Opinion

Relationships — especially in the last couple of decades — hinge on the phone. I always regarded our instrument as a necessity, everyone had one, but I didn't have to be involved with it much.   At eleven, our housekeeper's son and I (we were both about the same age) used to spend summer afternoons dialling made-up numbers and making crank calls to people. Usually we wound up hitting offices, where one of us would put on a baby voice and ask for “Papa.” Sometimes we'd get a curt, “there's no papa,” but often, because people love kids as much as they love distractions on a boring work day, we'd be engaged in conversation.   We'd have to keep up our lisping voices, dying to laugh, and usually ended the call quite abruptly, bursting into hysterical giggles almost as soon as we put the handset back on the receiver. We had this old black rotary dial phone then, and it amuses me to see it pop up in “vintage” themed cafes now. “Vintage” is apparently what my childhood is now.   Almost overnight though, I graduated from bored afternoon prank calls to Real True Phone Calls. One minute the phone was of no interest to me, the next, I hung about it all the time, becoming that cliche of a pre-teen girl, my ears even pricking up at the dinner table as I scampered through the house to get to the phone before my parents did.   I didn't want them to know I had all sorts of people calling me now, boy people, and some of them even had already broken voices. Not that they were that interesting, even, to talk to, but somehow the phone became the central part of my social life. I longed for an answering machine like you saw in American TV shows, my own private line (ditto).   Ironically, despite my desperate longing for a Western, Archie-comic type teenage life, we danced around our Indian, traditional barriers. Everyone had a cordless phone, which we snuck into our bedrooms after our parents went to sleep. Everyone also knew what a “blank call” meant, when a boy couldn't ask for you by name because he didn't want to get you (or himself) in trouble with your parents and so he just hung up when he heard their voices.   Sometimes, when boys liked you, they couldn't even talk to you themselves, so you said, “Hello? Hello!” into the phone a lot, and far away, in the distance, you could hear someone breathing, and if you were me, you were so immensely flattered that someone had a crush on you, of all people, that you said, “Hello” longer and more happily than anyone else faced with a blank call would.   Then, all of a sudden, the rules changed and we were communicating with a keyboard. Suddenly, I grew from a shy, awkward sixteen-year-old to someone who always had witty repartee, and always had something to say. You couldn't blank call someone on the internet, and words had been my secret weapon for so long, I shot them like nuclear missiles across this IM program we all used called ICQ.     I had already been training myself on anonymous chat rooms, and suddenly, I had boys talking to me all the time. If they didn't say anything, I got bored and signed off, and often I'd log back in to find messages. Waiting for me! It's funny how most people pretended to be someone else on the internet and it was the first place I could be truly myself since I hit my teens. This was pre-emoticon, mind you, so we had to spell it out.   Sometimes I wonder if my whole relationship with the phone was a lead-up to how we use them now. No more crank calls or blank calls, but you can still hide behind an identity. Now, of course, I know who's calling as soon as my phone rings, but there's still a beat of anticipation before you look at your screen: who's calling me? What wonderful thing is going to happen today?   Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan is the author of five books, most recently a YA novel about divorce called Split and a collection of short stories about love called Before, And Then After. The views expressed here are her own.

The tit for tat policy pelts the system, denuding it of fair play  and efficiency Of course, there can be no denying Congress is being paid back  in its own coin

Soon we will have a new  President and a new Vice-President. The name of the new Head of the Republic is Ram Nath Kovind, the name of the next Vice-President is not known yet. But it is not  Gopal Krishna Gandhi. The well-regarded grandson of Mohandas  Gandhi and C. Rajagopalachari will turn out to the proverbial sacrificial lamb propped up by a desperate and disparate   Opposition seeking relevance in an increasingly one-party dominant polity.  Gandhi’s excellent credentials as a former civil servant, diplomat and governor, unfortunately, will come to nought before the sheer force of numbers. The ruling combine has the majority in the electoral college, and it must have its own nominee as Vice-President. Numbers, after all, are the bedrock of any democratic system. The vital role the Vice-President plays as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha completely rules out the selection of Gandhi. NDA must have a  loyalist in the post, especially when it still does not enjoy a majority in the Upper House. And it shall have it.   That said, it is rather curious that invariably they zero in on prominent `outsiders’ to contest the presidential or vice-presidential polls only when they lack the requisite numbers in the electoral college. Aside from the rather creative choice by Vajpayee of A P J Abdul Kalam, or the Marxists’ sponsorship of Hamid Ansari as vice-president,  when is it that they have chosen an unattached non-politician to  ~actually~  tenant the big mansion on the Raisina Hill?  The non-Congress parties have fielded a former chief justice of India, a couple of retired apex court judges and even a woman freedom fighter—but always to offer a token fight, never to win.      Go back to the earlier presidential polls, and you will find that a few prominent names from outside the world of politics have invariably figured among the list of probable for President. Among them were the Infosys founder N R Narayan Murthy, former Maharaja Karan Singh, Gopal Krishan Gandhi, etc.  Why, they installed a nobody named Pratibha Patil as President in preference to someone vastly more deserving, vastly more qualified, such as Gopal Krishan Gandhi, when they ~actually~ had the numbers. When they could, they settled for a nitwit whose only interest lay in using the highest perch in the Republic to advance her family’s pecuniary interests.             And now that they don’t have the numbers, they come up with a widely-respected name. Which thanks to the corruption of the Gujarati Gandhi by a political dynasty, has lost much of its sheen but, mercifully, the genuine article, that is,  Gopal Krishan Gandhi continues to command respect. In fact, those feigning excitement over the credentials of the Mahatma’s grandson seems to forget that his name was bandied about at the time of the last presidential poll as well.  The Congress Party, after the bungle and the fumble over the naming of the joint Opposition candidate for President, has post- haste embraced the erudite Gandhi for the vice-presidential contest. But, in 2012, it was dismissive of all speculation over his name when at the last minute the 10 Janpath coterie was obliged to accept Pranab Mukherjee as UPA’s nominee for president.            