On 17th April, 2006 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finally met the campaigners seeking justice for the victims of Bhopal Gas Disaster of 3rd December 1984 and assured speedy work on three of their six demands.
He has agreed for a clean-up of the contaminated site, clean water and a commission to execute medical and economic rehabilitation schemes.
The six demands were:
1. The setting up of a National Commission on Bhopal to oversee medical and social rehabilitation;
2. Supply of safe water to communities currently drinking poisoned water;
3. Speedy prosecution of the accused, including Union Carbide Corporation and its former chairman; environmental remediation;
4. Curbing Dow and Carbide's business in India; and
5. Memorialising the disaster by including it in school and college curricula and
6. Building a Bhopal Memorial in consultation with survivors.
Bhopalis who were on hunger strike called off their fast but they are upset with the Prime Minister who rejected their demand that Union Carbide's successor, Dow Chemical, be held accountable and its products be banned in India.
Four organisationsl;Bhopal gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karamchari Sangh, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Pursh Sangarsh Morcha, Bhopal Group for Information and Action and Bhopal ki Aawaaz had presented their charter of six demands to the Prime Minister. Campaigners like Nityanand Jayaraman, Madhumitta Dutta and several others ably assisted this struggle.
A team Ministry of Chemicals will begin spadework on the clean-up and safe water supply. There is no timeframe but it is hoped that there will be a real clean-up.
The battle has been won despite general media apathy towards the victims of Bhopal gas disaster. Now the struggle for corporate accountability begins. It would be revealing to note how media reports the efforts to make corporate criminals accountable.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Bhopal battle won, struggle for corporate accountability begins
Cocktail of Water Mafia includes Media
The churning of a lethal cocktail of arrogance and dishonesty by academicians'
research, motivated reporting by corporate-religious media(Indian Express-India TV etc)
and the official view is a recurrent phenomenon like flood and drought all through
the history of water resources development projects.
The mega dam projects are ridden with half truths, falsehood and promises of
a fantasy land.
Take the case of Dr Rajendra Prasad's role with regard to embankments.
Britishers had embanked the river Damodar in Bengal as an experiment
in flood control in 1855 but regretted their decision because of its adverse
consequences. The terrible floods of 1933 in Hwang Ho river had caused more
than 50 breaches of the dykes and caused major disaster.
In those days Dr Rajendra Prasad was known for his anti-embankment views.
His assertions are available in the Proceedings of the Patna Flood
Conference, 1938.
This is not sursprising since in 1938, the Chiang Kai Shek government
had ordered the opening of the dyke on the south bank of the river
Hwang Ho which led to a major change in the course of the river that
left some lakhs of people dead and affected millions. Chinese
government and people were sick of the Hwang Ho embankments.
In the year 1945, the Bihar Government proposed to the Delhi
government that the Kosi be embanked. The proposal was rejected on the
ground that controlling floods through embankments was an outdated
technique.
The floods of 1953 made the Government sanction the Kosi embankment as
an obvious solution in December 1953. This was a political decision,
it needed to be invested with technical legitimacy and therefore, in
order to seek retrospective legitimisation two engineers, Kanwar Sain
and K.L. Rao went to study the performance of the Hwang Ho embankments
in China in 1954 so that they could make appropriate recommendations
for the Kosi Project. These engineers omitted to mention the
disastrous consequences of such embankments in China.
Although the expert from UK who had studied the Kosi refused to
endorse the project still the government decided to go ahead with the
plan.
The same Dr Rajendra Prasad after he became the president of the
country, went to North Bihar in October 1954 advocating the cause of
the embankments along the rivers, requested people to contribute to
this 'noble and national cause.' He laid the foundation stone of the
Eastern Kosi Embankment in March 1955 in Bairia village, near Supaul.
Therefore, sanity demands that one should be skeptical of oficial versions
and the views which support the officials.
The report of Comptroller and Auditors- General (CAG) analysed below by
Himanshu Upadhyaya, a Public Finance and Accountability researcher underlines
how the true cost of Sardar Sarovar Project has been hidden by both
Congress and BJP with support from academicians, engineers and media persons
of easy virtue.
The story below gives an idea about how are these decisions to promote large
dams taken and who profits from them and who pays.
