“Allah has been used to refer to God for centuries even before Islam. The proof is there. So there should not be any restrictions on it. Christians should also have the right to practice their faith in whatever language they choose“I have seen corruption in the Peninsula but the corruption that goes on in Sarawak under this man is done with impunity. Done without even a shred of guilt or shame,” .
It is totally unfair to blame the anticipated political tsunami on Taib alone! Taib must stand firm against his political masters from the Peninsular.
Infact, his political masters from the Peninsular had done more harm to the fate of BN in the coming Sarawak State polls than Taib. Najib, Muhyddin, Kerismuddin are the greatest contributors if Sarawak BN fails to win with a 2/3 majority.
The Kalimah Allah issue should have been settled once the High Court decision was made, and rightfully so, as Christians had been using the word in their Bible since centuries ago. Is UMNO more Islamic than the Muslims in the Middle East and Africa? Instead, they challenged the decision of the High Court and the case is still lying in the Courts of Appeals and we all know what the judgment will be, once the appeal is heard.
The defacement and defacement of the Holy Bibles is too much to bear for the Sarawakians and Sabahans. What guarantee is there if after the Sarawak Elections, the Appeals Court rules that the Christians cannot use Allah in their Bibles?
The arrogance of Muhyddin, Kerismuddin and Perkasa have hurt the East Malaysians hard. Despite their enormous wealth which had been siphoned off both by Taib and the Federal Government, they obediently voted in BN elections after elections, but, there is a limit to everything and now the East Malaysians are saying enough is enough! They want back their rights to religion which is enshrined in the Constitution, they demand good governance, they demand equality, they demand good infrastructure, they do not want to depend on rain water for their use. They want more monies in their pockets!
The only way out for the East Malaysians now is to tell BN through their votes that justice and equality must not only said to be done but seen to be done, and the only way to teach BN a lesson is to vote them out in as many constituencies as possible and if possible to deny them their customary 2/3 majority!
Taib, fight for your rights, the failure of the BN is not yours alone, do not allow yourself to be the scapegoat. Fight Najib, Muhyddin and Kerismuddin. You have more support from Sarawakians than those who are making you the scapegoat!
Meantime, Sarawakians, make good use of this opportunity to send as many Pakatan candidates into the State Assembly as possible and deny BN the 2/3 majority! Selamatkan Sarawak, Salam Reformasi!
Any surprise at a connection being drawn between the 2G chargesheet and Anna Hazare’s fast over the Lokpal Bill is perhaps unwarranted. Anna Hazare’s main contention is that the 42-year-old pending Lokpal Bill should be drafted with inputs from civil society through a joint committee so that the anti-corruption body has teeth and can independently monitor corruption in government. This points to the absence of any truly independent, empowered agency in the country to tackle corruption.
The CBI’s latest chargesheet in the 2G scam investigation, which has been filed under the supervision of the Supreme Court, amply illustrates this. Timid and short on detail, the CBI chargesheet serves more as a lesson for students of law and police academies on how not to make a chargesheet.
For starters, the chargesheet goes out of its way to offer a clean chit to the Prime Minister (4 pages), the attorney general (2 pages) and the Tatas (7 pages). It appears the CBI believes its brief is to defend these three as the accused rather than focusing on its real job of detailing criminal conspiracy, delivering evidence on corruption and filing charges, without favour or prejudice, against those in the government and the private sector who cheated the exchequer.
The 60-page final report does not have a single line to prove corruption nor does it even remotely mention the evidence. Even on Kalaignar TV, it states: “Further investigation regarding these transactions, including custodial interrogation of the accused persons is in progress.” So there you are – a chargesheet on corruption after dragging its feet for 2 years and then being rapped on its knuckles by the Supeme Court — without a single piece of evidence anywhere. One should not rule out the influence of the coming Tamil Nadu elections on the flavour and deliberate shortcomings of this first chargesheet.
Since it is not keen on fulfilling its own mandate of a statutory investigating agency, the CBI has assumed the role of an auditor instead. This is an important move, which helps create a mid-point of Rs 30,984.55 crore between the CAG’s Rs 1.76 lakh crore revenue loss figure, which is accurately based on TRAI recommendations equating 2G spectrum with 3G spectrum, and telecom minister Kapil Sibal’s irreverent and indeed outright frivolous "zero loss" premise.
To do this, the CBI has invented a terminology called “Aggregate Gross Revenue (AGR) per MHz per Year” that has never been used before by anybody — DoT, finance ministry, TRAI or CAG. By citing some documents which are not in the public domain, the CBI takes a parameter used for measuring spectrum charge (recurring quarterly payment by cellular operators) to determine that the auction price for the entry fee would have been Rs 30,984.55 crore. Unsurprisingly, the CBI has failed to provide detailed calculations in support of its new loss figure. The CBI is way out of line in following Sibal’s lead in second guessing the CAG by using this oblique and ineffective parameter.