Indeed, if the relationship between Mukherjee and Modi has been rather smooth, it may be due to the fact that he was not Sonia Gandhi’s first choice for President. She had to perforce accept him as UPA’s candidate once Mamata Banerjee publicly expressed her support to the fellow-Bengali. It should be noted that Mukherjee had found himself ejected out of the Congress when Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister  -- it is another matter that he returned to the party in sackcloth and ashes after experiencing irrelevance outside the Congress tent. Given the constitutional safeguards put in place by the Founding Fathers and a vital one enacted after the Emergency, a president can only harass and embarrass an elected government but not stall its working. The nearest the President-Prime Minister ties came to a breaking point and pelted the carefully crafted constitutional order was when Zail Singh occupied the Rashtrapati Bhawan, and Rajiv Gandhi tenanted 7 Race Course Road.  Singh was ignored and humiliated by Rajiv Gandhi. In his youthful arrogance and immaturity, Gandhi failed to appreciate that as the Head of the Republic Singh was no longer the doormat, the Gandhis had been used to dealing with. Eventually, an ugly denouement was averted, though Singh died a bitter man, lamenting the ungratefulness of a family he had served loyally all his life. To  Mukherjee’s credit,  he did not allow his long-standing political beliefs and associations to impinge on his equation with Modi. Both were always mindful of the constitutional norms and niceties.         While Mukherjee and his conscience-keeper and all-powerful Secretary Ometa Paul have already taken care to set up a new foundation which should keep them suitably engaged post-retirement,  as they occupy a Type-VIII bungalow not far from Rashtrapati Bhawan, the focus will soon turn to the new occupant of the most famous house-on-the-hill. Kovind, by most accounts, will make a correct and copybook President. If Mukherjee could get along with Modi, there should be no reason why Kovind would not.  Regardless of the fears in some sections that he would be a rubberstamp, Kovind can be expected to preserve the institutional memory and enhance the dignity and decorum associated with the office of the  Head of the Republic.  Unlike several of his predecessors, Kovind brings no questionable baggage of corporate or personal nexuses to Rashtrapati Bhawan. He will begin with a clean slate because his own slate has been clean, albeit as a second-rung leader.                                               A successful fixer-lawyer   Every profession has its share of crooks and fixers. Such are the times that you measure success only in financial terms. By that yardstick, some of these wheeler-dealers are very, very successful indeed. Take the case of this lawyer. His knowledge of the law is inversely proportional to the size of his purse. Built on his networking skills with crooked businessmen and other shady characters at home and abroad, he got his early break as a bagman for a senior minister in the Rajiv Gandhi Government. He has not looked back since. Now, a little bird tells us that he seems to be the cause of the travails of a media group which, despite feigning innocence, finds itself in the thick of massive tax troubles. The same lawyer had midwifed shady transactions of a former editor who got enormously wealthy exploiting the blind trust of his employer, buying prime properties in Lutyen’s Delhi and the hills from the builders contracted by the newspaper group. A clear case of conflict of interest, isn’t it?        Celebrity anchor stranded    Then there is this well-known television anchor, probably the best in the profession, whose search for a platform to showcase her talents continue  -- but without any hope thus far. To begin with, there aren’t many English language television news channels. And most seem already full up. Besides, there cannot be a place for more than one prima donna per channel. What might be further adding to her difficulties is her image as an inveterate critic of the regime in power. Post-demonetisation, the media, including television channels, is under greater financial stress. It might be an additional cause for her current state of unemployability.  (Virendra Kapoor is a senior journalist and columnist. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect that of Asianet Newsable.)

The unambiguous condemnation of the killings in the name of cow protection by Arun Jaitley on Thursday and a few days earlier by Narendra Modi ought to send out a stern message to the assorted loonies who have undertaken to kill and maim in the name of gauraksha.  This is just not acceptable. No civilised society can, and will, condone such barbaric conduct. The entire force of law must be brought to visit upon these goons who take shelter behind gaumata to advance private criminal and other agendas. True gaubhakts do not kill in the name of cow which is universally supposed to be one of the more gentle of domestic animals around.   Having said that, visceral critics of the Government and other vested interests aligned with them ought to appreciate the importance of cow in our religio-cultural ethos. Acknowledging this, the Founding Fathers unanimously enjoined upon successive generations to preserve and protect cows and, specifically, prohibited slaughter of milch cows and calves.  Gauraksha has always been a priority with  Hindus for historic reasons. One may reject some of those reasons in the modern context   --- just as one might in the present times dismiss the rationale behind the prohibition against the consumption of pig meats  ---  but, there can be no questioning their civilizational validity.Gau Mata has been dear to Hindus, nay, Indians for centuries.  It would help to recall that the first time the then well-entrenched Congress Party suffered a major jolt was in the 1967 Lok Sabha election. The sole reason was the police firing a few months earlier on the tens of thousands of sadhus and saints who had laid siege to Parliament House seeking a total ban on cow slaughter. Scores of people died in the firing, though the official figure was lower. The point is that even the most modern-mined Congress leader would not publicly defend cow slaughter, though he may consume beef at home and/or abroad. Simply put, one does not quarrel with one’s shared heritage. Nor can one try and change it. One may eat beef but it will be foolhardy to seek its public availability and consumption.  In small geographies within the country where it is consumed openly, it is again due to the cultural and religious particularities of the local population.  As a young child one had seen a cow or two always tied in the half-a-football-ground-sized compound of the family haveli back in a small town in Punjab. At the end of its fecund period, the old cow would be dutifully transferred to the ~gaushala~ nearby with a small donation for its upkeep, even as a much younger milch cow immediately replaced it in the compound.  Indeed, some years ago visiting the long-abandoned home town after a couple of decades upon the death of an uncle  -- who for longheaded the local RSS-Jana Sangh units ---  it was disappointing to know that the gaushala lay shut, while its managers fought bitterly over land which had gained much value in the intervening period. Small wonder then the old and abandoned cows now roamed the streets, foraging for food in various garbage dumps.  The point is that those who kill, and those who talk of cow protection, should, instead, think of re-energizing the network of charitable gaushalas which was strong and widespread in the erstwhile united Punjab and much of western UP. In fact, one recalls as a child the commission agent  ( ~aadhtiya~) earmarking more or less mandatorily one paise out of every rupee of ~aadhat~  for ~dharamarth~ (charity) which helped sustain such gaushalas.  That spirit of charity is missing from the society now. Also,  since the FCI spread its corrupt network aadhtiyas have virtually vanished from Punjab.  