Kani Mozhi.ramana wrote:svenkat, I read the DMK strategy is to pin the blame on Raja and wash their hands off. Will that fly? I dont think TN people are that naive.
Any way who is "sweet speech"?
Agreed from a techincal perspective. That is the start.Pratyush wrote:The arrest of Mr Raja is a a step in the right direction. Regardless of the political motives.
Kani = Fruit, (sweet as implied meaning) (Extended meaning short form of = 'divine knowledge' such as in 'gnana pazhyam' for murugan)svenkat wrote:Ramanaji,
Kanimozhi=sweet speech.
.The three are expected to be produced in court tomorrow morning. “The trio will spend the night in a room on the second floor of the anti-corruption branch office. They will have their dinner in the room,” an officer said.
Raja’s lunch was brought from his Delhi home by his brother A.K. Perumal who was already familiar with the CBI premises where he was questioned yesterday.
The anti-corruption branch has a lock-up inside the building where the three are lodged. “Since he is a former minister and complained that he was unwell, we decided to provide him a room for the night. He also requested us to allow his associates to be kept in the same room. A senior officer of DSP rank has been asked to attend to the former minister,” the officer added.
A doctor had accompanied Raja when he turned up at the CBI hub in the morning to be questioned.
The arrest happened two days after M. Karunanidhi, Raja’s party leader, met Sonia Gandhi in the capital. The Congress today said the arrest would not have any impact on the alliance in Tamil Nadu where Assembly polls are round the corner.
Sir, any idea which luxury hotel Rajaji is being wined and dined in?Gagan wrote:CBI ends suspense; arrests A Raja over 2G scamThe Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday afternoon arrested tainted former Union telecom minister A Raja, his brother A K Perumal, along with his aide R K Chandolia and former telecom secretary Siddharth Behuria in connection with the 2G Spectrum scam.
As far as I know, babu's arrested for CWG scam were let go because CBI failed to file charges against them in court. In any case this does call for partial celebrations IMHO, but it remains to be seen how things will unfold in future.uhh, before yourabid nationalistsstart questioning the CON'gress and this farce, please know that the system is working.
Subramaniam Swamy is a judicial, enforcement, and political system combined into a single person. Hats off to him. The country is better off because of him.Raja Ram wrote: In addition, he also gave interesting insights into the Prevention of Corruption Act, the provisions in it for anyone becoming a Public Prosecutor! and how he has convinced the CBI Court of the same and that being one of the reasons why the CBI did what they did yesterday - to arrest Raja.
Although the CBI searched the offices of the Department of Telecommunications in October 2009 after the Central Vigilance Commission asked it to probe irregularities in the grant of telecom licences, no headway was made in the so-called preliminary enquiry until the Supreme Court began monitoring the case. For more than a year, the CBI was content to let sleeping dogs lie, keeping up a pretence of investigation. That the agency was taking its cue from ruling politicians was clear, what with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speaking up for Mr. Raja at every available opportunity. As is evident from the 2007-2008 correspondence between him and Mr. Raja (see ‘Resources' at www.thehindu.com), Dr. Singh was fully in the picture when the then Telecommunications Minister decided not to go for auction of a highly valued scarce resource and do all that happened under cover of the ‘first-come, first-served' policy. In fact, the record shows that the Prime Minister first raised doubts about this course but went along with the decision-making.
As opposition leaders have argued, the issues go well beyond Mr. Raja. In the first place, a proper investigation must identify the many beneficiaries in independent India's biggest corruption scandal and bring them to justice. Secondly, with the latest development in the case, the opposition's demand for a joint parliamentary committee to look into wider aspects of the scam — including the Prime Minister's accountability for the actions of a Cabinet colleague that he knew about and did little to stop — has gathered force.
I met Swamy last year during an event. Spent few hrs discussing with him. He mentioned about Arab telecom companies being too interested inside India. He said India should not allow Arab companies inside stg sectors.Dhiman wrote:
Subramaniam Swamy is a judicial, enforcement, and political system combined into a single person. Hats off to him. The country is better off because of him.
The snippet of the video is present in the above and is about 8.58 minutes related to radiagate.Radiagate and collusion of certain prominent Media personnel like Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi with corporates and political parties, a subject treated as contentious and ignored large scale by most Indian mainstream media is now being covered by the International broadcast media, a much welcome step.
Listening Post is a programme that scrutinises the status and role of Media in different countries. The programme aired on January 30th 2011 had an excellent review, briefing on the current status of Indian Media and delivered a concise reflection of the issues around Radiagate (The corporate lobbyist who was at the centre stage of scrutiny involving 2G Spectrum scandal and the exposed Corporate, Government and Media nexus).
