens and safeguarding the nation’s security, integrity and sovereignty and serious prejudice to the defence of India and the security of the State
In his complaint the General categorically states that these serious offences have been committed due to abetment and conspiracy indulged in by civil and military officials (past and present) in the PMO, MoD, Army Headquarters and some prominent media personalities. According to him only thorough investigation would bring out the truth about who these persons are and what is their motive for indulging in activities aimed at destabilizing India and endangering its citizens.
The General is so sure of his facts that in a recent interview with an online daily www.thenewsminute.com he said this: “What we are dealing with here is nothing short of treason. Surely, it must be investigated. You find something against me I'll take it on the chest. But if these people are guilty, as they most certainly are, why are you shying away from taking any action? I think in most parts of the world treason is perhaps one of the most heinous of crimes.”
MHA maintained a stoic and deadly silence. The General therefore sent out a reminder on 09 December 2013. In this he had drawn attention to a letter written by former Naval Chief Admiral L. Ramdas along with senior civilian and military officials on 19 June 2012 to the Prime Minister and Defence Minister raising similar issues and seeking a Commission of Inquiry. Despite this reminder MHA remained deaf and dumb till the General through his advocate sent a legal Notice to Sushil Kumar Shinde to show cause as to why criminal action may not be initiated against him for his failure to act on the complaint regarding grave offences of sedition, treason and violation of Official Secrets Act by certain individuals as well as dereliction of duty in such a serious matter that has direct implication on India’s national security.
MHA panicked with its officials running around as ‘headless chicken’. But still there was only fraud and deceit in their minds and not effective action against the accused charged with treason. All they did was to send the General’s complaint with backdated forwarding letters marked ‘secret’ to Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Ministry of Defence for ‘appropriate action’. Can anything be more sinister and banal than this?
There was yet another attempted act of treason which was blocked by proactive counteraction by the veteran community led by General VK Singh and Lt. General Prakash Katoch. This pertained to the Ottawa based Atlantic Council, alleged to have links with Pakistan’s ISI, announcing in September 2012 the signing of an Agreement to demilitarize Siachen heights as part of Confidence Building Measure between India and Pakistan. This Agreement was negotiated by a 22-member India-Pakistan Track II team, headed on the Indian side by former Air Chief Marshall SP Tyagi, in its various meetings in Bangkok, Dubai, USA and finally at Lahore. This was despite the clear stand adopted by the Army, MoD and Ministry of External Affairs against ‘demilitarization’ of the glacier that has huge strategic value for India. The key facilitator in this act was a former Army Colonel, now a freelance blogger cum columnist who worked closely with the PMO very willing to consummate the Agreement!
Corruption and treason are the worst forms of threat to national security that have caused countries and governments to crumble and fall asunder. When both go hand-in-hand it is the deadliest of combinations that could destroy any nation or people. Are we sure this combine is not in place in India? The big question is,can the country hold, if so for how long?
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'Panchaloha idols belong to 13 AD': Archaeologists
'Panchaloha idols belong to 13 AD': Archaeologists
Pragit P,TNN | Apr 3, 2014, 12.02 PM ISTTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The 'panchaloha' idols recovered from a well at Malayinkeezhu near here on March 17 belong to 13th century AD, according to archaeologists. The idols, worth Rs 10 crore, are likely to be sculpted by craftsmen of the later Chola dynasty, according to them.
The idols, of Ganapati and Murugan, have been made of five metals -- gold, bronze, iron, silver and lead. "The idols contain a high percentage of gold. The method of mixing gold for idol-making was developed during the later Chola dynasty era that came after the 10th century. Moreover, the style of the sculpture looks similar to those of the then 'Tamizagam' which fell in the areas around modern-day Thanjavur," said archaeology department director G Premkumar. The department also found that parts of the fingers were missing from the idols. Police suspect that they might have been plucked out by thieves to ascertain the metal content in the idols.
