Saturday, February 18, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
SC Verdict
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has cancelled 122 licenses for mobile networks issued during A Raja's tenure as Telecom Minister. The decision is likely to send India Inc into a seizure and impact foreign investor confidence. The verdict today impacts huge telecom players like Unitech Wireless, Aircel and Idea. The Supreme Court has asked the telecom regulator TRAI to make fresh recommendations for how 2G licenses should be allotted and said there should be fresh allotment through auction within four months.
Six telecom firms have been fined. Two of them, Etisalat and Uninor, have been penalized Rs. five crore each. Loop and Essar have been fined Rs. 50 lakhs each.
In another verdict, the Supreme Court has refused to order the CBI to investigate the role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in the telecom scam allegedly engineered by A Raja. The court said the decision will be taken by Judge OP Saini, who is handling the trial of the telecom scam, within two weeks. Judge Saini is also expected on Saturday to rule on another petition on whether Mr Chidambaram should be made a co-accused in the scam.
The Supreme Court, in a third important judgement this morning, refused to sanction a Special Investigation Team to over-see the CBI's inquiry on the telecom scam. It said the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) would monitor the investigation instead - the court asked the CBI to submit status reports to the CVC in sealed envelopes.
The government is in a huddle. Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal will meet the Prime Minister shortly and a Group of Ministers meeting has been called this afternoon.
While cancelling the 2G licenses that were issued by Mr Raja, the Supreme Court said they had been allotted in "an unconstitutional and arbitrary manner." Some companies who got the licenses were allegedly ineligible. Others like Aircel have been faulted for failing to meet their roll-out obligations - they are not offering their services they are contractually obliged to in the different areas or circles assigned to their licenses.
The verdicts today are based on petitions by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy and lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan. Mr Swamy, like opposition parties, says that Mr Chidambaram was aware of Mr Raja's elaborate ruse, and sanctioned the decisions that led to the swindle.
In 2008, Mr Raja ignored advice to hold an auction for licenses and spectrum. Instead, he followed a first-come-first-serve policy. But he twisted the guidelines so that companies who he allegedly colluded with jumped to the head of the queue and won licenses out of turn. They paid a pittance - the rates used in 2008 were based on the prices of 2001, even though India had many more mobile phone users by then. 122 licenses were issued. Mr Bhushan's petition asked for these to be cancelled.
In recent months, the Attorney General and the government's auditor have said the same. Some of the companies that won licenses have foreign partners. In fact, Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom entered collaborations with Norway-based Telenor and Dubai-based Etisalat, earning huge investments. Technically, they diluted equity and did not sell their stake - laws at the time forbade those who bought licenses from selling them straight away to others. But the transactions, though legal, unveiled the ways in which the government had been shortchanged. If foreign partners were willing to pay such vast amounts for their share, clearly the telecom licenses had been undervalued. And private firms had been allowed to earn huge profits at the government's expense.
In the Supreme Court, Mr Swamy contended that Mr Chidambaram deserves to be questioned by the CBI for failing to reign in Mr Raja. The basis of Mr Swamy's petition lies in a note from the Finance Ministry that finds that Mr Chidambaram, as Finance Minister in 2008 when the scam unfolded, did not act rigorously enough to ensure that the spectrum was sold at fair prices.
The CBI has, in the past, objected to this, stating that there is nothing to suggest that Mr Chidambaram could have acted differently, and that it is incorrect to single out a minister as culpable for Mr Raja's actions. The government's stand in court is that a lower court is already hearing a petition by Mr Swamy seeking to make Mr Chidambaram a co-accused in the case and therefore that court should decide whether the Union Minister should be investigated or not.
The government has so far backed Mr Chidambaram vociferously, with the Prime Minister stating that the Home Minister enjoys his "complete confidence."
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/supreme-court-cancels-122-telecom-licenses-trial-court-to-decide-on-cbi-probe-for-chidambaram-172521?pfrom=home-bigstory&cp
Six telecom firms have been fined. Two of them, Etisalat and Uninor, have been penalized Rs. five crore each. Loop and Essar have been fined Rs. 50 lakhs each.
