Anna Hazare: Assassin or Saviour?

The following article was originally published on Infinity IIT Delhi website - http://infinityiitd.com/anna-hazare-assassin-saviour/

India is on the threshold of writing history; thanks to Anna Hazare and company. I respect Anna Hazare, but I am not a big fan of his attitude and his methods. The way Hazare is handling things is totally against a democratical form of government.

Our government is elected by electoral processes and not by mere revolt by a group of people.

A law is made by the discretion of the parliament, a body which is capable enough to amend and make laws. People can only suggest the parliament to make certain laws, not bully the institution. Who has given authority to Anna Hazare and his entourage to negotiate with the government? We are disrespecting our prime minister. Our acts are only demoralizing the government.

Right to Information act, a first of its kind bill was introduced by the present government only, and this is the reason the past decade saw so many scams being unravelled. Manmohan Singh is no fool. He is wary of the situation of the present government. He knows that letting in an extremist bill won’t be of much help. Making a new law won’t stop the people from taking or giving bribes. The mentality of the people needs to be changed. By punishing the criminal, crime cannot be liquidated.

 In the current situation, the system is diminished by the hollow ‘revolutionary’ gestures of the crowd. A nation’s general public collectively cannot make or amend laws. Only the representatives chosen by the public have the true power to make laws. A ‘crowd’ has no name, no accountability, no sense, and no brains. They are blind followers and sometimes even bought. Babri Masjid was demolished by a ‘crowd’; riots in Gujarat were an act by a ‘crowd’; the mass killings of 1984 were also initiated by a ‘crowd’. Thus, a crowd is not legitimate enough to support the bill.

Winning general public’s support or being popular doesn’t suffice to authorize someone with electoral rights. Hazare is setting a wrong example by taking public support into account to pass the Lokpal Bill. Tomorrow someone else will propose a new bill and tag it with public support. Baba Ramdev is a recent example of the same. The public is seeing only the bright side of the bill and doesn’t know the inner politics behind it. They are blindly supporting the ombudsman; half of them don’t even know what the Lokpal Bill is. We are ourselves weakening our institutions by our very own hands. The voice of Arvind Kejiriwal is not the voice of the whole country. He is imposing his thoughts in the name of public’s.

Anna says that Jan Lokpal Bill will reduce corruption by 65%. My take is – if all the people pledge not to give or take bribes, all businessmen pledge to honestly pay taxes, then corruption will reduce more drastically.

Comparing Anna to Gandhiji is disrespectful to the latter. Gandhiji fought against a foreign rule. Anna is fighting against a government chosen by the citizens of India. Gandhiji’s voice was solely his own, but Anna seems to be borrowing voices.

Anna Hazare has said what he had to, which has come to the notice of the whole nation and the government as well. Now he must rest his case and give the government enough time to complete the cause.

Tunisian Revolution 2010-11

A revolution had sparked in Tunisia in the December of 2010 against their then President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who is currently on the run. This revolution was the initialization to the falling monarchies of the Arab World which resembles the falling of dominoes.

Tunisia is a country in the northern part of Africa, smaller than the state of Karnataka. It first gained popularity during World War II when it was under the French rule. A major battle victory was accounted here for the Allied Forces led by USA. Tunisia achieved independence from France in 1957 and Habib Bourguiba was declared its first President. In 1987, he was declared unfit to rule and it was then that Ben Ali stepped in as President of Tunisia.

Ben Ali’s regime saw a decent increase in the GDP of the nation, strengthening of its economy and an increase in foreign investment. With rank 34 Tunisia ranks above India (rank 41) in the list of World Tourism Rankings. But behind this fake façade of Tunisia lies what led to the revolution. Ben Ali and his family were accused of great corruption, which was a major contribution to recent events all across Tunisia protesting the theft of Tunisian wealth, and lack of opportunities for average Tunisians. Whatever the country earned used to go into the luxuries of the president’s own family. Ben Ali’s wife Leila Trabelsi, supposedly Tunisia’s First Lady, is accused of travelling to Europe’s many fashion destination travelling in Business Class all of which were not part of her itinerary.

Tunisia continued to suffer from a high unemployment, especially among youth. In spite of a rising economy, left out of the prosperity were many rural and urban poor, including small businesses facing the world market. Tunisia under Ben Ali saw problems of human rights violations, such as freedom of the press, highlighted by the official treatment of the journalist Taoufik Ben Brik who is a prominent critic Ben Ali. In 2000, he was accused of publishing false information and other spurious charges, and went on a hunger strike in protest. He has been periodically detained in Tunisia, and his family has also been harassed as a way to intimidate him and prevent him from speaking out against the regime. Concerns were raised during the 2009 presidential elections about the fairness of the elections. Tunisia did not allow international monitoring of elections. There also were reports of mistreatment of an opposition candidate. Candidates standing opposite Ben Ali were given few luxuries of speaking in public and of advertising their party, as a result they never became much popular.

