Bofors: Smoking Again

The ghost of Bofors payoff scam is back. After 25 years it has returned to haunt those who thought they had given it a decent burial. Though in terms of bribery amounts involved, it may be a mere mouse dropping when compared with present day 2G scam. But for the first time in the country's history, it brought to the fore the big bucks and murky dealings that go about in defence procurement.

For the benefit of post-Bofors generation, a quick recap. The union government in the mid-80s decided to buy 150-mm field guns for the Indian army. Various arms manufacturers around the world had expressed interest. Among them Swedish company AB Bofors was chosen, relegating other frontrunners such as Austrian and French manufacturers, for the purchase of 410 guns.

On April 16, 1987 a Swedish Radio broadcast claimed that AB Bofors had paid kickbacks to key Indian policy makers and top defence officials to secure the deal. The news came when Rajiv Gandhi government's honeymoon with the media and the masses was fading. The government went on denial mode.

Soon information started trickling in various newspapers about the bribes being paid, with The Hindu and Indian Express on the forefront. The word 'kickback' became part and parcel of the lexicon of the English newspaper reading Indian middle class.

The names of Rajiv Gandhi, Ottavio Quattrocchi, AB Bofors and its former chief Martin Ardbo, defence secretary SK Bhatnagar and AB Bofors agent Win Chadha figured among the main beneficiaries. Later on it emerged that Quattrocchi was the man who pocketed a major part of the kickbacks through a front organisation called AE Services.

But the long arm of law always developed butter fingers, when it came close to catching him. The last golden chance was in 2007, when Argentina arrested him based on Interpol alert. But CBI followed the lead with two left feet and came up with ridiculously lame excuses like it does not have Spanish translators to go through the Argentine court documents.

By 2009, the Indian Government even gave up the pretence of pursuing Quattrocchi and told Supreme Court about its decision to withdraw the case against him, as he could not be extradited.

While Congress reluctance to nab Quattrocchi was understandable, the non-Congress governments that came to power too, for inexplicable reasons, seemed groping in the dark. Some of them had come to power after stridently using Bofors as a poll plank. Thus the Indian public had resigned themselves to the fact that no matter which government is in power, the truth will never come out.

The recent disclosure by a retired Swedish police officer Sten Lindstrom in a media watch website The Hoot seems to have breathed life into the dead issue. The former police officer said the gun was first rate but procurement was murky. He cleared names of Amitabh Bachchan and even Rajiv Gandhi to some extent. He said the former prime minister was not directly involved in scam, but his government had carried out cover up. His also revealed that the Swedish government too was a willing partner in this game.

What really struck me in his disclosures was the tenuous relationship a whistle blower shares with a journalist. He seemed more impressed by Chitra Subramaniam-Duella than The Hindu, "I would have leaked the documents to you even if you had worked for any other newspaper," he says in the interview. He dismissively calls Hindu's role as that of a "medium of communication" and feels peeved that it carried the disclosures after a long time. Meanwhile, his name started doing rounds in Delhi as whistle blower and it caused him distress. Lucky, he was not staying in India, where whistle blowers become endangered once their identity gets revealed.

An even more striking feature is the timing of the interview on Hoot. It came close on heels of Columbia University listing N Ram for his Bofors expose in "50 great stories". Maybe the university wanted to fete its old student (Ram), but in the Hindu report too Chitra Subramaniam-Duella's name was conspicuously missing.

Interestingly Chitra Subramaniam had left Hindu in not so friendly circumstances and soon took sanyas from journalism. Hence, making a cameo appearance with a very revealing interview with the Bofors whistle blower assumes great significance. A whiff of professional acrimony is very much evident and N Ram seems to belittle her role in the expose, saying she was part of a larger team. Though it was quite evident that minus Chitra, the team would have been like FC Barcelona sans Lionel Messi.

Back in the 80s the expose in The Hindu did create a flutter, as the paper was never known for anti-establishment stand or investigative stories. Jawaharlal Nehru had once remarked that, “The Hindu always reminds me of an old maiden lady ...Very prim and proper, who is shocked if a naughty word is used in her presence. It is eminently the paper of the bourgeois, comfortably settled in life.” The Bofors disclosures was one of the few major deviations this newspaper (founded in 1878) took from its straight-laced "prim and proper" path.

