Chidambaram's son a direct beneficiary of 2G scam

Chidambaram's son a direct beneficiary of 2G scam: Subramaniam Swamy by Josy Joseph, TNN Apr 26, 2012, 01.44PM IST
NEW DELHI: Anti-corruption activist and Janata Party president Dr Subramaniam Swamy on Thursday alleged that union home minister P Chidambaram's son, Kartik Chidambaram was a direct beneficiary of the 2G scam. Kartik Chidambaram's company Advantage Strategic Consulting had five per cent stake in Aircel Televentures, claimed Swamy. He alleged that Chidambaram ensured that the FIPB clearance for Aircel-Maxis deal would be given only if his son Kartik's company got shares in Aircel Ventures.
Kartik in 2G Scam
Related reading: Friend, father & philosopher of black money is Chidambaram
Family Business is Black Money

Black Money and Chidambaram
Comments: Vinita Pande 01/08/11 at ( 2:31 hrs )
His name should be shortened to Pappan (sinner) Chidambaram! Great article by Ram Jethmalani.
I think US will end terrorism let India focus on ending corruption. We also need to work on building national unity based on common goals, issues, not try to resolve personality and opinion differences. That's what I see in the "United" States. The strategic solution side by side is to build values in each one common to all humans, trust, truth, justice, equality. The constitution is also based on values. The health of a country is based on how many people have healthy values. Indians are weak on identity and social consciousness. We need to personally develop the awareness of "my people" "our country" from "my family" "my house" "my wealth". Another strength I see in US. Indians and media please stop being self critical. This weakness lets other inferior powers dominate us. Privately you can differ but publicly we must show pride and unity. I am glad you support Dr Swamy now.

President Pratibha Patil who serves and lives in Royal Style: Will she be remembered in History?

