Watching The CM At Work

CM’s office goes live, only for a while

Does a live stream of the CM's office bring about transparency in administration? It is a step forward sure.  But how much time does he actually spend in the office?  A live stream with audio of his entire day on the other hand would be what is required, along with an audio stream of his night time.  Maybe his assistant's office needs to be live streamed too.

Foresight In Land Acquisition For The Mittals

KIADB put out the notification for acquiring land fully four months before signing the MoU with the ArcelorMittal. Was everything fixed much before the GIM?

Yeddyurappa Explains How They Done It

The CM admits what everyone already knew: CM admits illegal mining in State. But why does he retain some of the responsible mining kingpins in his cabinet? That is the question that he should be answering.  While we wait for that, he also explains how the looting happened: How 30 million tonnes of iron ore was looted from State.  Yawn.  I think we knew that too:

Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa on Friday told the Legislative Assembly that illegal iron ore export had been going on for the last seven years and a whopping 30 million tonnes of ore had been illegally exported from the State.

In his 21-page reply to a weeklong debate on the resignation of the Karnataka Lokayukta and illegal mining in the State, Mr. Yeddyurappa said political parties that formed governments had given mining permits to their party men and relatives and were allowed to “loot” the ore illegally.

He also provides details on the amount of illegal ore exported:

He said illegal export of iron ore was 20,49,961 tonnes in 2003-04; 52,39,528 tonnes in 2004-05; 21,71,492 tonnes in 2005-06; 47,44,645 tonnes in 2006-07; 57,61,048 tonnes in 2007-08; 33,96,126 tonnes in 2008-09 and 71,27,937 tonnes in 2009-10.

Interesting that the all time high was achieved under the BJP government.  Yet, only the small fry will get caught and the bigshots will be protected:  I got only half of what I wanted: Santosh Hegde.  

Speaking of getting something, here is one more big fish that will get away: Nagaraj accuses Mantri Developers of fraud.

Mission Accomplished : BJP Is No Different

Sometime ago, a state BJP leader had bemoaned the fact that the party workers were of the view that the BJP had ceased to be a party with a difference: Erasing the difference.

Now, the parent organisation bemoans the  same fact: BJP is no different: RSS.  

“The dream of Rama Rajya is crumbling. We (in the RSS) are pained that our party could not show the difference. The Chief Minster (B.S. Yeddyurappa) is in a dilemma. Money and corruption have taken deep root in the party, even among sections of the core group which comes from the RSS,” [RSS leader M.B. Puranik] said.

Farmer's Son Yeddyurappa

And this is what he said during the 2nd year celebrations:

No sooner had the tears dried up than Yeddyurappa said he was “prepared to write out in his blood” that his government would not betray the trust of the people, especially the farmers whose land he sought to usher in greater investments in the infrastructure sector.

He repeatedly reminded the audience that he was a farmer’s son and would never ignore the welfare of the farming community. “Farmers do not get two meals even after working hard through the day. I have made it compulsory the rendering of Raitha Geete, penned by Kuvempu, during all programmes,” he said.

And today we read this: Police thrash agitating farmers:

The police on Sunday evening brutally caned farmers at Hemmigepura near here and even thrashed one farmer with an iron rod when they were agitating against the arrest of their leaders near the Chief Minister's home office, ‘Krishna', in the city for protesting against keeping them out of a crucial meeting related to the controversial Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project.

...

The police, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Devaraj, resorted to merciless caning. The video footage captured by a private television channel showed an agitator collapsing soon after he was assaulted by a senior police officer with the iron rod.

Mining The Depths Of Corruption In Karnataka

That's what the 'Party With A Difference' seems to be doing: Lokayukta indicts BSY govt, quits. One of the major complaints of the Lokayukta is the suspension of the DCF of Karwar who, acting on his behalf, seized unaccounted iron ore . Of course, the BJP has made a virtue out of a necessity. Newspaper advertisements for the Global Investors Meet had the smiling faces of Janardhana Reddy (the mining kingpin) and Yeddyurappa alongside each other. After all, Yeddyurappa is still the CM courtesy the Bellary brothers.

Interesting data on the scale of the illegal ore exports, from DH. Total ore exported in just five months upto Feb 2010 from two ports (Karwar and Belekeri) is 57,17,370 metric tonnes. Permits issued for 21,85,452 metric tonnes. So 171% more ore being exported than permitted by the government.

Where's The Difference?

Ramakrishna Upadhyaya writes about the BJP completing 2 years and concludes : Little to celebrate. He mainly touches on the flood and subsequent rehabilitation:

It was nearly eight months ago in the first week of October last year that unprecedented rains and floods ravaged over 1,500 villages in 14 districts of north Karnataka. Raichur, Bellary, Bijapur, Koppal and Bagalkot were among the worst hit and nearly 2 lakh families were rendered homeless.

Around the same time, the Yeddyurappa government was also in turmoil as, unmindful of the people’s suffering on such a large scale, the Reddy brothers had raised a banner of revolt and spirited away about 40 MLAs to Hyderabad and created a deep political crisis for the chief minister.

I would have thought the floods would have been a showcase for the BJP to put its "efficiency" on full display. Apparently not.