In another verdict, the Supreme Court has refused to order the CBI to investigate the role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in the telecom scam allegedly engineered by A Raja. The court said the decision will be taken by Judge OP Saini, who is handling the trial of the telecom scam, within two weeks. Judge Saini is also expected on Saturday to rule on another petition on whether Mr Chidambaram should be made a co-accused in the scam.
The Supreme Court, in a third important judgement this morning, refused to sanction a Special Investigation Team to over-see the CBI's inquiry on the telecom scam. It said the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) would monitor the investigation instead - the court asked the CBI to submit status reports to the CVC in sealed envelopes.
The government is in a huddle. Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal will meet the Prime Minister shortly and a Group of Ministers meeting has been called this afternoon.
While cancelling the 2G licenses that were issued by Mr Raja, the Supreme Court said they had been allotted in "an unconstitutional and arbitrary manner." Some companies who got the licenses were allegedly ineligible. Others like Aircel have been faulted for failing to meet their roll-out obligations - they are not offering their services they are contractually obliged to in the different areas or circles assigned to their licenses.
The verdicts today are based on petitions by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy and lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan. Mr Swamy, like opposition parties, says that Mr Chidambaram was aware of Mr Raja's elaborate ruse, and sanctioned the decisions that led to the swindle.
In 2008, Mr Raja ignored advice to hold an auction for licenses and spectrum. Instead, he followed a first-come-first-serve policy. But he twisted the guidelines so that companies who he allegedly colluded with jumped to the head of the queue and won licenses out of turn. They paid a pittance - the rates used in 2008 were based on the prices of 2001, even though India had many more mobile phone users by then. 122 licenses were issued. Mr Bhushan's petition asked for these to be cancelled.
In recent months, the Attorney General and the government's auditor have said the same. Some of the companies that won licenses have foreign partners. In fact, Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom entered collaborations with Norway-based Telenor and Dubai-based Etisalat, earning huge investments. Technically, they diluted equity and did not sell their stake - laws at the time forbade those who bought licenses from selling them straight away to others. But the transactions, though legal, unveiled the ways in which the government had been shortchanged. If foreign partners were willing to pay such vast amounts for their share, clearly the telecom licenses had been undervalued. And private firms had been allowed to earn huge profits at the government's expense.
In the Supreme Court, Mr Swamy contended that Mr Chidambaram deserves to be questioned by the CBI for failing to reign in Mr Raja. The basis of Mr Swamy's petition lies in a note from the Finance Ministry that finds that Mr Chidambaram, as Finance Minister in 2008 when the scam unfolded, did not act rigorously enough to ensure that the spectrum was sold at fair prices.
The CBI has, in the past, objected to this, stating that there is nothing to suggest that Mr Chidambaram could have acted differently, and that it is incorrect to single out a minister as culpable for Mr Raja's actions. The government's stand in court is that a lower court is already hearing a petition by Mr Swamy seeking to make Mr Chidambaram a co-accused in the case and therefore that court should decide whether the Union Minister should be investigated or not.
The government has so far backed Mr Chidambaram vociferously, with the Prime Minister stating that the Home Minister enjoys his "complete confidence."
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/supreme-court-cancels-122-telecom-licenses-trial-court-to-decide-on-cbi-probe-for-chidambaram-172521?pfrom=home-bigstory&cp
Coal Wage Pact
Coal India wage Pact signed to increase wages by 25 per cent,
State-run Coal India (CIL) has signed a pact with its trade unions to increase wages by 25 per cent, which would put an additional burden of Rs 6,500 crore on the public sector unit.
The hike will benefit over 3.7 lakh workers of the world's largest coal producer.
"An agreement was signed between union representatives and CIL management late last night for increase in the wages under which minimum guaranteed benefit would be 25 per cent of gross as on June 30, 2011," a CIL official said.
N C Jha, whose term as CIL chairman ended on January 31, had said yesterday that the agreement would roughly cost the company Rs 6,500 crore extra and is likely to be absorbed either by enhancing output or by having a revisit on the pricing structure.
