By Vishant Shah / Aizawl
The fervour of two events driving the country crazy — Sachin Tendulkar’s swansong Tests and the upcoming assembly elections — is missing almost entirely in Mizoram.
Being in a football-crazy state, it is understandable that most television sets are tuned in to mundane Hindi soaps, films dubbed in the local language and western music videos even as the Maestro turns out at Kolkata’s Eden Garden. But the absence of any din related to polls — barely a fortnight away, is conspicuous, more so for a state that recorded an impressive 82% voter turnout in 2008.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Tripura. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Tripura. Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Sunday, May 26, 2013
WHY CHHATTISGARH CAUGHT IN 'NAXAL NAPPING'?
By Mithilesh Mishra / Raipur
“This period of peace,” Mahendra Karma had warned, “is dangerous for us.” The founder of the Salwa Judum anti-Maoist militia was shot dead on Saturday night, two years after the Supreme Court disbanded it; he was dragged out of his bullet-proof car as the commandos tasked with protecting him fled.
Former chief minister Vidya Charan Shukla was critically injured in the ambush, which claimed Karma’s life, along with Sukma MLA Kawasai Lakma. Nandkumar Patel, the state’s Congress chief, is missing—feared kidnapped, along with members of his family.
“This period of peace,” Mahendra Karma had warned, “is dangerous for us.” The founder of the Salwa Judum anti-Maoist militia was shot dead on Saturday night, two years after the Supreme Court disbanded it; he was dragged out of his bullet-proof car as the commandos tasked with protecting him fled.
Former chief minister Vidya Charan Shukla was critically injured in the ambush, which claimed Karma’s life, along with Sukma MLA Kawasai Lakma. Nandkumar Patel, the state’s Congress chief, is missing—feared kidnapped, along with members of his family.
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Will Indian Politicians Ever Stop Using Champion Athletes For Personal Glory?
By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE
Fights over Sakshi Malik, PV Sindhu and Dipa Karmakar highlight the disturbing mentality of our political class.
It is said that history only remembers the winners. History may well be kind to victors, but there is one section of society which uses them like trending topics on Twitter or Google, shamelessly riding their popularity to draw attention to themselves.
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
Investigation: The Unending Saga Of 'Forest' Fake PhDs
A INNLIVE investigation reveals how India’s premier institute for forestry research bent rules to grant doctorates to several forest service officers. The entire investigation runs on the information flowed over the series of visits conducted by the INNLIVE teams in various places and the main campus in Dehradun.
A corrupt clique of Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers has cankered one of India’s proud institutions, the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), which has an illustrious history to match its heritage building in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
A corrupt clique of Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers has cankered one of India’s proud institutions, the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), which has an illustrious history to match its heritage building in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Average Deposit In Accounts Under 'Jan Dhan Yojana' Scheme Doubled In 21 Months
By NEWS KING | INNLIVE
The number of accounts opened under the Prime Minister's financial inclusion programme quadrupled between September 2014 and May 2016.
The average deposit per account under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana – a financial inclusion programme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August 2014 – increased 118%, from Rs 795 in September 2014 to Rs 1,735 in May 2016, according to IndiaSpend's analysis of government data.
The number of accounts opened under the Prime Minister's financial inclusion programme quadrupled between September 2014 and May 2016.
The average deposit per account under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana – a financial inclusion programme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August 2014 – increased 118%, from Rs 795 in September 2014 to Rs 1,735 in May 2016, according to IndiaSpend's analysis of government data.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
'ARUNACHAL' TOPS IN HANDLING 'CHILD NUTRITION'
By M H Ahssan / New Delhi
The problem is likely to be less severe than UN statistics indicate, given faulty yardsticks. If asked to name the state with the lowest incidence of child malnutrition in India, readers will overwhelmingly pick one of Kerala, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab or West Bengal. But they will all be wrong by a wide margin: none of these states appears among even the top five performers.
The problem is likely to be less severe than UN statistics indicate, given faulty yardsticks. If asked to name the state with the lowest incidence of child malnutrition in India, readers will overwhelmingly pick one of Kerala, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab or West Bengal. But they will all be wrong by a wide margin: none of these states appears among even the top five performers.
Friday, March 07, 2014
The 'Striking Similarities' Of 'NaMo And Indira's' Politics
By Rajdeep Sardesai (Star Guest Writer)
OPINION Narendra Modi today claims to derive inspiration from Sardar Patel and Swami Vivekananda even if his original icon was the long-serving RSS chief, Guru Golwalkar. Patel and Vivekananda are natural choices for the BJP's prime ministerial candidate: with Patel, there is the instant strongman from Gujarat connect while Vivekananda gives him the image of an "inclusive" Hindu nationalist. The truth is, Modi's real role model in the 2014 election is someone very different: the former prime minister, Indira Gandhi.
OPINION Narendra Modi today claims to derive inspiration from Sardar Patel and Swami Vivekananda even if his original icon was the long-serving RSS chief, Guru Golwalkar. Patel and Vivekananda are natural choices for the BJP's prime ministerial candidate: with Patel, there is the instant strongman from Gujarat connect while Vivekananda gives him the image of an "inclusive" Hindu nationalist. The truth is, Modi's real role model in the 2014 election is someone very different: the former prime minister, Indira Gandhi.
Monday, April 15, 2013
GUEST COLUMN: Manipur And Its Demand For Internal Autonomy
By Rangja Samerkez (Guest Writer)
Recent days have seen much commentary on the festering turmoil in Manipur where different ethnic groups are making competing autonomy demands. These demands were always there, but they were given a fresh lease of life by the ongoing Indo-Naga political talks. The Indo-Naga talks are actually more about Manipur than about Nagaland, as the issues discussed impinge directly on Manipur and its territorial integrity. The proverbial sword of Damocles hangs over Manipur’s head. These talks have meandered for the last 15 years, still with no solution in sight.