Pup Comes of Age

Amidst all the IPL tamasha and the detention of Shah Rukh Khan in US, what the Indian media had missed out was Australia's heroic and historic win at Barbados against West Indies. For a quick recap West Indies had amassed a decent total (thanks to a century by Chanderpaul) of 449 and declared after 9 wickets in the first innings. But what the Aussies did may seem absolutely bizarre. They decided to declare their first innings after reaching 406 for 9 wickets.

To many it would seem they were handing over 40 runs and an assured win to the West Indians in a platter. Thankfully Indian bookies were busy with IPL, or many would have burnt their fingers betting for West Indies. Days 4 and 5 proved quite a revelation. The youthful Aussie squad proved its mettle, turned the tide in their favour and captain Michael Clarke had the last laugh.

For them the time and not runs was the main factor. Hence they cut short the first innings chase to make room for bowling the West Indians out in the second innings and chasing the total. Clarke thus earned the rare distinction of being the second captain in the history of Test cricket to win a match after declaring behind.

Ever since Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Matthew Hayden retired, the Aussie team was on a 'work in progress' mode. They even seemed vulnerable, especially against teams like England. But now it looks like the boys have turned into men, ready to dominate cricket the way their preceding generation did.

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Now cut to July 10, 2011, India was touring the same West Indies and was already leading the series. On the final day of the last Test at Dominica, India had a fair chance of making it two-nil. But surprisingly, with 15 overs to go and 86 runs required and seven wickets at hand, M S Dhoni decided to call off the match and opted for a draw. Probably he feared the Indian batting may crumble and he would lose the much coveted credit of winning an overseas tour. Sadly, for Indian cricketers chasing an individual statistic takes precedence over winning a match. I need not recall how for Sachin Tendulkar's hundredth-100 we ended up losing to Bangladesh. It is not a new trend either - have been seeing this right from the days of Gavaskar.

Mind you this is the same Dhoni who comes in a TV ad (proxy for a liquor brand run by Vijay Mallya) and brags how he thought 'differently' and helped India win T-20 and one-day world cups. He always wore his small town upbringing on his sleeve and used to project himself as a street smart guy who came up the hard way. But sadly on July 10, 2011, all that professed derring-do was missing. 

After this 'feet of clay' performance, it was one free-fall for India with nightmarish thrashings, first at the hands of England and then Australia.

Nuggets Among Junk Mails

The much maligned junk mail (or spam) folder is always worth a peek. Once in a while among the maze of these worthless stuff some surprise may be lying in wait to be discovered. Sometimes mails of known persons, writing to me for the first time, show up there. So checking junk is kind of a necessary evil, though as rarely fruitful as booking a Kingfisher airlines ticket and getting airborne.

During the early days of junk mail I used to receive you-have-won-a-lottery type mails and senders ranged from well known names like British Petroleum, Yahoo and Microsoft to some seedy types (don't remember them). The prize money was always in 500,000 to million plus range in US dollar and UK pounds. They expect us to fill a form seeking personal details. To me it all seemed as incredible as Montek Singh Ahluwalia's Rs 26 below poverty line limit. But was surprised to know from newspapers that people are gullible enough to fall for it. News stories of online lottery fraud used to crop up from time to time and most accused happened to be Nigerians.

Later on there was a flood of mail ranging from matrimonial sites to sale of viagra. But what used to interest me most was the hidden treasure mails - the ones which says they have some huge fortune tucked away in some tax haven and they need your address etc. Quite often the sender claims to be from Burkina Faso, mostly a woman, and says her father's treasure is there in some tax haven and her life is in danger and is seeking someone to 'safekeep' the fortune.

But, I must say these fraudsters seem to be quite abreast of the events. When the Satyam scandal broke out they came up with mails claiming to be someone close to the CEO Ramalinga Raju and had some fortune that needed safe keeping. Later on when the Sri Lanka-born US hedge fund wizard Raj Rajarathnam scandal broke out I got a mail from his 'wife' seeking to preserve her hidden fortune.

However the one I got recently takes the cake - any day 100 times more interesting than Sachin Tendulkar's hundredth 100. The sender claimed he was RBI Governor D Subbarao (full transcript copy-pasted below) and had a proposal which could change the lives of both of us. Mind you this is the first time I am getting something like this from a serving person and that too in first person  - so far I got letters from the kin of businessmen and dictators after they were either out of power or disgraced by scandals. 