Pained at fallacious observations regarding post retirement home President of India decides to forego her accommodation
The President of India, Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil has been reading and watching the unfolding of some fallacious observations regarding the accommodation in Pune which she was to occupy after relinquishing the office of the President. She chose not to react as she has always held herself answerable to the Constitution of our country and her conscience. It was expected that once the facts were made public it would convince the concerned people. But despite clarifications given by the President's Secretariat, it is unfortunate that the misgivings continue to persist.
What has pained the President the most is the fact that she is now being portrayed by some people as one who, by agreeing to accept a defence accommodation for her post retirement home, is insensitive to the cause of war widows and ex-servicemen. But facts are to the contrary. She has always been proud of our brave jawans who are ever-ready to display their spirit of sacrifice while defending our borders. She has the highest regards for our war widows who have lost their dear ones for the sake of security and integrity of the nation. To express solidarity, boost their morale and to gain first hand experience of the hardships faced by our Defence Forces, she visited far flung army establishments like those in Tangdhar, Bhadarwah, Leh, to name a few, and several distant inhospitable forward areas in the North East. She would be the last person to ever think of dislocating or coming in the way of creating facilities for our war widows and ex-servicemen.
Women’s issues have always been her concern and those of war widows particularly occupy a very special place in her mind. She has worked relentlessly towards their welfare and would like people to know that as Governor of Rajasthan she personally wrote to 1192 war widows to help resolve their problems. Here is an article which appeared in the Hindustan Times a few years ago which said:
"Away from the media glare, Rajasthan Governor Pratibha Patil is quietly attending to problems of hundreds of war widows. She has asked the war widows to contact or see her personally. Over 1000 letters have been posted in the past one month as the Raj Bhavan gets deluged with responses. Now, Patil receives around two dozen letters every day while a number of widows of martyrs meet her personally with problems. Their letters are being forwarded to the concerned department in the State Government for suitable action." (Anjul Tomar, Jaipur May-2, 2005).
As Governor, she had instructed all the District Collectors of Rajasthan to inform her regularly about the progress in resolving the problems of war widows. Under her directions, a State Level Committee was constituted with the Director, Sainik Kalyan Board, Rajasthan as its Chairman to address the issues affecting the war widows on a priority. The District Collectors were also instructed to organize camps at Sub-Divisional level for hearing the war widows and to solve their grievances expeditiously.
She ensured that the newly constructed 'War Widows Hostel and Rehabilitation Centre' at Jaipur was allocated Rs. 2 crore from the Amalgamated Fund of the Governor to facilitate its smooth functioning. The District Sainik Kalyan Officers were invited to Raj Bhavan, Jaipur and were advised to make wide publicity about the Hostel and Rehabilitation Centre so that no war widow was denied the facility for want of information.
Once there was a news item in Dainik Bhaskar, Jaipur Edition of 9th March 2005 that the Headquarters of Western Army Command would be temporarily shifted to the War Widows Hostel & Rehabilitation Centre. She took up the matter with the Chief Minister of Rajasthan immediately. The then Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje promptly responded through her letter, that the headquarters of Western Army Command would be relocated elsewhere and that the War Widows Hostel & Rehabilitation Centre would not be utilized as Headquarters of Western Command or for any other purpose.
If as Governor she had pursued the matters of war widows with such passion and concern, and if she had objected to even the temporary shifting of the Western Command Headquarters to the War Widows Hostel and Rehabilitation Centre in Jaipur, would she ever think of dislocating or come in the way of creating accommodation for war widows or occupy a property allegedly meant for any such purpose as her post retirement home? The accommodation proposed to be allocated to her by the Ministry of Defence was never indicated as one earmarked for war widows. It was to be allotted to her for use as her post retirement residence only during her lifetime with no rights of ownership, transfer lease, etc. However, considering the fact that the issue has got linked with the issue of war widows accommodation by some people, the President has chosen to forego the aforesaid allotment of accommodation proposed to be made to her as her post retirement home in Pune.
Hope this will put an end to all misgivings in this regard.
PIB Release-click here
Comment: Honourable President trying to shed crocodile tears for the defence forces who still remain exploited by all the Polical Forces to downgrade them to a non- entity. Where is justice for the Patriotic Jawans who guard the nation 24x7? The Supreme Commander's response sadly has remained negative. Her luxurious style of living at tax payers expense is most disgusting and telling proof of her indifference.

Trilogy of the Northeast

By Dipti Bhalla & Kunal Verma
Set of Three Volumes
Published by KaleidoIndia
Released in OTA by Gen VK Singh on 27 Apr 2012
Northeast Trilogy raises a curtain on the wonders of Northeast India – a land, which was to many and perhaps still is a land of mystery and mystique. Published in three volumes, it is an in-depth collection of hundreds of photographs taken in the field by Dipti Bhalla and Kunal Verma over a period of three years. Through their images they have captured a world hitherto unknown to many - the richness and the grandeur of the Northeast. The entire collection goes beyond the realm of one’s imagination.
This lavish set of three is a celebration and a tribute to the people of the Northeast - from stunning portraits to landscapes and the rich flora and fauna. Dipti and Kunal have demystified an entire area that was hitherto unknown not only to the rest of the country but also to the communities that live in the region in isolated pockets demarcated by difficult terrain. The seclusion was geographical. But the story today is different. The Northeastern states are among the best performing ones in the country. There has been immense improvement in literacy, health, and infrastructure.
The first volume of the trilogy takes the reader through Sikkim, North Bengal, Assam, and Meghalaya. The second is devoted entirely to Arunachal. Aptly titled Brahma’s Creation, it explores fourteen of the state’s sixteen districts, from the plains to the deepest core of the Himalaya. The remaining two districts are covered in Volume III of the trilogy – Children of the Dawn – together with Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, and Mizoram.
The Trilogy is a delight – and a nugget!
Northeast Trilogy

