Special Report : PM-Led Lokpal Panel meets on Sep. 4

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Special Report

PM-Led Lokpal Panel meets on Sep. 4

Kharge refuses again,

8-Member Search Committee tio be formed

New Delhi, Sep. 1

The Lokpal panel comprising of Prime Minister Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and eminent jurist Mukul Rohtagi will meet on Tuesday next, September 4.

This will be the fifth meet of the Lokpal panel to set up Search Committee which in turn will select country's first Lokpal. The Search Committee will comprise of eight eminent jurists, former judges and others.

The Prime Minister is keen to fast-track the selection process of Lokpal and wants the institution to come into being during 2018 itself. It was largely because of this very reason that the 5^th meeting of the Lokpal panel is taking place within a fortnight of the 4^th meeting on August 22.

It was decided that all four Lokpal panel members including the PM will furnish five names each. Kharge who has been skipping the meeting, was requested to send the names of five persons for the search committee. But he declined saying that he will be not be part of the process until made a full member. Therefore, it is possible that the Lokpal panel will have 20 names to be considered for the search committee when it meets on on September 4 setting the stage for selecting the Lokpal.

Its a different matter that the selection of country's first Lokpal is turning out to be an Herculean task for the Modi government. Since he is keen that Lokpal is functional at the earliest as it was one of his poll promises. The Supreme Court is also monitoring the process of Lokpal selection and even rapped the government on previous occasions.

However, the process of selecting Lokpal is cumbersome as the 8-member Search Committee will invite applications for the post of 9 Lokpals through advertisement in newspapers. The Lokpal will be a 9-member body.

It may be mentioned that the same task was undertaken by the Manmohan Singh government after the Lokpal & Lokayukta Act was passed in 2013. A search committee comprising of 8 members headed by Justice K T Thomas was constituted in February 2014 which invited applications for Lokpal. There were 300 applicants for 9 posts of Lokpal. But suddenly Justice Thomas decided to quit and the process came to a grinding halt. It will be a miracle if the Modi government can complete the task during the remaining period of its term.

Banning “Barter Trade” with PaK: PMO to decide

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Banning “Barter Trade” with PaK: PMO to decide

NIA says Barter-trade generated Rs 1000 crore terror funding

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Sep 11

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) will take a final call on banning the “Barter Trade” between India & Pakistan which was aimed at promoting trade & harmony between the people in J & K and PoK.

Highly placed sources in the government say that the PMO is seized of the matter after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) strongly recommended the closure of the barter trade. The NIA had sent its report to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) which is turn has referred the issue to the PMO as it has wider implications.

Incidentally, it was the Union Home Ministry which had initiated the Barter-Trade agreement with Pakistan in 2008 at the bidding of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh within days of returning to India from his US trip in 2008 to promote harmony between the people on both sides of Jammu & Kashmir. It was decided that no cash will be involved, only 21 items will be trade for mutual exchange and the value of items will be fixed by traders mutually. The goods should be produced in J & K and PoK only. But what happened thereafter, was an eye-opener to agencies. For example the Californian Almonds made their way from Pakistan to J&K on the ground that these were produced in PoK.

Lokmat was first to break the story “Barter Trade or Terror Funding” on January 23 this year in its editions saying the NIA had undertaken countrywide raids and scrutinizing records of 350 traders in Delhi & J & K. At that time, the NIA estimated that the hawala racket could be of the order of Rs 300 crores. Top sources have now told Lokmat that the hawala scam could be of the order of Rs 1000 crores.

The NIA submitted detailed report listing how hundreds of cores of rupees reached terrorist groups and stone pelters in the Valley thanks to the “Barter-Trade” route. The NIA said the barter-trade generated more than Rs 3000 crores in cash and at least Rs 1000 crores of this amount had gone to the kashmiri militants and their patterns which included Hurriyat leaders. The NIA submitted a detailed account of money-trail beginning with traders on the borders to traders in Delhi and major cities and how money re-routed to Hurriyat leaders and Kashmiri militants. The NIA also gave detailed account of how bank channels were used for over-invoicing and under-invoicing and went on unchecked for nearly eight years.

It said that terror funding by LeT, JeM and other outfits and the alleged transfer of cross-LoC trade proceeds are "interlinked". It gave clinching evidence to the MHA how large amount exchanged through import and export of goods has been ultimately used to foment "civil unrest" in Kashmir. The NIA suspects that some traders even provide trucks to hide arms and ammunition smuggled from Pakistan.

It is learnt that Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh who undertook 4-day visit to J & K discussed this issue with the state Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti also as she had urged the Prime Minister that Barter-Trade agreement should not be scrapped.

