Congress general secretaries Digjvijay Singh (in a media interview) and Rahul Gandhi (in the Wikileaked diplomatic cables) have highlighted the threat of what has come to be known as Hindutva terrorism or saffron terrorism. Rahul Gandhi, “the prime minister in waiting”, has in fact said this variety of terror is more dangerous than the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) variety because it inst
DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi is now known by the company she keeps - former telecom minister and 2G pawn A Raja is a close friend, Rajathiammal, Niira Radia`s DMK conduit, is her mother and Tamil Maiyam, the Chennai-based NGO raided by CBI this morning as part of its probe into India`s largest-ever scam, lists her as a director. Much has been speculated about the DMK`s association with
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has embarked on a crusade against corruption like none of his peers across the country. Among other initiatives, he has prevailed upon his cabinet colleagues to agree to abolish the controversial MLA / MLC Local Area Development Scheme. The scheme allows legislators, in the states as well as in parliament, to recommend capital works in their constituencies. Des
Political compulsions may have forced Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to retract his statement but what he said at the “Regional consultation for electoral reforms” in Bhopal last Sunday is serious enough to take note of. He said the Rajya Sabha should be abolished since huge sums of money were being spent to become members, making the upper house a “market
Post 9/11, the airport security around the world changed - drastically so in the US. So, when the Indian ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar alighted at one in Mississippi last week, the US transport security administration personnel frisked her. And India, on Thursday, was livid, with external affairs minister S M Krishna terming the incident "unacceptable." Shankar is a seni
The hacking of the website of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by a group calling itself “Pakistani cyber army” has once again brought the spotlight on India`s cyber-preparedness. The development follows a recent cyber attack on 35 Pakistan government websites in which the “Indian cyber army” was blamed by the Pakistan authorities. Earlier, a report by a
We are asking this question today because many seem to feel that by legalising lobbying, and thereby creating a transparent and representative system, we can address many of the ills that beset our governance that the Radia tapes symbolise. Lobbying, at present, is hidden from public gaze, conducted in a subversive manner by unseen hands about which people and the legislators in general have no
Very public battles are being fought, some of them on national television, over the Radia tapes. A former minister and a host of formerly "good/great/passable" journalists, and quite possibly, our 2G connections are at the crux of it. Yet, Ratan Tata, of Tata telecom and other odd concerns, says the Niira Radia tapes are private. Predictable, given that Radia`s "PR" services
A strong opposition is the backbone of the parliamentary system of democracy. Only a powerful opposition can hold the government accountable and question it through parliamentary democracy. In a situation where multiple authorities - CAG, CVC, CBI, ED - are failing to pin accountability on the government, the opposition should definitely step in. But the question is that sho
Development has turned out to be the sole issue that mattered in the Bihar assembly elections. This is arguably the first time when voters have chosen development over narrow considerations. Is this is sign of changing times? The term ‘good governance’ has been around in the lexicon of Indian politics for more than a decade now. Remember the BJP slogan, “from Sw
The appointment of P J Thomas, then telecom secretary, as the central vigilance commissioner has remained controversial right from the beginning, as the leader of opposition had objected to it. On Monday, the Supreme Court too expressed its displeasure at the way he was selected. "Without looking into the file, we are concerned that if a person is an accused in a criminal ca
The supreme court on Monday expressed its discomfort at P J Thomas continuing as the chief vigilance commissioner (CVC) of India. A bench headed by chief justice S H Kapadia observed that “if a person is an accused in a criminal case how will he function as CVC”. Thomas figures in the charge sheet filed in palmolein oil import case where the Kerala government paid more
Come Thursday and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) will start accepting applications for more than 15,00 flats costing between Rs 9 lakh and Rs 1.12 crore. The last time the DDA came up with such a scheme it received more than 100 applications for each of the 5,238 flats on offer. Given the paucity of affordable housing options in and around the capital, the upcoming scheme is bound to be
Nira Radia, a PR professional – or to put it plainly, a lobbyist – dictated what goes into senior editor Vir Sanghvi’s column and what NDTV anchor Barkha Dutt should tell the Congress ahead of cabinet formation, going by the telephonic conversations authorities tapped (read the transcripts here or read a report
It’s an open season for scams and, surprisingly, heads have started rolling too. Suresh Kalmadi was sacked from his party position, Ashok Chavan lost his CM post and A Raja his ministership. Political leadership is usually the key decider and hence action must be first targeted against them. However, what about bureaucrats? They too have their hands deep in the bungling of the Commonwealth, Adar
A Raja’s wheeling and dealing in the 2G spectrum licence allocation has cost the nation Rs 1.76,645 crore, making it arguably the mother of all scams. The opposition has (rightly) kept up the pressure on the government to fix the accountability and take action. So, the heads have started rolling. Meanwhile, the central bureau of investigation, enforcement directorate and comptrol
The CAG report indicting former telecom minister A Raja has been tabled in Parliament and it is now official that India lost up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore on account of the 2G spectrum allocation in 2008. Raja has already lost his job, the Congress party has managed to reassert its authority in the coalition government that it leads at the Centre and the prime minister seems to have had his way in n
Telecom minister A Raja has got the boot. But will he be brought to justice? This is the question we are asking you today because the UPA-II seems to think that mere resignations are punishment enough. That is why Ashok Chavan (Adarsh housing society scam) and Suresh Kalmadi (CWG scams) were let off with just their resignations from their official positions (as CM of Maharashtra and sec
Ashok Chavan is out and Suresh Kalmadi is at least out of favour within his party. At a time when the Congress party has sent out these signals, in a belated bid to wash itself free of the stains of corruption, the coalition government it leads at the centre is sending out a completely contrary message. Telecom minister A Raja continues in office even as he has been personally accused of corruptio
US president Barack Obama is in India, but the overarching theme of the visit, according to the Indian media, is: battered by mid-term poll results, he is here only with a domestic agenda of seeking more jobs for Americans, more market access for American companies and little else. Of course, Indian firms too can gain in the process. Will they? When New Delhi looks at Washington, the