The Bofors Scandal is India's Shame- culprits honoured

The Bofors story, 25 years after

“I knew what I was doing when I leaked the documents to you. I could not count on my government or Bofors or the government of India to get to the bottom of this.” STEN LINDSTROM explains why he chose to turn whistleblower to CHITRA SUBRAMANIAM-DUELLA
Posted/Updated Tuesday, Apr 24 11:19:37, 2012
April 2012 marks the 25 anniversary of the Bofors-India media revelations, which began on April 16, 1987 with revelations on Swedish state radio. The Hoot presents an interview with the man who decided to leak over 350-documents to former Indian journalist Chitra Subramaniam-Duella, then with The Hindu and later with The Indian Express and The Statesman. The documents included payment instructions to banks, open and secret contracts, hand written notes, minutes of meetings and an explosive diary. They led to the electoral defeat of an Indian prime minister and blew gaping holes into a Swedish prime minister’s record as a champion of peace and disarmament. Above all, they formed the basis for the first ever transfer of secret bank documents from Switzerland to India.
Sten Lindstrom is the former head of Swedish police who led the investigations into the Bofors-India gun deal. In an interview to Subramaniam-Duella, he reveals himself as the Swedish Deep Throat and explains why he chose to turn whistleblower.
Q - Why did you decide to identify yourself now?
A – Twenty five years is a good land-mark. We have had some time for reflection. Now it is time to speak again. Corruption levels in the world are increasing. There is new business around corruption with companies selling products that measure corruption instead of questioning why it is there in the first place. In a world of shrinking resources and ruthless ambition, we have to ensure that survival instincts that brought us out of the caves do not push us back in there because of a few greedy people. I hope I can contribute to the global struggle against corruption by sharing what I know.
Q – Tell us something about yourself.
A – Like many Swedes of my generation, my wife Eva and I were raised in the best traditions of social-democracy. Swedes are a hard-working people. Equity and justice for all is something we hold dear and for which we have strived as a nation. We built our institutions, our political and social systems around principles that were gold standards. We led the world as much in business forums as in the social arena.
Q – Nostalgia?
A – No, I base myself on hard evidence that is even more relevant today than it was 25 years ago. We are still world leaders in many fields, but somewhere our guiding principles have fallen by the wayside. No one is against successful businesses and it can be done. Here in Sweden we have the Wallenbergs, in India you have the TATA group. These are global companies and institutions. Their business ethics and corporate social responsibility work is not a slide on a power-point. It is generations of hard work. Bofors was a good company. Their products were good. Unfortunately in the race to expand business, they resorted to illegal shipments, bribery and corruption. They claimed a tax-deduction for the money they had to pay as bribes.
In my long career as a police officer I have seen many things. What was shocking in the whole Bofors-India saga was the scale of political involvement in Sweden breaking all rules including those we set for ourselves. Bofors was a wake-up call for most Swedes who thought corruption happens only far away in Africa, South America and Asia. There was disbelief and hurt when they found that some of their top politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen were no better than others. The $1.3 billion deal with India for the sale of 410 field howitzers, and a supply contract almost twice that amount was the biggest arms deal ever in Sweden. Money marked for development projects was diverted to secure this contract at any cost. Rules were flouted, institutions were bypassed and honest Swedish officials and politicians were kept in the dark. Our former Prime Minister Olof Palme was talking peace, disarmament and sustainable development globally, while we were selling arms illegally, including to countries that were on our banned list. My office, the office of Hans Ekblom, the public prosecutor in Stockholm, our National Audit Bureau – everything was ignored. So was the Swedish tax-payer.
The Managing Director of Bofors Martin Ardbo had worked very hard for this deal. He brought over 900 jobs to Karlskoga where Bofors is headquartered for atleast a decade. When the stories started appearing Ardbo was a shaken man. He knew that I knew that he had made a political payment even more secretly than the rest to close this deal. He told me he didn’t have a choice.
Q – How did the India angle in Bofors crop-up?
A – It was an accident. We were conducting several search and seize operations in the premises of Bofors and their executives. I have some experience in this area, so I asked my team to take everything they could find. In the pile were one set of documents to Swiss banks with instructions that the name of the recipient should be blocked out. An accountant doing his job asked why anonymity was necessary since the payments were legal. Bofors was unable to explain and then we found more and more documents leading to India.
The Bofors Story after 25 years: click here for the full interview