Ends 

N N Vohra offers to quite as J&K governor

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

N N Vohra offers to quit as J&K Governor

Lt Gen. Hasnain, Rajiv Meharshi in race

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, June 26

With the Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra expressing his desire to relinquish the charge of the trouble-torn state, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to take a call on his successor immediately after his arrival from his current US tour.

Highly placed sources say that Vohra had met the Prime Minister last month and conveyed his inability to continue. Vohra has been Governor of the troubled state for more than nine years. A career bureaucrat, Vohra was appointed by the Manmohan Singh government as J&K Governor on June 25, 2008. Though his tenure had ended long ago, he continued in the post.

It transpires that the Modi government has decided to bring in a new governor as Vohra has served for nine years and no tangible results came. Though the name of Union Home Secretary Rajiv Meharshi, a trusted bureaucrat of the present government, is in the reckoning. But it now transpires that PM Modi may do which none of his predecessors dared to do.

Informed sources in the South Block say that Modi may experiment by sending Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain who is a three-Star General of the Indian Army. Of the 12 Governors that J&K has seen since Independence, none of them belonged to the minority community. A worried Modi government undertook an extensive exercise before zeroing on a panel of names including Lt. Gen. Ata Husnain. His name emerged as the Valley is slipping out of the hands with the each passing day and the South Block is extremely worried.

Gen Hasnain has a wide experience of working in the state where he served as General Officer Commanding in Jammu and Kashmir in 2010-2011. He set an excellent example of right use of soft power with hard power.

It may be mentioned that Modi appointed a former Director of Intelligence Bureau as international envoy on terrorism. Despite being a UPA government appointee Ibrahim had opposed certain "political actions" of the UPA regime.

Sources say that a final decision on the successor of Vohra will be taken some time early July.

Ends 

Dineshwar Sharma to to be New Assam Interlocutor

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Dineshwar Sharma to to be New Assam Interlocutor

No extension to P C Haldar

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, April 30, 2017

Former Director of Intelligence Bureau Dineshwar Sharma may be the new Interlocutor for Assam.

Sharma who is considered close to the Modi dispensation as he served IB Chief for two years, is being appointed as Assam’s new interlocutor. Sharma will replace P C Haldar who was also a former IB Director under the UPA government of Manmohan Singh.

The Modi government has decided not to grant further extension to P C Haldar for peace talks in Assam. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) wanted to hold further peace talks with ULFA and other factions on its own. Haldar, a 1970-batch IPS officer who was IB director between 2007 and 2009, was appointed as Assam interlocutor in 2009 and remains in the post for more than seven years. His term ended on December 31, 2016.

MHA officials said that orders were issued early this month informing Haldar that the “competent authority has decided not to extend the term of the interlocutor”. He was directed by the MHA to submit the representations received from various factions till December 30, 2016, the officials said.

Sources said that though the BJP government has come to power in Assam, the Centre plans to continue the dialogue process with the fringe groups. There were also demands from some factions of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (P) to remove Haldar.

Earlier, the Narendra Modi government got top ULFA leader Anup Chetia extradited from Bangladesh who was released on bail ahead of Assembly polls in Assam. According to the MHA, Haldar held consultations with Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel), United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), and in 2011 was key to the tripartite Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) signed between the central government, government of Assam and UPDS that aimed to provide enhanced autonomy for Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council in Assam and a special package for speedier socio-economic and educational development of the area for which the council was set up.

Talks between the Centre and ULFA were on hold for a while in 2016 due to the impending Supreme Court judgment on petitions seeking 1951 as the cut-off year for citizenship of people residing in Assam instead of 1971 as per the Assam Accord. The case is currently being monitored by the Supreme Court.

It's Modi Vs Gandhis, let India wait

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

As a joke, it is clever but contrived. As a jibe in parliament, it is rank graceless. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest remark in the Rajya Sabha about his predecessor Dr. Manmomohan Singh—only Doctor saab knows the art of bathing wearing a raincoat in the bathroom—looks like having put paid to the budget session when it resumes on March 9 after a month-long adjournment. The Congress, which is Lilliputian in the Lok Sabha but ‘big brother’ in the Upper House, has threatened to keep out of the rest of the session if Modi doesn’t apologize. And that’s asking for the moon unless the stand is changed after March 11.