Sardar Sarovar Project � dam minus drinking water
We witness the drowning of reasoned arguments under the din of
propaganda masquerading as opinion of honourable academicians
# While there have been reports that Gujarat has failed to utilise the
impoundment in the reservoir, academicians choose to ignore them
# Shortfall in capacity utilisation due to unexecuted distribution
networks, canal works and pitching work
# Ignoring the protests will pronounce the deathknell for the last
straw of democratic ethos
The protest demonstration by Narmada Bachao Andolan entered the 29th
day on Saturday. Meanwhile, the ongoing construction work to raise the
height of the Sardar Sarovar dam from 110.64 to 121.92 metres continues.
Following a field visit of a few affected villages by three Ministers
on April 12th, the Centre called for a meeting of the Review Committee
of the Narmada Control Authority. (The meet held on Saturday ended in
a deadlock, prompting Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz to
recommend to the Prime Minister suspension of the work on the
project.) Once again we are going to witness the drowning of not just
fertile farmlands and thickly populated villages in the Narmada
valley, but also of reasoned arguments under the din of propaganda
masquerading as opinion of honourable academicians who argue that
raising the dam height to 121.92 metres is the only way to bring
drinking water benefits to millions.
While there have been reports from civil society organisations and
Comptroller and Auditors- General stating that Gujarat has failed to
utilise the present impoundment in the reservoir, honourable
academicians choose to ignore them. From 1991, Gujarat has used the
emotive power of thirst to push the dam ahead and create a rift
between achhatgrast (scarcity affected) and asargrast (dam affected).
However, it is time to wake up to the truth that these hollow claims
do not bear the scrutiny, and endless repetition of propaganda will
not quench the thirst of Saurashtra and Kachchh.
The ambitious Sardar Sarovar Narmada Canal Based Bulk Water
Transmission Project began in 1999-2000 and was scheduled to be
completed by 2002, but was lagging behind due to "defective planning
and lack of coordination among different agencies" and not because of
litigations or non raising of the dam height, as borne out from the
findings of the CAG reports for the year ending March 31, 2003 and 2005.
Audit scrutiny also pointed out a clever trick of the establishment to
hide the true costs of the gigantic Sardar Sarovar Project. It was
found during the audit that expenditure on the drinking water supply
is being booked not on the balance sheets of the Sardar Sarovar
Narmada Nigam Limited, but on the balance sheets of the Gujarat Water
Supply and Sewerage Board and the Gujarat Drinking Water
Infrastructure Limited.
The Saurashtra Pipeline Project was first brought to the drawing board
in 1996 with a master plan that talked about augmenting the Mahi
Canal-based Water Supply Schemes by supplying 211 MLD (million litres
a day) water from Narmada Canals to 1860 severely affected villages of
Ahmedabad, Amreli and Bhavnagar districts. Similarly a second route
was based on the Maliya Branch Canal of the Sardar Sarovar project
with a distribution network through 869 km-long pipelines to supply
500 MLD water to 1342 villages/ towns in Jamnagar, Kachch and Rajkot
districts.
Audit scrutiny of the implementation and performance of these projects
pointed to the failure of Gujarat to utilise the water available from
the impoundment created. As per the CAG report on Gujarat (civil) for
the year ending March 31, 2003, "The gross average daily intake during
the two years of its operation (December 2000 to November 2002) was
119.80 MLD against the envisaged capacity of 287 MLD (i.e. 42 per cent
of capacity utilisation) only. Of the envisaged coverage of 1860
villages/ towns, benefit reached only to 543 villages. So, even after
two years of execution, at the cost of Rs. 464.17 crores, benefits
could be derived to the extent of 44 per cent of the envisaged
population only." Further putting a scanner over the utter failure of
Gujarat to provide hygiene to its people, the CAG report goes on to
state, "of the 1.51 million beneficiaries, 1.42 million (i.e. 94 per
cent) in 503 villages/ towns was supplied with raw water as there was
no filtration arrangements at the headworks, exposing them to the risk
of contacting water borne diseases."