Meanwhile, the debate in the RajyaSabha on cow vigilantism exposed once again the hypocrisy of critics. Kapil Sibal was all fire and brimstone, accusing the Prime Minister of double- and triple-speak, but having said his piece he seemed to be in a hurry to rush back to the courts to print money. Indeed, in spite of the frenzy being kicked up by the anti-Modi brigade over cow vigilantism, both the attendance and the level of debate left much to be desired.  If truth be told, the Congress Party cannot seem to decide whether to go whole hog in taking on the Government over the question of cow vigilantism. Aware that the ordinary voter in much of the country holds cow sacred in his heart, if not in his mind, the party is afraid to identify itself fully with the Communists whose limited influence in Kerala and a few other small pockets allow them to celebrate cow-killing and beef-eating.  Congress still dreams of regaining relevance in what is derisively called the cow- belt and would, therefore, always hedge its words on cow vigilantism. Besides, the Congress would be conscious not to self-attest further the charge of minority protection and appeasement by aggressively shouting about the lynchings, real or highly exaggerated, in the name of gaumata.   But notwithstanding what its critics say, the reason why the Government must come down with a tonne of bricks on all those engaged in this idiocy over gauraksha is that it detracts from all the good work it is doing in fixing the broken plumbing of the system. The noise over cow vigilantism smothers any discussion over various programmes and schemes undertaken to deliver good governance to the poor and the underprivileged.  The fact that the Modi Sarkar has consciously undertaken to provide succour to those who have missed the fruits of vikas so far in the last 70 years is relegated to the margins while scary reports about cow vigilantism occupy center-stage.  Western media, unable to grasp the reality of India outside the confines of Lutyens’ Delhi, further amplifies the negative image in world capitals, relying on its incestuous circle of a few English-speaking media types and politicians who themselves are alienated from the reality of  India, that is,  Bharat.                                                                                    A  VIP crook It pays to have connections in high places. A notorious Delhi-based fixer whose name figured in laundering money for Laloo Yadav’s daughter Misa Devi’s purchase of a property in Sainik Farms in South Delhi seems to have got away cheaply due to his close ties with a powerful dignitary of the regime.  On the other hand, the chartered accountants who helped Laloo and his family to float fake companies in order to launder black into white have had to bear the brunt of the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax department.  The fixer with connections had got so emboldened that he even managed to become a member of some of the more exclusive watering holes in the capital.                                                                                                                  Disturbing his sleep  Samajwadi leader Mulayam Singh Yadav wants to move out of his present official accommodation urgently. The reason: he finds it hard to have his post-lunch siestas with all these small groups of protesters shouting slogans in support of this or that demand. The problem is that Yadavas a former cabinet minister has been allotted a spacious bungalow on the edge of Jantar Mantar Road. Which means he has to negotiate often road blocks and slogan-shouting groups converging nearby, especially when the Parliament is in session. Paradoxically, Yadav feels the need to be in Delhi just when the procession of protesters gathers momentum, that is when the Parliament is on.                                                                                     Mrs and Mr Yadav with family  It is normal for people to get wedding invitations with the words~ with family~ written at the end of their names. It is probably the first time that in criminal jurisprudence LalooYadav will get summons as follows: Mrs and Mr LalooYadav with family. And remember with Mrs and Mr LalooYadav the total comes to a full eleven. Samajh Gaye Na?        (Virendra Kapoor is a senior journalist and columnist. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect that of Asianet Newsable.)

You have to give it to him. Narendra Modi is a risk-taker. Once he sets his mind on doing something, there is very little to deter him from pressing ahead with it.  Remember how he virtually single-handedly imposed demonetisation?  And despite near-universal hardship, got away with it.  To this day, they are quibbling over the gains of notebandi, if any, but Modi remains unruffled - --  in fact, feels further fortified in his resolve to do things his way following the spectacular win in UP.   Granted, the GST is not like demonetisation. If done right, immense good can flow. It can help make honest the entire citizenry, especially producers and sellers. It can boost the abysmally low tax-to-GDP ratio. At 16.6 percent, it is low for a lower- middle-income group country.   It is a travesty that barely three percent people in a country of  125 crores pay taxes. The  $2 trillion economy has a huge number of millionaires who remain outside the tax net. One clear gain from GST  is that it will widen the tax base.  To illustrate, for decades Delhi has been the distribution hub for much of the northern region. Punjab, Haryana, UP, Himachal Pradesh, etc. rely on  Sadar Bazar and the adjoining wholesale markets to source general merchandise, auto parts, paper products, etc. Now, Delhi hardly produces anything of its own. Yet, if it is the biggest wholesale market in the wider region it is because traders rarely pay any taxes. The amount of tax stolen actually constitutes their income-profit. Following  GST, it is the trader in Sadar Bazaar who is bound to feel the pinch. He will have to go legit.  For, from the manufacturing stage to the last distribution point, a digital trail will be available. Default at the last point- of- sale in tax payment will be easy to detect. Indeed,  post-GST   Delhi is in danger of losing its position as a major wholesale distribution centre for the entire northern region because the new tax regime makes for free, borderless movement of goods without additional taxes. This columnist can cite his own experience. Building a house in Gurgaon, required sending hardware and sanitary goods from Delhi. In a popular market, Bhogal, which caters to a wide area, I  was asked if a `kacchha’ or a pukka bill was needed. It had to be pukka, of course. What surprised me was that even cheque payments were no guarantee of the tax charged reaching the government treasury.  I  found it by accident.  While still at the tiles and sanitary- ware store, I received a call from an  Opposition leader.   Hearing that I was to meet him in Parliament soon, the trader asked for the bill he had handed me only moments ago. His reason:  ~thoda entry galat ho gaya~. And soon he furnished a new bill from another bill book.  This kind of loot is likely to be minimised if the tax trail is maintained from production to final sale. And this is a huge advance on the way we have paid our taxes since Independence.       Of course, this column is not about the intricacies of GST. Suffice to say it is going to be a huge challenge implementing it. Initially, it will have a disruptive impact, especially on the very constituency of small-and- mid-level traders who generally root for the BJP. Now the common criticism of Modi is that he hasn’t created any jobs. True, but the implementation of GST is certain to find lucrative employment for tens of thousands of data-fillers, accountants, lawyers, etc. Even the small businesses outside the GST net will have to maintain accounts to establish that they are below the exemption limit.  