BJP - A Party With "Shady Shades"

For which nice turn of phrase, credit goes to the Deccan Herald editorial team: BJP’s porngate

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) liked to boast itself as a ‘party with a difference.’ The BJP, which was voted to power in Karnataka in 2008, is proving to be not only ‘different,’ but a party with many shady shades. 

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For all the high moral pitch the BJP and its fountainhead, the RSS adopt publicly, the quality of legislators the party has got elected this time, is indeed shocking. If excise minister Renukacharya’s name figured in a sex scandal before he became a minister, another minister Hartal Halappa was forced to quit after rape charges were levelled against him. 

Then there is this - the other strong wicket on which the BJP likes to bowl, corruption: Citing BJP pressure in Jayalalithaa case, Karnataka AG quits

The BJP government in Karnataka suffered another setback on Wednesday, with Advocate-General B.V. Acharya preferring to resign from his post rather than give in to “pressure” from the State government to quit as Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

Talking to The Hindu, he said: “For some time, there has been terrible pressure on me to resign from the position of SPP, and I have been resisting it.”

Ms. Jayalalithaa's AIADMK is not part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, but senior BJP leader L.K. Advani described her, at a function in Chennai last month, as a “natural ally” of his party.

Fighting Corruption On The Demand Side

The founder of Lok Satta party has a spectrum of solutions for corruption, all of which pertain to the corporate world.  Competitive bidding for national resources and the following three: 

What other steps should we take to curb collusive corruption and to protect public revenues? Three specific steps are needed now. First, a law should be enacted by Parliament making all contracts involving corruption, or a loss to the Exchequer, void and unenforceable. This will remove all incentives for corporates to bribe any public official to get a favour. A company that loses the bribe amount as well as the business or benefit or favour received through corruption is unlikely to resort to bribery. Only then can we demand corporate integrity and create a level playing field.

Second, a windfall profit tax should be imposed on all those who secured a license or mining lease or other natural resource, and made huge profit without value addition. This will ensure that excess profits made out of a vital public resource are retained with the Exchequer, and aren't appropriated by private interests. Mere private monopoly of public assets shouldn't be a source of unusual profits, even if there is no corruption in the transfer of asset. Such a windfall profit tax was imposed in the UK in 1997, in respect of North Sea Oil, and the monopolies in electricity, telecom, airports, gas, water, and railway sectors.

Third, a law similar to the False Claims Act in the US should be enacted in India. This law allows imposition of a civil penalty five times the loss sustained by the Exchequer in any public procurement or transfer of natural resource.

Makes sense.

Corporates and Fin Min Officials Interfering in SEBI?

Ah, The Invisible Hand is fleetingly seen before it vanishes into the deeps.  

PMO declines to disclose former SEBI member’s letters

New Delhi: The government has declined to disclose two letters written to prime minister Manmohan Singh by former Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) member KM Abraham, who had alleged in another communication, interference by some corporates and top finance ministry officials in the working of the market regulator, reports PTI.

Replying to a PTI request for the letters under the Right to Information Act, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) cited a clause that bars disclosure of any information that “would lead to unwarranted intrusion of the privacy of the individual”.

The PMO was asked to provide copies of three letters by Mr Abraham to Mr Singh, along with the action taken report. However, the public authority provided a copy of only one of the three letters, dated 1 June 2011, written by the former SEBI member.

The others two communications—sent on 16th May and 24th June this year—were not provided to the applicant.

In his letter dated 1st June, Mr Abraham had alleged that some corporates and finance ministry officials were exploiting the vulnerability of the market regulator, which was investigating crucial cases involving prominent business houses. 

Advice for Indian Politicians

Who want to make quick money:  Get with the times.  Change your methods.  Learn.  There is an easier way to make easy money.  No taint of the 'C' word attached too!  Link.

As many as a dozen members of Congress and their aides took part in insider trading based on foreknowledge of market moving information on Capitol Hill, disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff told CNBC in an interview. 