The CBI has further defied the Supreme Court Order of 16.12.2010 which instructed it to investigate spectrum auctions between 2001 and 2006 and the grant of UAS licences. The CBI has walked over that entire period as if nothing happened – ignoring the Justice Shivraj Patil OMC Report and the multiple statements and evidence provided by the government about the illegal issuance of new UAS licences since 2004 in violation of TRAI’s recommendations and the Cabinet decision of 2003.
None of the companies that were found ineligible in the CAG Report (85 of them) except Unitech have been chargesheeted. After so long, only Unitech’s 22 applications have been evaluated but not the other 63. The same officers who let in Unitech probably let in the others. Yet those officers who let in Unitech are not mentioned in the chargesheet.
The chargesheet also fights to clear attorney general Vahanvati’s name despite the fact that it was he who personally approved the press release of 10.01.2008 which led to the 2G scam. The AG later suggested that the release was tampered with after he had approved it. However, file notings reveal that notwthithstanding the tampering in the last paragraph, the AG approved every decision that went on to become the bedrock of the 2G scam – illegal advancement of the cutoff date, violation of the TRAI Act while modifying the no-cap recommendations and manipulation of first-come-first-served (FCFS).
The CBI has carefully picked on some junior company officials as the prime accused. Is it the CBI’s case that these officials acted without the consent of the owners and promoters? If so, under whose authorization, and with what motive would this be? The CBI repeats the charge of criminal conspiracy between DoT, Swan and Unitech roughly 17 times in the 60 pages but doesn’t provide any insight into how, where and for what consideration such conspiracy occurred. Raja has been provided an exit route to blame his decision on solicitor general (now attorney general) Vahanvati’s advice, while giving the solicitor general an exit by saying that the file was tampered with. This is a perfect situation for the CBI court to dismiss the case against Raja with a little scolding, “The CBI failed to make out the case properly.”
The CBI has also completely failed to show any violation of Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules – which would have helped nail the illegality, thus proving that the arbitrary decisions were taken for a consideration. If there was no illegal act and the money trail is missing (chargesheet has neither), how will the allegations against Raja, Chandolia and Behura be proved?
So apart from wasting 18 months of the taxpayer’s money since it first filed its FIR in October 2009, it is clear that the CBI, despite the Supreme Court’s supervision, is up to serious mischief. It has accused three obvious government officials (Raja, RK Chandolia and S Behura) and a handful of junior nondescript private company executives with little or no evidence and in fact, left strategic loopholes for this case to either linger endlessly or be dismissed. Unless the CBI springs a surprise in its subsequent chargesheets or the Supreme Court comes down heavily on the CBI for putting together an April Fool’s Day (April 2, 2011) chargesheet, it seems that the stage is set to take the nation for yet another ride by pretending to run a case but in fact, subverting the process of justice by using a shallow and unsubstantiated chargesheet.
Anna Hazare’s agitation is timely, appropriate and critical. The CBI making a joke of the 2G scam investigation despite the Supreme Court’s best efforts shows how desperately India needs anti-corruption laws and institutions like the Lokpal to bring in the changes that Hazare and others in civil society seek. This is not to say that the civil society draft is perfect or that even civil society can control corruption with a magic wand and without accountability to other institutions. Regardless, the frustration and anger that one sees on the streets is because India has witnessed too much compromise on corruption for far too long.
Political bandwagons have screeched to a halt in Tamil Nadu and Kerala which go to the polls on Wednesday. Now for the silent revolution.
Almost immediately after the hullaballoo ended at 5 pm on Monday, the major political parties activated their war rooms. It is here the Machiavellians plot their 24-hour revolution through black money, white lies and grey areas. Their foot soldiers would soon fan out, wielding such weapons of mass deception as wads of currency, glib talk and gallons of chemicals to put makers of the indelible ink to shame and show the middle finger to democracy.
In many parts of the Dravidian land, newspaper readers anxiously open page-three without a glance at page-one. For, tucked away there would be crisp currency note from which the Father of the Nation smiles a tired smile. Some others open their doors before the milkman comes, and find dhotis and saris that had mysteriously materialised overnight. The only signs of the midsummer Santa Claus would be on the borders of the fabric that depict rising suns or a pair of leaves.
The election commission has so far seized Rs 33 crore from people who were ostensibly out to distribute them for votes. Among those arrested for cash distribution was former telecom minister A Raja’s elder brother A Kaliaperumal. Chief minister M Karunanidhi compared the EC’s crackdown to the Emergency; many ‘traders’ went to courts saying the commission was harassing them while they were just transporting money for their livelihood. The courts said such people could get back their money by producing proof that they were being taken on genuine business. None has claimed back his ‘trade’ money yet.