According to temple archaeology experts, the kind of panchaloha idols recovered from the well are sculptured using the lost-wax method. It is a method of making a hard wax cast by mixingparaffin wax, resin from the tree Damara Orientalis and groundnut oil.
However, for making intricate parts of the idols like the eyes and nose, pure bee wax is used.
Police had earlier recovered a small Bala Ganapati idol from the well at Malayinkeezhu. The case is currently being investigated by the local police and the temple theft squad. Meanwhile, a police team from Tamil Nadu asserted that no cases of theft of such idols were reported in the state. Hence, the state archaeology department has the right to preserve the idols.http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Panchaloha-idols-belong-to-13-AD-Archaeologists/articleshow/33168176.cms
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The simmering Siachen and Indo-Pak ties -- MG Devasahayam
The simmering Siachen and Indo-Pak ties
MG Devasahayam IBNLive Specials | 15-Apr-2014 11:33 AM
In May 2005, as Indian and Pakistani Track I negotiators were reaching a 'settlement deal' on the forbidden Siachen Glacier, the then Chief of the Army Staff Joginder Jaswant Singh made an unexpected public statement. A deal would only work, he said, when Pakistan agreed to authenticate the 110-km Actual Ground Position Line dividing the two armies. The deal was about the 'demilitarisation' of the glacier, a euphemism for India vacating this strategic battle-ground to appease Pakistan and some common alien masters. Obviously it fell through.
In his Book 'The Accidental Prime Minister' Sanjaya Baru accuses General JJ Singh of playing double game: "In closed-door briefings, the General would say that a deal with Pakistan was doable, but in public he would back (AK) Antony when the Defence Minister chose not to back the PM." JJ Singh, vehemently denies this, but considering the past manipulations of this General including the obnoxious doctrine of 'Line of Succession' a jury need to be put out!
While so, on this simple revelation, Delhi is simmering even as temperature in Siachen glacier is hovering around -15 degree Celsius! Heat is such that BJP's highly-visible prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, has taken up this as a grave national security issue and has asked the non-visible Prime Minister to come clean, saying that this matter is going viral on social media. What is going around in the social media is a brief on the subsequent developments on Siachen under UPA II, when Baru was not there.
In September 2012, the Ottawa based Atlantic Council, alleged to have links with Pakistan's ISI, announced the signing of an agreement to demilitarize Siachen as part of Confidence Building Measure between India and Pakistan. This agreement was negotiated by a 22-member India-Pakistan Track II team, headed on the Indian side by former Air Chief Marshall SP Tyagi. The Pakistani side was led by General Jehangir Karamat, a former Pakistan Army Chief. Meetings were held at Bangkok, Dubai, USA and finally at Lahore. This was despite the clear stand adopted by the Army, Defence Ministry and Ministry of External Affairs against 'demilitarization' of the glacier that has huge strategic value for India.
There was something sinister in the whole thing because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been under pressure from the US to pull back from Siachen as a sop to the Pakistan Army who has been threatening to lease out Baltistan/Gilgit to China. It was also known that despite having no actual presence on Siachen, Pakistan continues to claim the territory.
As soon as details of the 'Agreement' were put up on the internet all hell broke loose. It went ballistic on the military (serving and veteran) email circuit in which I was also a part. Lt. General PC Katoch, a former commander of the Siachen Brigade fired the first salvo: "For decades, India has always distrusted the Atlantic Council, which is perceived to be in bed with the Pakistani military. In this arrangement Pakistan has grabbed the strategic opportunity to attain all its key goals. It is surmised that the PM is aiming for a Nobel Peace Prize to recover the legitimacy his Government has lost after a succession of scandals." This was followed up by an article by me and Kunal Verma (Author, 'The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why) in Gfiles in August 2012. Otherwise there was no whimper.