Much to appreciate is the efforts of Meenakshi Ravi, a broadcast journalist and assistant producer of the programme Listening Post aired by Al-Jazeera English news channel.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/2011 ... 970100.htmLater, Dr Swamy told Business Line, “The court holding my petition as maintainable is a major step forward. I am certain that I'll be a deemed Public Prosecutor in the case. It will then be historic in the sense it will be a first where a citizen is made a deemed Public Prosecutor, which means in such cases every citizen can walk into a court and ensure that action is taken against the corrupt.”
Dr Swamy said he will also move an application before the court on February 5 seeking issuance of arrest warrant or summons against Mr Raja.
He said the court may ask the CBI to assist him in prosecuting the accused. Dr Swamy had filed his complaint for prosecution of Mr Raja before the Special CBI court last month. His prayers were: the court should take cognisance of his complaint, make him a deemed public prosecutor and direct the CBI and Enforcement Directorate to help him in prosecuting the accused. He also wanted the probe agencies to find other accused in the scam. He said though an FIR was registered by the CBI in the case, no one was named as accused.
CBI sources said that till date, Raja had been answering only those queries which he wanted to but now, certain facts had to be verified, including the recovery of a diary (from his house), hard disks, money transactions and his contacts, which could only happen while he was in custody.
"We have direct evidence against him in relation to violation of first-come first-served policy and eligibility of private firms which were awarded 2G licences, to which he has not given satisfactory reply during questioning. Also, we have not been able to find several crucial emails and letters in the computers. We have extracted mirror images from the hard disks which are being sent for forensic examination," a senior CBI officer said.
Folks see the impact of 2G spectrum, they had budgeted to do the same thing this year until it became a Hot Potato and this year 3G had to be sold at near Market rates.The Centre's fiscal deficit narrowed by 44.75 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1.71 lakh crore during the first three quarters of the current fiscal on the back of better-than-expected revenue from the sale of spectrum and robust tax collections.
So a Mubarak moment coming up with in INC?Ulcers & the Congress
The ruling party is in worse shape than is readily apparent, reports N.V.Subramanian.
2 February 2011: The (short-lived) revolt of the Andhra/ Telangana Congress stalwart, G.Venkataswamy, reflects both a growing crisis in the ruling party and the power-struggle at the top. Since the health of a nation is often determined by the physiology of the party in power, it is necessary to lay bare the crisis and the power-struggle in the Congress.
The single-biggest crisis facing the party is that Rahul Gandhi is not up to grade -- and may never be. The 2G scam and other controversies have obviously made it too risky for Rahul to succeed Manmohan Singh in this term. But even without the associated risks, there is understanding and consensus among top Congress managers that Rahul has taken fright to the top job.
One high-profile Congressman has described the Gandhi scion to his closest aides as "murkh", which would be potentially scandalous and defamatory to translate into English. More than one party heavyweight has complained of "losing hair" (not just figuratively) and of "losing sleep" in teaching Rahul Gandhi the political ropes.
This would be funny except for its reflection of the serious succession crisis in the Congress that is so dynasty-fixated.
Congress insiders say that the Bihar debacle has taken Rahul Gandhi by shock and destroyed his confidence. All the youngsters he hoped to stock the party with in Bihar and revolutionize politics, so to speak, have been routed by the Nitish Kumar-BJP combine. Earlier keen closely to supervise the Assam elections, now Rahul Gandhi is making distance, anxious to escape blame for any disastrous performance. In UP, where the Congress was hell-bent on going alone, because it was to be Rahul's launch pad, there is a scramble to get allies against the indomitable Mayawati. In a public meeting recently in the state, the Congress general secretary and Rahul Gandhi's political tutor, Digvijay Singh, confessed to as much.
The second part of the Congress's crisis relates to the 2G scam and other controversies that have provoked a vicious power struggle both in the UPA government and in the party. There is a feeling in party circles that if urgent accommodation with the 2G JPC demand of the opposition and especially the BJP/ NDA is not made, the Congress family leadership of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi could be in serious trouble and be pugnaciously challenged.
Seeing the Sonia/ Rahul Gandhi dynasty at its weakest, new power equations have emerged in the party and in government. Congress insiders say that broadly prime minister Manmohan Singh and home minister P.Chidambaram are on one side in opposing finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who is said loosely to be allied with Digvijay Singh.