At present, CIL and its subsidiaries spend about Rs 20,000 crore annually on salaries of workers which is roughly over 40 per cent of the cost of production.
"The National Coal Wage Agreement has been signed and will be of five years tenure with effect from July 1, 2011. Increase in basic would be 88 per cent which will be reflected in all fixed allowances," India National Trade Union Congress representative S Q Zama said.
As per the new pact, the house rent allowance in non-urban areas would be two per cent of basic per month instead of fixed amount of Rs 150 a month, he said.
He added that the management has also agreed to provide special allowance to all workers as substitute of perks to executives which will be four per cent of the basic per month.
All the five unions--INTUC, BMS, HMS, AITUC and CITU--have requested coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal to facilitate conclusion of the pact within seven months.
Source : PTI / Deccan Chronicle
State-run Coal India (CIL) has signed a pact with its trade unions to increase wages by 25 per cent, which would put an additional burden of Rs 6,500 crore on the public sector unit.
The hike will benefit over 3.7 lakh workers of the world's largest coal producer.
"An agreement was signed between union representatives and CIL management late last night for increase in the wages under which minimum guaranteed benefit would be 25 per cent of gross as on June 30, 2011," a CIL official said.
N C Jha, whose term as CIL chairman ended on January 31, had said yesterday that the agreement would roughly cost the company Rs 6,500 crore extra and is likely to be absorbed either by enhancing output or by having a revisit on the pricing structure.
At present, CIL and its subsidiaries spend about Rs 20,000 crore annually on salaries of workers which is roughly over 40 per cent of the cost of production.
"The National Coal Wage Agreement has been signed and will be of five years tenure with effect from July 1, 2011. Increase in basic would be 88 per cent which will be reflected in all fixed allowances," India National Trade Union Congress representative S Q Zama said.
As per the new pact, the house rent allowance in non-urban areas would be two per cent of basic per month instead of fixed amount of Rs 150 a month, he said.
He added that the management has also agreed to provide special allowance to all workers as substitute of perks to executives which will be four per cent of the basic per month.
All the five unions--INTUC, BMS, HMS, AITUC and CITU--have requested coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal to facilitate conclusion of the pact within seven months.
Source : PTI / Deccan Chronicle
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Thane Diasater Photos by AshokRajan ACS NFTE
Thane Diasater Photos by AshokRajan ACS NFTE
Our District Unions of Pondi and Cuddalore are up in their maximum efforts to restore services and relief works. Com Jayaraman Secy NFTE, Ashok ACS, Sridhar CEC Invitee,Kamaraj DS, Sundaramurthi DS, Anandhan DS with other leading comrades visited the affected Exchanges, Offices, Staff Qrs. Pattabi CS also accompanied them. Dt , Circle admn were appraised of the worst situation
Our District Unions of Pondi and Cuddalore are up in their maximum efforts to restore services and relief works. Com Jayaraman Secy NFTE, Ashok ACS, Sridhar CEC Invitee,Kamaraj DS, Sundaramurthi DS, Anandhan DS with other leading comrades visited the affected Exchanges, Offices, Staff Qrs. Pattabi CS also accompanied them. Dt , Circle admn were appraised of the worst situation
Monday, December 26, 2011
Ramachandra guha's article
PARLIAMENT
Degrading democracy
The relationship between the two major parties in Parliament has broken down completely. For this both parties are responsible, writes Ramachandra Guha.
15 December 2011 - When Anna Hazare went on a fast at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan this past August, excitable television anchors announced that we were witnessing India's Tahrir Square. They were wrong. The Indian equivalent of the protests in Egypt (and elsewhere in the Arab world) happened a very long time ago. These were the non-cooperation movement of the 1920s, the civil disobedience movement of the 1930s and the Quit India movement of the 1940s.
Those movements witnessed the participation of millions of Indians. The pressures they brought to bear on the British led, eventually, to the independence of India. But those early anticipations of Tahrir Square were not merely about protesting and going to jail. They were also forward-looking. The leaders of those protests thought deeply about the political forms best suited to a poor, large, and deeply divided society. Their ideas, and ideals, were eventually embodied in the Indian Constitution, which paved the way for a multi-party democracy based on linguistic and religious pluralism.