The major contention of the audit findings was that shortfall in
capacity utilisation was thanks to "a large number of unexecuted
distribution networks, canal works and pitching work at Pariej." The
CAG report clearly pronounced a note of despair when it said, "there
was no prospect of optimum utilisation of the capacity of 287 MLD
created, in the foreseeable future." Answering this contention, the
Gujarat Government took a position as late as on July 2003 that,
"network systems are lengthy and it would take more time to
implement," while on the lack of filtration facilities, it said,
"funds had to be mobilised for creating filtration facilities and
these works were in progress." A government that boasts of being able
to mop financial resources necessary to raise the dam height by five
or 10 metres at a regular interval every year was facing financial
crunch when it came to provide filtration facilities, even after two
years of execution of the drinking water supply project! And yet, if
honourable academicians like Y.K. Alagh are to be believed, we shall
ignore the protests by affected persons whose homes and hearth are
going to be drowned, since thousands of villages in Saurashtra and
Kachchh have started getting Narmada water! Three years have passed by
since the audit report making these comments on the Saurashtra
Pipeline Project entered the public domain, without much furore in the
Gujarat Assembly, and honourable academicians kept arguing in favour
of raising the dam height.
Delay in execution
The CAG report on Gujarat (civil) for the year ending March 31, 2005
covers the implementation and performance of the second route of
Sardar Sarovar Canal-Based Bulk Water Transmission Project. In Para
3.2.8.3 {lt}http://3.2.8.3{gt} the CAG mentions that due to the delay
in the execution of distribution works, "only 29 per cent of the
installed capacity of water was used and only 415 of 1342 targeted
villages/ towns (i.e. 31 per cent) were covered. Elaborating on this,
the CAG states, "as a result of the delay in the execution of the
distribution works, the gross daily intake from May 2003 to June 2005
was 145.17 MLD (29 per cent) against the envisaged capacity
utilisation of 500 MLD." The report also put under the scanner six
water supply schemes, taken up for execution during the period of the
audit review that were incomplete.
Ineffective control
Putting the blame on the failure of the GWSSB as well as the
consultant in the monitoring and execution of works, the CAG held them
responsible for "ineffective internal control resulting in cost and
time overruns and deprival of benefits to the targeted population."
And still, honourable academicians like B.G. Varghese would quote
verbatim from the official propaganda to impress upon the readers that
affected people protesting the raising of the dam height without
rehabilitation and resultant submergence are the ones to be blamed for
cost and time overruns!
The decisive moment has arrived in the Narmada debate, and ignoring
the protests of displaced people from the Narmada valley would
pronounce the death knell for the last straw of democratic ethos. If
the state decides to be indifferent to the Gandhian way of struggle by
an indefinite fast and crush this non-violent protest by midnight
swoops as we witnessed last week and put charges of attempt to suicide
on fasting satyagrahis, while stopping the ongoing dam construction,
then by default it privileges and invites violence.
The Hindu
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Media on Medha's hunger strike
Medha Patkar's hunger strike enters 18th day.
The Narmada Control Authority (NCA) Review Committee is meeting
today to review the decision of NCA to raise the height of the
Narmada dam in Gujarat from 110.64 metres to 121.92 metres. Chief
Ministers of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are
members of the Committee, which is chaired by Saifuddin Soz, the
Water Resources Minister.
The three states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat are
falsely claiming that rehabilitation of the displaced people has
been completed. The Action Taken Reports (ATRs) apparently have
been submitted to the Centre by the three states in order to ask
for clearance. These ATRs have not been made public.
They have not been verified by the NCA or by the Gram Sabhas
(village bodies). Despite this the height of the dam is being increased.
Responding to the all round support for the victims of Sardar
Sarovar dam, there was a combined religious and corporate reaction
to it with a full page advertisment in The Times of India which
reads, 'we support the earliest completion of the "Sardar Sarovar
Project". Sardar Sarovar Project is the source of abundant water
and power for Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Let the Nation progress. Let us have food, energy and security.
Let our country grow and bring prosperity to the people.'
At the bottom of this advertisement are the photographs of Pujya
Madhav Priadasji, Pujya Rameshbhai Oza, Pujya Swami Sachidanandji,
Pujya Pramukh Swami, Pujya Morari Bapu, Pujya Tejendraprasadji,
Pujya Indirabetiji, Mukesh Ambani(Reliance Group), Anil Ambani
(Reliance-ADA Group), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group),
Sushi Ruja (Essar Group), Shrenik Kasturbhai (Arvind Mills Ltd.),
Karsanbhai Patel (Nirma Ltd.), Sudhir Mehta (Torrent Group), Gautam
Adani (Adani Group), I A Modi (Cadila Group), Pankaj Patel (Zydus
Group), Anil Naik (L&T), Uday Kotak (Kotak Mahindra Ltd.).