The 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution was sparked when an unlicensed vegetable cart vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi burnt himself. On December 17, 2010 a policewoman confiscated his cart. In return Bouazizi tried to bribe her as he used to do since the last 7 years but the day was not his. He was greeted with a slap in return. The policewoman even spat in his face, and insulted his deceased father. When the local municipality officials also refused to hear of him, not able to withstand the humiliation casted on him, he set himself on fire which led to public outrage. This immolation and the brutal response by the police to peaceful marchers caused riots in Sidi Bouzid, the place where Bouazizi used to live and had burnt himself. He died 18 days later.

Gravity was eager to cast its spell on Tunisia, all was needed was a push. The protests saw an exponential growth in the number of people getting involved in the days to come. Marchers brewing with indignity went up to the country’s capital, Tunis expressing their anger against Ben Ali and his government.

Ben Ali declared a state of emergency in the country, dissolved the government on 14 January 2011 and promised new legislative elections within six months. However, events moved quickly and the armed forces and key members of the legislature had lost trust in the president and had decided to take steps on their own. With the army surrounding the Presidential Palace in Tunis and perhaps in fear of retribution, Ben Ali and close members of his family hastily fled in four helicopters bound for Malta, a small island North of Tunisia

On January 26, 2011, the Tunisian government issued an international arrest warrant for Ex-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali accusing him of taking money out of the nation illegally. He was also charged with illegally acquiring real estate and other assets abroad. On January 28, 2011, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Ben Ali and his six family members, including his wife Leila Trabelsi.

The people of Tunisia wanted a brand new government, so the cunning Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigned his membership of the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD - the political party of which Ben Ali and Mohamed Ghannouchi himself were members) on 18 January. His resignation was followed by similar action by other RCD members within the government; but on 27 January Ghannouchi carried out a major reshuffle of the government to remove all former RCD members other than himself.

Mohammed Ghannouchi said he would remain in his position as head of the unity government until a general election was held within six months. He also pledged to allow all political parties and to lift a ban on the country's main human rights group. In addition, anyone suspected of corruption or of having amassed huge wealth under the previous government would be investigated.

On 17 February 2011 it was reported that Ben Ali had suffered a stroke, and had been hospitalized for an indefinite period in Saudi Arabia.

The 2G Spectrum Scam from scratch

2G Spectrum, A Raja, Radia tapes – my mind used to wobble at the very sight of these words in the newspapers since about a year, and never did I take the trouble to enlighten myself with the 2G spectrum scandal until recently and there are so many things happening in my own country which I am unwary of that I had started feeling a bit ‘un-Indian’! But the ‘googling’ and ‘wiking’ brought back the Indian in me. Read further to know the A to Z of the scam.

The government of India, and for that matter the government of any other country, considers the radio frequencies as their national asset; which means any telecom company will have to pay certain price for their radio frequency traffic in air. The companies can use only a certain range of frequencies which are allotted to them by the government itself. Since the number of companies demanding these ranges are more than the available range, so the Ministry for Communication and Information Technology auctions these ranges to various companies.

During the 2008 issuing of 2G spectrum (spectrum just refers to the band of frequencies) licenses the Ministry of Communication instead of auctioning the licenses distributed the same on a 'First-Come-First-Served' basis. 9 telecom companies had benefitted out of the distribution which included top brands such as Vodafone, Tata, Reliance Communications, MTS, etc. Unitech Group and Swan Telecom were two companies which were new in the market without a single subscriber and issuing of spectrum to these companies further added to the hue. A. Raja, the then Minister of Dept. of Telecom, arranged the sale of the 2G spectrum licenses below their market value. Raja ignored the advice of TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) which had recommended auctioning of spectrum starting at market rates. Entry fee for spectrum licenses in 2008 was pegged at 2001 prices. Mobile subscriber base had shot up to 35 crore in 2008 from 40 lakh in 2001, so no scaling of prices seemed insane. Unitech Group, a company which formerly used to invest in real estate and not telecom purchased the license for 1,661 crore and the company board soon after sold a 60% stake for 6,200 crore to a third company. The fact that the licenses were resold soon after their issue from the government clearly shows foul play. Similarly, Swan Telecom bought a license for 1,537 crore and shortly thereafter, their board sold 45% of the company for 4,200 crore. These two companies made profit without having a single subscriber under their banner. Tata sold its 26% shares to a Japanese company, DoCoMo. Nine companies purchased licenses and collectively they paid the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology 10,772 crore. The amount of money expected for this licensing by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (the person who is responsible for the treasury of the Indian Government) was 1,76,700 crore. A deficit of 1,65,928 crore or 16,59,28,00,00,000 was calculated.

All this would have gone unnoticed had the CVC (Central Vigilance Commission – a governmental body created to address governmental corruption) not put its nose in. The CVC found some irregularities in the reports submitted by the Telecom Ministry and delays in replies to queries raised by the CVC. The matter forced the Commission to conduct a direct enquiry into the allocation of spectrum. The initial investigations conducted by the CVC found that licenses were given to companies who did not comply with eligibility criteria (referring to Unitech and Swan). The case was handed over to the CBI for further investigations. Now the stepping in of CBI steamed up matters. In October 2009 CBI raided the DoT (Department of Telecommunication) office and lodged a case against it. It was then that Manmohan Singh came to the scene. He tried to defend the charges against A Raja saying that he had done no wrong deed. The opposition, BJP, didn’t miss their chance of making a statement saying that the PM should stay away from the CBI proceedings.