However, beyond the frightening display of “indigestion”  at the highest level of India’s political life, the incident also highlights just what CPI(M) party chief and Rajya Sabha member Sitaram Yechury  remarked, that it is not a reply (to President’s address) but an election speech. For that matter, on demonetisation, none from the treasury benches, including the Prime Minister, ventured to respond to the fact of the GDP dropping a full percentage point post-note ban. During the winter session, it was Dr Singh who had got Modi’s goatby forecasting that GDP would be dented by a percentage point, and even upped the ante, in an uncharacteristic way, by calling demonetisation as “organized loot” and “legalized plunder”. Dr Manmohan Singh’s sharp attack on the Modi government surprised all because he rarely spoke in such strong words before, even when Rahul Gandhi tore his Ordinance in full public view. Modi who was sitting in the Rajya Sabha then, kept his cool and waited for an opportune time to strike back. And when he did, all hell broke.

Congress’ leaders did their best to counter Modi’s offensive, but it was not enough. BJP president Amit Shah promptly sprinkled salt on the wound by reminding Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi about his mother Sonia Gandhi’s famous invective at Modi during the days when he was chief minister of riot-hit Gujarat, that he’s maut ka saudagar (merchant of death). Shah did a bit more chest-thumping as he claimed that BJP has given a prime minister who “speaks” and before him “there was one whose voice could be heard only by you and your mother”.

It is evident that if the existing ill will between BJP and Congress continues—and there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that it will go anytime soon—there will hardly be any significant legislative action in the present Lok Sabha. Modi’s ‘raincoat’ jibe was undoubtedly unbecoming of him, but so was Manmohan Singh’s “organised loot” and “plunder”, words that the Prime Minister said Singh had been “made to utter” (implying off-stage prompting by the Congress president). Looking backward, it is obvious that what was mere obstructionism by BJP during UPA 1 (2004-09) turned into splenetic outbursts in the UPA 2 (2009-14) period, when the opposition led by BJP blocked every legislative move by the UPA. Political analysts gave it a sober name, ‘policy paralysis’, but it was actually a series of outbursts against the Congress’ dynastic leaders.

Now the table has turned, and it is ‘Modi V. Dynasty’. At an election rally in Haridwar last week, Modi was at the height of vexation with the Congress’ top leadership. “I tell the Congress leaders: hold your tongue, else I have your detailed horoscope. I do not want to desert dignity and reason, but if your desert dignity and reason and speak nonsense, your history will always chase you”. It can well be empty bluster; but who knows if it has ammunition?

Beyond the clash of ego, however, there is a looming threat that the medium to long term effects of demonetisation by the Modi administration may put India on an unexpectedly slippery slope of economic slow growth against strong global headwinds. IMF has trimmed India’s growth forecast for current (2016-17) and next fiscal by one percentage point (giving some credence to Manmohan Singh’s forecast though he said there will be two per cent fall ) and 0.4 percentage point, respectively, primarily to choking of consumption due to cash shortage and payment disruptions across the economy. But the same IMF, in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) update, has upped China’s growth estimate for 2016-17 from 6.5 per cent to 6.7 per cent. China is an aging country with a per capita GDP over five times that of India. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for India to catch up with economies that have raced ahead if it has no national strategy to put its youthful population to productive use. But, going by the Modi-Gandhi feud, national consensus on any issue is unlikely.

It is even more unfortunate that India’s electoral politics does not hold out any prospect for political unanimity on national cause. It is because over time, particularly in the present decade, the two warring parties, BJP and Congress, are increasingly becoming driven by personalities. Modi and the Gandhis, to be precise. If there are others, they’re bit players. Or like new organs growing from original stem cells, like Sasikala has grown out of the late Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu. The party system is under pressure, not merely in India but all over. The Grand Old Party of America, the Republican Party, has been totally eclipsed by Trump, who is anything but a republican, be it a small ‘r’ or capital. The British Labour Party is on stretcher and the Conservative Party died with Brexit. In India, the Congress resembled a party in the classical sense so long as it had a full-scale party as its main adversary, the BJP. But the fig-leaf is gone. And a couple of battling individuals have taken the charge to define the destiny of the world’s largest democracy!

"Barter Trade" or Terror Funding

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

"Barter Trade"  or Terror Funding 

NIA raids J&K Trade centers, exposes Rs 300 crore  hawala racket 

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Jan 23

The National Investigation Agency is investigating whether two barter trade centers between India and Pakistan are generating hundreds of crores of “Hawala” operation helping terror groups.

In a massive operation recently, the NIA seized records of over 350 traders from Kashmir and also in Delhi to investigate whether barter trade route was used to fund separatists and terror activities in the Valley and elsewhere.