The terror of tax bureaucracy is unlikely to diminish a wee bit, post-GST. Meanwhile, the boycott of the launch razzmatazz in Parliament on the night of June 30-July 1,  underlines the cussedness of the Opposition.  Fear of  Modi milking the event for self-promotion could at least be partially countered if the leading lights of the Congress had attended the event, and, thus, broadcast a  share in the birth of the transformative tax.   GST had been on the anvil for nearly three decades. The BJP in  Opposition had created hurdles.  But credit the Modi Government for exercising tact and tenacity and due accommodation in bringing about a national consensus. Nothing prevented the UPA from achieving the same, but it failed. This was because the scam-a-month regime was so denuded of moral and political authority that it was in no position to negotiate a reasonable compromise with the Opposition. Besides,  Manmohan Singh was a nominated, not elected, the prime minister who mattered little within and outside his own party.       Admittedly, even   Modi has had to bend a lot to ensure that GST is a reality. To transform the entire indirect tax system, especially when vested interests stand to lose their hold on the underground economy, entailed huge compromises. That is why the GST in its current form is highly flawed, leaving out nearly half of the GDP from its ambit. Major drivers of the economy,  such as real estate, petrol and petroleum products,  alcohol, etc.,  remain out because the States were determined to play around with taxes on these high-yield items for ulterior motives. It is common knowledge how Mayawati and Mulayam Singh had fiddled with taxes on alcohol at the say-so of a notorious liquor contractor who had monopolised  `thekas~ not only in UP but in various other States by paying off politicians. Unfortunately,  that window of corruption and tax theft will remain open even after GST.                                                                                                                                N N Vohra: One foot in Delhi, another in Srinagar   Why blame politicians for wanting to cling to power when you have seemingly well-respected professionals brazenly holding on to vestiges of influence and authority? The case in point is the recent return of N N Vohra, the long-serving Governor of J and K, as the head of the India International Centre. It is surprising that he should assert his right to become the IIC President by rotation  --- the five life trustees take turns holding the post  --- when he has his hands full in Kashmir. How is he expected to do justice to the arduous task in Kashmir and simultaneously steer the affairs of the IIC?  In fact, Vohra wears another hat, that is,  of a permanent trustee of a Chandigarh-based group of newspapers which of late has acquired a viscerally anti-Modi character. But why blame Vohra? It is the Modi Government which even after three years in power has failed to fill a number of gubernatorial posts with its own nominees. Vohra is now into his 10th year in Kashmir. If he had any fresh ideas about restoring a semblance of normalcy by now it would have shown results in the Valley.                                                                                             Hypocritical Meira Kumar  Strange the Opposition candidate for President, Meira Kumar, should be so dismissive of her Dalit identity, given that she had got where she has exploited her caste, including getting into the once-elite Indian Foreign Service. Besides, her father enjoyed a long and very profitable ministerial stint in successive governments since Independence by dint of his  Dalit caste.  Maybe the reason she wants to de-emphasize her Dalit-ness is because the NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind too is a Dalit.     Which brings us to the spiel about the presidential contest being an ideological fight. Come on, who are you kidding? She was desperate to join the BJP when Vajpayee was prime minister, though her real objective was to retain control of 6 Krishna Menon  Marg. The sprawling bungalow which at a conservative estimate would sell for over Rs. 300 crores has been in her possession since the death of her father way back in 1986. Jagmohan, the Urban  Welfare Minister in the Vajpayee Government, served the eviction notice, causing a panicky Meira Kumar to woo senior BJP leaders.  And when the Supreme Court barred the allocation of bungalows for memorials, Meira Kumar overnight turned the Jagjiwan Ram Memorial into a Jagjiwan Ram Foundation. She still controls that prime chunk of real estate in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi. Besides, she is engaged in a bitter fight with the heirs of her brother Suresh Ram, over the division of vast lands and buildings.      (Virendra Kapoor is a senior journalist and columnist. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect that of Asianet Newsable.)

He complains that no other government has made life difficult for him as has ~this~ BJP Government. From the curbside, small businessman to the big corporate czar, everyone has a long list of grievances against the way their favourite party has treated them while in power.  Traditionally, a  loyal vote-bank, the entire business class is now smarting under the spectre of the GST. Even if micro and small businesses are outside its purview, the ever-present menace of extortionist taxman preys on their collective psyche. The feared tyranny of multiple forms to be filled and complicated deadlines to be met every few weeks has already got them grousing about the extra, and highly avoidable, workload. And this at a time when business was still meandering in the slow lane. After the shock of demonetisation, compliance with the GST regime is adding to the woes of the business class.  Of course, this is not to suggest that the GST is not a way forward, a more transparent and equitable way to conduct business which will eventually lead to better compliance and boost tax to GDP ratio. But the  manner in which national consensus has been reached with a plethora of exemptions and some half a dozen tax slabs  belies the claim of it being a `one-country, one-tax.’ The tax bureaucracy is bound to thrive when confusion and disputes arise as they must give the complicated nature of GST. On the applicability of slabs    ---   cloth, for instance, is classified in multiple ways depending on the fibre, weave, texture, et al, opening floodgates for babu discretion with all its attendant possibilities. Sorting out these niggling issues will impose additional time and financial costs on businesses.  Despite untiring efforts by the Finance Ministry to keep things simple, when the GST is finally rolled out on July 1 there is bound to be trouble. Hopefully, with experience and understanding, the GST bureaucracy will stay true to the intended objectives of the supposedly revolutionary tax on a whole universe of goods and services. It should address the concerns of businesses and consumers alike in a spirit of cooperation rather than the resort to usual arm-twisting and threats of penalties which hitherto been its calling card.      