In the neighbouring God’s invented country, currency notes are not so much in abundance. And whatever little they have are put to better use—like investing on election-day operations. Not much has changed since former chief election commissioner TN Seshan famously remarked a couple of decades ago that Communist party members are the best practitioners of Rig Veda. “They rig the polls with such finesse,” he had quipped. Only that nowadays the Congress, too, does it with elan.
Here’s a peep into a typical operation. In Kerala’s palm-fringed backyards of polling stations, beedi-smoking activists hide homoeopathy bottles filled with some chemical concoction under their lungies. A designated rig-vedic voter walks out of the polling booth, wiping his left forefinger on his hair smeared with – what else – coconut oil. The one in lungi fishes out the homoeopathy bottle and dips the stalk of a breadfruit leaf in the liquid. The voter extends his finger to the comrade who does the honour. The voter is soon transported to another booth, probably in another ward or another constituency, to exercise someone else’s franchise. It may not be that easy this time, with the election commission introducing voter photographs on electoral rolls, but ‘vedic’ experts say they have done their homework well.
This is one game I don’t wish the best player wins.
CHENNAI: The curtains are down. The campaign din has quietened. But it is an uneasy silence. With Tamil Nadu set to decide the fate of at least two major political parties, the mood is one of fearful anticipation. Rarely has an assembly election in Tamil Nadu thrown up so many uncertain possibilities, for the first time even the prospect of a coalition that could redefine Dravidian politics.
All along the bumpy TN trail, AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa, who has probably covered the maximum ground, told her curious, sometimes cheering audience, "Your vote will decide the fate of Tamil Nadu." The assertion is far from profound or even prophetic. But if the going is tough for parties, for the voter, wooed with cash, gift hampers and extravagant pre-poll promises, the exercise of narrowing down their choice may be tougher.
The pendulum appears to swing between 2G and freebies. There also seems to be a quiet longing for change. At Srirangam, a 79-year-old Brahmin woman, waiting for hours in the shadow of the temple gopuram for Jayalalithaa to arrive, captured the sentiment well. "I am praying hard for her to return to power," G Seethalakshmi said. "Karunanidhi has also done a lot for us. I have received several gifts and benefited from the schemes. But it is her turn to win now."
A voter in Srirangam, an AIADMK pocketborough where Jayalalithaa is contesting, may not be an accurate indicator of popular mood, but she does symbolise a peculiar trait that has swung fortunes every five years in TN — the idea that the opposition deserves a chance.
The fate of the DMK clearly hinges on voters' acceptance and appreciation of its five-year performance. And in the past, such endorsements have decided the outcome of elections. But can the DMK's welfare measures be a defining issue that cuts across regional and caste barriers?
Until the 2G spectrum issue took the nation by storm in September last year, the party was sitting pretty, banking on the schemes that reached almost every rural and urban doorstep. Today, the fallout of the scandal, which led to former telecom minister A Raja's arrest, the CBI raids and scrutiny of assets held by family members of chief minister M Karunanidhi, and finally the suicide of Raja's aide Sadiq Batcha has cast a shadow on its five-year tenure.
Even 87-year-old Karunanidhi, a shrewd veteran contesting elections for the 12th time, knows it's an uphill task from here on. With his party's share of seats thinning to 119, a simple majority seems unlikely in the 234-member assembly. In a recent interview to The Times of India, the DMK chief was candid enough to admit that a coalition arrangement could not be ruled out. "There is nothing wrong in a coalition government," Karunanidhi said, but asserted that if the DMK-led alliance won the elections, he would be chief minister for the next five years.
However, intelligence estimates and party-sponsored surveys have given a clear edge to the AIADMK-led front. To make matters worse for the ruling front, the Congress campaign has been derailed by infighting in the state unit. The party is contesting a record number of seats (63), but faces a resurgent AIADMK in 38 of them.
Jumping aggressively into the poll arena after a long hibernation and with few disadvantages, Jayalalithaa is clearly ahead. If Karunanidhi has added more goodies to his welfare script, she has added a new twist by promising even more — food processors, fans, laptops, loans and more homes.
DMK's alleged corruption and the domination of Karunanidhi's family in state politics have been her pet campaign themes. Despite notes of discordance between her and actor Vijayakant who heads the DMDK, the AIADMK-led front is entangled in fewer controversies. The front still appears to be forging ahead riding on an anti-incumbency wave despite a late revival in the DMK camp.
Now it remains to be seen if it is Amma's campaign against corruption or Kalaignar's achievements that will decide the fate of Tamil Nadu.
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