Antony urges top brass of Armed Forces to be honest and transparent

Ministry of Defence 24-April, 2012 15:39 IST : Core Values not to be Given up in Modernisation Process: Antony
The Defence Minister Shri A.K. Antony today told the top brass of Armed Forces that while modernization remains the topmost priority of the Government and to achieve the same a mechanism has been put in place to fast track procurement of equipment and upgradation of infrastructure, this however cannot be done at the cost of a set of core values- transparency, probity and accountability. Addressing the Unified Commander’s Conference, here, Shri Antony urged all commanders to ensure that these principles are adopted and followed in letter and spirit. “We have a collective responsibility to ensure that every single rupee is spent meaningfully and judiciously and wasteful expenditure is eliminated”.

Shri Antony said, the Government is constantly fine tuning the Defence Procurement Procedure to cut down delays in procurement process. He asked the Services to put their best foot forward by having a well-defined approach to procurement, based on clear and objective General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQRs). He said there is also a need to ensure that procedures are strictly adhered to and the Services ensure the timely meeting of technical parameters.

Referring to a nationwide, secure and dedicated optical fibre network, to be implemented by the Ministry of Communication & Information Technology, in lieu of the vacation of a part of spectrum by Defence Services, Shri Antony said the approval of Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure for the budget is awaited. He said, the “defence band” and the “defence interest zone” have been mutually agreed upon by the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Communication & Information Technology to meet the spectrum requirement for strategic communication of defence forces and this will be promulgated soon. Shri Antony said, while on the one hand IT has helped in breaking down linguistic and geographic barriers and resulted in a level playing field, on the other hand, Information and Communication Technology are also being misused by anti–social and anti-national elements. Describing Cyber-crimes as another dimension in the security architecture, Shri Antony said the Services need to be fully aware of the implications and put in place security systems and standard operating procedures to counter such threats.

Talking about the neighborhood, the Defence Minister said latest events in the Af-Pak region clearly show that it cannot be presumed that the Af-Pak issues are nearing solution. He said we need to keep a close watch on the situation in the region as any developments in the Af-Pak region will have strategic and security implications for India. Referring to Jammu and Kashmir, Shri Antony said the situation in the State has improved over the past few years. However, the coming summer months will prove to be a real test for an even more realistic assessment. “We have to remain vigilant and active and cannot afford to drop our guard”, he said.

Shri Antony, at the very outset, congratulated all Scientists, technicians and other DRDO personnel for the successful flight test of Agni –V and said, this significant achievement has done the entire nation and our Armed Forces proud. SitanshuKar/NA (Release ID :82460)
Core Values not to be Given up in Modernisation Process: Antony

Abhishek Manu Singhvi "caught with his pants down"