The NIA sleuths raided barter trade centers in Uri and Poonch earlier this month after getting intelligence inputs that barter trade resulted in under-invoicing and over-invoicing. The NIA estimates that Rs 300 crores of undue profit was made by traders operating in Uri and Poonch centers which was passed onto the separatists and terror groups. Essentially, Pakistani traders sold their goods cheap to their Indian counter-parts so that they can make a killing. Since this trade is cash-less and goods can only be exchanged only by goods, the value is fixed mutually. Once the traders in J&K get the goods, these are sold to wholesale merchants in Delhi, Jammu and Punjab. These goods are sold to merchants at 40% of the prices while rest of the money is paid in cash.

It may be mentioned that barter trade between India and Pakistan started during the Manmohan Singh regime in October 2008 through a special agreement. The two centres were opened in Uri and Poonch to held the traders of these regions on both sides of the line of control. Under the agreement, no cash will be involved and only 21 items were permitted for mutual trade and exchange of goods. The value of the items is to be fixed  by the traders.

The NIA sleuths are now scrutinizing the documents seized from Uri, Poonch and whole-sale markets in Delhi and other parts. A highly confidential report has already been sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Barter trade agreement is monitored by the Ministry of Home Affairs and not by the Commerce Ministry. It has been pointed out by NIA that an amount of Rs 300 crores was made in excess by traders in Uri & Poonch and this money reached in the hands of the separatists.

The NIA is also finding out if some bureaucrats in the J&K government and politicians are also behind the inflated transactions and benefited in either way.

The Custodian of LoC trade Farooq Ahmad Shah has told the sleuths that on average the trade between two parts of Kashmir is worth over Rs 30 million ($440,000) per day: “On average we are allowing 40-50 trucks each day, four days a week from both the sides.” He said that the need for banking facilities has been brought to the notice of the higher authorities.

Good-bye, hesitations of history

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Narendra Modi, after being elected Prime Minister two years ago, finished his fourth visit to the US last week amid an impressive address to a joint session of the US Congress; he was the sixth Indian leader after Jawaharlal Nehru to be accorded the honour. It was topped up with a reception in his honour by the Senate and House foreign relations committees and the India Caucuses in the House and the Senate. This being the election year in America, Barack Obama, the outgoing President, who struck up a good personal rapport with Modi, the duo have certainly taken the Indo-US relations to a hitherto unachieved height. It goes well beyond the "strategic partnership", to an emotional level where one friend understands the difficulties of the other. In his address to US Congress, Modi tellingly said that "our relations have overcome the hesitations of history", and "through the cycles of elections and transitions of Administrations the intensity of our engagement has only grown".

AS PM OF IMAGINATION

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Only two years are past since the installation of the NDA government led by Narendra Modi. It is therefore distinctly premature to pass a judgment. Some governments begin well but get miserably clogged up half way through, like it happened with the second UPA government piloted by Manmohan Singh. It dived headfirst into an unending cesspool of corruption charges, and got terminally tainted. On the other hand, the Rajiv Gandhi-led government began in 1985 amid great euphoria, until rumour of corruption in defence deals became so shrill that every attempt by the government to silence it seemed phoney and the prime minister’s name became mud.

Modi seems to have learnt lessons from the above example, and his promise of “Congress mukt” India is actually a commitment to keep his administration free from the stench of corruption. Unlike Manmohan Singh, Modi is a hands-on PM. Perhaps, this is the reason why there has been no charge of financial depravity in any of the ministries till now. To ensure that the clean image of his administration sustains, Modi has been particularly insistent on transparent e-auction of the natural resources, be it coal, oil or natural resources.

But a prime minister is not rated high simply if he keeps his nose clean. Modi has sparks of originality that marks him out from his contemporaries. Jan Dhan Yojana is an example. On the face of it, it is a simple plan to give a bank account to every unbanked poor. It is another matter that 21.43 crore such accounts have been created under the JDY scheme in less than two years, with the share of ‘zero-balance’ (therefore, nominal) being 27 per cent and falling. But the idea is not to turn the poor Indian into saver overnight. It is rather a financial architecture for direct transfer of all future state subsidies and grants, thus eliminating the pressure of middlemen that has plagued welfare since Independence.