But the looming spectre of GST is only the latest in a long list of grievances of the business community. Quite contrary to the Opposition canard that the Modi Government is in bed with `Ambani and Adani’, the truth is that most consciously the Prime Minister has taken to frontally woo the poor and the underprivileged. Yes, Congress prime ministers too paid lip service to the poor from the pulpit, while actually coddling business and other monied classes. Even the first BJP government barely addressed itself to the masses, while being mindful of the concerns of the middle and upper classes  -- India Shining, remember? But the Modi Government has broken away from the past, putting in place stringent checks on the growth of black money and tightening screws on its keepers. It may be a coincidence but the fact is that some of the most rigorous reforms are being implemented by this Government. The previous regimes talked about controlling the waywardness of the real estate sector and of dealing with the humongous problem of bad debts,   after fully creating it, in the first place,  or of enacting a benami property law. But the actual execution is done by the Modi Government with due zeal.  All the above are aimed at stopping the rampant malpractices of business and industry. The very-same storied business empires which had thrived in the UPA years, enjoying free access to bank funds,  are now being forced to sell assets at bargain-basement prices at the pain of long stints in jail. It underlines a serious endeavour to break the ugly nexus between politics and big business, which had prevailed for nearly seventy years up until the advent of this government in May 2014. This is probably the only government in free India which is not up for sale full stop.  Remember from the billionaire Sethji who raided banks, certain in the belief that he did not have to return the  loan as a helpful minister would arrange a write- off of entire  or a big chunk of it, to the neighbourhood fair- price- shop-owner who stole the BPL rations to sell it in black, no businessman has remained unaffected by the gamut of measures meant to enforce transparency.  The Sethji has not only been denied the privilege of ever-greening of huge loans, while the ration shop owner has had to cope with the direct delivery of food and cooking gas subsidies to the targeted families through digital platforms.       The no-nonsense approach will eventually persuade businesses to go fully legit, --- post-demonetisation, there has been a huge spurt in taxpayers --- to compete with the best on transparent terms and to contribute its share to the task of nation-building. In the interregnum, the fact that it is being forced to shed its corrupt ways, might prove painful. However, eventually, it will be beneficial both for the Government and business.  Now, the era of free lunches for the monied classes may be over. Laws have been put in place to attack kleptocracy. Tax-thieves now face imprisonment. Criminalising of tax theft has had the entire business class lamenting  Modi’s audacity.  But he remains unfazed, knowing that wooing the poor, directly delivering welfare subsidies,  while simultaneously cleaning the Augean stables of business and industry also pays huge electoral dividends.  As for the hitherto core support-base of trading classes, well, their anger, especially when it stems from thoroughly selfish reasons, will stop short of them reneging  against the party they have supported all along.   Modi seems to have taken no risk, knowing as he does that while the base will eventually come round, there are huge electoral gains to be made by serving the far more preponderant constituency of the poor and the underprivileged. The outcome in UP  fully endorses this shift in electoral strategy. Meanwhile, a note of caution might be in order. All the good work on the economic front will stand jeopardised if the national narrative is dominated by the recklessness of the so-called Hindutva vigilantes. Reports about people being lynched in the name of cow or beef or love jihad bring a bad name to the country and act as a dampener against the flow of foreign investment.  Besides, while keeping a good part of the population under siege, no Government can ensure the general well-being of the rest of the population since the prevailing tensions and anxieties would necessarily take its toll on governance.  Modi might be observing a policy of live-and- let-live with the RSS but the latter needs to keep in view the demands of the 21st century while seeming to implement its 18th-century worldview.  India has moved on. RSS too needs to march with the times.                                                                     ****                  ****                     ****                   ****                                                     Paisa Bolta Hai All politics is transactional now. The Shiv Sena was on board on the Presidential poll the moment the RBI allowed the cooperative banks in Maharashtra to deposit some Rs 3,000-odd crores in junked notes.  Notably, the cooperative banks in Maharashtra are mostly controlled by politicians. Even the fading Maratha chieftain,  Sharad Pawar, has reason to be pleased, though the NCP is yet to break ranks with the Opposition to support  Ram Nath Kovind for President.            (Virendra Kapoor is a senior journalist and columnist. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect that of Asianet Newsable.)

It is hard not to be corrupt in Indian politics. Despite claims of honesty by Arvind Kejriwal and other megaphones of the Aam Aadmi Party, the truth is that AAP does all that every other party does to win and retain power. It is no different than other political parties. Being relatively new, it is given the benefit of doubt, though there is evidence to prove that AAP too resorts to the usual skullduggery associated with most political parties.   In fact, Kejriwal can be far more cynical in the use of devious tricks to hoodwink voters than most other politicians, not relying solely on the free-water and free-power planks.   For proof, let us recall how Kejriwal had proclaimed from housetops that AAP is an `honest’ party. That it would clean up political finance, that it would not accept a penny in black money, etc. It had promised to put the name and address of each donor, including his PAN number, on its website for the sake of transparency. Of course, it was an empty promise which was meant to fool people.   The lid was first lifted off the neat little scam run by Kerjiwal by a group of idealistic young men who had joined AAP during the days of the Anna Hazare movement. Soon, they were disgusted after witnessing first-hand the sordid goings-on. They left AAP and undertook to expose Kejriwal’s dirty doings.   They claimed AAP freely accepted huge donations in black money. To buttress the charge, photocopies of four bank pay drafts of ₹50 lakh each were brandished at a press conference in the run-up to the Delhi Assembly polls. It was black money which Kejriwal had arranged to have deposited in the AAP bank account after getting the same turned into bank drafts, they had claimed.   Having been a mid-level Indian Revenue Service officer before he quit to join politics, Kejriwal would naturally be familiar with the way black money was laundered into white and vice versa. So, having accepted ₹2 crore in cash from a couple of donors, the AAP leader set about making it appear legit political funding.     For this purpose, the services of a hawala trader were requisitioned. He was given ₹2 crore in cash and asked to convert it into legitimate bank instruments so that the money could be deposited in the official bank account of AAP.   For the payment of the usual fees hawala traders charge for providing such services, four bank drafts of ₹50 lakh each were made in favour of AAP. In other words, black was converted into white so that Kejriwal could boast that `we do not accept a penny in cash donations.’   Curiously, while other parties accept huge sums in cash from big corporate donors and palm it off it as contributions from tens of thousands of well-wishers in small denominations in order to escape the obligatory disclosure of information about the donors, without bothering to convert it through hawala transactions into white, the former IRS officer-turned-politician did the opposite. He too received crores of rupees in cash but in order to prove his political chastity he had it laundered into white through a notorious hawala trader who overnight produced four bank drafts of ₹50 lakh each from as many fictitious companies.    