Indian Express and India TV have been carrying stories on Sardar
Sarovar which resembles paid advertisments. The former carried an
editorial "India Bachao Andolan" posing a question: if you decide not
to build the Narmada dam, what's Bharat Nirman about? The greater
public good in these cases is first-rate infrastructure. Land is
always an issue in big projects. It says, "builders' mafia and the
Narmada activists may never break political bread together, but in
placing their narrower agendas over greater public good, politicians
achieve the same effect."
It teaches politics to Congress saying, its "Narmada politics might
look as if Left rhetoricians wrote it. The Left has no stake in the
Narmada states. The Congress has. Will the government at least
remember that political reality?"
Interestingly, Indian Express reports from Badwani, Madhya Pradesh,
citing the story of 407 families in Badwani, Dhar and Jhabua
districts, who, as per official records, were given land title deeds
in lieu of their agricultural land being submerged once the dam
height is increased. There are 4,286 such families—the remaining
3,879 have accepted cash. But when Indian Express visited some of
these 407 families, the chorus: we have neither got land nor cash.
Indian express reports, 'The fact is that officials sent pattas (land
title deeds) by post and now say they "may or may not" have accepted
it. And yet,in government records, they appear as "rehabilitated."'
It's not surprising that most of these families live in the heart of
NBA bastion — in villages like Pipri, Pilud, Chikhalda and Awalda. In
Pipri, 150 km from Indore, villagers haven't allowed a government
survey and even today do not allow officials to enter to make
assessments of what is due to them under the Land Acquisition Act. A
board at the entrance shows the writing on the wall: "no official
will be allowed in this village.''
Until now, the state government, exercising its right under Narmada
Waters Distribution Tribunal (NWDT) award, did an ex-parte settlement
based on `nazranna' (estimates), kept land in reserve for them, sent
them the deeds by post.
This newspaper quotes, Vinod Kumar, commissioner (rehabilitation)
Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) saying, "How long can we
wait for them? If they feel that they stop the dam from coming up by
refusing to accept the government offer, we have to resort to ex-
parte settlement".
Indian Express for reasons best known to it gives arguments at least
in this case which would lead one to infer that NBA's accusations are
valid and therefore their demands must be met but not surprisingly,
it concludes, if Govt stalls Narmada dam to break deadlock, it may
create another.
Regarding India TV, one need to say much because its a well known
public relations agency of Narendra Modi.
Even as over 200 engineers and hundreds of labourers are working
round the clock to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam from
110.64 metres to 121.92 meters, on 14th April, several Gandhians and
social activists, including the chairman of the Sarva Sewa Sangh,
Amar Nathbhai, Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze, Shekhar Singh of the National
Campaign for People's Right to Information and Vandana Prasad of
the Jan Swasthaya Abhiyan, joined the dharna.
Actors Amir Khan and Rahul Bose came to Jantar Mantar, New Delhi to
express their solidarity with the displaced families and separately
visited the fasting Narmada Bachao Andolan leader, Medha Patkar, at
the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. Narmada activists are
protesting the ongoing increase in the height of the dam which is
to be raised to 121.92 metres by June 30, 2006. Of the 22 blocks, in
19 blocks, dam height has been raised to 112.60 m as of April 13,
2006.
On 12 April, CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan and CPI(M) Polit
Bureau member Brinda Karat had met the Prime Minister and sought that
the report of the ministerial group, which recently visited the dam
site, be made public.
Shekhar Singh, who is a member of the Sub-Group on Environment of the
Narmada Control Authority, said he raised the point of lack of
monitoring of rehabilitation on the ground at the last meeting a year
ago, but his observations were not included in the minutes.
Reacting to these developments, Gujarat MPs have launched a counter-
campaign against activist Medha Patekar's opposition to the Narmada
dam and warned of "public outrage" if the project was suspended in
the state facing water scarcity in several parts.
A delegation consisting of members from the BJP, Congress, Gujarat
Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ahmedabad Diamond Merchants'
Association, Gujarat Sales Tax Bar Association, Gujarat Vidyapeeth
and Lok Seva Abhiyan made a representation to the Gujarat Governor
Nawal Kishore Sharma by submitting a memorandum against the
possibility of stoppage of further construction on the Narmada dam.
Even farmers' associations feel that the farmers were being left
out as result of BJP and the Congress politicising the Narmada
issue.