In a sense, Modi is truly a Gujarati trader at heart and understands the importance of cost-cutting through disintermediation. His idea of Digital India and Smart City as well as Smart Village may sound nebulous. But, when completed, they are all about transforming Indian business from the old chaupal, and the gaggles of middlemen, to transparent and speedy transactions in real time. In India, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Gurugram came up not due to any governmental thinking but because telecommunication became faster and cheaper so an opportunity arose for Indians to do offshore maintenance jobs. Modi, with his digital thrust, now wants to turn this opportunity into a bold new venture, with a programme like ‘Make in India’.  Samsung the Korean giant, is now setting up a unit in Noida near Delhi to make a line of its mobile phones. Recently, when Timothy Cook, chief of Apple, visited India and met Modi, he was clearly told that he could launch Apple Stores in India if only he used some (30%) made-in-India products. In fact, most foreign IT biggies, including Microsoft Corporation and Cisco Systems, have of late increased their manpower and investments in India. Huwaei, the Chinese telecoms major, has started a research & development centre in Bengaluru. That Modi puts his finger on the economy shows in his MUDRA scheme for financing six crore small vendors and businessmen, 61 per cent of whom are minorities, SC, ST or OBC. Maybe he could relate to their condition, being a tea seller at a railway station once.

Modi can think and dream big. He has persuaded Airbus Industries of France and the Tata Group to begin collaboration on design and manufacture of a military transport aircraft. Airbus has already begun manufacturing some of its parts in India. These are the first green shoots of high-tech industry in India, a sector in which India lags not only behind the Asian major powers like Japan, Korea and China but newcomers like Thailand and Vietnam. To facilitate entry of high technology, FDI cap on defence industries has been pushed up to 49 per cent and Indian firms like L&T, assigned to make nuclear submarines, are potential conduits for transfer of sophisticated technology.

Some of the things that outwardly appear to be Modi’s mere fads, like yoga, for that matter, are actually smart ideas to improve public health at low cost, and creating jobs. In this year so far the government of Haryana has given jobs to 25,000 persons as yoga instructors. Similarly, his Namami Ganga scheme for cleaning up North India’s arterial river, for which a budget of Rs 20,000 crore is allocated, should create a chain of municipal waste disposal projects along the river. It is a national renewal scheme on an unprecedented scale with a huge potential of creating jobs.

In his first two years, if his conduct seems somewhat puzzling, it is in his silence about the mindless outbursts of his party’s fringe elements. Their missiles are not always limited to a bigoted version of art and culture, or ancient history of their choice. Despite Modi, as it appears, Subramanian Swamy, a machinator par excellence and newly appointed BJP member of the Rajya Sabha, is firing salvos at RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on trumped up charges. When Rajan was under attack from the finance ministry for his stubbornness and refusing to reduce interest rates, Modi had stepped in April last year saying he is a good teacher. But this time Modi has preferred to practically remain non-committal on the controversy. He may be upset with Rajan for not reducing interest rates for high growth despite low inflation. Modi cannot remain maun  like his predecessor Manmohan Singh and is nor an “accidental prime minister” either.  His has pressed the pause button in terms of launching new schemes and  fully focussed on implementing programs already launched as next coming two years are crucial for him to establish that he is not an accidental choice.

FM proves mettle, earns praise

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

FM proves mettle, earns praise

Oppn fumbles

Harish Gupta New Delhi, Feb. 29

Finance minister Arun Jaitley passed his litmus test with flying colours on Monday. If he earned kudos from economists for massive spending proposals for rural & infrastructure development while sticking to fiscal deficit target of 3.5%, political class acclaimed it for taking care of the poor, women and weaker sections.

Modi's poker

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

A general consensus now seems to be emerging in India that the "new year" attack on the Indian Air Force's Pathankot base was aimed at nothing but derailing, by the Pakistan Army, the India-Pakistan peace negotiations begun on the Christmas last year at the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There is no major glitch in this line of thinking, except that the operation seems too daring and too complex to be executed in the course of just six days—from December 25 when Modi made a detour to Lahore on his way back from Kabul, to December 31, when the Pathankot attackers belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammed reportedly crossed into the Indian Punjab. It is common knowledge that the terror groups acting from Pakistan, like JeM or Lashkar-e-Toyieba, are free to act independently as long as they carry out routine attacks in the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, but the army's seal of approval is a must for operations outside Kashmir.

The recent Pakistani fidayeen attacks in Punjab is also a way by the Pakistan Army expressing its "anger" at too much of hobnobbing of their civilian chief with his Indian counterpart. It's a signal that the Pak generals have by now perfected a terror machinery along the border that can strike at the shortest possible notice. If Modi can give a short notice to visit Lahore, they can also strike back at a short notice too. It was on July 11 last year that Modi grabbed Sharif on the sidelines of the Ufa summit in Russia. Within a fortnight, a team of LeT commandos sneaked into Gurudaspur to kill seven people, before two were caught alive. Interestingly, the Ufa meeting was the prelude to a peace process, while Modi's unscheduled stop-over in Lahore, and attending Sharif's grand-niece's wedding, was an intense dramatic passage in the same unfolding peace narrative.

