A Raja, N Radia ‘n a relaxing weekend (NOT)

Dear All: I came across these four links in the last 30 hours – and they made my weekend (not). Together, they read like a sad – very sad – commentary on the state of affairs. You either have to be totally lacking in integrity to be blind to this level of circumstantial evidence – or completely compromised (yourself) and hence unable to do anything about it.

I will leave you to guess on which side Hon PM, Sh MMS falls. Read on. The first excerpt from More murky twists to Raja tale by J Gopikrishnan (emphasis added):

In February this year, the CBI probe unit handling the spectrum scam laid its hands on highly incriminating evidence that indicated transfer of scam money to secret accounts in Switzerland and other countries,but under political pressure the ‘lead’ has been conveniently buried.

The CBI stumbled upon damning evidence of money transfer in the spectrum case while probing the arrest of Maharashtra and Goa Chief Postmaster General (CPMG) MS Bali for accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore from a builder for issuing a No-Objection Certificate (NoC) for granting construction permission on postal land at a prime spot in Mumbai.

Bali was caught red-handed in a Mumbai hotel late on February 24 along with Arun Dalmia, a frequent visitor to Telecom Minister A Raja’s office and residence for five years. Dalmia’s son Harsh was also arrested from the spot.

During interrogation, Dalmia told the sleuths about his two Swiss accounts and property details and high-volume cash transactions flowing into bank accounts in Delhi, Chennai, Singapore, Dubai, Malaysia and other tax havens abroad. Dalmia was for years on the radar of the Intelligence Bureau and RAW, who had informed the CBI that this middle-aged man was a broker for a Chinese telecom equipment vendor. Raja’s plan to grant an over Rs 20,000-crore deal to a Chinese telecom vendor for supplying GSM lines to BSNL was thwarted by the security concerns raised by these agencies.

Sources said the CBI suspected a link between the spectrum scam and the arrest of the duo when it learnt that Raja’s private secretary RK Chandolia had asked Bali to visit the hotel and collect the bribe from the builder.

…But, shockingly, the role of Chandolia in fixing the deal never came up in the statements recorded by the CBI. “Bali became a scapegoat,” sources said, adding that senior Dalmia also confirmed the role of Raja’s office in fixing this deal…After the CBI’s Mumbai unit alerted its Delhi counterparts the following day about the confession made by Bali and Dalmia and the possible link between the spectrum scam and Bali, a CBI team airdashed to Mumbai to interrogate the duo.

“But when we reached Delhi, our bosses got instructions from ‘highest authorities’ to delink the Mumbai case from our ongoing investigation. The Mumbai unit also got instruction to limit the case to Bali and Dalmias,” said a CBI official, adding that they were denied permission to verify the transaction details of the two Swiss accounts of the Dalmias.

Next, some excerpts from a report by Girish Nikam on The Radia Papers– Raja, Tata, Ambani connection (emphasis added; Hat Tip: Supratim):

For the last nearly a month, the name of Nira Radia has been in circulation. Two publications, Outlook and The Pioneer, raised the issue first almost simultaneously. While Outlook concentrated on the issue of phone tapping, Pioneer, referred to the larger issue of the connections between Radia and Telecom Minister A.Raja, and how the latter used the former to get back the Telecom portfolio after the formation of UPA II last year.

In normal circumstances, a story like this should have had the entire media hounding the Government and the players whose names had been mentioned in these stories. Just a few days before this, remember how Sunanda Pushkar and former Union Minister of State, Shashi Tharoor were hounded?

But it was not to be. Except for a couple of publications, like Mail Today and Outlook, none of the print publications have followed up on what seems to be one of the biggest scandals in this country, for a very long time. What is more surprising is the way in which most of the news TV Channels (except Headlines Today) which had made Tharoor-Pushkar story a national event, have clamped down on this story.

Except for covering the Parliament brou-ha-ha over the demand for the resignation of Raja, the majority of the media have remained quiet. Why?

…Nira Radia, as some of the publications have already published, is considered to be the most influential and powerful Public relations person, with powerful clients who controls almost half of the stock exchange— Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Mittal.

…She also has friends in the media, including some of the highest profiled media figures, apart from newspaper owners and editors…She also has been known to have direct access to some powerful politicians in both the ruling and opposition parties. Her entry into the Indian scene, way back in the late nineties using her proximity to BJP General Secretary and then Union Minister Ananth Kumar, is well documented.

No wonder, except for some piece-meal exposes here and there, the entire confidential papers of the CBI, Income Tax department, among others floating around in the hands of the media persons, have remained out of print.