Abramoff, who was once one of the wealthiest and most powerful lobbyists in Washington before a corruption scandal sent him to federal prison for more than three years, said that many of those members of Congress bragged to him about their stock trading prowess while dining at the exclusive restaurant he owned on Pennsylvania Avenue.

60 Minutes on the same issue:

Hey, if the elected reps of the US are doing it, it must be fine!

PS: Top Favorite Stock Holdings of Congress

Party With A Difference

Reddy PA’s laptop opens can of mining, political worms:

What has startled CBI officials is a corpus of details on Reddy’s political manoeuvrings and other tactics he adopted when Yeddyurappa was faced with a mini revolt within the BJP earlier this year. The laptop also contains details on how money was handled and election arrangements made during the Bellary bye-poll contested by senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj. There are files in the laptop which indicate that large sums of money was given to senior leaders in the central BJP for fighting the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

The gateway to the South is crawling with all kinds of worms.

Et Tu Tarun Tejpal?

An open letter to Tarun Tejpal: Hartman de Souza.

As a lapsed Tehelka subscriber, I'm not too surprised.

And it keeps on giving: A crusader turns collector.

On Founding the Indian School of Business

Rajaratnam (via churumuri):

Kumar had introduced him to Rajat Gupta. The two of them wanted to start an Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. “I gave them [the school] a million dollars. I later found out they never contributed any of their money, and are listed as the school’s founders. And I’m not even a fucking Indian.”

Bought Politicians

Rick Perry: The Best Little Whore In Texas. Strong.

In fact, Texas is run much like a Soviet protectorate, with a party boss (Perry) and a Politburo of super-connected advisers to the governor who shuffle back and forth between the public and private spheres (Perry's chief of staff, Mike "The Knife" Toomey, for instance, jumped from the governor's office to a job lobbying for Merck prior to the HPV vaccination order), all backed by a somewhat larger Central Committee of big financial donors who are the real "representative" power in the state, much more than the actual state legislature.

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The system of uncapped donations means that Perry's superinsiders effectively operate as mobsters who hold a chit on the state's government. "These are obscenely huge amounts," says McDonald. "You can give a politician $100 or $1,000 because you like his ideology. But when you start giving him $250,000 or $500,000, you gotta think you are getting something in return."

The Rajat Gupta Way

Gupta to Face Criminal Charges.

How The Other Half Lives

Fraudclosure Errors Destroying Americans’ Property Rights

Looting The Common Wealth

Mohan Murti writes another impassioned article against corruption.

I think it is the crisis of values that denotes the Indian condition. Moral values of all kinds seem to have rapidly and irrevocably declined. The second, of course, is external control, which the Government can exercise to take care of law and order and make corruption a very dangerous exercise. As an Indian, I am concerned with the second part.

The fact that a lot of our citizens intentionally disobey the laws of the land — which if enforced, as they should be in a typical society, will give us a better and more organised country — is a reflection of the insanity and breakdown of law and order.

By this I mean in its totality — not just motorists, highway and railway dacoits, armed robbers and militants, Naxalites and extremists but also corrupt officials in Government, industry and specially the arrogance in those bestowed with sudden affluence.

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Looking at our systems in India today, corruption is encouraged by the following reasons: There continues to be immense red tape and bureaucratic delay. There is a lack of transparency from the governments.

Our judicial system cannot guarantee justice, fairness and equality. The police cannot protect. The lawmakers break the laws. Casteism and nepotism thrive among the corrupt to protect each other, as with the idiom “thick as thieves”.

Most kleptomaniac cream of the crop, bureaucrats and politicians lack empathy and are psychopaths, therefore they rarely feel compunction, regret, or fear the consequences of their misdeeds. This only makes them more culpable and perilous.

Again, examples abound currently with those indicted or arrested pulling strings to get rid of evidence, getting anti-corruption chiefs removed or even resorting to “eliminating” witnesses.

I think he has covered most of it. B S Raghavan notes that we have got used to the big numbers associated with corruption scandals. Bofors was Rs 64 crores. Nowadays, no self-respecting person would want to be associated with a scam involving anything less than a few hundred crores. I mean, what would people think of him?