But should you be surprised? We think not. For, Kejriwal has all along been something of a con man. He joined government service, never putting in an honest day’s work. He drew full pay and perks while doing `social work’ with a Ford Foundation-funded NGO and getting paid a substantial sum as `out-of-pocket expenses.’   As a social worker, he used someone else’s car, while saving his own money to invest in flats.   When he quit his government job to become a politician, he left without paying nearly ₹7 lakh he owed it. Again, someone else paid that money for him, though it was his own personal debt. We can go on and on in the same vein.   Suffice it to say that he is as worldly-wise as they come. In fact, the AAP boss is neither honest nor democratic. A highly ambitious man, he can do everything which conventional politicians do plus more for the sake of power. Incidentally, last year, following the leak of e-mails of a business group, a couple of journalists were made to resign when it was discovered that they had used the car and/or guest house of the said business house for a couple of days. But Kejriwal is ‘honest’ even when he uses someone else’s car and relies on others to pay his personal debt. A case of clear double standards, isn’t it?   Reverse discrimination needs a relook   An interesting debate on social media concerns all of us. It pertains to the pernicious and long-term effect of unbridled reservations in services and educational institutions. It focuses on the need to cap the special privilege of preferences in jobs and admissions in educational institutions to one or two generations for each nuclear family. The quality of the all-India services is at stake should caste-based preferences continue to distort the selection process indefinitely.     The case in point is that of the recent IAS `topper’. Curiously, though Tina Dhabi barely got 50-odd percent marks overall, yet she was the topper in this year’s all-India civil services exam. But what is not widely known is that she had failed in the preliminary exam, but using the reservation route still succeeded in sitting for the main examination.   However, what has really rankled a number of aspirants who could not pass the prestigious exam despite having done far better than Dabi in both preliminaries and mains, is that she is a third-generation beneficiary of reservations. Her grandfather got into the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research using the reservation route. So did her father in the Indian Telecom Service. Ditto for her mother who joined the Indian Engineering Service through the SC quota.   Also, wonder what will remain of the once much-vaunted Steel Frame of India if candidates with barely fifty percent marks can emerge toppers in the IAS? Of course, no sensible person can question the need for affirmative action for the traditionally disadvantaged groups, but to extend it indefinitely is bound to render the system ineffective, especially when they are now insisting on reservations in promotions as well. Merit cannot be sacrificed fully at the altar of political expediency.       Virendra Kapoor is a Delhi-based journalist. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of Asianet Newsable

Has the BJP stolen the Congress’ clothes and become a party of the poor, for the poor? It would seem so from the public iterations by the BJP leaders, from Prime Minister Modi down to Amit Shah and other lesser figures that the party’s foremost objective is to reach the benefits of development to the poor.   Not that Vajpayee and Advani were not pro-poor, but given the ascendancy of the Congress Party in their time, it was hard for anyone to try and steal the Grand Old Party’s brand.   With the Congress now in terminal decline, Modi finds it advisable to make a strong pro-poor pitch. His recent interview to a private television channel fully bears out the marked shift in the political discourse. The PM now insists that the objective of his government is to provide succour to the poor.   He reels off the names of various schemes and yojanas, the harnessing of the digital technology, provision of huge additional funds, etc., with the sole objective of improving the lot of the poor.         But a caveat may be necessary here. While the Congress talked left, it acted right -- supping with the capitalists, the more unscrupulous the better. Run through the who’s who of the country’s corporate world and you will find the active hand of the Congress behind their rise. Collusion helped enrich both Congress leaders and crony capitalists. It is notable that a few weeks ago, the Mauritius route to launder black money was shut. Now it is the turn of the Cyprus route to be closed. No wonder big business is unhappy at this frontal attack on its kala dhandha. Why, all through the UPA’s decade, moneybags could be seen walking majestically through the corridors of the North and South Blocks. A Mumbai industrialist would fly down every week in his private jet and his first port of call would be Manmohan Singh’s principal secretary TK Nair and next, the presiding deity in the North Block. (The same Nair whose daughter is now under investigation for allegedly receiving unaccounted ₹45 crore through hawala route from Dubai.) That routine ended abruptly when Modi shut his door on moneybags.   Thanks to him, ministers too are reluctant to meet industrialists. Yes, a conducive policy environment must be created for the corporate sector to grow but there would be no personal favours. No one should feel the need to meet ministers when bottlenecks and policy obstructions are being cleared anyway.                         Another stark message which distinguishes Modi from his predecessors is his frontal assault on black money. Never mind the propaganda about his being pro-business, Modi minced no words in warning those sitting on piles of black money to go legit or else face stringent penal action, including jail.   In a telling remark in that interview, the PM said, “I do not want to raise taxes, I just want taxes to be paid honestly. I won’t let it get stolen…”   It is notable that a few weeks ago, the Mauritius route to launder black money was shut. Now it is the turn of the Cyprus route to be closed. No wonder big business is unhappy at this frontal attack on its kala dhandha.     It is not that Indira Gandhi did not speak such language. She did. But the vital difference is that she and her ministers talked socialism while supping with the moneybags, thus helping create quite a few widely known rags-to-riches stories. But in the case of Modi there is no ambivalence.   At least, thus far there is no evidence that any particular business house has received favours.   Ambition is the first step for achievement In 2006, when the UPA Government fielded Shashi Tharoor for the UN Secretary-General’s post, everyone knew it would be very difficult for him to succeed, especially given the opposition of China, a permanent Security Council member with a veto on such selection.   Yet, the Manmohan Singh PMO and the MEA went on a wild goose chase, traversing the far corners of the world in quest of an unattainable objective. But soon the matter was forgotten. Unlike that stillborn bid, Prime Minister Modi’s determined pitch for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group is set to succeed, sooner than most critics might like to believe. To say that Modi needlessly staked India’s prestige on an unattainable objective is to be blind to the actual proceedings at the recent Seoul plenary of the NSG.   