Monday, May 01, 2017
RERA Myths Busted: No Big Relief For Stuck Home Buyers, House Prices Won't Rise
The dust has finally settled on RERA or the Real Estate Regulation & Development Act. From Monday (1 May 2017) it comes into force across India, and the day will be remembered as a special day for home buyers who have been committing the largest chunk of their life savings to an industry which has been free for all.
A press release from the Housing Ministry stated how this day marks the end of a 9-year-long wait; and for the first time 76,000 companies engaged in building and construction activities across the country will become accountable for quality and delivery. Union Minister for Housing Venkaiah Naidu in his tweets called it the beginning of a new era making buyer the king, while the developers benefit from the confidence of a King in the regulated environment.
A press release from the Housing Ministry stated how this day marks the end of a 9-year-long wait; and for the first time 76,000 companies engaged in building and construction activities across the country will become accountable for quality and delivery. Union Minister for Housing Venkaiah Naidu in his tweets called it the beginning of a new era making buyer the king, while the developers benefit from the confidence of a King in the regulated environment.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Big Scoop: Is Sonia Gandhi Undergoing Chemotherapy Treatment At Sir Ganga Ram Hospital In Delhi?
Congress president Sonia Gandhi is being treated for a more serious ailment than what is being reported. She could possibly be undergoing chemotherapy at Ganga Ram hospital.
Contrary to the media reports, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is not just undergoing treatment for infection in her lower respiratory tract. INNLIVE has learnt from a reliable source that 68-year-old Ms Gandhi is undergoing chemotherapy at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. According to the same source, the Indo-American doctor who had conducted surgery on her in the United States in 2011 was also called upon to the national capital at a short notice.
Contrary to the media reports, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is not just undergoing treatment for infection in her lower respiratory tract. INNLIVE has learnt from a reliable source that 68-year-old Ms Gandhi is undergoing chemotherapy at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. According to the same source, the Indo-American doctor who had conducted surgery on her in the United States in 2011 was also called upon to the national capital at a short notice.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Over 1,000 IAS Officers Fail To Submit Property Returns
Over 1,000 IAS officers have failed to submit their immovable property returns (IPRs) to the government within the stipulated time frame this year.
Of the total of 1,057 officers who did not submit their IPRs for 2012, a highest of 147 are from Uttar Pradesh cadre, 114 of Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT), 100 of Manipur-Tripura, 96 of Jammu and Kashmir and 88 of Madhya Pradesh cadre among others, according to Department of Personnel and Training data.
Suspended IAS couple Arvind and Tinoo Joshi of MP cadre are also among the list of erring officials. Joshis, both 1979 batch officers of Madhya Pradesh cadre, made headlines after Income Tax department raided their residence in February, 2010 and allegedly unearthed assets worth over Rs 350 crore.
58 IAS officers of Karnataka cadre, 53 of Andhra Pradesh, 48 of Punjab, 47 of Orissa, 45 of West Bengal, 40 of Himachal Pradesh, 35 of Haryana, 25 of Jharkhand, 23 of Assam-Meghalaya, 22 of Rajasthan, 20 of Tamil Nadu, 17 of Maharashtra, 16 of Nagaland, 14 of Gujarat, 13 of Bihar, 10 of Kerala, nine each of Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh and eight of Sikkim cadre have not given their IPRs, it said.
The total sanctioned strength of IAS is 6,217, including 1,339 promotion posts. Of these, 4,737 officers are in position.
An all-India service officer is bound to file property returns of a year by January end of the following year, failing which promotion and empanelment to senior level postings may be denied.
Besides, there are 107 IAS officers who have not submitted their IPRs for 2011. As many as 198 IAS officials did not give their property details for 2010. “A circular has already been sent to all cadre
controlling authorities to inform them about timely submission of their IPRs,” said an official of the DoPT, which acts as a nodal agency for administrative matters of the IAS officers.
Of the total of 1,057 officers who did not submit their IPRs for 2012, a highest of 147 are from Uttar Pradesh cadre, 114 of Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT), 100 of Manipur-Tripura, 96 of Jammu and Kashmir and 88 of Madhya Pradesh cadre among others, according to Department of Personnel and Training data.
Suspended IAS couple Arvind and Tinoo Joshi of MP cadre are also among the list of erring officials. Joshis, both 1979 batch officers of Madhya Pradesh cadre, made headlines after Income Tax department raided their residence in February, 2010 and allegedly unearthed assets worth over Rs 350 crore.
58 IAS officers of Karnataka cadre, 53 of Andhra Pradesh, 48 of Punjab, 47 of Orissa, 45 of West Bengal, 40 of Himachal Pradesh, 35 of Haryana, 25 of Jharkhand, 23 of Assam-Meghalaya, 22 of Rajasthan, 20 of Tamil Nadu, 17 of Maharashtra, 16 of Nagaland, 14 of Gujarat, 13 of Bihar, 10 of Kerala, nine each of Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh and eight of Sikkim cadre have not given their IPRs, it said.
The total sanctioned strength of IAS is 6,217, including 1,339 promotion posts. Of these, 4,737 officers are in position.
An all-India service officer is bound to file property returns of a year by January end of the following year, failing which promotion and empanelment to senior level postings may be denied.
Besides, there are 107 IAS officers who have not submitted their IPRs for 2011. As many as 198 IAS officials did not give their property details for 2010. “A circular has already been sent to all cadre
controlling authorities to inform them about timely submission of their IPRs,” said an official of the DoPT, which acts as a nodal agency for administrative matters of the IAS officers.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Offer Valid Till Votes Last!