The similarities between the two attacks are striking. Both involve the men in khaki in Rawalpindi telling India that efforts to bypass them for any composite dialogue between the two neighbours would lead to cross-border attacks escalating way beyond the traditional theatre of Kashmir. In both Gurudaspur and Pathankot, the men who handle the terrorists' handlers sought to make the hits prohibitively costly for India. The fact that they made little dent in both of these adventures is purely accidental. In Gurudaspur, the RDX packs wired to the railway track along the Amtritsar-Pathankot line were detected in the nick of time; a jam-packed passenger train stopped only 200 meters away. If the bombs were not detected, hundreds of lives could be lost. In Pathankot, the four lead attackers, who'd covered 400 meters towards the aircraft hangars, and had another 700 meters left, were challenged by Indian soldiers. If the JeM men were smarter and quicker, India would have faced its worst.

Between 2006 and 2008, the period in which the then prime minister Manmohan Singh had invested so much of his time and attention on a bilateral dialogue, the Pakistan Army was in fact gearing up to make an LeT squad under Hafiz Syed battle-ready for a naval attack on Mumbai, which took place on 26 November 2008. On Indo-Pak matters, Dr Singh was an incurable optimist. He kept his hope of peace with Pakistan alive even after the brutal attack in Mumbai in which about two hundred people were killed. The very next year, he was nudging the Pakistan president again at Sharm-el-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort and venue of that year's Non-Aligned Nations' Meet to continue with the dialogue process. Some of Dr Singh's own party were sceptical about his optimism. In the BJP, Modi was bitterly critical.

But it is a new Modi now. Much like Dr Singh, he seems to have come to realize that India cannot remain in permanent hostility with Pakistan, nor is there any option to dialogue if one is serious about putting the enmity behind. At the time of writing this article, it is not clear if Modi will stick to the schedule of foreign secretary level talks without getting any firm action against the attackers. Outwardly at least, Sharif seems keen to keep the talks on.

It is no wonder that the civilian leaders of Pakistan understand the necessity to give peace with India a chance. And the feeling is shared by Modi. Just recently, he has okayed a massive gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan and across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the bustling marketplace of India (TAPI). Apart from being useful to India, it will enormously benefit an energy-starved country like Pakistan. But Pakistan's military leaders have a different mind-set. Being in a state of permanent hostility with India, it helps them appropriate from the exchequer an unconscionably large share. Expectedly, their hackles are up whenever there is a possibility of peace, particularly a resolution of the Kashmir problem. For as long as Kashmir remains the thorn in Pakistan's flesh, the men in uniform will rule the roost, so emotive is the K-word.

Between India and Pakistan, a long war is unsustainable, both being nuclear powers. In short-term war, Pakistan has decided superiority. Its armed forces, trained under the tutelage of US Army to combat the Soviet occupation of Agfhanistan in the Eighties, has acquired the agility and flexibility required in wars that are localised and do not last beyond a week or ten days. India, on the other hand, has an army typical of the last century, with too many people, too many command chains and too heavy equipment. There is not  even a synchronized command for its three defence services. But Pakistan has a single chief of staff.

Having inherited a rather anachronistic defence establishment, it may not be possible for Modi to go on hot pursuit, or such surgical operations, against Pakistan any time soon. A practical man, Modi understands India’s military limitations, something that he didn’t when he criticised Dr. Singh. When his aircraft landed in Lahore on December 25 as a Christmas surprise, there was also a lurking feeling of a backlash. But still he accepted the risk as the possibility of peace between India and Pakistan is too tempting. But that is expected as Modi is a compulsive risk-taker.

Corporate fear, opposition scream

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

 

With the first week of the parliament's winter session over, what are the odds its 'political climate' will change? Punters are not very cheerful. A meeting some days back between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, accompanied by Manmohan Singh, was a picture of woodenness. Its fate became obvious when Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi soon upped the ante as much as he could in his Lok Sabha speech on intolerance. It was a frontal attack on Modi, holding him directly responsible for almost every ill in the society.

It is not difficult to fathom why the Opposition is using the ruling BJP's lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha to ambush every bill awaiting clearance including the GST, the much-needed amendments to prevention of Corruption Act, and even the Real Estate (Development and Regulation) Bill. These have all appeared like done deal at the committee level but politics is taking its toll in the Upper House.