In fact, at Seoul India has already got its foot inside the NSG door, knowingly kept ajar by its friends, even as the NSG members clarify a few points before formally granting it admission. Though China would not like India to become a member, but thanks to Modi’s personal diplomacy with a number of world leaders, it does not want to be singled out as the lone objector.   This can be noticed from the fact that a number of Chinese diplomats have been at pains to denythat China stood in the way of India’s membership at the Seoul plenary.   Yet, specific clarifications sought by a couple of countries and the need for a firm criterion for future membership, caused the decision to be deferred. Once behind-the-scenes negotiations are over, and the few holdouts drop their opposition, it would be well-nigh impossible for China to continue opposing India’s entry into the elite nuclear club. China would not like to be isolated as the lone objector in a group of 48.   Meanwhile, the criticism that having got the waiver in 2008, membership of the NSG was a waste of money and effort, was ill-founded. Would you rather that you remained outside the club, whose rules nonetheless you felt obliged to follow, or were members of the club, and helped in framing the rules applicable to you as also to everyone else? The question is a no-brainer.   Who will police the police? The Enforcement Directorate, supposed to go after the suspect economic offenders, needs watching over. For, regardless of its line of work, it is not manned by angels who are above temptation.   In recent months, a senior officer who has arranged for himself a long lien on the excuse that he is investigating a high-profile case, has virtually gone rogue. In league with thuggish politicians and unscrupulous journalists, he seems to be harassing those who fail to do his bidding. Even though his superiors are aware of his shady behaviour, their failure to discipline him is puzzling.   Virendra Kapoor is a Delhi-based journalist. The opinions expressed in this article may not reflect the views of Asianet Newsable and Asianet Newsable does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

Experienced bribe-takers know how to cover the money trail Despite the Italian court convicting the bribe-givers in the Agusta-Westland deal, there has hardly been any progress at the Indian end to track down the bribe-takers. Yes, former Air Force Chief SP Tyagi and his cousins got paid. That much is pukka. But what they received was chicken-feed compared to what the politicians, or their frontmen, received for placing the order for a dozen VVIP choppers for a total amount of ₹3,600 crore. About 10% of that was earmarked for kickbacks.   Investigations by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate are proceeding at a snail’s pace, and not necessarily because of any failure on their part. Though the Tyagis and their lawyer Gautam Khaitan have admitted to receiving money from the front companies set up by the middlemen in the deal, both claim these were not bribes but professional fees for the services rendered.   Being a lawyer, Khaitan, belonging to the once-reputed Kolkata-centric law firm, O.P. Khaitan and Company, is unable to explain the web of shell companies he had set up to receive tainted funds. In recent years, Khaitan had raised his work profile in Dubai and its neighbouring region. The former Air Force Chief, meanwhile, is hard put to justify investments in commercial properties.   Yet, the Tyagis and the Khaitans may not be of much interest to the current political establishment. In the absence of concrete evidence linking top Congress bosses to the payoffs, the latest corruption scandal too may peter out as a damp squib. Sources in the CBI-ED, however, do not rule out summoning the Comptroller and Auditor General of India Shashikant Sharma.   Depending on the leads investigating agencies have managed to get from the sustained grilling of Tyagi and Khaitan, the agency might consider summoning senior Congress leaders. But that decision would need political clearance and will have to be based on substantive evidence linking them to the payoffs. Of this, at least thus far, there is no evidence. Interestingly, everyone is cherry-picking from the interview Christian Michel, the Dubai-based wheeler-dealer, gave to a couple of Indian media outlets. His claim that he has no knowledge about Sonia Gandhi being paid is being cited by Congress Party to rubbish the Modi government’s claim about her involvement. On the other hand, the BJP has picked on Michel’s claim that a huge portion of the kickbacks flowed back to Italy to buttress the charge that Sonia Gandhi was involved, since her close relatives, including sister and mother, live there.   When all is said and done, the fear is that the AgustaWestland scam too might go the Bofors way. In both scams, you know who the real bribe-takers are but the investigators are unable to pin them down for want of actionable evidence. It is so because crooks are invariably a step or two ahead of the authorities, especially when they deal with an opaque web of shell companies floated in tax havens whose governments refuse to cooperate, a huge plus in their favour since the economies of these tiny nations/principalities are crucially dependent on the provision of top secret financial services.   Goebbels has his match in propagandist Kejriwal  The good news is that the PIL, challenging the humongous increase in the publicity budget of the Delhi government from ₹26 crore in the last year of Shiela Dikshit’s rule to ₹526 crore in the first year of Arvind Kejriwal’s rule, is being pulled out of cold storage. A two-member bench of the Delhi High Court, headed by Chief Justice G Rohini, is set to take up the PIL soon. Maybe that is the reason there is respite from the full-page ads singing paeans to CM Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP government. The obscene excess seems to have stirred the conscience of the people.   The level of obscenity it is can be gauged from the fact that the total spend of the Modi government on all forms of publicity in its first year was under ₹1,000 crore, virtually the same as in the last year of the UPA. Whereas, the self-avowed aam aadmi government in Delhi, a union territory with less than 1% of the total population of the country, earmarked more than half of what the Modi government spent for its all-India coverage. Curiously, the Kejriwal government did not route the ads through any of the established agencies. It set up its own agency. Normally, advertising agencies operate on 10% to 15% commission, with some reputed agencies going up to even 20% in special cases. There is no clarity on who provides the ad agency services to the Kejriwal government and if the people involved are the same who had earlier worked for the party during its election campaign.   Meanwhile, given the huge publicity budget at its disposal, the Kejriwal government has hogged media attention, with owners of media outlets perforce providing an inordinately disproportionate space and favourable coverage to the leaders of the government of the city-state. Taxpayers’ rupees are thus misused to build up the image of Kejriwal and his party.   As a harassed Delhi babu commented during the failed but much tom-tommed odd-even phase two, had the Delhi government purchased 500 air-conditioned buses instead of wasting ₹526 crore on self-glorification, the odd-even scheme may have made some dent in pollution levels. Indeed.   Incidentally, cynics have suggested that the AAP change its election symbol from broom (jhaadu) to loudspeaker (bhompu).   