Hawala money. Benami deals. Cash for votes. Corporate payoffs. Everyone knows it is happening, even the Election Commission cannot control it. HNN maps the invisible funding of Indian elections.
FEROZESHAH ROAD is a quiet, tree-lined boulevard, in the heart of the Indian capital. Considered — by any standard — one of the finest addresses in the city, it houses political leaders and has a few select multi-storied buildings. Not the kind of place one expects surveillance to happen. But last week, intelligence officials — after a tip-off — kept watch on a third-floor flat at 34, Ferozeshah Road. They had reliable information that the occupants of the apartment were in the process of laundering — through hawala — a staggering Rs 380 crore from an undisclosed destination in south-east Asia (read: Singapore). The money, say intelligence officials, was meant for spending in the upcoming general election. Intelligence sources said that those involved included a wealthy businessman from Kolkata and his associate, a wellknown figure in Delhi’s illegal foreign liquor racket.
It may be the world’s largest democratic exercise, what the British weekly The Economist called India’s “jumbo election”. But it’s also one of the most expensive shows on earth. An Indian parliamentary general election is the ultimate political spending spree. And the fuel powering this frenetic activity is almost all black money. Like the proverbial iceberg, the official statistics of what candidates are spending — and therefore, announcing to the Election Commission (EC) — is just the tip. Nine-tenths of it lies beneath, silent, but powerful.
On the surface, everyone, candidates and political parties alike, toe the official code of the Election Commission. While submitting individual details, they offer proof that they are not crossing the commission’s stipulated limit of Rs 25 lakh per candidate.
Not that the commission is fooled, however. The presence of black money in the political arteries of the Indian economy is so overwhelming that the EC knows it plays a powerful role in an election. It has actually admitted it cannot control the deluge of money in election season. Election Commissioner SY Quraishi sounded exasperated when he told a television news channel in Delhi recently, “No, we have little control over money that flows underhand in the elections.” The next week, his office noted breaking news on television that an estimated Rs 10 lakh was found from the drawers of the offices of filmmaker Prakash Jha, who is contesting elections from Bettiah, Bihar on a Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) ticket. “The cash was meant to be distributed among the voters,” Bettiah superintendent of police KS Anupam told reporters.
WHETHER THE charge will be substantiated or not is to be seen. There’s no proof and the clout money has in an election is so routine, it’s accepted. “I am currently in Chennai and my conservative estimate for just three constituencies in Madurai alone is Rs 700 crores. The spending in South India is always higher than in North India,” former Finance Secretary S Narayan told TEHELKA this week. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a twoday opinion poll in Gujarat on black money stashed by Indians in banks abroad in early April. Ordinarily the EC would have been expected to raise objections to this sort of grandstanding. The quiet joke in the capital was that the the hardworking election watchdog would have preferred to come to grips with the money political parties spend during the polls, estimated at over Rs 50,000 crore ($10 billion) by those entrenched in the electioneering proces. That figure, incidentally, is almost one fifth of the figure arrived at by a recent national survey.
The survey conducted by Centre for Media Studies (CMS), a Delhi-based think-tank, says that across the country, one-fifth of voters have said politicians or party workers offered them money to vote in the past decade. In some states like Karnataka, Tripura, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, says CMS, nearly half say they have been bribed. Even in the Indian capital, 25 percent of voters received money for their votes.
The organisation estimates that onequarter of the actual election budget is directed towards illicit activity. “For political parties in India, the main objective is to win at any cost. As a result, parties are opening up their purse strings for the polls,” says Jagdeep Chokkar, a former Indian Institute of Management (IIM) professor.
Raymond Baker, author of Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market, writes that, since 1970, at least $5 trillion has moved out of poorer countries to the banking systems of the West. But a portion of this black money comes back to India — election time. That the entire process is unofficial is certain: the transactions, both back and forth, involve hawala operators, sale of benami properties and bagloads of cash ferried to the party faithful for redistribution. And this money transfer operates more efficiently than India's official economy channels.
Informed sources told HNN that an estimated Rs 10-15,000 crores ($2-3 billion) has been earmarked by political parties for “unofficial” purchases of individual votes. Besides this, politicians in their effort to squeeze every last vote out of the world’s largest electorate — are criss-crossing the country’s 2.97 million square kilometre land mass, running up crores in air transport bills. With campaign costs virtually doubling every election, political observers feel the country’s democratic process is being hijacked by the kind of spendingpower politics that is more often associated with the US elections. Worse, it’s without the level of transparency in both collection and spending that is also associated with the US.
That the EC is troubled is understandable . The bulk of the money is transferred to the states even before the stringent EC code comes into force; more than 60 percent of corporate funding to all political parties is in the form of black money; on an average, a candidate spends anywhere between Rs 3-15 crore in a single constituency. Recently, Chandrababu Naidu, former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, was admonished by the EC for handing out colour televisions and announcing a ‘special’ cash scheme for voters. Code violations such as Naidu’s — cash distributed at rallies or offerings of gold chains or similiar bribes — are merely the infringements that are caught out. Most of the infringements happen before the EC code kicks in.
AS A result, odd stories float around the offices of political parties in Delhi: the capital is the hub for receiving funds from which payments are radiated to state units. Sources say a television channel received nearly Rs 200 crore for slanted publicity; that a top corporate chief visited the offices of the Left brigade with an offer of support to the Third Front with the explicit condition that a leading woman aspirant not become the prime minister; that the UP-based owners of tobaccolaced chewable products have become the conduits for money transfers to state units because of their huge cash reserves. Top Mumbai-based companies are now funding elections in states where they have big business interests.
“Perhaps this will be the election that will see an all-India display of money power as never before. It is only in the urban and better-educated areas — and if the younger people turn out to vote in large numbers — that one can see some hope for transparency, clean voting and genuine democratic selection,” said former Finance Secretary S Narayan in a newspaper column.