Meanwhile Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, along with
Bharatiya Janata Party members of Parliament from the State, met
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 14th April. The Prime Minister
cancelled his appointment with the victims of Bhopal to meet them.
The MPs have submitted a memorandum to the Government sought smooth
construction of the dam.
Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) is targeting the Congress-
led UPA Government and are supporting the Modi Government.
The present situation has been created by Madhya Pradesh Chief
Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan of the BJP.
Narmada Control Authority gave its clearance for raising the dam
height from 110.64 metres to 121.92 metres last month on the
basis of the assurances given by the former Madhya Pradesh Chief
Minister, Babulal Gaur, for simultaneous rehabilitation and
resettlement of the project-affected people. But after the
clearance was given, Chauhan wrote to Soz saying it was impossible
for his administration to complete the rehabilitation process by the
stipulated date of June 15, 2006.
Soz is reportedly to be planning all the concerned, including the
Chief Ministers of the States seeking immediate stoppage of the
construction.
Amongst the 30 large dams planned for the Narmada, the Sardar
Sarovar dam is the largest. It is the focal point of both the dam-
builders and the environmentalists. The Government claims
that the multi-purpose Sardar Sarovar Project would irrigate
more than 1.8 million hectares and quench the thirst of the
drought prone areas of Kutch and Saurashtra in Gujarat.
The environmental groups counter such claims saying, these
benefits are grossly exaggerated and would never accrue to
the extent suggested by the Government. The project has
displaced lakhs of people and affected their livelihood.
Media houses refuses to investigate the adverse consequneces
of large dams. It keeps itself confined to covering
personalities instead of larger issues involved.
The way a huge gathering of media persons trampled over
activists when Amir Khan's visited to Jantar Mantar to
support the cause of Narmada and Bhopal victims illustrates
the gravity with which they deal with the issues involved.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Cover-up Commissions
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In every step where an attempt is made to unravel the conspirators behind the assassinations and killing, there is an attempt to subvert it and suppress it.
By the way will CPI-ML and others tell how often have the Commission's unearthed the truth? Why is CPI-ML and other political parties interested in the lies or half truths which Commission's give birth to?
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose continues to be in news 60 years after his disputed death. A BBC poll named Netaji the third most popular leader in
Nehru did institute the Shah Nawaz Khan Committee in 1956 after the Indian newspapers broke the news (based on agancy reports) on
Shah Nawaz Committee was formed only after the Nehru Government was threatened that a non-official body headed by Justice Radha Binode Pal would be formed. "Several intelligence agencies set out to find the truth. PES Finney, a Deputy Director at the Intelligence Bureau (IB), led one such team from India. It was discovered, at the very outset, that the Japanese had tried to cover up something. The records of Bose's last movements had been systematically destroyed. But "secret" telegrams concerning the crash "had been deliberately left", the British averred, and "constituted part of the deception plan".
An IB report dated October 5, 1945 stated that a day before his "death", when "Bose arrived in Saigon, (Japanese) General (Saburo) Isoda was also there, and this fact may be significant if there was any plan on the part of the Hikari Kikan (Japanese military unit liaising with Netaji's Government) to allow Bose to escape, and to publish a false story regarding his death. This would have been the ideal place for Isoda to put into operation any such plan."
A November 6, 1945 report stated: "It is beyond doubt that he (Bose) had plans to go underground" and "the Japanese had undertaken to give Bose the necessary protection".
And on November 12, 1945 came a big surprise. (See image). Finney sent a report demolishing the claim by the Japanese and Habibur Rahman that Netaji was heading to Tokyo at the time of the alleged plane crash."
A powerless committee under the Ministry of External Affairs headed by Nehru was formed. Shah Nawaz Khan, one time INA man, was now a Congress MP and Parliamentary Secretary to the Railway Minister. A member of this committee, Netaji's non-politician brother Suresh Bose, later walked out saying he was being pressurised to sign on the dotted lines. Suresh Bose came up with his own report saying that there was no crash and Netaji escaped to the Soviet Russia.