The just retired General VK Singh's take on the issue was nuanced and candid: "Let us first be very clear as to who is asking for this so-called demilitarization. The Pakistanis are not on the Siachen Glacier, but are west of the Saltoro Range. Contrary to what they want their own people to believe, they have a zero presence in Siachen. I wonder if demilitarization will also result in Pakistan withdrawing from Baltistan, pulling back to the west towards the Karakoram Highway. It is ludicrous that in such circumstances we are talking of demilitarization and withdrawal. Our troops are well established and administratively well off so what is the rationale to pull them out of the area?"
A set of twelve questions were posed by me to the Track II team: (i) Who appointed the Team and what are their credentials and service record in the Siachen area? (ii) Who all in the Government briefed the Team? (iii) Did the Team visit Siachen before inking the agreement? (iv) Was the decision of the Team unanimous? (v) Decision to demilitarize Siachen has grave military consequences. Were the three Service Chiefs consulted on this? (vi) This issue has serious strategic, deployment, logistics, demographic, displacement, cost and time implications for the Army. Was the matter discussed with the Northern Army Commander? (vii) After 'demilitarization' what additional measures will be required to check terrorist infiltration in Kashmir Valley? (viii) Is it merely a Track II initiative? If so why were the members briefed by Government officials before the Lahore meet? Were they not told that this team is "as good as Track I"? Does it not make it official? (ix) NSA is stated to have briefed the leader of the Team and one/two members separately? If so why? To firm up a secret deal? (x) The whole process, particularly signing of the Agreement was kept under wraps. Why this secrecy? (xi) On whose orders did some select members of the Team justify the agreement? (xii) Why was such a major decision not discussed in Parliament and President kept informed?
None of the Track-II participants answered even a single question, perhaps secure in the knowledge that their actions will be protected by those on behest of whom they had been acting. But faced with intense heat from several quarters, including charges of treachery, the Indian co-chair of Track II, a former Air Chief Marshall confessed that they only acted on orders and there were bigger players including the PMO behind this.
However three of the key players of Track II participated in the email exchanges. It included retired Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal who authored the original demilitarization plan in 2005 along with a Pakistani Army officer under the aegis of a US think-tank. This is what he said: "We have different views on the issue of the demilitarisation of the Siachen Conflict zone.... My views are consistent since the summer of 2005 when I did some research into the subject in a US think tank along with a Pakistani colleague and realised how both the nations were wrong in continuing to occupy their positions....."
This was followed-up by the co-chair ACM Tyagi who clarified: "Brig Gurmeet Kanwal has already sent an email...The press release by the Atlantic Council was approved by me and General J Karamat.... Before its release we in India informed the Service Chiefs and many Very Senior Offrs in the establishment dealing with Indo Pak issues... There was "No Conspiracy".... We were not appointed by any Government Agency nor do we have anything do with the Govt of India. While it is true that we did meet several Government functionaries to keep us up to date, we take full responsibility for what we say and do... We hold no official post, have no authority and we voice our individual opinions. We did not suggest that we should give up Siachen now. All that we agreed upon was that should the two sides ever agree to demilitarise then this could possibly be a way."
Col. (Retd) Ajay Shukla who was PMO's key facilitator in Track II was pontificating: "The crucial thing to understand about the Siachen Proposal is: it spells out the modalities for the demilitarization of Siachen, but does not say anything about when this demilitarization should be done. That vital question-i.e. whether to demilitarize Siachen at all-is a political issue that the two governments continue to discuss in the Track I Siachen dialogue. The modalities of demilitarization, naturally have relevance only after a full-fledged Siachen Accord between the two governments.... It is important to note that the much-vilified Track II dialogue is entirely in line with the Track I official dialogue with Pakistan. In that, India insists upon the authentication of ground positions as a pre-requisite for demilitarization. The Track II Siachen Proposal explicitly specifies that "The present ground positions would be jointly recorded and the records exchanged."
The no-nonsence General VK Singh could not take this crap and retorted: "Shuklaji, what are you defending? A jaunt given by the government to work out an informal agreement that can then be sold to the Public? Your defence is in itself an indictment of the stupidity of the group which attempted this."