Our country has witnessed 15 general elections, and countless elections to states that are themselves more populous than most countries in the world. Moreover, unlike in neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, and Myanmar - and unlike dozens of African and Latin American nations too - the military in India has been kept completely away from the political process.
The protesters in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and elsewhere are fighting for what they have not seen in their lifetimes - namely, for an opportunity to elect their own leaders, and for the retreat of the military to the barracks. Ironically, as the people of the Middle East struggle for their first taste of democracy, Indians are working overtime to degrade the democratic institutions that their forebears built and which have now seen us through 65 testing years of independence.
One key manifestation of this degradation is the manner in which legislators treat Parliament. If one dissents from a policy or law proposed by the government, the proper procedure is to speak against it in the legislature. Instead, Opposition members of parliament resort to shouting, screaming, rushing into the well, and even, on occasion, to the throwing of microphones and chairs. By so doing, these leaders think that they are showing contempt for the ruling party - in fact, they are displaying contempt for Parliament itself, and for the voters who sent them there in the first place.
As this column goes to press, Parliament has been stalled for a whole week. And this is nothing new. Fully 22 per cent of the time of the 14th Lok Sabha was lost due to disruptions. Newspaper reports often flag the short-term financial costs - .17 DAYS OF PARLIAMENT DEADLOCK COST THE NATION Rs 132 CRORES. ran one headline in 2010 -but there are more serious long-term effects. These consist in the delay of the passing of bills crucial to the better functioning of government, to faster and more inclusive economic growth, and to enhancing the provision of social services.
The most recent boycott is the handiwork of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The party insists that it will not allow Parliament to function until the home minister, P. Chidambaram, resigns. Here, the BJP is merely following the example of the Congress, which had, in an earlier Lok Sabha, organized a similar boycott of the serving defence minister, George Fernandes.
As the sociologist, André Béteille, has pointed out, a functioning democracy depends crucially on a relationship of civility between government and Opposition. I write this from the United Kingdom, where an important aspect of democratic functioning is Prime Minister's Questions, where the leader of the government has to answer criticisms posed to him by members of the Opposition. No Briton I know can recall when PMQ was last disrupted or abandoned by the throwing of mikes or the walk-out of members.
In India, however, the relationship between the two major parties has broken down completely. For this both parties are responsible. The BJP has encouraged its leaders to abuse, in the most vulgar way, the prime minister and the leader of the United Progressive Alliance (.Shikhandi. and .Rome raj., patented by Yashwant Sinha and Narendra Modi respectively, come to mind here). The Congress, for its part, has very rarely consulted the BJP on matters of national importance, even where a bipartisan dialogue should be seen as absolutely mandatory.
Pakistan and Kashmir are obvious examples here. So is the lok pal bill. As a consequence of Anna Hazare's first fast, in April, the government set up a 'joint committee' to draft a suitable legislation. One would have thought that some members of the Opposition would have been in the committee. Instead, five unelected civil society activists sat together with five government ministers.
I have focused on the lapses of the Congress and the BJP, but of course other parties are equally culpable (recall only the behaviour of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party over the women's reservation bill). So are Indians outside politics. The behaviour of Team Anna members (remember Kiran Bedi's puppet-and-mime show, or Hazare's statement that all voters can be bribed) has been unworthy of a movement claiming to clean up democracy. Inside some self-styled civil society activists, it appears, there is a petty little dictator struggling to get out.
This partisanship has been stoked by the media. Every disparaging comment by a BJP leader about a Congressman or vice versa, or by a Team Anna member about a politician or vice versa, has been played and played again, thus intensifying the cynicism and frustration of the citizen.
The cycle must be broken. But how? A start can be made by a private, off-camera conversation between a major Congress leader and a major leader of the BJP. Who could these be? The prime minister rules himself out, because by not - even after seven years in office - offering to stand for a seat in the Lok Sabha, he has betrayed his own lack of respect for Parliament.