Insiders say receipts and payments have been at record levels for the last two months. A number of kickbacks offered by brokers in various deals have slowly found their way to the coffers of the parties in power in each state. “You will find nothing on paper but it is true that a portion of government tenders, running into thousands of crores, is routinely channelled back to the funds of the party in power,” says a corporate insider. He adds that there is also a serious drive in the states to pick up money through various means the moment elections are announced. It is unofficially called the Chief Minister’s slush fund. The fund takes care of the cash transactions of the state and — if required — sends to the party’s centralised funds for distribution to states where the party is not in power. “Besides Delhi, there are certain pockets that take care of the regions. It is like Maharashtra funding Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh unit of the party funding Karnataka, (where it is not in power)” adds the insider.
CONSIDER THE case of the general managers working in the Rural Road Development Agency (RRDA) in Madhya Pradesh districts who received calls from the offices of a minister, demanding Rs 5 lakh. Tired of the calls, they complained to the EC in writing last week. It will be interesting to see how the EC reacts to the complaint. Those in the know say the demands such as the ones faced by the RRDA managers are routine in almost all states. In fact, the Samajwadi Party made four campaign films about Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, that portrayed the Dalit leader as having a penchant for erecting her own statues and demanding money from bureaucrats in her state. The EC rejected the films, but most people seem to agree with the content, ostensibly because similar reports have routinely filled the media about the UP chief minister and her way of operation.
State-owned companies are hardly the only ones tapped for funding — the country’s top corporate houses say the pressure from political parties for money is high indeed. Corporations want an immediate overhaul of the system, to bring in transparency to political funding. The issue cropped up during a Confederation of Indian Industry annual session meant to discuss the country’s troubled job market. Tata Communications chairman Subodh Bhargava and Bajaj Auto chairman Rahul Bajaj, also a Rajya Sabha MP, moaned about black money flowing into elections. “Clean money makes a difference. Currently, as much as 60 percent of companies are financing political parties with black money,” an enraged Bajaj told reporters.
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) secretary- general Amit Mitra says the problem is not the politicians or industrialists. “We must fund elections and take a call on how much an individual can donate. India could either go the US way (of capping corporate contributions) or follow the European model and allow elections to be completely funded by the government,” he says.
Both suggestions are sound, legislatively speaking, but the question is whether any legislation can bring change to a system in which funds are both collected in the form of off-the-book payments and then paid out in silent backhanders.
Conglomerates like the Birlas and the Tatas have separate electoral trusts, through which they donate money to political parties. The Tata Electoral Trust does not distribute funds to individual candidates but to registered political parties, based on their number of elected members to the Lok Sabha. “I think there is obviously a case for laying down procedures for funding as it is at the heart of Indian democracy,” says Communist Party of India (CPI) deputy general secretary Sudhakar Reddy, who is trying to raise the issue of Indian deposits topping the list in secret Swiss Bank accounts. “Companies who fund political parties obviously see returns if the supported party comes to power,” he adds.
IT’S THE return on investment that fuels corporate funding of elections. But even for political parties, the need to increase spending exponentially with every election has become imperative. “Politics is actually a big game of money. Those spending heavily are doing so only as an investment and expect a ten-fold return on their money,” says Anil Bairwal, chief coordinator of the Association of Democratic Reforms. It’s an umbrella group of NGOs that launched the National Election Watch to keep an eye on party and individual campaign budgets and spending.
Bairwal says that in the past, candidates and parties organised mega events such as mass weddings, and handed out money there in return for votes, but patterns are constantly changing in the country’s political landscape. “From Rs 100 for a vote more than a decade ago, the rate has gone up to Rs 1,500-2,000 a vote. In fact, the cash-for-vote often works as a hit-and-miss syndrome in India because booth capturing is out and you actually do not know who’s doing what,” he told HNN.
The EC is aware of the money movement. “Our emphasis will be on controlling the money power in elections,” outgoing chief election commissioner N Gopalaswamy told reporters last week. He added that the EC has also deployed 2,000 observers — many of them senior tax revenue officials — with a special brief to keep tabs on all pollrelated spending.
IT’S A daunting task, because of the sheer numbers involved — both the number of candidates and the size of their funds. Very conservative estimates say the Congress will officially spend approximately Rs 1,500 crore — one expense is its Rs 1 crore ($200,000) blowout to acquire the rights to the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire song Jai Ho from its copyright holder, T-Series. The BJP’s official budget is estimated to be about Rs 1,000 crore: this includes a Rs 200 crore advertising fund.
The BSP has a kitty of Rs 700 crore, similar to that of the Nationalist Congress Party. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) — thanks to some recent fund-raising drives by Union Communications Minister A Raja — has a kitty of Rs 400 crores. The official budget of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) is close to Rs 300 crores. The CPM and its allies have a more modest Rs 250 crore budget.
Of course, not every outlay is about glad-handing and buying votes. Many of the expenses are legal though one could question the extravagance. One such is the cost of hiring choppers and executive jets by political parties. For this election the number of helicopters and small jets hired by the political parties have doubled since the last polls in 2004. Currently, political parties have hired an estimated 45 to 50 choppers — half of them from abroad — and 22 small jets. (Most are sixseater jets while some are 13-seaters.)
“The demand is sky-rocketing and political parties do not mind the cost,” says R Puri, who heads Air Charters India, which has rented out its entire fleet of helicopters and jets at prices that range between Rs 75,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh per hour. Hi Flying Aviation, India’s oldest air charter firm, also finds its order book full. Operators like the stateowned Pawan Hans have large fleets which are not allowed to rent out to political parties. However, the political companies are allowed to borrow Pawan Hans helicopters leased to corporations. During the elections, almost anyone and everyone pushes their choppers and planes towards the politicians.