Forced to the corner Col Shukla turned abusive. He called us all 'communal scums' and pointing to me wrote: "Amongst those with the most dubious credentials in this group is you. An IAS officer turned moralizer! What a combination, Sir-ji." This impotent outburst did not work and for the second time PMO beat a hasty retreat and Siachen lived for another day. But the questions still remain unanswered!
Finding the answers is the task cut out for the new Government. The Siachen issue has multiple ramifications and in light of Sanjaya Baru's revelations, it is perhaps vital that a detailed investigation is done. While it is possible that most of the Track II members were acting in good faith, the role of the three key members-Tyagi, Kanwal and Shukla-looks suspect. It is also imperative that General JJ Singh's role is also looked at, because it involves the Institutional Integrity of the Armed Forces that has been sliding down hill. Senior commanders are in the habit of compromising national interest and tell the political bosses what they want to hear. This is not acceptable.
Given the magnitude of what the Army has achieved over the last thirty years in securing not just the Glacier but also the Saltoro, we need to bury the issue once and for all. If for nothing else, we owe it to the blood, shed by our valiant soldiers to accomplish this. Let them at least be secure in the faith that while they guard the 'final' frontier, the gates to the country shall not be opened from within!
(Writer is a former Army and IAS Officer and author)↧
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Something is fishy in the State of India -- Struggle to get info. from Union Ministry of Urban Development on Lutyens scam
More proof on Robert-Vadra links, Swamy demands probe
Edward Keventor (Successors) Private Limited takes ex-party stay on CIC-verdict directing complete details of land-use change in Diplomatic Enclave (New Delhi)
It refers to CIC-verdict dated 03.12.2013 in appeal-number CIC/VS/A/2013/000256/05604 where Central Information Commissioner Vijai Sharma directed Union Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) to provide complete and detailed information on land-use change allowed from Dairy Farm to Residential Group Housing for property situated at Block No.48, Diplomatic Enclave, Sardar Patel Marg, New Delhi-110021 where media-reports indicated about serious security concerns raised by Rashtrapati Bhawan, Intelligence bureau, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and others concerned because of big 22-acre plot of land in close vicinity to Rashtrapati Bhawan.
I regularly chased ministry through telephone-calls when they continuously and most humbly kept on pleading to wait for some more days. Ultimately I had to make my submissions to CIC (copy sent to MoUD through PG-portal vide registration-number DOURD/E/2014/00277) on 04.03.2014. But soon after Edward Keventer (Successors) Private Limited (and not MoUD) obtained an ex-party stay-order on the CIC-verdict on 06.03.2014 in presence of lawyer from MoUD also in the court. No notice was however given to the undersigned petitioner. Enquiry is necessary into dubious role of MoUD which avoided complying with CIC-verdict even much after expiry of time-limit to give private company sufficient time to approach courts for challenging the CIC-verdict. It is significant that lawyer of MoUD was somehow present in the court when the matter came for hearing.
SUBHASH CHANDRA AGRAWAL
(Guinness Record Holder & RTI Activist)
PRSEC/E/2014/05165
DOURD/E/2014/00310
http://www.scribd.com/doc/218351232/KEVENTER-LPA470-2010http://www.scribd.com/doc/218351333/Cic-256-Moud-Diplomatic-Enclave
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The Global Banking Game Is Rigged, and the FDIC Is Suing -- Ellen Brown
The Global Banking Game Is Rigged, and the FDIC Is Suing
Monday, 14 April 2014 09:29By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt |Derivatives . . . have turned into a windfall for banks and a nightmare for taxpayers. . . . While banks are still collecting fixed rates of 3 to 6 percent, they are now regularly paying public entities as little as a tenth of one percent on the outstanding bonds, with rates expected to remain low in the future. Over the life of the deals, banks are now projected to collect billions more than they pay state and local governments – an outcome which amounts to a second bailout for banks, this one paid directly out of state and local budgets.