This writer wrote some days ago about the politics of Mukherjee publicly in opposing Manmohan Singh's offer to depose before the PAC in the 2G scandal. Mukherjee who had all but given up hope of becoming PM sees another chance of it at the cost of Manmohan Singh, the broad argument being that the prime minister is keener to protect his personal image of incorruptibility than save the Congress and particularly its leadership. But Mukherjee is not as trusted by Sonia as Manmohan Singh, with Pranab's rush to declare himself Indira Gandhi's successor after her nineteen eighty-four assassination still held against him.
The other battle is between Pranab and Chidambaram, and this is not solely on account of the fact that Mukherjee has been a less than able finance minister (what a fall from foreign affairs and defence), with inflation raging under his charge (although the PM's favourite for the job in the recent reshuffle, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, would have been a crashing disaster). Allegations of phone-tapping have been traded on all sides, of which the Niira Radia tapes are a significant but tiny episode. Congress leaders say that there is some sort of understanding that if for any reason Manmohan Singh has to step aside, he will name Chidambaram to succeed him.
To counter that, Pranab Mukherjee and Digvijay Singh apparently are working together. Whatever maybe Digvijay's private views of the prime minister, he has not hidden his animosity for Chidambaram. It is common knowledge that both Chidambaram and Digvijay are playing for prime-ministerial stakes if Rahul Gandhi cops out and a successor to Manmohan Singh or Pranab Mukherjee has to be chosen.
All in all, the Congress is not a united ship. Images of the destruction of the Mughal Empire are being invoked in the similarity of the Deccan's challenge to Aurangzeb and the troubles that have erupted for the Congress in Andhra Pradesh.Indeed, the more historically-minded in the party are referring to Y.S.Jaganmohan Reddy's Andhra Pradesh as the "southern ulcer", which makes G.Venkataswamy's revolt more critical than it appears at first blush.
This is not to suggest that the UPA government is about to fall, or that there is an immediate major threat to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi's family control of the Congress. But more than in any other trade, success is everything in politics. The odour of defeat ranks from the current leadership of the Congress. And if there is no overhaul of the party hierarchy -- including a stepping aside of Sonia/ Rahul Gandhi for a genuinely elected leadership -- it could mean slow death for the Congress.
New Delhi, Feb. 3: A. Raja today cited the collective responsibility of the cabinet to defend himself in the 2G spectrum case but the former telecom minister was remanded in CBI custody for five days.
“He was not the only one to decide everything on the award of spectrum licences to telecom companies. All the decisions were approved by the cabinet and other statutory panels and his arrest is unjustified. So is the appeal for his police remand,” Raja’s counsel Ramesh Gupta told the special CBI court today.
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ramana garu,
Raja suffering for good deeds: KarunaBelying all speculation to the contrary, the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu on Thursday reaffirmed its support for former telecom minister A Raja, arrested a day earlier in connection with the 2G-spectrum allocation scam. But the decision came only after much heated debate within the family of Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi, with daughter Kanimozhi — in the teeth of opposition from her brother fertilizers and chemicals minister MK Alagiri — finally persuading her father not to dump Raja.
“Raja’s only mistake was to make mobile phones affordable for the poor,” said Karunanidhi at the DMK’s general council meeting. “On their behalf, I appreciate his work.”
Putting up a stout defence of former Telecom Minster A Raja arrested in 2G spectrum scam case, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Thursday said he was suffering in jail only because he helped mobile phone facilities reach the poor and downtrodden and played the caste card. Likening Raja to King Mahabali of Kerala, Karunanidhi told a public meeting here that the Hindu mythology had it that Mahabali had to suffer for the good things he did for the people and due to the upper caste people.
''Like that, Raja, a Dalit, had made available mobile telephony services at affordable cost to the poor. He is suffering for that now,'' he said in his first remarks on the arrest of Raja projected as the party's Dalit face.
The first indication of BJP’s greater focus on the prime minister was seen after the party’s leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitely, directly questioned Singh for remaining silent on the issue since 2007 and his “inaction”.“More than three years have elapsed and during this period, the government was in denial. The prime minister maintained even late last year that Raja did nothing wrong, he did what his predecessor did,” Jaitley said.
The move is being perceived as an attempt by the BJP to maintain the tempo of the anti-corruption drive against the UPA government and use it as an affective political tool to unite the opposition.
The need to switch gears was felt as some party leaders feel that paralysing the parliament during budget session might have adverse public reaction.