The mail talks of some Ben Morris a Canada-based contractor, who died six years ago. A sum of Rs 5.8 crore was supposed to be paid to him and risks confiscation by Indian government if nobody comes forward to claim it. The RBI governor says neither he nor his relatives can claim money and hence he wants me to send my personal details so that he can supplant me as the real owner!! Later we could share it fifty-fifty. The whole thing seemed as bizarre as saying Coca-Cola can cure baldness. But I am sure the sender's inbox may be flooded with mails from interested suckers.

Sender’s email: drsubbarao@hotmail.co.in

Transcript of the mail

RESERVE BANK OF INDIA

CENTRAL OFFICE MUMBAI

400001

ATTENTION:

FROM THE DESK OF

DR D SUBBARAO

GOVERNOR RESERVE BANK OF INDIA

CENTRAL OFFICE MUMBAI

I wish to contact you for an urgent business which i know you will keep the secret for the best of us.I am DR D SUBBARAO THE GOVERNOR OF RESERVE BANK OF INDIA MUMBAI CENTRAL OFFICE.While am writing to you is to inform you of a good business that can change your life and mine also, There is (5.8 CRORE) which is supposed to be paid to one MR BEN MORRIS as a contractor but i find out that he died on his way to his country CANADA about 6years ago and the money is about to be confiscated by Indian present governments since the owner has not come up to cash the money.So please i want you to stand as the owner of the money so that the money will be transfer to your own bank account for both of us to share it because since i am the governor in charge here i cannot use my name or my relatives account to transfer the money, All you need is to feed me back with the details below so that i will change your name as the real owner of the money.

Please note that you will stand as the full owner of the money during the transfer of the money because i will not be among the transfer TEAM, So you are the one to speak with the HEAD OF THE TRANSFER TEAM may be on phone during the time of the transfer. Any money you spend during the transfer will be remove from the money while we share the REST 50-50

NB; PLEASE DO KEEP THIS DEAL BY YOURSELF ALONE TILL THE BUSINESS IS OVER

BELOW ARE DETAILS NEEDED FROM YOU

1) YOUR FULL NAME:

2) ADDRESS, CITY, STATE .

3) PHONE, FAX AND MOBILE

4) COMPANY NAME (IF ANY) POSITION AND ADDRESS

5) BANK NAME

6) BANK ADDRESS

7) ACCOUNT NUMBER

8) SWIFT CODE/ ROUTING NUMBER

9) PROFESSION, AGE AND MARITAL STATUS

10) COPY OF YOUR INT'L PASSPORT/DRIVERS LICENSE

As soon as these information is received i will send them to our bank LAWYER to do the change of ownership with your full name and address as the rightful owner of the money.

YOURS FAITHFULLY

DR D SUBBARAO

GOVERNOR RESERVE BANK OF INDIA

MUMBAI CENTRAL

Push Pull Ministry

The way Mamata Banerjee rode roughshod over Dinesh Trivedi and his Railway Budget may be a new low for the ministry, but then the  Rail Bhawan has for long been kowtowing to the whims and fancies of incumbent ministers, with brazen partiality towards their constituency and state. More often than not things like project viability, economic feasibility get steamrolled under the minister's pet agendas.
 
The rot became glaringly visible in the early 1980s with A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhary, the mercurial Congressman from West Bengal, as railway minister. Popularly known as Minister of Malda, he used Railways as fiefdom to further his constituency. He made Malda a new rail zone headquarters, gave it a railway stadium, hospital and a factory. The result: Even in the high noon of Marxist dominance in Bengal with Jyoti Basu at the helm, this Congressman bucked the trend by winning successive elections from Malda.
 
This weakness to create new rail division with parochial sentiments in mind is something that afflicted most incumbents in the ministry and the eastern railway zones (namely those in West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand) became a hot bed for this turf war. Chowdhury's gesture did not go down well in neighbouring undivided Bihar as Malda had encroached upon parts of Dhanbad division. The revenge happened two decades later when Bihari babu Lalu Prasad became railway minister. He hit back by carving out parts of Samastipur and Malda areas in the newly created Bhagalpur division. The energy rich Dhanbad had an unenviable fate of getting latched on to many divisions, thanks to its lucrative freight revenue.  
 
Lalu Prasad as the railway minister draws mixed reactions. During his tenure, at least on paper, the ministry was financially sound - though crictics have dime a dozen theories ranging from fudging of figures to Lalu being so embroiled in Bihar politics that he left the ministry at the hands of some efficient babus - and that did the trick. Anyhow what followed was a political version of Raju ban gaya gentleman with our rustic hero being called up for enviable assignments like lecturing management students from Harvard and Wharton.
 