And there are 16 private helicopter owners — read big corporate houses and five star hotel chains — who could spare a chopper to a friendly politico, of course with no financial consideration involved as per rules. In short, it means the favours would be asked for later. And finally, there are 17 state government choppers that can be used for campaigning purposes, in accordance with EC norms.
But flying high costs money. For India’s political leaders, who aim to fly very high indeed, the money to do so, it seems, is easily forthcoming.
FEROZESHAH ROAD is a quiet, tree-lined boulevard, in the heart of the Indian capital. Considered — by any standard — one of the finest addresses in the city, it houses political leaders and has a few select multi-storied buildings. Not the kind of place one expects surveillance to happen. But last week, intelligence officials — after a tip-off — kept watch on a third-floor flat at 34, Ferozeshah Road. They had reliable information that the occupants of the apartment were in the process of laundering — through hawala — a staggering Rs 380 crore from an undisclosed destination in south-east Asia (read: Singapore). The money, say intelligence officials, was meant for spending in the upcoming general election. Intelligence sources said that those involved included a wealthy businessman from Kolkata and his associate, a wellknown figure in Delhi’s illegal foreign liquor racket.
It may be the world’s largest democratic exercise, what the British weekly The Economist called India’s “jumbo election”. But it’s also one of the most expensive shows on earth. An Indian parliamentary general election is the ultimate political spending spree. And the fuel powering this frenetic activity is almost all black money. Like the proverbial iceberg, the official statistics of what candidates are spending — and therefore, announcing to the Election Commission (EC) — is just the tip. Nine-tenths of it lies beneath, silent, but powerful.
On the surface, everyone, candidates and political parties alike, toe the official code of the Election Commission. While submitting individual details, they offer proof that they are not crossing the commission’s stipulated limit of Rs 25 lakh per candidate.
Not that the commission is fooled, however. The presence of black money in the political arteries of the Indian economy is so overwhelming that the EC knows it plays a powerful role in an election. It has actually admitted it cannot control the deluge of money in election season. Election Commissioner SY Quraishi sounded exasperated when he told a television news channel in Delhi recently, “No, we have little control over money that flows underhand in the elections.” The next week, his office noted breaking news on television that an estimated Rs 10 lakh was found from the drawers of the offices of filmmaker Prakash Jha, who is contesting elections from Bettiah, Bihar on a Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) ticket. “The cash was meant to be distributed among the voters,” Bettiah superintendent of police KS Anupam told reporters.
WHETHER THE charge will be substantiated or not is to be seen. There’s no proof and the clout money has in an election is so routine, it’s accepted. “I am currently in Chennai and my conservative estimate for just three constituencies in Madurai alone is Rs 700 crores. The spending in South India is always higher than in North India,” former Finance Secretary S Narayan told TEHELKA this week. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a twoday opinion poll in Gujarat on black money stashed by Indians in banks abroad in early April. Ordinarily the EC would have been expected to raise objections to this sort of grandstanding. The quiet joke in the capital was that the the hardworking election watchdog would have preferred to come to grips with the money political parties spend during the polls, estimated at over Rs 50,000 crore ($10 billion) by those entrenched in the electioneering proces. That figure, incidentally, is almost one fifth of the figure arrived at by a recent national survey.
The survey conducted by Centre for Media Studies (CMS), a Delhi-based think-tank, says that across the country, one-fifth of voters have said politicians or party workers offered them money to vote in the past decade. In some states like Karnataka, Tripura, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, says CMS, nearly half say they have been bribed. Even in the Indian capital, 25 percent of voters received money for their votes.
The organisation estimates that onequarter of the actual election budget is directed towards illicit activity. “For political parties in India, the main objective is to win at any cost. As a result, parties are opening up their purse strings for the polls,” says Jagdeep Chokkar, a former Indian Institute of Management (IIM) professor.
Raymond Baker, author of Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market, writes that, since 1970, at least $5 trillion has moved out of poorer countries to the banking systems of the West. But a portion of this black money comes back to India — election time. That the entire process is unofficial is certain: the transactions, both back and forth, involve hawala operators, sale of benami properties and bagloads of cash ferried to the party faithful for redistribution. And this money transfer operates more efficiently than India's official economy channels.
Informed sources told HNN that an estimated Rs 10-15,000 crores ($2-3 billion) has been earmarked by political parties for “unofficial” purchases of individual votes. Besides this, politicians in their effort to squeeze every last vote out of the world’s largest electorate — are criss-crossing the country’s 2.97 million square kilometre land mass, running up crores in air transport bills. With campaign costs virtually doubling every election, political observers feel the country’s democratic process is being hijacked by the kind of spendingpower politics that is more often associated with the US elections. Worse, it’s without the level of transparency in both collection and spending that is also associated with the US.
That the EC is troubled is understandable . The bulk of the money is transferred to the states even before the stringent EC code comes into force; more than 60 percent of corporate funding to all political parties is in the form of black money; on an average, a candidate spends anywhere between Rs 3-15 crore in a single constituency. Recently, Chandrababu Naidu, former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, was admonished by the EC for handing out colour televisions and announcing a ‘special’ cash scheme for voters. Code violations such as Naidu’s — cash distributed at rallies or offerings of gold chains or similiar bribes — are merely the infringements that are caught out. Most of the infringements happen before the EC code kicks in.
AS A result, odd stories float around the offices of political parties in Delhi: the capital is the hub for receiving funds from which payments are radiated to state units. Sources say a television channel received nearly Rs 200 crore for slanted publicity; that a top corporate chief visited the offices of the Left brigade with an offer of support to the Third Front with the explicit condition that a leading woman aspirant not become the prime minister; that the UP-based owners of tobaccolaced chewable products have become the conduits for money transfers to state units because of their huge cash reserves. Top Mumbai-based companies are now funding elections in states where they have big business interests.