G D Khosla headed the most notorious commission
Indira Gandhi's government set up Justice G D Khosla Commission (1970-1974) upheld the findings of the Shah Nawaz Committee report, defeating the very purpose of its institution. Khosla was a friend of Nehrus to start with and he wrote the biography of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. G D Khosla was formerly Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court. He headed a enquiry without a terms of reference at the request of Government of India in a corruption case involving a Custodian of Evacuee Property, senior member of the Indian Civil Service and since the Custodian in question proceeded on leave, he was given complete charge of the department. He had come to hold an enquiry and now he was asked to run the entire show. In his perplexity, he met Mahatma Gandhi in October 1948 in Birla''s house on
Prime Minister Morarji Desai had rejected the findings of the Shah Nawaz and G D Khosla Commissions. In 1977, in a debate was initiated by MP Professor Samar Guha in the Lok Sabha, Desai conceded that due to serious contradictions in evidence and contemporary official documents the Government thought the findings of these panels were not decisive. This has been the stand of the Government since then. That is, the Government of India doesn't think that Netaji died in 1945.
The third Justice Manoj Kumar Mukehrjee Commission of Inquiry into Netaji's disappearance was formed in April 1999 following an order of the Calcutta High Court over a Public Interest Litigation. In its order dated April 30, 1998, the court told the Union Government to "launch a vigorous inquiry ... as a special case for the purpose of giving an end to the controversy" surrounding Netaji's disappearance. The Court observed that "lapses have occurred from time to time" and "no serious effort in this behalf (Netaji's disappearance) has been made" by the Government.
The Government did not contest the court's order and consequently notified on
The Government did not want any inquiry in
The report of Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry, probing the disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in August 1945 has been submitted to the Government and it is supposed to be tabled in Parliament along with the action taken report.
On
Sharma further added, "The Embassy of India in
But where is report, has it been tabled or did it became a casualty of the office of profit controversy. Netaji disappeared in 1945 and we do not know here did he vanish after three Commissions about what happened to him. Can anyone who is sane still believe that the Commission will conclusively establish the truth?
Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on
“The dead bodies (Godse and Apte) were cremated inside the gaol, the ground where the pyres had been erected was ploughed up and the earth and ashes taken to the Ghaggar river and secretly submerged at a secluded spot,” wrote Justice Khosla, one of the trial judges and the Sentencing Judge. Justice Jivanlal Kapur Commission was formed to investigate the Conspiracy to murder Mahatma Gandhi was set up in 1965. Why did it take so long to constitute a Commission? Did this Commission find out as to why was ashes of Godse and Apte submerged secretly?. Does the Commission refer to the certificates of the Doctors which certified him dead?
Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee who was a cabinet colleague of Nehru died under mysterious circumstances on
Dr Mookerjee was the Finance Minister of undivided
Dr Mookerjee’s mother demanded 'an open, impartial, immediate enquiry' in a letter to Nehru she said, “I hold the
Did the Justice Y V Chandrachud Commission of Inquiry connected with his death Deen Dayal Upadhyaya reveal the circumstances of his death in 1968? Upadhyaya’s life was cut short by the unknown hands on
Lalit Narayan Mishra, the Railway Minister in the Indira Gandhi Government was assassinated on
Sanjay Gandhi's death led to the formation of Justice M L Jain Commission which was appointed to probe the plane crash that killed Sanjay. In violation of mandatory law that inquiry was stopped without any plausible reason and the cause of the plane crash remains a mystery. It is mandatory for the government to institute a commission of inquiry into all airplane crashes. Did this Commission reach any conclusion?
The Arjun Singh Government of Madhya Pradesh set up a commission of inquiry called the Bhopal Poisonous Gas Leakage Inquiry Commission, presided over by N.K. Singh, a sitting judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on
A week later, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research submitted a detailed report squarely implicating the Union Carbide Company for faulty design of the plant as well as its reckless disregard of operational safety. This happened only after Warren Anderson, chairman of Union Carbide was arrested in Bhopal on December 6, 1984 and released on bail on December 7 and allow flee the country. He remains an absconder accused of manslaughter. Now Union Carbide had merged with Dow Chemicals and Indian Government in which Arjun Singh still has a potent voice is doing nothing to bring
Justice C K Thakkar Commission appointed to inquire into the death of Indira Gandhi ruled that an inquiry commission into the conspiracy angle should be appointed because “the needle of suspicion pointed” at R K Dhawan who had been Indira Gandhi's personal secretary. Thakkar is former Chief Justice of Mumbai High Court. Rajiv Gandhi made Dhawan a Minister in his Cabinet. Justice Thakkar was made the chairman of the Law Commission. Did this Commission's findings mean anything?.