Fellow Bihari and bete noire Ram Vilas Paswan headed the Rail Bhawan only to create a rail zone in his constituency Hajipur. He yanked off Dhanbad out of the Kolkata-based South Eastern Railway and attached to Hajipur. After he stepped down Hajipur's development was put on slow track. Also distributed the maximum number of free passes (about 50,000), largely to people from his constituency, Hajipur.
 
Jaffer Sharief came to the ministry riding his hobby horse of uni-gauge, with his home state Karnataka in mind. The state had many metre-gauge lines built during princely regimes. The project sought to convert the uneconomical metregauge lines to broadgauge and put his hometown Hassan on the rail network. He brushed aside all opposition from experts and this project even now continues to cost railways dear. Sharief also built a road bridge over a railway crossing in Bangalore, reportedly to clear way to his farmhouse. His favouring of Swedish company Asea Brown Boweri to import locomotives landed him in cloud with allegations of kickbacks.
 
Madhavrao Scindia belonged to the original band of Oxbridge elite (also called 'babalog') brought in by Rajiv Gandhi to run the country. It was an era when computerisation was considered a panacea for all ills and was forced upon the near Luddite government workforce. Not surprisingly Scindia is credited with computerisation of railways. However even he ensured that every budget had something to offer for his constituency Gwalior – a Shatabdi or some train linking to his constituency, though was not as brazen as others.
 
But when his daughter Chitrangadha was getting married to Karan Singh's son, the maharaja in him took over. The Gwalior railway station was paved with marble (obviously with taxpayer's money) to greet the wedding guests.
 
But none of the above transgressions compare with what Mamata Banerjee did when she was directly ruling the Rail Bhawan and later on with her remote control. It is even more disgusting that UPA leadership allowed her to have her way. For hapless rail travellers there is going to be little respite from unclean bogies, stale food and nauseating lavatories plus a dicey journey with outdated safety systems.

Many Shades of Secularism

The Rushdie affair dating from the Jaipur Lit fest to India Today conclave is revealing myriad hues of secularism practiced in the country. The Indian society has torn apart secularism's insipid definition of keeping state and religion apart and added surfeit amounts of masala and put it through the blender.

Type A: He feels outraged that Rushdie is not allowed to come to India, but it is okay that M F Hussain was banished abroad.

Type B: He feels outraged by Rushdie's works and sees him as ultimate Satan, but is unmindful of the hurt M F Hussain's nude paintings caused to others. For him Hussain is a great artiste, though he, however, cannot explain why he got worked up over his film Meenaxi. I guess few movies met such a fate - got canned a day after it was released.

Type C: For him only votes count, so he only weighs whether pandering to which religious segment would bring more votes. Does not even mind double dealing.

Type D: He is the India International Centre type. Found mainly in metros and takes the trouble of visiting places like Jaipur, only during literature festival. Religion? what is that? Pass the grass please.

Type E: They played hookey at India Today summit and touted reasons, which sounded more knave than what school kids put forth to explain failure to do homework. For them the better part of valour was to stay away and tend their constituencies back home.

The controversy also brought to the fore the dirty picture of India's electoral arithmetic. It was said the Jaipur Lit fest controversy was whipped up keeping UP elections in mind.

Though it was part of the Congress strategy, along with many other communal sops, keeping elections in mind, the party could not make much electoral capital out of it. This prompted many pundits to say that religious sops no longer appeal to Muslims in UP. This, I feel, is too simplistic an assessment. If this was so, then Akhilesh Yadav would not have stayed away from the India Today summit.

In the UP elections, both Congress and SP had rained sops for the Muslims and since Mulayam Singh carries more credibility among the community, they opted for his party. It was a case of competitive populism.

Netas Turn On Porn Industry

With the recent video of Karnataka Assembly members watching porn going viral, the porn industry is literally salivating at the new market. They are now looking at Indian netas and wannabes as a new turn on.

So far they had assumed that these hardball politicos, neck-deep in hard core crimes such as money laundering, murder, rape, had no inclination for juvenile stuff like watching porn. The recent TV footage has convinced them that though they may be in the 40 to 90 age group, with pot bellies directly proportionate to their Swiss bank balance, they are still 14-year-olds at heart.

Kingfisher 2011 calendar girl Poonam Pandey is planning a special porn video for our netas titled Dil toh bachcha hai ji. After her two false starts - fiasco over not being able tofulfil her promise that she would run nude after India won cricket World Cup and later in England, when men in blue played spoilsport - she is hoping that she would be third time lucky. “I see this as a golden opportunity to undo everything (not just clothes) - even my broken promises to Indian cricket fans,” she gushed.