Singhvi lashes out at social networking sites
Last Updated: Saturday, April 21, 2012, 14:23 5
 New Delhi: With a controversial CD featuring Abhishek Manu Singhvi going viral on internet, the senior Congress leader has lashed out at social networking sites, saying they are indulging in "sensationalism" despite a court injunction.
Singhvi told a news agency, "It is obvious that the adage 'be you the ever so high, law is above you' does not apply to any social media."
"Not only is there a court injunction, not only has the author of the alleged CD sworn in an affidavit in court and accepted that the contents were fabricated and morphed, but even as respectable a media group as India Today has accepted the position of the court," Singhvi said.
"Obviously, an organised gang has been purposely used by motivated interests to concertedly use the social sites for sensationalism and permanent damage. Remember, this can happen to anyone and if this lawlessness is allowed to continue as it is, we will all be consumed shortly."
The Delhi High Court in an order passed April 13 restrained Aaj Tak, Headlines Today and the India Today Group from disseminating the contents of the CD allegedly prepared by Singhvi's former driver.
But the clip, which allegedly features the senior advocate in sexual acts, is around 13 minutes long and was posted on YouTube on Friday and has since got over 9,000 views and several comments. It has been posted by a person identifying himself as Laddi Rana.
Another site - Twitvid - also has the video, uploaded two days ago, with close to 34,000 views. It was posted by Tejinder Pal Singh Bagga of the Delhi-based Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena (BSKS).
"I downloaded the video from YouTube on Thursday and posted on Twitvid. It had been uploaded by someone named 'Singhvi' which was obviously a fake profile," Bagga told a news agency.
"I am not afraid of these people and they deserve this. I am prepared for any consequence," he added.
Bagga was also involved in the attack on lawyer Prashant Bhushan in his Supreme Court chamber in October 2011.
Advocate Abhishek Bhandari, who appeared for Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the high court seeking permanent injunction on the alleged CD, told a news agency that some organised groups were trying to defame the Congress spokesperson.
"I am sure that Singhvi will take strict legal action against this," he said.
When a news agecy contacted Google on whether it had received any request from Singhvi to take the clip off the video, one of its officials said, "I cannot comment on it as I have no information about it." IANS
Singhvi lashes out at social networking sites
Comment: This scandal is akin to Bill Clinton fame... Are our Indian Politicians competing with Americans? Many more are hidden in the in Pandora's Sex Box... However, personal privacy should not be invaded... MP's should not misuse official position in sleaze games...  Whatever goes on within the confines of the four the walls of their house is nobody's business... sex urge must be controlled while performing official work especially in the Court Chambers allotted for application of Judicial Prudence!

How to Launder Money? Rishi- Tatra- IAS Couple Route

How to launder money by Philip Brewer Money laundering is not a simple concept. It's two simple concepts, because there are two different — in fact, nearly completely opposite — activities that are called money laundering. Here's how to do both of them. Classic Money Laundering The classic money launderer was someone who had illicit income — drug dealer, jewel thief, con man — and worried that he'd get the Al Capone treatment and be convicted of tax evasion even if the government couldn't pin any of the underlying criminal activity on him. If the illicit income is small — and especially if you also have a straight job that you do pay taxes on, there's no need to do any money laundering.
For example, suppose you work in some cube farm that pays most of what you need to live on, but you also turn the occasional trick to bring in a hundred dollars a week. You probably don't need to launder that money. Cut down on the amount of cash you take from your paycheck and use the money from hooking to make up the difference. As long as you still take some cash from your paycheck, the government would have a hard time proving that your cash expenses exceed what you're taking from legitimate sources. But suppose that illicit income is a bit larger.
Once you've got more than a few hundred dollars a week — more than can be conveniently hidden in your ordinary cash expenses — you've got a problem. As soon as you do anything with the money — spend or invest it — it might well come to the attention of the tax man. The solution — classic money laundering — is to create a business to ostensibly earn that money. Any business that brings in a good deal of cash will do. You run the business as usual during the day. Then, after closing, you feed in your day's illicit receipts, pretending that they'd been received by the business. In due course the business pays its taxes and all the tax man can see is that you're running an unusually profitable business. Now, the tax man may well take an interest in such a profitable business, so it's best if it'd be hard to prove that you couldn't be doing the business you're paying taxes on.
A bar, for example, wouldn't be the best choice, because you wouldn't have ordered enough booze to pour all the drinks your books will say you've sold. Coin operated laundries and car washes are classics, because the only way to prove that you hadn't actually done all that business would be to have an undercover agent surveil your place for weeks, counting every coin inserted by every customer. (Although agents have been known to subpoena the water bill and try to make the case that way.) Modern Money Laundering The other thing sometimes called money laundering is when you have some big lump of cash that you'd rather not have people find out about. Sometimes it's an effort to keep the money from the tax man (literally the opposite of classic money laundering), other times the goal is to keep it from coming to the attention of someone else who might feel like they have some claim to the money — an ex-spouse, a creditor, the guy who owns the land where you found the bag of gold coins in the culvert. In this kind of money laundering, the point is to make the money disappear. This is the sort of money laundering where you might make use of foreign banks, shell companies, and so on.
There are two parts to these strategies. First, you need to make the money disappear. Second, you need to make it reappear in some gradual fashion that doesn't bring it to the attention of whoever you're trying to hide it from. Disappearing the money The easiest way to disappear the money, especially if it's already cash (as opposed to, let's say, silver bullion or a winning lottery ticket) is to just stash it in a safety deposit box. You miss out on any investment income, but it's safe and you know where to find it. If you really want to be able to invest the money, get it overseas. If it's an amount that you can just carry with you, buy a vacation package to the Cayman Islands or visit your family roots in Europe and take a little side trip to Switzerland or Austria or Liechtenstein. There are plenty of fancy, complex ways to get the money overseas, that mostly require an accomplice. The most basic is an invoice scam. Establish a business that imports or exports something. Meet with your customer or supplier and arrange with him to either over-pay or under-bill, and then to have your counterpart deposit (most of) the excess into your foreign bank account. An ongoing scheme is good, because the guy knows that the lucrative cash flow will stop if you find out the money isn't getting deposited as it should, but you can also work this as a one-shot deal if your counterpart can be trusted. Banks used to help their good customers get money discretely overseas, but nowadays there are a bunch of laws against such things, and bankers are particularly averse to going to jail for their customers. Expect them to refused to get involved and to rat you out.
How to Launder Money
How Ravi Rishi operates?
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IAS Couple linked to Ravi Rishi in Tatra Scam