Bihar: Scams Redux

HC orders CBI probe into scam involving Bihar CM:

The Patna High Court on Thursday asked the CBI to investigate the ‘fraudulent withdrawal’ of Rs 11,412 crore from the State exchequer, in which Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Health Minister Nand Kishore Yadav and 44 others have been named accused....The CBI probe ordered today by the High Court is a grim reminder of the Rs 950-cr fodder scam in which the Patna High Court had asked the CBI in 1996 to investigate the case involving the then chief minister Lalu Prasad and others.

Politics or is it for real?

Karnataka: Left Hand, Meet Mr. Right Hand

On Thursday: BBMP to take stern action against building bylaw violators :

Bangalore: The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) plans to get tough with building owners who have violated the building bylaws and constructed their structures.

Following a directive from the High Court of Karnataka on June 24, BBMP Commissioner Siddaiah recently issued circular warning officials who have failed to check unauthorised construction and bylaw violations of stringent action.

On Friday: Bills passed sans debate:

Bangalore, July 15, DHNS:  The State’s lawmakers passed as many as nine pieces of legislation, including the Sakrama Bill, which would facilitate regularising unauthorised construction and sites, and the controversial bill on banning cow slaughter, in the two Houses of the Legislature here on Thursday.

The ball now is in the Governor's court.  He's returned the Akrama-Sakrama bill thrice before this. Let's see what he does now. As for the implications of the bill, they are clear: 

“It sends a wrong message to the people that you can violate law with impunity as there is no punishment. It is a reward to the law-breakers and punishes those who rely on the system and build their houses as per law,” he said.

People are already losing faith in the system and law and such a step would further discourage them, Santosh Hedge felt.

He opined that there should have been a meaningful discussion in the House.An office bearer of Civic Bangalore, Kathyayini Chamaraj said, “We are opposed to any kind of regularisation. It penalises law-abiding people and rewards the people who broke the law. You happily violate law and get it regularised. The whole ethics of governance is turned on its head. Its a sign of the time, evil triumph over truth.”

On the topic of breaking the law with impunity, the second councillor to be caught taking bribes is unfazed: Trapped corporator refuses to resign:

“Why should I resign? Have the ‘gani dhanis’ (mining lords) and Sampangi resigned from the Assembly? Ask them first to resign, I will surely follow them,” Govindaraju remarked.

Sampangi was the first councillor to be caught.

Corruption

From FT:

There was a steady erosion in business ethics and moral standards in commerce and trade. Regulatory capture and corruption, from petty corruption to grand corruption to state capture, became common place. Truth-telling and trust became increasingly scarce commodities in politics and in business life. The choice between telling the truth (the whole truth and nothing but the truth) and telling a deliberate lie or half-truth became a tactical option. Combined with increasing myopia, this meant that even reputational considerations no longer acted as a constraint on deliberate deception and the use of lies as a policy instrument.

Regulatory Capture is defined as:

... situations in which a government regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead acts in favor of the commercial or special interests that dominate in the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.

State Capture is defined as:

State capture is the phenomenon in which outside interests (often the private sector, mafia networks, etc.) are able to bend state laws, policies and regulations to their (mainly financial) benefit through corrupt transactions with public officers and politicans. The notion of state capture deviates from traditional concepts of corruption, in which a bureaucrat might extort bribes from powerless individuals or companies or politicians themselves steal state assets (see kleptocracy). State capture is recognised as a most destructive and intractable corruption problem, above all in transition economies with incomplete or distorted processes of democratic consolidation and insecure property rights.

We're not talking about transition economics though. We're talking about the US & UK - submerging economies. So it is only to be expected that it would be called something else, rather than just 'corruption'.

Wheels of Justice Grind Too Slowly

Here's a senior advocate in the Madras Courts High arguing that hanging may not be required at all if only more convictions were coming from the higher courts. Instead of the steady drip, drip, drip of delays in hearing the cases on account of frivolous technicalities. Of course, this tactic is not restricted to corruption cases.