It is not just that local governments, universities and pension fundsmade a bad bet on these swaps. The game itself was rigged, as explained below. The FDIC is now suing in civil court for damages and punitive damages, a lead that other injured local governments and agencies would be well-advised to follow. But they need to hurry, because time on the statute of limitations is running out.
The Largest Cartel in World History
On March 14, 2014, the FDIC filed suit for LIBOR-rigging against sixteen of the world’s largest banks – including the three largest US banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup), the three largest UK banks, the largest German bank, the largest Japanese bank, and several of the largest Swiss banks. Bill Black, professor of law and economics and a former bank fraud investigator, calls them “the largest cartel in world history, by at least three and probably four orders of magnitude.”
LIBOR (the London Interbank Offering Rate) is the benchmark rate by which banks themselves can borrow. It is a crucial rate involved in hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivative trades, and it is set by these sixteen megabanks privately and in secret.
Interest rate swaps are now a $426 trillion business. That’s trillion with a “t” – about seven times the gross domestic product of all the countries in the world combined. According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in 2012 US banks held $183.7 trillion in interest-rate contracts, with only four firms representing 93% of total derivative holdings; and three of the four were JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America, the US banks being sued by the FDIC over manipulation of LIBOR.
Lawsuits over LIBOR-rigging have been in the works for years, and regulators have scored some very impressive regulatory settlements. But so far, civil actions for damages have been unproductive for the plaintiffs. The FDIC is therefore pursuing another tack.
But before getting into all that, we need to look at how interest-rate swaps work. It has been argued that the counterparties stung by these swaps got what they bargained for – a fixed interest rate. But that is not actually what they got. The game was rigged from the start.
The Sting
Interest-rate swaps are sold to parties who have taken out loans at variable interest rates, as insurance against rising rates. The most common swap is one where counterparty A (a university, municipal government, etc.) pays a fixed rate to counterparty B (the bank), while receiving from B a floating rate indexed to a reference rate such as LIBOR. If interest rates go up, the municipality gets paid more on the swap contract, offsetting its rising borrowing costs. If interest rates go down, the municipality owes money to the bank on the swap, but that extra charge is offset by the falling interest rate on its variable rate loan. The result is to fix borrowing costs at the lower variable rate.
At least, that is how it’s supposed to work. The catch is that the swap is a separate financial agreement – essentially an ongoing bet on interest rates. The borrower owes both the interest onits variable rate loan and what it must pay out on this separate swap deal. And the benchmarks for the two rates don’t necessarily track each other. As explained by Stephen Gandel on CNN Money:
The rates on the debt were based on something called the Sifma municipal bond index, which is named after the industry group that maintains the index and tracks muni bonds. And that’s what municipalities should have bought swaps based on.Instead, Wall Street sold municipalities Libor swaps, which were easier to trade and [were] quickly becoming a gravy train for the banks.
Historically, Sifma and LIBOR moved together. But that was before the greatest-ever global banking cartel got into the game of manipulating LIBOR. Gandel writes:
In 2008 and 2009, Libor rates, in general, fell much faster than the Sifma rate. At times, the rates even went in different directions. During the height of the financial crisis, Sifma rates spiked. Libor rates, though, continued to drop. The result was that the cost of the swaps that municipalities had taken out jumped in price at the same time that their borrowing costs went up, which was exactly the opposite of how the swaps were supposed to work.
The two rates had decoupled, and it was chiefly due to manipulation. As noted in the SEUI report:
[T]here is . . . mounting evidence that it is no accident that these deals have gone so badly, so quickly for state and local governments. Ongoing investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the California, Florida, and Connecticut Attorneys General implicate nearly every major bank in a nationwide conspiracy to rig bids and drive up the fixed rates state and local governments pay on their derivative contracts.
Changing the Focus to Fraud
Suits to recover damages for collusion, antitrust violations and racketeering (RICO), however, have so far failed. In March 2013, SDNY Judge Naomi Reece Buchwald dismissed antitrust and RICO claims brought by investors and traders in actions consolidated in her court, on the ground that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the claims. She held that the rate-setting banks’ actions did not affect competition, because those banks were not in competition with one another with respect to LIBOR rate-setting; and that “the alleged collusion occurred in an arena in which defendants never did and never were intended to compete.”