With the passage of time, the opposition's hatred for Modi is getting visceral. As the Jungle lore goes, it is likely that the king of the forest is on the prowl. In the Indian context, if politicians are to be compared to the night birds, corporate mandarins are the lion. In Lutyen's Delhi, lazy pensioners grew the habit of projecting Modi as a buddy of the moneybags from Mumbai or Gujarat. But his actions since May last year tell a rather different story.

RIL chief Mukesh Ambani, for that matter, was often referred to as Modi's favourite. Facts are somewhat different. Prior to the fall of UPA government, it had a dispute with RIL over the price for gas produced from the Krishna-Godavari basin off the Andhra Pradesh coast. To resolve the dispute, a committee was set up under economist R. Rangarajan which opined that RIL should get a price of 8.4 US dollars per MMBTU (unit) of gas. But the then petroleum minister Jaipal Reddy insisted that RIL should make up for the gas supply assurance on which it had reneged.

As Modi assumed office, instead of government readily paying RIL higher rates, things got a worse turn. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs tweaked the Rangarajan formula to finalise the price at $6—6.5 per MMBTU, much less than what RIL expected, but it levied a fine of $579 million for failure to meet gas production target in 2013-14. In other words, RIL must deliver 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas at $4.2 per unit to qualify for the new government rate. But there were further problems as in connection with another dispute between the government and RIL and BG, its partner, a probe was ordered into possible cosy nexus between the parties and the arbitrator. On the other hand, a complaint by the public-sector explorer ONGC that its gas had been pilfered by RIL which works a neighbouring block in K-G Basin has been corroborated by a reputed global consultancy. The complaint was lodged in 2013 but under the Modi dispensation, far from being put in cold storage, it is heading for its logical climax. So much for the alleged "Modi-Mukesh" links!

There are several other instances where the Modi government's shifts in stance are sending shivers down the spine of the domestic behemoths; all these years, the Mumbaiwalas' had played all tricks in the book to keep competition away. Post-facto taxation on Vodafone is an example. When Bombay High Court struck down an Income Tax Appellate Tribunal claim of Rs 8,500 crore against Vodafone in a transfer pricing case, with other global majors like IBM, Shell and Nokia caught in identical cases, the Modi administration set an example by deciding not to appeal against the order in the Supreme Court. The move no doubt jolted domestic monopolists in telecom and oil sectors.

Further, the government has given no extra weight to its own income tax department either. I-T department earlier issued notices to 160 foreign portfolio investors to pay tax from April 1 this year under Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) from which firms without any permanent establishment in India were exempt. The government soon appointed a committee under Justice A. P. Shah which found that MAT was unwarranted and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley readily accepted the recommendation.

 "Providing certainty in the tax law is the function of the government", Jaitley said. "India pulls back from $6.4 billion tax raid on foreign investors", gleefully reported the Financial Times. In public sector banks, there is a three-fold increase in legal action against defaulters, to 6,000, in two years. That takes care of the likes of Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher, Subrata Roy of Sahara and Venkatram Reddy, all darlings of opposition politicians.

Gautam Adani (Adani group), Dalip Sanghavi (Sun Pharma), Anil Ambani (ADAG group) and Sajan Jindal who are considered on the right side of the regime, are equally struggling to grow and prosper. They may be rubbing shoulder with the PM during his foreign visits. But they continue to be in despair There is no visible windfall gai b Side by side, the Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana has made a good start, with nearly 200 million new accounts by now. But they are a powerful bulwark against a network of politicians and swindlers that robs ordinary people of their hard-earned savings through chit fund businesses. That’s what happened in the Saradha case of West Bengal, in which Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal chief minister and yet another PM aspirant, now finds her cabinet colleagues and MPs marooned. While opposition politicians scream, the Indian corporate czars are watching Modi’s reforms with trepidation.  

 

MODI Vs MEDIA

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

The Times have come, Narendra Modi said, to talk of many things. Sure it is a spoof on the famous line from "Alice In Wonderland". But there is clearly a lot of reason why the Indian media must answer a barrage of questions, on what's the media's role in India's democracy and how credibly- or otherwise- has it conducted itself. With over 70,000 newspapers and 880 satellite television channels, over 100 of them focused on news, the Indian media is a behemoth by all accounts. The media, particularly the broadcast media, are singularly responsible for shaping public opinion. In the last two years of the UPA government, it went overboard in defining the government's policy aberrations, notably on harnessing of natural resources, as willful corruption. Two years of non-stop finger pointing by the media as corrupt and inept was more than enough to turn the government led by Manmohan Singh as a stretcher case much before its doomsday.