All is not well in First Family A group of Congressmen was seen carrying placards which had pictures of Priyanka, Robert Vadra and Sonia Gandhi. The slogan under the photos read: Vadra, Priyanka Lao, Congress Bachao. These placards were prominent at the so-called Save Democracy march the Congress leaders had organized from Jantar Mantar to Parliament Street Police Station, hardly a distance of 200 metres. But that is not the reason why we mention the Vadra posters. The fact that Congress spokespersons on the evening news television shows were hard put to explain the placards seeking Vadra’s induction in the party, would suggest that the top leadership had not sanctioned them. Since the man behind this show-stealer was a long-time buddy of Vadra, one Jagdish Sharma, the obvious question is whether Vadra is not amenable to advice from his mother-in-law and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. It would seem so, especially from his recent remarks to a private news agency where he talked of plunging into politics and saving the Congress. Is a rebellion brewing in the First Family?   Gandhis: rassi jal gayi, bal nahi gaya (Gandhis marginalized but still arrogant)                Civility and good sense have vanished from politics. And for this the Gandhis are to blame. Their petty-mindedness resulted in their disapproving of any celebration of the birth anniversaries of late Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. So much so that even Manmohan Singh, who owes his political career to Rao, stopped showing up at Rao’s birth anniversary functions at the Andhra Bhawan, hardly a kilometre from the Prime Minister’s Office.       Now, forget just the Gandhis, no senior leader of the Congress Party, especially from Punjab, cared to attend a recent event at the Rashtrapati Bhavan meant to mark the 100th birth anniversary of the late President Giani Zail Singh. President Pranab Mukherjee paid handsome tributes to the pragmatic Giani in the presence of a few members of his family and a number of his former aides.   Virendra Kapoor is a Delhi-based journalist. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of Asianet Newsable

One of the unintended consequences of the country-wide raids on Lalu Yadav's burgeoning real estate empire might be that Bihar Chief  Minister Nitish Kumar can now breathe easy.  Prior to the income tax raids at nearly two dozen locations in the NCR Delhi, Patna, Mumbai  and several other places linked to the Yadav clan, the RJD component in the ruling alliance had begun to flex its muscle, threatening to return the State to the jungle-raj days when everything was on sale and no-one felt safe.    Whether Nitish is grateful for the godsend, which will now ensure that a subdued Lalu will do nothing to rock the alliance, is not the point. Nor is it important whether the Janata Dal (U) will snap the toxic Lalu link to return to the more credible and productive alliance with the old partner, BJP, (though Lalu's suspicions in this regard may not be entirely unfounded.)  But what is of utmost significance is that the Modi Government has had the conviction and the requisite courage to go after the perpetrators of wrongdoing regardless of their standing in the world of politics, business et al.  In fact, when you are determined to clean up the Augean stables of the economy, committed to fighting the menace of black money, you have to be bold enough to take on venal elements unmindful of their high station in society.  It should be noted that the raids on Lalu's illicit empire were conducted around the same time the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate cracked down on various properties and places linked to Karti Chidambaram. Anyone else in government would have had second thoughts raiding near simultaneously two prominent Opposition figures. But not  Modi. He is obviously made of sterner stuff.  Years of unremitting abuse and condemnation seemed to have only steeled his resolve to fight the commonplace rottenness in the polity and the economy. The reaction of senior Chidambaram and the Congress Party was on expected lines, though that did not make it less amusing. How Chidambaram's writing of a column in an English language daily, or, for that matter, Lalu's daily abuse of Modi and the BJP as 'fascist and communal forces,' excuses their alleged corruption remains unclear.  If that logic were to be heeded, only those associated with the NDA should be probed for wrongdoing. Crying vendetta in no way condones malfeasance, does it? The fact is that all through the UPA decade. when his father ruled the roost in the Finance and, for a shorter period, in Home Ministry, Karti constantly figured as the centerpiece of money-making scams slash dalal-speak.  He was supposed to be a one-stop shop for getting things done in his father's ministry. He proposed, the senior Chidambaram disposed. Whether it was the Malaysian telecom deal in which real big money was made by the Marans or the INX Media clearance, Karti is alleged to have acted as a facilitator for a major price.                                    There is so much muck floating around Karti that even if a fraction of it is proved, it should be enough to see him behind bars. Subramanian Swamy and others have listed a slew of foreign accounts illegally opened by Karti.  He is said to have deployed his ill-gotten millions to start a nationwide chain of eye-care centres which has had to pull down its shutters once the Karti link was exposed. A whole host of shell companies at home and abroad through which he channelled the bribes have since been detected.     Post-raids, Chidambaram's defence of post-facto clearance of money raised illegally by the INX Media is self-serving and delusory. To say that five Secretaries as members of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board could not be influenced is to try and a) shift the blame for wrong-doing, and b) to ignore the working of the system which has perpetrated a long series of scandals only because bureaucrats are ever-eager to please their political masters for plum postings and post-retirement sinecures, if not for a small percentage of the actual loot.  Without a pliant bureaucracy it would be hard to scam the system, a fact nobody knows better than Chidambaram whose reputation for being a tough taskmaster made it hard even for the most upright babu to demur mildly least PC come down on him like a ton of bricks.   Chidambaram would have sounded far more convincing had he denied that any illegality was committed by the Peter Mukherjee-owned INX Media. He does not argue an illegality was approved ex-post-facto but seeks to wash his hands off the decision, blaming it on the secretaries. How lawyerly is that is for you to judge  -- in our view Chidambaram has already conceded that an illegal act was approved by the FIPB.  Meanwhile, if, post-raids, Lalu and Chidambaram seem unworried, it might be they reckon that the system being what it is, they can frustrate the investigations-prosecutions till a new government is in place. That is their only hope.  And it constitutes the biggest challenge for Modi. To ensure that investigation, charge-sheet and trial are completed within a reasonable span of time, say, maximum three years, would require a major attitudinal change all around, from the investigators to the courts and the bar et al.  Or else, a systemic reform by parliament stipulating a time frame for disposal of criminal cases ought to be considered. Even if Modi is re-elected in 2019, which appears near-certain at this point of time, PC and Lalu would hope to wait him out till after 2024, given the inherent delays in the justice system.  This must change so that crooks can meet their just deserts. Virendra Kapoor is a Delhi-based journalist. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the views of Asianet Newsable and are the author's alone.