A study of these papers indicates the vast network of Nira Radia, and how she has been able to deliver some of the controversial business projects, to the above mentioned big-wigs of industry and corporate world. The most controversial being the 2G spectrum, with her deep connections with the Telecom Minister A.Raja and his patron-in-chief, DMK supremo, M.Karunanidhi’s family.

The CBI filed a case in October 2009 in relation to what it calls, UAS Licenses granted in the year 2007-08. The communication between CBI and Income Tax authorities clearly makes out how Nira Radia was put under surveillance and what emerged from the tapping of her phones.

The reason for the media to have played shy of this scandal also comes out in these papers. Some of the most important and powerful media Houses and personalities, seem to be caught in the Radia web. The names of two of the biggest media stars, Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt are also mentioned in these conversations, about their effort to assist Radia, to ensure Raja becomes the Telecom Minister. There is also a mention of how Radia has been “managing the media”.

Pl. do read Girish’s expose in full…and have a look at the CBI documents Girish has published on his site…in the hope that it would result in public pressure on authorities to come out with the truth.

Continued below

Images courtesy: Hon Sh A Raja (LokSabha website), Ms N Radia (Noesis website)

The  third excerpt is from RealityCheck’s post on Manmohan Singh, Sonia and high corruption (emphasis added):

…It is incredible that middlemen are involved in ministry allocations. This is where the phony capitalist corporate pipelines empty into the political sumps.

…What is remarkable is how the media has immunized Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, and P.Chidambaram from any and all corruption. It was not like this back in the early 90′s.  The scams of today yield Bofors kickbacks in simple interest everyday. Except a few media houses, no one follows this story.  Sure, NDTV and CNN-IBN report it but they dont follow it…

You an guess why.

And finally, M J Akbar on How much sleaze can you spare, brother? (emphasis added):

“My case is cleared, na?” said the politician who wanted to be telecom minister to the lobbyist for a telecom major four days before the present Union Cabinet was sworn in last summer. The middle-woman, Nira Radia, was coy and comforting in her first-name-basis response: “Your case was cleared last night only.”

The truly touching aspect of the politician’s piteous plea is a syllable, na. It has every shade of pathos, not to mention every variation of bathos, kneaded into it. The lobbyist is in command, and why shouldn’t she be? She knows something that is privy to perhaps three or four people at the very highest level of the present government.

…She does not convey how she knows the decision was taken the previous night, but she implies that she has intervened on Raja’s behalf. Raja does not care whether a corporation got him this job or not. He is merely desperate to get it.

We know this today, a year later, because of some sterling journalism done by the television channel Headlines Today, which obtained transcripts and audio recordings of the taped conversation and honored the profession of journalism by doing the story.

…Radia must now be the most famous middle-woman in the world. She is on the payroll of some of the most important corporates in contemporary India, both those with a tradition of grease and those with historic claims to probity.

Corporate warriors did not record this conversation…It was taped by income tax authorities, who suspected Radia of tax fraud, with formal permission of the home secretary. Raja’s phone was on tap; Radia’s was. …This information has been available with the Manmohan Singh government for many months now. Its only response was to harass and transfer the officials, as it sought to protect politicians.

Why was DMK insistent and prime minister reluctant?

Because both knew that Raja, as telecom minister in the first UPA Cabinet, was involved in a rip-off of incredible proportions. The Bofors allegations, which damaged the Congress in the 1980s, amounted to Rs64 crore. This 2G scam is said to be of the order of over Rs 60,000 crore or a thousand times that of Bofors. If you want to understand the scale of this rip-off, think of this. Sonia Gandhi has been pressing government to provide food security for those below the poverty line. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has said government does not have the resources to do so. The cost of a year’s food security is far less than Rs 60,000 crore.

…DMK blackmail has worked, and would have continued to do so but for the integrity of some journalists.

The most important question awaiting an answer, unless a large, interconnected, corporate-politician-media establishment protects the brazenly guilty, is: How did a lobbyist know of portfolio distribution?

…This much we know thanks to a leak in government, possibly initiated by an officer who saw this option as a last resort. But think of the perhaps hundreds of conversations between minister and middle-woman that could not be taped. How much sleaze is stored in them?..

Enjoy the weekend – if you can.

Related Posts:

Is India a “Flailing State”? – Excerpts

How to earn Rs 10 crores+ a month

On Whistle-blowers, Murder and Corruption in high places

Burying Bofors

Plus several posts in Corruption in India category.

And finally, an attempt at tackling corruption over Diet Coke and Salad…

* Here are some excerpts from the recorded conversations in case you are curious.

P.S. The concluding line of Ms Nira Radia’s profile on her consultancy’s home page reads:

As an individual, complete in all aspects, she has always aspired to value add to whatever work she has been involved with, and to the lives of people who come in touch with her.

Tathaastu…and Amen to that.