Our Political Bureau NEW DELHI
IN A development that does not augur well for the Centre and tainted Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) PJ Thomas,the Supreme Court on Thursday said mere vigilance clearance cannot override the pending chargesheet against the CVC in palmolein import case.CVC cannot be the final authority, said a bench comprising Chief Justice SH Kapadia,Justices KS Radhakrishnan and Swtanter Kumar.
The Supreme Court bench questioned the Centres plea defending Thomas appointment on the ground that clearance was given to him by the CVC for being appointed as secretary and subsequent empanelment to the head of the anti-corruption watchdog.The CVC had in its letter dated June 25,2007,had considered the entire facts and circumstances relating to the alleged palmolein scam and observed that no case is made out against Thomas,Centre had said in its affidavit.
CVC cannot say that the court might have applied its mind (while hearing the case) and can the Commission say there is no merit in the case while giving clearance to an officer, asked the court.This represents a collapse of the Centres defence.Attorney-General GE Vahanvati told the bench that no stigma is attached if a chargesheeted officer is considered for the post of CVC.The filing of a chargesheet is not a stigma, Vahanvati said when the Bench asked him does it not,in normal course,be a stigma when a chargesheet is filed against an officer.The court also asked on the criteria of impeccable integrity required for appointment as CVC.On this Vahanvati said: Impeccable integrity is an important requirement.
However,when the bench asked whether criterion of impeccable integrity apply when there is a stigma of chargesheet,the Attorney-General said this is a grey area.
The petitioners counsel Prashant Bhushan said various factors about the Palmolein import case were not before the CVC when it gave vigilance clearance to him.The CVC had not taken into account the pending chargesheet,sanction for his prosecution by the state government,the case diary,the report of the committee of public undertaking in Kerala and the CAG report on the Palmolein import while giving vigilance clearance to Thomas.The CVC gave clearance to Thomas only on the basis of the two-page note placed before it by the Department of Personnel and Training, said Bhushan.
However,according to Vahanvati,no further inquiry was required once a person was appointed as secretary on clearance given by the CVC.He justified Thomas appointment to such post saying the vigilance clearance given to him in 2007 was not challenged by anyone.
Nobody ever challenged what CVC said.All these facts were placed before him (CVC), he said in response to the question of the bench that the details about the palmolein case were not put before the commission.
He said there was a detailed office memo in 2005 dealing with the case in which the state government had said that the whole case has to be withdrawn.However,the bench said: totality of the circumstances has to be considered in the case. The judges said they will lay down the guidelines for the appointment of such post.
ET 4th Feb 11
Muppalla wrote:BJP changes plan, DMK backs A Raja, Congress has no answerThe first indication of BJP’s greater focus on the prime minister was seen after the party’s leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitely, directly questioned Singh for remaining silent on the issue since 2007 and his “inaction”.“More than three years have elapsed and during this period, the government was in denial. The prime minister maintained even late last year that Raja did nothing wrong, he did what his predecessor did,” Jaitley said.
Manmohan birather is ghulam of sonia gandhi, what can he do without her consent?
Thanks CBI, now put A Raja and Ashok Chavan in jail
http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/editori ... il_1502430
A Raja, the former telecom minister accused of short-changing the nation by Rs17,60,00,00,00,000, and Ashok Chavan, former Maharashtra chief minister accused of facilitating his relatives’ getting flats meant for war widows, can both take comfort in the fact that in India, there has historically been a big difference between being an accused and being imprisoned. Raja has been arrested only for interrogation, and there is reason to be sceptical.
The Congress party is probably using this as a bargaining chip for seat-sharing negotiations with alliance partner DMK ahead of the Tamil Nadu polls in April-May; and Raja remembers former Sanchar Bhawan occupant Sukh Ram, whose conviction took 17 years and who has still avoided jail time. Chavan need only recall other CMs named in major scams — Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mayawati, Jayalalithaa and Arjun Singh — and ask: What, me worry?
The CBI’s newfound diligence may give the ruling UPA succour at a time when even prime minister Manmohan Singh’s image has been sullied. It might even answer the open letter on “governance deficit” recently signed by top industrialists. Yet one cannot help but worry that at the end of the tortuous legal process, both Raja and Chavan may have the last laugh. There is a need to guard against this outcome. The CBI’s work has actually only just begun.
It needs to ensure that its case leaves the court no choice but to hold each high official guilty and punish them. There have been infuriating delays but thanks to the Supreme Court, the CBI has stuck to its task. Seeing it through will be a step towards restoring in some measure people’s faith in governance.