A more plausible leader of such a initiative is Sonia Gandhi, who has herself won three terms to the Lok Sabha, and who is in political terms more important than Manmohan Singh anyhow. Perhaps she should have a meeting with Sushma Swaraj, also a several-term Lok Sabha MP, and, as it happens, the current leader of the Opposition in the Lower House. This meeting can call for a moratorium on abusive remarks about individuals, and, more broadly, for a regular process of consultation and dialogue between government and Opposition.
Politics is a serious business, whose substance can often be aided or impeded by symbols. In suggesting that Sonia Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj have this meeting I had in mind their respective positions in Indian politics today. But then I remembered that they had fought one another in a Lok Sabha election in Bellary in 1999, an intense, surcharged contest in which some less-than-decorous language was used. For Sonia Gandhi to meet Sushma Swaraj now would thus be resonant with meaning, symbolic as well as substantial. It would be a reaching out, a reconciliation, that may lead in turn to a more civil relationship between their two parties.
The Arabs, who have never had democracy, struggle desperately for it. We, who have had it now for several generations, degrade it in practice and in theory. To restore and renew Indian democracy we must, first of all, restore and renew the dignity of Parliament. For this the suspicion and hostility that mark relations between government and Opposition must be overcome. A ordinary, face-to-face meeting between two women, each with great stakes in this democracy's future, may be a productive starting-point.
⊕
Ramachandra Guha
15 Dec 2011
Ramachandra Guha is a historian, and a regular columnist with The Telegraph of Calcutta.
URL for this article:
http://www.indiatogether.org/2011/dec/rgh-democracy.htm
Degrading democracy
The relationship between the two major parties in Parliament has broken down completely. For this both parties are responsible, writes Ramachandra Guha.
15 December 2011 - When Anna Hazare went on a fast at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan this past August, excitable television anchors announced that we were witnessing India's Tahrir Square. They were wrong. The Indian equivalent of the protests in Egypt (and elsewhere in the Arab world) happened a very long time ago. These were the non-cooperation movement of the 1920s, the civil disobedience movement of the 1930s and the Quit India movement of the 1940s.
Those movements witnessed the participation of millions of Indians. The pressures they brought to bear on the British led, eventually, to the independence of India. But those early anticipations of Tahrir Square were not merely about protesting and going to jail. They were also forward-looking. The leaders of those protests thought deeply about the political forms best suited to a poor, large, and deeply divided society. Their ideas, and ideals, were eventually embodied in the Indian Constitution, which paved the way for a multi-party democracy based on linguistic and religious pluralism.
Our country has witnessed 15 general elections, and countless elections to states that are themselves more populous than most countries in the world. Moreover, unlike in neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, and Myanmar - and unlike dozens of African and Latin American nations too - the military in India has been kept completely away from the political process.
The protesters in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and elsewhere are fighting for what they have not seen in their lifetimes - namely, for an opportunity to elect their own leaders, and for the retreat of the military to the barracks. Ironically, as the people of the Middle East struggle for their first taste of democracy, Indians are working overtime to degrade the democratic institutions that their forebears built and which have now seen us through 65 testing years of independence.
One key manifestation of this degradation is the manner in which legislators treat Parliament. If one dissents from a policy or law proposed by the government, the proper procedure is to speak against it in the legislature. Instead, Opposition members of parliament resort to shouting, screaming, rushing into the well, and even, on occasion, to the throwing of microphones and chairs. By so doing, these leaders think that they are showing contempt for the ruling party - in fact, they are displaying contempt for Parliament itself, and for the voters who sent them there in the first place.
As this column goes to press, Parliament has been stalled for a whole week. And this is nothing new. Fully 22 per cent of the time of the 14th Lok Sabha was lost due to disruptions. Newspaper reports often flag the short-term financial costs - .17 DAYS OF PARLIAMENT DEADLOCK COST THE NATION Rs 132 CRORES. ran one headline in 2010 -but there are more serious long-term effects. These consist in the delay of the passing of bills crucial to the better functioning of government, to faster and more inclusive economic growth, and to enhancing the provision of social services.
