SBI did not get back the loan it gave to Kingfisher. Kingfisher was bailed out by converting the loan into shares. Now comes the news that SBI has referred 4,300 crore rupees loan taken by Hotel Leela to corporate debt restructuring (CDR). It is said that Hotel Leela has not defaulted. It wants interest rate reduced from 14% to 11% and longer schedule for payment. Perhaps the owner of Hotel Leela thinks he can default and get away just like Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher did.
Tag: TV channels
Uttar Pradesh and other elections
The results of elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur are out. In UP, SP got absolute majority. In Uttarakhand out of 70 seats Congress got 32, BJP got 31. In Punjab, SAD-BJP coalition retained power. In Goa, BJP displaced Congress. In Manipur, Congress retained power.
Most pollsters had predicted hung assembly in UP. CNN-IBN had predicted SP will get 34% of votes, BSP will get 24%. Headlines Today had predicted 203 seats for SP. SP got 29% votes and 225 seats. BSP got 26% votes and 79 seats. BJP got 47 seats. Congress-RLD got 37 seats. Peace Party got 4 seats, Apna Dal 1, Qaumi Ekta Dal 2 and Ittehad-e-Millat Council 1. CPI, CPI(M), JD(U), TMC and some other parties did not win any seat.
Salman Rushdie controversy
Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 made news for controversy surrounding Salman Rushdie. The festival started on 20/1/2012 and ended on 24/1/2012. Over the years Salman Rushdie had come and gone. He had attended one Jaipur Literature Festival. He had attended one seminar in Delhi. The events had passed off peacefully.
This time TV channels gave wide publicity to statements of some Muslim leaders, some clerics and some politicians. The statements began in UP where elections are going on and spread to other parts. No party wanted to offend Muslims and lose their votes. If the TV channels had ignored the statements there would have been no controversy. Once those leaders demanded Salman Rushdie should not be given a visa and it was widely telecast the controversy began. Salman Rushdie tweeted he did not need a visa to come to India. Being a Person of Indian Origin he had Indian Overseas Citizen card and could come to India anytime. If he had kept quiet the Muslim leaders would have thought he would not get a visa and stopped the protests. The Muslim leaders continued the protests and demanded he should be stopped from attending the festival. The organizers said the invitation stands. Ashok Gehlot, Rajasthan’s chief minister went to Delhi. Law Minister Salman Khurshid told him Salman Rushdie cannot be stopped from coming to India. Ashok Gehlot met P. Chidambaram and returned to Rajasthan.
Hitler Didi should remain
A Jewish group known as Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has objected to the title of a serial Hitler Didi on Zee TV. Some in India support them and say the channel should drop the title and find something else.
It seems there are two standards; one for Jews, one for others. When some people do something like books, cartoons, films, TV serials and paintings, that offends Christians, Hindus and Muslims these people speak freedom of speech and expression. They advocate tolerance and say freedom of speech and expression is meaningless if something that offends someone is excluded. When something offends Jews it must be banned. There is no discussion. There is no talk of freedom of speech and expression, tolerance and the right to offend.
When I first heard Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say in some European countries people can be put in jail for denying Holocaust I thought it was a joke. Later I came to know it was a fact and at least one author was jailed for his book on Holocaust. A journalist who covered White House since 1960 lost her accreditation because she said Jews in Israel and Palestine are outsiders and they should go back to where they came from like America, Russia, Poland and England.
Cheat the Nation
Once I found Manish Tewari and Ajit Singh on CNN-IBN and Times Now at the same time on what were supposed to be live discussions. I wondered how it could be. I had heard or read about the saints having the gift of bilocation but it was more than that. It was bilocation plus bilocution. Not only people were present on two different places at the same time they were also saying different words at the same time.
Sometimes I found panelists on three channels at the same time. Finding on two channels had become common. It was obvious someone had recorded with some people before and using the footage. No channel disclosed someone was interviewed before the programme except once when Amitabh Revi on NDTV 24×7 said Kiran Bedi was interviewed before.
Sheila Dikshit and CG scam
Why is it that Sheila Dikshit continues as chief minister when there were three occasions when she should have quit? Did she threaten that she would not go down alone but take Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi with her? Did she bribe or threaten BJP members or other politicians? What did she do to silence TV channels about her?
Resolution on death penalty
Tamil Nadu is a fit case for imposition of President’s Rule as it is not run as per constitution and its Legislative Assembly passed a resolution asking for mercy to criminals whose petitions had been rejected by the President. Omar Abdullah was right in questioning whether the reaction would have been as muted if Jammu & Kashmir had passed a similar resolution in favour of Afzal Guru. In that case BJP and many other parties would have gone ballistic. There is hypocrisy in Tamil Nadu. Some years back Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly had passed a resolution favouring death penalty for the criminals. Parties headed by Karunanidhi and Vaiko were part of NDA which rejected mercy petitions. Ram Jethmalani was member of BJP and did not oppose death penalty then. Madras High Court should not have entertained the petitions and stayed the executions for eight weeks and when that happened Supreme Court should have intervened and vacated the stay. If waiting for death penalty is cruel why extend it by eight weeks? That shows the falsehood of the claim that waiting for death penalty is cruel and an excuse to get death penalty commuted to life imprisonment. What happens in India puts banana republics to shame and there should be a new phrase to describe India.
Parliamentary privileges
MPs are free to move privilege motion against anyone including PM. Sometime back BJP had moved a privilege motion against PM. Article 105 of the Constitution does not define the privileges of MPs. It does not say Parliament can send someone to jail. Some MPs want to punish Om Puri and Kiran Bedi for what they said against MPs. MPs say the dignity of Parliament has been violated. Om Puri has issued a qualified apology on TV channels. He said he was offended when Manish Tewari accused Anna Hazare of corruption. Kiran Bedi has stood by her words. She said it was a game changer.
Where is the dignity of Parliament when MPs repeatedly disrupt Parliament? Days pass without doing any work. Sometimes whole sessions are disrupted. Many MPs don’t attend Parliament for most of the days. Foul means are adopted to get majority in Parliament. When there is need of SP, BSP and RJD votes CBI finds no evidence in cases against Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav. MPs are not to hold offices of profit however they declare them as not offices of profit and hold them.
Black money in Swiss banks
Wikileaks has made public the names of Indians who have black money in Swiss banks and LGT Bank, Liechtenstein. There are main accounts and sub accounts. Nira Radia has 289990 crore rupees. If she is not an Indian citizen she cannot be prosecuted.
Some account holders are businessmen. Naresh Goyal, Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh are mentioned. Politicians include Rajiv Gandhi (19800 crore rupees), Sharad Pawar, Karunanidhi, Stalin, Chidambaram, A. Raja, Suresh Kalmadi, Laloo Prasad Yadav, H. D. Kumaraswamy and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Rajiv Gandhi died in 1991. Who operated his accounts after that is not mentioned.
NGOs under attack
Ever since the notification of the formation of the drafting committee for Lokpal Bill, NGOs have come under attack from several persons. Someone wanted them to be included in Lokpal Bill. Someone made vague accusations of corruptions against NGOs. It seems to be an attempt to divert attention from the real issue of corruption by public servants.
The accusations are NGOs are not accountable to anyone, one can declare oneself an NGO and can become very rich very quickly and you need not explain how you got the money and how you spent it, nearly all the NGOs who set out to save India’s environment are frauds, NGOs set to save poor spend time and money on international conferences and senior government officials become NGOs after retirement while politicians use NGOs to hide black money.