“Perhaps this will be the election that will see an all-India display of money power as never before. It is only in the urban and better-educated areas — and if the younger people turn out to vote in large numbers — that one can see some hope for transparency, clean voting and genuine democratic selection,” said former Finance Secretary S Narayan in a newspaper column.
Insiders say receipts and payments have been at record levels for the last two months. A number of kickbacks offered by brokers in various deals have slowly found their way to the coffers of the parties in power in each state. “You will find nothing on paper but it is true that a portion of government tenders, running into thousands of crores, is routinely channelled back to the funds of the party in power,” says a corporate insider. He adds that there is also a serious drive in the states to pick up money through various means the moment elections are announced. It is unofficially called the Chief Minister’s slush fund. The fund takes care of the cash transactions of the state and — if required — sends to the party’s centralised funds for distribution to states where the party is not in power. “Besides Delhi, there are certain pockets that take care of the regions. It is like Maharashtra funding Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh unit of the party funding Karnataka, (where it is not in power)” adds the insider.
CONSIDER THE case of the general managers working in the Rural Road Development Agency (RRDA) in Madhya Pradesh districts who received calls from the offices of a minister, demanding Rs 5 lakh. Tired of the calls, they complained to the EC in writing last week. It will be interesting to see how the EC reacts to the complaint. Those in the know say the demands such as the ones faced by the RRDA managers are routine in almost all states. In fact, the Samajwadi Party made four campaign films about Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, that portrayed the Dalit leader as having a penchant for erecting her own statues and demanding money from bureaucrats in her state. The EC rejected the films, but most people seem to agree with the content, ostensibly because similar reports have routinely filled the media about the UP chief minister and her way of operation.
State-owned companies are hardly the only ones tapped for funding — the country’s top corporate houses say the pressure from political parties for money is high indeed. Corporations want an immediate overhaul of the system, to bring in transparency to political funding. The issue cropped up during a Confederation of Indian Industry annual session meant to discuss the country’s troubled job market. Tata Communications chairman Subodh Bhargava and Bajaj Auto chairman Rahul Bajaj, also a Rajya Sabha MP, moaned about black money flowing into elections. “Clean money makes a difference. Currently, as much as 60 percent of companies are financing political parties with black money,” an enraged Bajaj told reporters.
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) secretary- general Amit Mitra says the problem is not the politicians or industrialists. “We must fund elections and take a call on how much an individual can donate. India could either go the US way (of capping corporate contributions) or follow the European model and allow elections to be completely funded by the government,” he says.
Both suggestions are sound, legislatively speaking, but the question is whether any legislation can bring change to a system in which funds are both collected in the form of off-the-book payments and then paid out in silent backhanders.
Conglomerates like the Birlas and the Tatas have separate electoral trusts, through which they donate money to political parties. The Tata Electoral Trust does not distribute funds to individual candidates but to registered political parties, based on their number of elected members to the Lok Sabha. “I think there is obviously a case for laying down procedures for funding as it is at the heart of Indian democracy,” says Communist Party of India (CPI) deputy general secretary Sudhakar Reddy, who is trying to raise the issue of Indian deposits topping the list in secret Swiss Bank accounts. “Companies who fund political parties obviously see returns if the supported party comes to power,” he adds.
IT’S THE return on investment that fuels corporate funding of elections. But even for political parties, the need to increase spending exponentially with every election has become imperative. “Politics is actually a big game of money. Those spending heavily are doing so only as an investment and expect a ten-fold return on their money,” says Anil Bairwal, chief coordinator of the Association of Democratic Reforms. It’s an umbrella group of NGOs that launched the National Election Watch to keep an eye on party and individual campaign budgets and spending.
Bairwal says that in the past, candidates and parties organised mega events such as mass weddings, and handed out money there in return for votes, but patterns are constantly changing in the country’s political landscape. “From Rs 100 for a vote more than a decade ago, the rate has gone up to Rs 1,500-2,000 a vote. In fact, the cash-for-vote often works as a hit-and-miss syndrome in India because booth capturing is out and you actually do not know who’s doing what,” he told HNN.
The EC is aware of the money movement. “Our emphasis will be on controlling the money power in elections,” outgoing chief election commissioner N Gopalaswamy told reporters last week. He added that the EC has also deployed 2,000 observers — many of them senior tax revenue officials — with a special brief to keep tabs on all pollrelated spending.
IT’S A daunting task, because of the sheer numbers involved — both the number of candidates and the size of their funds. Very conservative estimates say the Congress will officially spend approximately Rs 1,500 crore — one expense is its Rs 1 crore ($200,000) blowout to acquire the rights to the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire song Jai Ho from its copyright holder, T-Series. The BJP’s official budget is estimated to be about Rs 1,000 crore: this includes a Rs 200 crore advertising fund.
The BSP has a kitty of Rs 700 crore, similar to that of the Nationalist Congress Party. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) — thanks to some recent fund-raising drives by Union Communications Minister A Raja — has a kitty of Rs 400 crores. The official budget of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) is close to Rs 300 crores. The CPM and its allies have a more modest Rs 250 crore budget.
Of course, not every outlay is about glad-handing and buying votes. Many of the expenses are legal though one could question the extravagance. One such is the cost of hiring choppers and executive jets by political parties. For this election the number of helicopters and small jets hired by the political parties have doubled since the last polls in 2004. Currently, political parties have hired an estimated 45 to 50 choppers — half of them from abroad — and 22 small jets. (Most are sixseater jets while some are 13-seaters.)