Calm had descended, as the case wasn’t seeing much of a progress, which was the silence of an oncoming storm. In April 2010, uproar took place in the Parliament when the news of a lobbyist’s, Niira Radia, phone tapping was revealed. The tapes confirmed her acquaintance with A Raja and her conversations with influential businessmen, politicians and advertising professionals. It was also clear from the tapes that Radia had brokered deals for Tata and Reliance Communications during the allocation of spectrum. The Radia tapes controversy was about the tapping of the phone of a high profile person. But the Indian Income Tax department had tapped Radia's phone lines for 300 days in 2008-2009 only after getting authorization from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The auctioning of 3G spectrum in May 2010 fetched the government 67,718 crore compared to 10,772 crore which the 2G spectrum ‘distribution’ had brought home. The suspicion of gross under-pricing during the latter was cementing. Though, apart from all this A Raja was getting a lot of support from his party’s ministers. Karunanidhi deserves a mention for his frequent statements defending Raja. But the opposition wanted Raja to step down. A Raja was determined to stand strong. It didn’t help long, though. November 2010 saw the reluctant resignation of Raja from the ministry. “In order to avoid embarrassment to the government and maintain peace and harmony in Parliament, my leader M Karunanidhi has advised me to resign,” Raja told newspersons. He proclaimed that his resignation should not be interpreted as an acknowledgement of guilt, claimed his conscience was clear and aggressively defended his performance as minister, claiming he had brought about a telecom revolution and “done much for the country and the people”. He had also remarked earlier that the 2G spectrum allocation was done as per the law only. Kapil Sibbal has now been made the minister of Telecom Department

During all this commotion, the Janta Dal leader Subramanium Swamy kept writing letters to the PM seeking sanction to prosecute A Raja in the scam, but according to him all he got in reply were acknowledgements and a letter stating that it is "premature" to consider sanction for prosecution at this stage due to an on-going CBI inquiry into the matter. So Subramanium Swamy filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Prime Minister, questioning his silence in the matter. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh again came under the limelight when Supreme Court asked the government to explain why the “sanctioning authority” — in this case, the prime minister — remained silent for 11 long months over a request seeking sanction for the prosecution of former telecom minister A Raja in the 2G spectrum scam case. The PM office submitted a 11-page long affidavit in this regard, telling that the case was under CBI and the PM need not have intervened. Breaking his silence on the 2G scam, the PM promised action against anybody for any “wrong thing” done. “There should be no doubt in anybody's mind that if any wrong thing has been done by anybody, he or she will be brought to book,” Dr Singh said.

As of now, CBI has arrested A Raja, Raja's personal secretary R K Chandolia, former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura, K Sridhar and DoT deputy director general A K Srivastava for questioning.

Curbing Corruption

I have many a times applied some 100 Newton force on my mind so that it vomits out any idea on how to curb corruption in our country and if the Railway ministry hears my words I might ascend a rung in my quest.
A week ago I was travelling from Sonpur to Surat by an express train. I was looking forward to a very hectic journey which was to last for more than 30 hours and to make things worse, my ticket was waitlisted. Two sleepless nights had switched on their vacuum and were sucking me in.
The TTE made his pocket heavy by Rs 300 and mine lighter by the same amount for allotting me an already empty seat for half the journey. That spared me a night and for the second night my well-wisher turned out to be the attendant who offered me a seat into the cupboard where they keep pillows and bed sheets. Robert Langdon would have surely succumbed there. That made me shed off Rs 150.
My dad had told me that at the station I may even bargain with the agents who sell tickets at more than double the actual rates. Overpaying again and again and yet again!
Was this all even necessary if the authorities had increased the no. of coaches in the train? The maximum number of coaches which a train can handle is 24, so why are only a few of them running at that number. Certainly increasing the number of coaches reduces the speed and the train takes more time to reach its destination but then how many Indian trains (except for Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express) make it on time. For the masses, ‘reaching there’ is more important than ‘reaching there quickly’. And then the authorities will say that it’s not economically viable. But can’t we ignore their economics and pay heed to the helplessness of people who have to travel. In fact, augmentation of capacity has been carried out in order to meet increasing demand in the past. The number of coaches on each train was increased to 24, from 16, which increased costs by 28% but increased revenues by 78%.
Since the max is 24, length of platform, stability of train on track and all these things come into limelight only when the number increases beyond 24. So why not make all the 17s and 20s 24.
My point here is increasing the number of seats will liquidate the petty bribe which we have to pay to the TTE. Corruption should be curbed from its root. If we start punishing the guilty more than half the government’s people or officials otherwise will come under the banner. Everyone as an urge to earn a little extra! People are fraudulent by force and not by will.