Okay, the defendants weren’t competing with each other. They were colluding with each other, in order to unfairly compete with the rest of the financial world – local banks, credit unions, and the state and local governments they lured into being counterparties to their rigged swaps. The SDNY ruling is on appeal to the Second Circuit.
In the meantime, the FDIC is taking another approach. Its 24-count complaint does include antitrust claims, but the emphasis is on damages for fraud and conspiring to keep the LIBOR rate low to enrich the banks. The FDIC is not the first to bring such claims, but its massive suit adds considerable weight to the approach.
Why would keeping interest rates low enrich the rate-setting banks? Don’t they make more money if interest rates are high?
The answer is no. Unlike most banks, they make most of their money not from ordinary commercial loans but from interest rate swaps. The FDIC suit seeks to recover losses caused to 38 US banking institutions that did make their profits from ordinary business and consumer loans – banks that failed during the financial crisis and were taken over by the FDIC. They include Washington Mutual, the largest bank failure in US history. Since the FDIC had to cover the deposits of these failed banks, it clearly has standing to recover damages, and maybe punitive damages, if intentional fraud is proved.
The Key Role of the Federal Reserve
The rate-rigging banks have been caught red-handed, but the greater manipulation of interest rates was done by the Federal Reserve itself. The Fed aggressively drove down interest rates to save the big banks and spur economic recovery after the financial collapse. In the fall of 2008, it dropped the prime rate (the rate at which banks borrow from each other) nearly to zero.
This gross manipulation of interest rates was a giant windfall for the major derivative banks. Indeed, the Fed has been called a tool of the global banking cartel. It is composed of 12 branches, all of which are 100% owned by the private banks in their districts; and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been the most important by far of these regional Fed banks. New York, of course is where Wall Street is located.
LIBOR is set in London; but as Simon Johnson observed in a New York Times article titled The Federal Reserve and the LIBOR Scandal, the Fed has jurisdiction whenever the “safety and soundness” of the US financial system is at stake. The scandal, he writes, “involves egregious, flagrant criminal conduct, with traders caught red-handed in e-mails and on tape.” He concludes:
This could even become a “tobacco moment,” in which an industry is forced to acknowledge its practices have been harmful – and enters into a long-term agreement that changes those practices and provides continuing financial compensation.
Bill Black concurs, stating, “Our system is completely rotten. All of the largest banks are involved—eagerly engaged in this fraud for years, covering it up.” The system needs a complete overhaul.
In the meantime, if the FDIC can bring a civil action for breach of contract and fraud, so can state and local governments, universities, and pension funds. The possibilities this opens up for California (where I’m currently running for State Treasurer) are huge. Fraud is grounds for rescission (terminating the contract) without paying penalties, potentially saving taxpayers enormous sums in fees for swap deals that are crippling cities, universities and other public entities across the state. Fraud is also grounds for punitive damages, something an outraged jury might be inclined to impose. My next post will explore the possibilities for California in more detail. Stay tuned.
ELLEN BROWN
Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com,http://PublicBankSolution.com, and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/23077-the-global-banking-game-is-rigged-and-the-fdic-is-suing
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SoniaG's near-complete subversion of the Cabinet System. For this Constitutional subversion, what is the punishment?
TOI EDIT:
Damning indictment: Sanjaya Baru's account of dual authority within UPA is a plausible explanation of what went wrong
Apr 14, 2014
Throughout the ten years of UPA rule Congress president Sonia Gandhi heaped praise on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his vision, leadership qualities and personal integrity. The latter, in turn, sometimes went to an embarrassing extent to return the compliment. But in Delhi's incestuous circle of senior politicians, bureaucrats and media persons, hardly anyone doubted that this mutual back-scratching was an elaborate charade.