“The demand is sky-rocketing and political parties do not mind the cost,” says R Puri, who heads Air Charters India, which has rented out its entire fleet of helicopters and jets at prices that range between Rs 75,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh per hour. Hi Flying Aviation, India’s oldest air charter firm, also finds its order book full. Operators like the stateowned Pawan Hans have large fleets which are not allowed to rent out to political parties. However, the political companies are allowed to borrow Pawan Hans helicopters leased to corporations. During the elections, almost anyone and everyone pushes their choppers and planes towards the politicians.
And there are 16 private helicopter owners — read big corporate houses and five star hotel chains — who could spare a chopper to a friendly politico, of course with no financial consideration involved as per rules. In short, it means the favours would be asked for later. And finally, there are 17 state government choppers that can be used for campaigning purposes, in accordance with EC norms.
But flying high costs money. For India’s political leaders, who aim to fly very high indeed, the money to do so, it seems, is easily forthcoming.
Tuesday, April 01, 2014
Spotlight: 'Jumping Jilanis - The Parachute Politicians'
By M H Ahssan | INNLIVE
Jumping Jilania or Parachute politicians: Newbie politicians bypass hierarchies to launch themselves into Elections 2014.
Actor Moon Moon Sen says her political inspiration is Julius Caesar and by contesting the elections this time, she hopes to restore Caesarean nobility to politics. Her idea of Parliament, she recently told a TV interviewer, is "that poor lady Meira who says 'quiet' ineffectively". The voters of Bankura in West Bengal willing, Sen could be among those occupying the coveted green benches in the Lok Sabha when it starts business less than two months from now.
Jumping Jilania or Parachute politicians: Newbie politicians bypass hierarchies to launch themselves into Elections 2014.
Actor Moon Moon Sen says her political inspiration is Julius Caesar and by contesting the elections this time, she hopes to restore Caesarean nobility to politics. Her idea of Parliament, she recently told a TV interviewer, is "that poor lady Meira who says 'quiet' ineffectively". The voters of Bankura in West Bengal willing, Sen could be among those occupying the coveted green benches in the Lok Sabha when it starts business less than two months from now.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
India Speaks 780 Languages, 220 Lost In Last 50 Years
By Nikhil Chinappa / Mumbai
No one has ever doubted that India is home to a huge variety of languages. A new study, the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, says that the official number, 122, is far lower than the 780 that it counted and another 100 that its authors suspect exist.
The survey, which was conducted over the past four years by 3,000 volunteers and staff of the Bhasha Research & Publication Centre (“Bhasha” means “language” in Hindi), also concludes that 220 Indian languages have disappeared in the last 50 years, and that another 150 could vanish in the next half century as speakers die and their children fail to learn their ancestral tongues.
No one has ever doubted that India is home to a huge variety of languages. A new study, the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, says that the official number, 122, is far lower than the 780 that it counted and another 100 that its authors suspect exist.
The survey, which was conducted over the past four years by 3,000 volunteers and staff of the Bhasha Research & Publication Centre (“Bhasha” means “language” in Hindi), also concludes that 220 Indian languages have disappeared in the last 50 years, and that another 150 could vanish in the next half century as speakers die and their children fail to learn their ancestral tongues.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Editorial: Changing Landscape
By M H Ahssan
Will the economic crisis affect the elections? Some sections of the electorate are in distress. They will vote in anger. However, the actual number of crisis victims is relatively small. They will affect outcomes mainly in some urban constituencies, hurting the BJP in some places like Surat and the Congress elsewhere. Hence, their net effect on electoral outcomes will be limited.
For the rest of the electorate, things are not too bad. Though the global economy is shrinking, India is still growing at over 6 per cent and inflation is very low. If anything, that should help the incumbent UPA government. However, the electoral value of economic performance is asymmetric in India. Incumbent governments are punished when economic conditions are bad, but electoral outcomes depend on other factors when there is low inflation and reasonable growth.
Typically, these other factors are driven by the divisive politics of identity. Parties have allocated seats based on the arithmetic of caste, religion and ethnicity, along with the candidate’s access to resources and muscle power in some cases. With neither the Congress nor the BJP likely to win a majority on its own, alliances will ultimately determine who will rule the country. However, the BJD has abandoned the BJP, and the latter is having a hard time attracting new partners. The Congress is having problems of its own. The Yadavs have dumped it and formed a separate coalition within the UPA. The pre-election alliance strategies of both the NDA and UPA having collapsed, a patchwork ruling coalition will emerge post-elections, based on electoral performance. Meanwhile, Mayawati and Jayalalithaa are competing to lead the Third Front.
Underlying this messy terrain, there are emerging symptoms of remarkable tectonic shifts that could permanently change the landscape of Indian democracy — if not in this election, then certainly by the next in 2014. The most important is the rise of regional parties. The era of coalition governments reflects the growing dependence of national parties like the Congress and the BJP, in their bid for power, on the vote banks of regional parties.
The Akalis in Punjab, Samajwadi Party in UP and the RJD, LJP or JD(U) in Bihar are all regional parties. Though the BSP now presents itself as a national party, its main base is still UP. Nor is this a specifically north Indian phenomenon. Politics in Assam, Orissa, Andhra, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu etc is now driven by regional parties. Even the CPM draws its strength not from its politburo members but from its regional political bases in Kerala,
Tripura and West Bengal.
One consequence is the emergence of regional factors and issues as drivers of national political trends. There is an interesting tension between centralised control of economic power on one hand, through the finance ministry, RBI, Planning Commission and central ministries, and increasing regional dispersal of political power on the other, a tension that the 13th Finance Commission may need to address.