Not to be outdone, it is rumoured that Pakistani siren Veena Malik too seems to be harbouring similar plans, but her nationality is coming in her way. Fearing that she might be dubbed being an Inter Services Intelligence’s weapon of mass distraction (WMD), she is lying low about it.

After initial feeling of outrage over ‘desecration’ of our culture and other things, political analysts now seem to veering towards pragmatism. They now say this is not something to be frowned upon, but maybe ‘channelised’ in a proper manner. They feel that these videos would keep our netas sit through the day-to-day boring assembly sessions. One has to admit they are boring with a capital B. It would also keep them from rushing into the well of the house and resort to other stunts. Parliaments and assemblies would not squander precious taxpayers’ money due to disruption of proceedings.    

Meanwhile the news has spread far and wide and even porn giants like Hugh Hefner (of Playboy fame) have sent their market analysts to carry out surveys in India. Though the analysts seemed quite bullish about the market, they were concerned about lack of 3G phone skills among the members. “The fact that the member who first got the MMS just handed over the handset to other two, instead for forwarding the MMS, shows they need some training before they become 3G savvy.” But, they hastened to add that these are small obstacles to be crossed to lap up a lucrative market.

Jail Is Where The Heart Is

With Tihar jail becoming the new VIP hangout in Delhi and many other jails in state capitals such as Mumbai, Bangalore too following suit, the government is suddenly seized of the matter to reform the jails - at least the VIP sections. It has formed a committee for the purpose and Tihar would be used as pilot project. After the first meeting, the chairman of the committee Mr Salakhein Singh had an informal chat with journalists, we present you the excerpts.

On the need of the committee:  There was a demand to reform prisons when some biscuitwalla died while at Tihar in 1995. Forgot his name - some Pillai. Was heading Britannia company back then. But it became a reality only now, in fact things got moving only after a spate of scams like CWG and 2G happened. After the recent Supreme Court verdict on 2G scam, I think some of the accused will be here for long and we expect it will 'ring in' far reaching changes.

Reforms planned: First of all we plan to have a super-specialty hospital on Tihar premises itself. The hospital would have specialists dealing with illnesses that VIPs fall prey to after adverse court verdicts are announced. They range from chest pains, stomach upsets to amnesia. With lots of VIPs in Tihar and other jails, the ambulances are stretched beyond their limits. Moreover the jails don't have enough security staff to ferry so many VIPs to hospitals and back. Many of those accused in CWG scam have shown eagerness to undertake the construction of these hospitals.

There was a dispute whether to accept the proposal of CWG scam accused guys to set up Parliament annexe at Tihar or set up a video conferencing facility as mooted by the 2G scam accused, but since  the latter proposal was routed through Nira Radia it scored as per the 'first come first served' criterion. MPs serving jail term can air their opinions while Parliament is in session and there will even be facility to beep out un-Parliamentary words. The votaries of this proposal have assured that the network will be set up at ‘zero presumptive loss’ and want accounting rights to be given to Kapil Sibal and public relations rights to Digvijay Singh.

Other proposals: We have come up with some out of the box proposals to raise the money to fund the above reforms. Outside the jail premises we have decided to put up Muppets, made up of material used to make stuffed toys, of current and former inmates. The visitors who wish to vent their spleen can pay a fee and then kick or slap these Muppets. Higher fees will be charged from those wishing to throw shoes. We are quite excited about the proposal and hope to get a good response. We even plan to ship some of these exhibits through various parts of the country by special trains and have whistle-stop exhibitions at various stations. People there can pay fees and enjoy the facility, they needn't come all the way to Tihar.

There is also a proposal to set up museum of prison related exhibits and we hope to draw a good response. The prominent exhibits that comes to my mind is the toothpicks used by Ajmal Kasab after eating biriyani, the blackberry seized from some of our prisoners, the plate that was issued to Anna Hazare which he didn't use, the tandoor used by Sunil Sharma to fry his wife Naina Sahani. The list is too long and we have set up a sub-committee to identify all these artifacts.

Motto of the committee: We wish to make conditions in jails more livable, in fact so congenial that our VIP prisoners would be tempted to overstay, as they do with their official residences in Lutyen's Delhi after losing power. They should be made to feel that jail is where the heart is.