The most recent boycott is the handiwork of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The party insists that it will not allow Parliament to function until the home minister, P. Chidambaram, resigns. Here, the BJP is merely following the example of the Congress, which had, in an earlier Lok Sabha, organized a similar boycott of the serving defence minister, George Fernandes.
As the sociologist, André Béteille, has pointed out, a functioning democracy depends crucially on a relationship of civility between government and Opposition. I write this from the United Kingdom, where an important aspect of democratic functioning is Prime Minister's Questions, where the leader of the government has to answer criticisms posed to him by members of the Opposition. No Briton I know can recall when PMQ was last disrupted or abandoned by the throwing of mikes or the walk-out of members.
In India, however, the relationship between the two major parties has broken down completely. For this both parties are responsible. The BJP has encouraged its leaders to abuse, in the most vulgar way, the prime minister and the leader of the United Progressive Alliance (.Shikhandi. and .Rome raj., patented by Yashwant Sinha and Narendra Modi respectively, come to mind here). The Congress, for its part, has very rarely consulted the BJP on matters of national importance, even where a bipartisan dialogue should be seen as absolutely mandatory.
Pakistan and Kashmir are obvious examples here. So is the lok pal bill. As a consequence of Anna Hazare's first fast, in April, the government set up a 'joint committee' to draft a suitable legislation. One would have thought that some members of the Opposition would have been in the committee. Instead, five unelected civil society activists sat together with five government ministers.
I have focused on the lapses of the Congress and the BJP, but of course other parties are equally culpable (recall only the behaviour of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party over the women's reservation bill). So are Indians outside politics. The behaviour of Team Anna members (remember Kiran Bedi's puppet-and-mime show, or Hazare's statement that all voters can be bribed) has been unworthy of a movement claiming to clean up democracy. Inside some self-styled civil society activists, it appears, there is a petty little dictator struggling to get out.
This partisanship has been stoked by the media. Every disparaging comment by a BJP leader about a Congressman or vice versa, or by a Team Anna member about a politician or vice versa, has been played and played again, thus intensifying the cynicism and frustration of the citizen.
The cycle must be broken. But how? A start can be made by a private, off-camera conversation between a major Congress leader and a major leader of the BJP. Who could these be? The prime minister rules himself out, because by not - even after seven years in office - offering to stand for a seat in the Lok Sabha, he has betrayed his own lack of respect for Parliament.
A more plausible leader of such a initiative is Sonia Gandhi, who has herself won three terms to the Lok Sabha, and who is in political terms more important than Manmohan Singh anyhow. Perhaps she should have a meeting with Sushma Swaraj, also a several-term Lok Sabha MP, and, as it happens, the current leader of the Opposition in the Lower House. This meeting can call for a moratorium on abusive remarks about individuals, and, more broadly, for a regular process of consultation and dialogue between government and Opposition.
Politics is a serious business, whose substance can often be aided or impeded by symbols. In suggesting that Sonia Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj have this meeting I had in mind their respective positions in Indian politics today. But then I remembered that they had fought one another in a Lok Sabha election in Bellary in 1999, an intense, surcharged contest in which some less-than-decorous language was used. For Sonia Gandhi to meet Sushma Swaraj now would thus be resonant with meaning, symbolic as well as substantial. It would be a reaching out, a reconciliation, that may lead in turn to a more civil relationship between their two parties.
The Arabs, who have never had democracy, struggle desperately for it. We, who have had it now for several generations, degrade it in practice and in theory. To restore and renew Indian democracy we must, first of all, restore and renew the dignity of Parliament. For this the suspicion and hostility that mark relations between government and Opposition must be overcome. A ordinary, face-to-face meeting between two women, each with great stakes in this democracy's future, may be a productive starting-point.
⊕
Ramachandra Guha
15 Dec 2011
Ramachandra Guha is a historian, and a regular columnist with The Telegraph of Calcutta.
URL for this article:
http://www.indiatogether.org/2011/dec/rgh-democracy.htm
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