Thakkar Commission categorically pointed out that there was foreign hand behind the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Although it was a matter of national concern, Rajiv Gandhi did not think it fit to find out as to who were the foreign hands behind it. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sri Perambudur while campaigning in 1991 elections. The Jain Commission inquiring into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi has also pointed at some foreign hands behind it. Should foreign conspiracies like these remain unearthed?
Do you still believe in Commissions and the utility of Commissions?
Will CPI -ML enligthen as to why no Commission was set up to probe the killings of Upper Caste people?
Why does Justice Amir Das who headed the Commission for nine long years to probe the political links of the outlawed Ranvir Sena, a private army of landlords could not conclude his investigation in so many years?
Justice Amir Das, the retired judge of the Patna High Court dismissed the charge that the commission was taking too long to complete its task. The commission was notified in December 1997, shortly after the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre.
It took three years to the commission to ensure basic infrastructure and during these three years, he continued without any office, lawyers, courtroom, employees etc to complete the probe. The commission started functioning in 2001.
CPI (ML) has appealed to
Even if this Commission is granted requisite time and facilities for finishing its job, how can anyone be so gullible to believe that the recommendations of this Commission will also not meet the same fate?
The way Justice Thakkar Commission that inquired into the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was treated it seemed the judges will refrain from chairing such commissions of inquiry. Justice J S Verma Commission relating to the security aspects about the Rajiv Gandhi assassination seemed an exception but soon the judges gave in to the temptation of post-retirement benefits. The High Court judges and apex court judges both the serving ones and the retired ones seem to have fallen prey to the bait of heading a Commission of Inquiry. Whenever it suits the politicians, they set up Parliamentary Committees and ignore the judges and when they employ them if it suits them they dissolve the Commissions or deny the required extensions to them still judges allow themselves to be humiliated and exploited.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Top 30 who rule the media
You had to live in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard...
—`1984' George Orwell
Here is a list of some top 30 people who rule the Indian print, electronic and interactive media. Your comments are invited about their political and corporate affiliations and where do they stand in your opinion. Also you may add your own suggestions with regard to the same.
1. Amar Singh*, media user (Indian media is no more the same after they received a CD called`Amar Singh ki Amar Kahani'** containing 24-set of conversation of Amar Singh allegedly having talks with Mulayam Singh, Anil Ambani, Bipasha Basu, Jayaprada, Mahima Chowdhry, Prabhu
Chawla and others)
2. Aroon Purie/Prabhu Chawla, Aaj Tak and India Today
3. Samir Jain & Vineet Jain, The Times of India (Bennett Coleman and Company)
4. Rupert Murdoch, Star
5. Prannoy Roy, NDTV
6. Mahendra Mohan Gupta & Sanjay Gupta, Dainik Jagran
7. Raghav Bahl/Rajdeep Sardesai, CNN-IBN
8. Subhash Chandra/Laxmi Goel, Zee
9. Ramesh Chandra Agarwal, Dainik Bhaskar
10. K K Birla/Shobhana Bharatiya, The Hindustan Times
11. N Murali & N Ram, The Hindu (Kasturi and Sons)
12. Mammen Mathew, Malayala Manorama
13. Rajan Raheja/Vinod Mehta, Outlook
14. Ramoji Rao, Eenadu
15. Kalanidhi Maran, Sun
16. Subrata Roy, Sahara
17. M J Akbar, The Asian Age
18 Aveek Sarkar, Ananda Bazar Patrika
19 T N Ninan, Business Standard
20. Ektaa Kapoor, Balaji Telefilms
21. Vivek Goenka & Shekhar Gupta, The Indian Express
22. Bahubali Shah, Gujarat Samachar
23. Ashok Advani, Business India group
24. Ronnie Screwvala, UTV
25. Tarun Tejpal, Tehelka
26. Dr. Gulab Kothari, Rajasthan Patrika
27. Praful Maheswari, Central Chronicle/Navbharat
28. Markand Adhikari, JANMAT (Sri Adhikari Brothers Television Network Limited)
29. Khalid Ansari, MidDay
30. S. K. Arora, IAS & Praveen Kumar Tripathi, IAS, Chairman and Director, Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) (Arora is Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Tripathy is Joint Secretary in the same Ministry )
**The controversial editor who figures most controversially in theAmar Singh tapes, swearing at Congress boss Sonia Gandhi in downright gutter language. Congressmen have reportedly boycotted this newschannel and publication. Both Sonia and Singh had made a big
splash at the same conclave last year. A recent conclave in Delhi organised by this media house was boycotted by the Congress Party, with one exception of Captain Satish Sharma. Will this non-owner editor survive this crises too?.