What Sanjaya Baru — who served as media adviser to Manmohan Singh in the UPA-I regime — has done in his book 'The Accidental Prime Minister' is to say aloud what many others have been murmuring beneath their breath. Namely that the Congress president used her political secretary, Ahmed Patel, and her chosen loyalists in the Prime Minister's Office and Cabinet to call the shots in matters ranging from the appointment of individuals to positions of power and influence to interference in the formulation and implementation of government policies.
If Sonia Gandhi emerges in Baru's memoirs as a suave if manipulative figure behind the scenes, Manmohan Singh comes out as a victim. One of the few occasions when he asserted himself was when he threatened to put in his papers if he wasn't allowed to get the Indo-US nuclear deal through. Otherwise, he suffered one setback after another with stoicism. Senior ministers bypassed his authority and colleagues in PMO were at each other's throats in official meetings. And for all the acclaim he received for his spotless character, he was unable to check the government's slide into a quagmire of sleaze. So here was a Congress president who exercised power without responsibility, took credit for such successes as UPA was able to achieve and by that token attributed — often furtively — its failures to the executive. The result? A near-complete subversion of the Cabinet system.
This is no doubt a damning indictment of UPA. The timing of the book's publication, coming as it is during Lok Sabha polls, will certainly raise eyebrows. Some will even see in it an attempt to settle personal scores. The PMO's statement that the author has misused his privileged position and access to high office and peddled 'fiction' and 'coloured views' for commercial gain is only to be expected and must be seen in this context. But Baru hasn't breached any law. His faults, if any, can only be attributed to journalistic legerdemain.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Damning-indictment-Sanjaya-Barus-account-of-dual-authority-within-UPA-is-a-plausible-explanation-of-what-went-wrong/articleshow/33711669.cms
Damning indictment: Sanjaya Baru's account of dual authority within UPA is a plausible explanation of what went wrong
Apr 14, 2014
Throughout the ten years of UPA rule Congress president Sonia Gandhi heaped praise on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his vision, leadership qualities and personal integrity. The latter, in turn, sometimes went to an embarrassing extent to return the compliment. But in Delhi's incestuous circle of senior politicians, bureaucrats and media persons, hardly anyone doubted that this mutual back-scratching was an elaborate charade.
What Sanjaya Baru — who served as media adviser to Manmohan Singh in the UPA-I regime — has done in his book 'The Accidental Prime Minister' is to say aloud what many others have been murmuring beneath their breath. Namely that the Congress president used her political secretary, Ahmed Patel, and her chosen loyalists in the Prime Minister's Office and Cabinet to call the shots in matters ranging from the appointment of individuals to positions of power and influence to interference in the formulation and implementation of government policies.
If Sonia Gandhi emerges in Baru's memoirs as a suave if manipulative figure behind the scenes, Manmohan Singh comes out as a victim. One of the few occasions when he asserted himself was when he threatened to put in his papers if he wasn't allowed to get the Indo-US nuclear deal through. Otherwise, he suffered one setback after another with stoicism. Senior ministers bypassed his authority and colleagues in PMO were at each other's throats in official meetings. And for all the acclaim he received for his spotless character, he was unable to check the government's slide into a quagmire of sleaze. So here was a Congress president who exercised power without responsibility, took credit for such successes as UPA was able to achieve and by that token attributed — often furtively — its failures to the executive. The result? A near-complete subversion of the Cabinet system.
This is no doubt a damning indictment of UPA. The timing of the book's publication, coming as it is during Lok Sabha polls, will certainly raise eyebrows. Some will even see in it an attempt to settle personal scores. The PMO's statement that the author has misused his privileged position and access to high office and peddled 'fiction' and 'coloured views' for commercial gain is only to be expected and must be seen in this context. But Baru hasn't breached any law. His faults, if any, can only be attributed to journalistic legerdemain.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Damning-indictment-Sanjaya-Barus-account-of-dual-authority-within-UPA-is-a-plausible-explanation-of-what-went-wrong/articleshow/33711669.cms
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