'Tainted' IAS couple linked to Ravi Rishi in Tatra scam?
The writer has posted comments on this articleTNN | Apr 22, 2012, 01.53AM IST
NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Tatra scam is examining a connection between Madhya Pradesh IAS couple Arvind Joshi and Tinoo Joshi, who are facing graft charges, and London-based businessman Ravi Rishi. The CBI is looking at Rishi's Vectra Group acquiring maximum shares in Greater Noida's Indian Exposition Mart Limited (IEML) at the time when Tinoo Joshi was posted as Development Commissioner Handicrafts in the ministry of textiles. Sources said the agency is scrutinizing the bank accounts of the IAS couple, who were suspended by the MP government after the Income Tax department recovered more than Rs 3 crore cash during a raid at their house in February, 2010. CBI is examining transaction details of 70 bank accounts of the suspended IAS couple and an official said "All entries in their accounts and related transaction details are being looked at. We may question the IAS couple in this regard". "
Acquisition of majority shares in IEML by the Vectra Group is under the scanner. There are allegations that role of Joshi was crucial role in this acquisition," said the source. The agency recently conducted raids at IEML in Greater Noida and have recovered certain documents in this regard. The agency is investigating Rishi, a majority stakeholder in Tatra Sipox (UK), for alleged irregularities in the purchase of more than 6,000 Tatra trucks after Army chief Gen V K Singh claimed that he was offered a Rs 14 crore bribe on behalf of the businessman.
The CBI is also taking assistance of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Income Tax department in this regard. The CBI may also soon question Rishi again after having already sought assistance of the Interpol to get details about certain companies - allegedly associated with the NRI businessman - that are based in Slovakia, Czech Republic, the UK and Liechtenstein. 'Tainted' IAS couple linked to Ravi Rishi in Tatra scam?
Convoluted Money Laundering Cycle of Ravi Rishi- Tatra Vectra BEML and IAS Couple Spectre
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Comment: John Doe
This is how “Lobby-Nexus” to promote "Proprietary Raj of Ravi Rishi" (more sophisticated word would be Single Vendor System) in various purchases for ARMY via BEML, was formed over a period of time...