This editor almost managed to become a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. A prominent Samajwadi leader enlisted the support of the JD(S) chief Deve Gowda from Karnataka. He had the endorsement from Pramod Mahajan to back his candidature with the surplus votes from the BJP. The big two of the BJP did not oppose his candidature. But when
Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley got wind of it they vehemently opposed it. As a result, the editor has been denied an opportunity to be an MP and in his place BJP-friendly industrialist, Rajeev Chandrashekhar became the MP.
These media people think common man in the street are fools. If they care so much about Breaking News, why didn't they print about the contents of Amar Singh and company. Is it too far fetched to suggest that their (media groups) palms have been greased. Most channels
claimed to have received the CDs, but none aired it.
On February 27, 2006, the Supreme Court directed the electronic and print media not to air or publish the CD/tapes containing Amar Singh's conversations with film stars and industrialists. Singh is Chairman, Uttar Pradesh Development Council (UPDC).
*Singh claims that UPDC is registered under Societies Registration Act and thus did not fall under government. Had that been the case then National Water Development Agency (NWDA), which is also registered as society would not be deemed a government body although it is implementing 120 billion dollar Interlinking of Rivers project of Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India.
It would mean that Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) is also registered under Indian Societies Act Registration Act is not a government body, which is not the case as it is directly administered by the Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. And Arora and Tripathy hold two offices of profit in the same way as Amar Singh does.
The order was issued during the hearing of a petition filed by Singh seeking a judicial inquiry into illegal phone tapping. The general restraint order came from a three judge bench comprising Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal, Justice C K Thakkar and Justice R V Raveendran which also directed, both the electronic and print media, not to publish or display any unauthorised and illegally tapped telephonic conversations till the matter is heard and guidelines laid down by this court. The order came without hearing the media, including TV news channels and newspapers.
Prashant Bhusan, a public interest lawyer opposed the order, saying right to privacy does not include conversations for illegal dealings. He also submitted that most of the conversations contained in the alleged CD being circulated in TV channels relate to shady deals.
The court adjourned the matter till March 20, directing the Centre as well as the Delhi government to file additional affidavits detailing all the illegal tappings being done by service providers with or without the orders of competent authorities. The court also recorded the statements of Solicitor General G E Vahanvati and Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam saying that they had no objections to general restraint order against the media. The court also issued notices to other service providers. The court dropped the Congress Party's name from the list of respondents.
On March 20, 2006, the Delhi Government informed the Court that it has taken steps to prevent illegal phone tapping during the hearing of Amar Singh's phone tapping case. Additional Solicitor told the court that Delhi Police Commissioner K K Paul has appointed a committee under the Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) to meet twice a month. It would be ensured that service providers would not intercept the phone calls of anyone without written
orders of the officers specially authorised to sign such orders.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Sabharwal, Justice Lakshmanan and Justice Thakker directed the cellular companies to file their affidavits within two weeks detailing the procedure adopted by them to intercept the phone calls and also give details of how many phones were under such illegal surveillance throughout the country.
The court, while adjourning the hearing for four weeks, also granted a week's time to P H Pareekh, counsel for Amar Singh, to file his rejoinder affidavit. Singh is seeking a judicial inquiry into his phone tapping.
The court was also informed that investigation in the case was already over and charge-sheet had been filed against four accused who are in custody. Earlier, the Centre, in its affidavit, submitted that on February 28 this year, a total 3728 lines were under surveillance by all the seven Central Security and Law Enforcement Agencies as per
the Union Home Ministry.
It has been reported that Solicitor General G E Vahanwati, appearing for the Government, told the court that there was not even a single illegal phone tapping as far as the Centre was concerned. During the hearing, the court also indicated that it would consider separately the issue of sting operation by the media to expose corruption and illegal acts among those holding public offices and officials. The court is going to issue guidelines for phone tapping as it involved the privacy of a citizen and can be resorted to only in exceptional circumstances such as national security or communal harmony and that too with the prior permission of the competent authority.