Another consequence is the arrival of regional party leaders on the national stage. Unlike regional Congress bosses, always loyal to the ‘high command’, these regional leaders are people with political bases and ambitions of their own. Many of these new leaders are not the children of erstwhile royalty or scions of great political families. They have risen from the ‘aam aadmi’ ranks and honed their survival skills in the rough and tumble of politics from below. Scions of political families, raised in the belief that they were born to rule, may one day find themselves rudely pushed aside if the courtiers strategising for them fail to come to terms with these new realities. Sooner rather than later, ‘people like us’ in India may find that they are being ruled by ‘people like them’ from Bharat.
Another remarkable trend, though less visible, is the emergence of a new politics of performance challenging the old divisive politics of identity. In many conversations in the fields and mandi towns of Bharat, i have heard it said, ‘Is bar jo kaam karega usi ko vote milega’ — this time those who do the work will get the votes. I had not attached much significance to these remarks until a recent survey commissioned by the Times of India picked up exactly the same sentiment, though presumably from an urban sample in this case.
Initiatives launched by eminent persons in favour of elections for good governance, such as Messrs N R Narayana Murthy, E Sreedharan and others or Bimal Jalan and his associates, also reflect that sentiment. Perhaps below the surface there is a building voter revolt against the divisive politics of identity, vote buying and muscle power. It could fizzle out and come to nothing in the absence of a principal agent to nurture and channel this potentially earth-shaking force.
But, if properly channelled, such sentiments could gather momentum leading to a cathartic cleansing of Indian politics. Will it make a difference in these elections or perhaps in the next one? Much depends on the media. It has tremendous power that it can deploy to lead that cleansing process, especially television and the Indian language press that have the widest reach. Can we hope that the fourth estate will rise to play its historic role in changing the landscape of Indian politics? We shall just have to wait and see.
Will the economic crisis affect the elections? Some sections of the electorate are in distress. They will vote in anger. However, the actual number of crisis victims is relatively small. They will affect outcomes mainly in some urban constituencies, hurting the BJP in some places like Surat and the Congress elsewhere. Hence, their net effect on electoral outcomes will be limited.
For the rest of the electorate, things are not too bad. Though the global economy is shrinking, India is still growing at over 6 per cent and inflation is very low. If anything, that should help the incumbent UPA government. However, the electoral value of economic performance is asymmetric in India. Incumbent governments are punished when economic conditions are bad, but electoral outcomes depend on other factors when there is low inflation and reasonable growth.
Typically, these other factors are driven by the divisive politics of identity. Parties have allocated seats based on the arithmetic of caste, religion and ethnicity, along with the candidate’s access to resources and muscle power in some cases. With neither the Congress nor the BJP likely to win a majority on its own, alliances will ultimately determine who will rule the country. However, the BJD has abandoned the BJP, and the latter is having a hard time attracting new partners. The Congress is having problems of its own. The Yadavs have dumped it and formed a separate coalition within the UPA. The pre-election alliance strategies of both the NDA and UPA having collapsed, a patchwork ruling coalition will emerge post-elections, based on electoral performance. Meanwhile, Mayawati and Jayalalithaa are competing to lead the Third Front.
Underlying this messy terrain, there are emerging symptoms of remarkable tectonic shifts that could permanently change the landscape of Indian democracy — if not in this election, then certainly by the next in 2014. The most important is the rise of regional parties. The era of coalition governments reflects the growing dependence of national parties like the Congress and the BJP, in their bid for power, on the vote banks of regional parties.
The Akalis in Punjab, Samajwadi Party in UP and the RJD, LJP or JD(U) in Bihar are all regional parties. Though the BSP now presents itself as a national party, its main base is still UP. Nor is this a specifically north Indian phenomenon. Politics in Assam, Orissa, Andhra, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu etc is now driven by regional parties. Even the CPM draws its strength not from its politburo members but from its regional political bases in Kerala,
Tripura and West Bengal.
One consequence is the emergence of regional factors and issues as drivers of national political trends. There is an interesting tension between centralised control of economic power on one hand, through the finance ministry, RBI, Planning Commission and central ministries, and increasing regional dispersal of political power on the other, a tension that the 13th Finance Commission may need to address.
Another consequence is the arrival of regional party leaders on the national stage. Unlike regional Congress bosses, always loyal to the ‘high command’, these regional leaders are people with political bases and ambitions of their own. Many of these new leaders are not the children of erstwhile royalty or scions of great political families. They have risen from the ‘aam aadmi’ ranks and honed their survival skills in the rough and tumble of politics from below. Scions of political families, raised in the belief that they were born to rule, may one day find themselves rudely pushed aside if the courtiers strategising for them fail to come to terms with these new realities. Sooner rather than later, ‘people like us’ in India may find that they are being ruled by ‘people like them’ from Bharat.
Another remarkable trend, though less visible, is the emergence of a new politics of performance challenging the old divisive politics of identity. In many conversations in the fields and mandi towns of Bharat, i have heard it said, ‘Is bar jo kaam karega usi ko vote milega’ — this time those who do the work will get the votes. I had not attached much significance to these remarks until a recent survey commissioned by the Times of India picked up exactly the same sentiment, though presumably from an urban sample in this case.
Initiatives launched by eminent persons in favour of elections for good governance, such as Messrs N R Narayana Murthy, E Sreedharan and others or Bimal Jalan and his associates, also reflect that sentiment. Perhaps below the surface there is a building voter revolt against the divisive politics of identity, vote buying and muscle power. It could fizzle out and come to nothing in the absence of a principal agent to nurture and channel this potentially earth-shaking force.
But, if properly channelled, such sentiments could gather momentum leading to a cathartic cleansing of Indian politics. Will it make a difference in these elections or perhaps in the next one? Much depends on the media. It has tremendous power that it can deploy to lead that cleansing process, especially television and the Indian language press that have the widest reach. Can we hope that the fourth estate will rise to play its historic role in changing the landscape of Indian politics? We shall just have to wait and see.
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