It has now got a new prey, Prime Minister Modi. As a political leader, he is the opposite of his BJP predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was perhaps the most media-driven PM India ever had. But Modi is indifferent to media except as an instrument to reach out to the electors. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha election last year, he used television to turn it close to a presidential poll. His television addresses were carried on giant screens to almost every constituency across the country, creating a powerful illusion of omnipresence. The individual candidates of his party, the BJP, mattered the least as every contest seemed being between Modi and the rival party. It is true that the strategy did not prove much useful in states where BJP had no significant electoral presence, like West Bengal and much of South India. But the Modi factor, coupled with BJP's base strength made the saffron wave unstoppable across the Hindi belt. The Modi wave pitchforked the party to majority status in the lower House, a feat not accomplished by any single party after the 'Indira wave' following the late prime minister's assassination.

Of course Modi owes a lot to the media for his decisive win. But he proved to be a somewhat different animal after his victory, keeping high-power editors and anchors at bay and diligently avoiding situations where journalists could pose unwarranted questions. The only interactions he had with journalists was a series of dinner meets with them around the first anniversary of his government. The meetings were held at the Krishna Menon Marg residence of finance minister Arun Jaitley and not at his official residence on Race Course Road, which again is a token of his apathy to get too close to men and women whose job is to interpret him and his words to the people, and that too in any way which they like. In his tour of Central Asia this week, he has not even allowed the reporters of news agencies like PTI to accompany him. Only their photographers are welcome, probably because they don't ask questions. As PM, Modi firmly shut his access doors not only to journalists but also their employers, who had till the recent past enjoyed untold privileges. The UPA chairperson would visit their homes, and reading it as signal, government advertisements would flood their publications irrespective of their actual reach.

But it surely pushes the media to a point where it must 

make up its mind on how it wants to see itself as: a 

soapbox orator, or a provider of information.

Some media barons who began thinking that they had brought Modi to power were obviously seething in anger. Besides, there is a section of the media ideologically opposed to BJP. Together, they launched a furious campaign against Modi on the 'Lalitgate' issue, asking for the PM's head for every leak involving the improprieties of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, and detail of the doubtful nexus between Vasundhara Raje Scindia, powerful Rajasthan chief minister of the BJP, and former cricket IPL super-boss Lalit Modi who is now in the vortex of controversy. Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, had their axe to grind as the Modi government seemed serious about getting the two legislations- one on GST and other to simplify land acquisition- cleared in the impending monsoon session of Parliament, and that would give Modi a head start in the assembly elections for Bihar later in the year.

The shrill voices in the media were clearly backing the wrong horse as the Prime Minister could by no account be held responsible for the links his party seniors were maintaining with a cricket manager who had attracted the wrath of the previous government for offences never cogently stated before a court in the form of charges. The reasons for Congress' grouse against Lalit Modi are old, besides being shrouded in speculation. It can be because Lalit Modi cost former MoS for external affairs Shashi Tharoor, a confidante of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, his job by disclosing that his wife (now dead) Sunanda Pushkar had acquired a large stake in IPL's Kochi franchise. It can be anything else, except the criminal and financial charges for which two successive governments have been unable to produce any proof. But  the media could only get cases of impropriety against the two women leaders of the BJP to take on the PM.

It is obvious that the media too was not in search of the proof either. Instead, by raising the pitch of rhetoric against Modi, it was trying to rise above the irrelevancy to which Modi had pushed it. Beyond rhetoric, its coverage of the government is pathetic in its information deficit. The lone-ranger PM has substantially cut off flow of information within the government too, so there is not much news to emanate from BJP’s traditional loose cannons. Is it democratic ? Perhaps not, but it surely pushes the media to a point where it must make up its mind on how it wants to see itself as: a soapbox orator, or a provider of information.

To go back to “Alice”, the media now must choose between cabbages and king.

The Sonia-Singh Chemistry

I very well remember that hot afternoon in May 2004 when I, and most my professional colleagues, were contemplating the opening line to the story about what seemed to be the big news of the day. It was the impending swearing in of India’s first foreign-origin prime minister, Sonia Gandhi. The assembled scribes were about to leave the Akbar Road headquarters of the AICC adjacent to 10, Janpath, the residence of Mrs Gandhi. And then the penny dropped. It was later in the same evening that her "inner voice" spoke through the microphone. The rest is history.

Will Rahul win the 2014 Race ?

The Congress is also better equipped than BJP to mobilize its voters on the day of election. Modi can still come to power in Delhi, but, for that, there has to be a tsunami of anti-Congress sentiments. It seemed possible in most of 2012. Now it doesn’t.