Corporate Terrorists of India

[e-clarion of dalit]

S.O.S e - Clarion Of Dalit - Weekly Newspaper On Web
Working For The Rights & Survival Of The Oppressed
Editor: NAGARAJA.M.R… VOL.6 issue.30…… 25/07/2012

Editorial : CORPORATE CRIMINALS / CORPORATE TERRORISTS / TAX
THIEVES RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL ILLS IN INDIA

In India , a small shop owner to big industrialist have mastered the
art of TAX EVASION . their teachers - some corrupt tax officials &
auditors. The black money thus created
is causing inflation, feeding the mafia , underworld. Some
industrialists lobby ( bribe ) with the government & gets favourable
laws enacted. This black money is the main source of funds for
political parties , religious bodies & terrorist outfits.

The recent raids by C.B.I & KARNATAKA LOKAYUKTHA have proved how the
tax officials have become multi-millionaires. The sad part is that
some of the police officials who are on deputation to C.B.I &
LOKAYUKTHA themselves are utterly corrupt.

This scourge can only be cured by corporate accountability intoto.
However , all the industrialists , traders who are demanding for more
flexible labour reforms , economic reforms , infrastructure , etc are
not at all concerned about their own accountability with respect to
tax , environment , other laws. The MNCs coming to India are not
coming here for best Indian talents or infrastructure alone. In their
own countries they are feeling the
heat of strict environment laws , consumer laws , share holder
disclosures , corporate accountability. Some of these MNCs are being
kicked out of their countries , by it's own people .These MNCs are
aware that in India , by greasing the palms environment laws , labour
laws , tax laws , etc everything can be flouted , cases in courts can
be dragged on for years . share holder disclosures , corporate
transparency is minimum.

However when a concerned citizen complains about the crimes of guilty
corporates , organizations or corrupt public servants , immediate
action is not taken. The file is kept pending for months , years
together , allowing the criminals to manipulate all the evidences ,
records , ground situations. Finally even if action is taken guilty
will be let out due to favorable evidences , there are chances that
the concerned citizen himself is falsely implicated & put behind
bars . in all such cases all the involved parties must be subjected to
lie detector tests .

Bottomline : development is a must , it must be all around . but not
at the cost of majority to make a few richer.
Jai Hind. Vande Mataram.

Your’s sincerely,
Nagaraj.M.R.

Maruti Suzuki HR executive Murder , PRICOL VP MURDER , SATYAM CO
FRAUD , SINGUR AGITATION & GRAZIONO CEO MASS MURDER
- An eye opener to irresponsible corporate India & GOI

Few Days ago , a senior HR executive of M/s Maruti Suzuki Ltd ,
Manesar , Haryana was burnt to death by workers. Few Years back , in
the state of tamilnadu India , some of the sacked laboureres of M/S
PRICOL INDUSTRIES mass lynched & murdered a higher management
official , for sacking them from their jobs. This act of laborers is a
heinous crime , illegal & inhuman act. In India , nowadays the labour
movement has been hijacked by lumpen elements , rowdies , criminals.
These criminal elements are there in the posts of union leaders just
to further their self interests rather than the welfare of the workers
whom they represent. These lumpen elements , so called leaders thrive
on controversies & creates disturbances , vitiates harmonious
relations between the management – workers. The company as an
organization needs team work to survive & thrive in business. These
labor leaders even oppose for example OUTPUT BASED PRODUCTION
INCENTIVE SCHEME – which is a win win situation for both the
management & workers. These leaders go to the extent of killing the
hen which lays golden eggs , all for their selfish gains. These rowdy
leaders become leaders just to make money , to make political entry ,
to shirk-off work , to escape night shift work , etc. In the midst of
these rowdy elements the genuine concerns of ordinary workers are not
at all heard. The ordinary workers who depend on the organization for
their livelihood , who work hard to earn more incentive , are the
ultimate sufferers.

In the same manner , the management of companies must be sensible to
the genuine concerns of it's workers , it must properly balance the
worker's concern & company's position . some of the managements
enforce harsh rules on workers , o.k , the management personnel of
those very same companies function without discipline , misuse company
properties , siphons of company money , take commission from
vendors , cheat the government of tax dues , violate environmental
laws , tax laws , labor laws by bribing officials , etc. Finally this
kills the organization as a whole – the end losers shareholders ,
lending banks , government & our economy.

The recent public agitation at singur west Bengal , India against
the TATA NANO project , is nothing but a struggle for survival by the
land loosers. The public of singur are living there since ancestral
times , they fully depend for their livelihood on the vegetables &
other small crops grown there by them. The livelihood , their survival
is at stake. The irresponsible west Bengal government , to favour the
corporate lobby , acquired the lands forcibly dirt cheap & gave it
away at dirt cheap price to TATA'S. why such a cheap , long term
lease period has been given to TATA'S ? The government literally has
thrown the land loosers on street , it didn't bother about their
survival nor about their proper rehabilitation . Basically , TATA'S is
a business house , their only intention is to make profits , more
money , not the welfare of people. Why not TATA'S acquire land in open
market ? the acquire of lands by state or central government for
public good like for building dams , roads , channels are at least
justified however the rehabilitation is more important. Other than
for the projects concerning public good , for all the projects of
private enterprises like pay & use roads , airports , industries ,
etc , the lands must be acquired in the open market at market prices .
For some industrialists bid to make riches , lives , livelihood of
thousands should not be sacrificed. It is not alround development. In
a democracy , the voice of the public , locals should be honoured but
not the diktats of ministers or babus in secretariats. The present
corrupt system in India leading to rise of naxalism , underworld ,
separatist movements are all due to the government policies since
independence till date according to the wisdom (?) of ministers &
babus , totally dishonouring the public voice.

Now , take the case of Graziono CEO mass murder in noida , it is
nothing but fallout of hire & fire policies. Every human being works
for survival , on his meager salary there will be family dependents ,
all of a sudden if a person is fired from service , his whole family
will be on streets. O.k , all corporates nowadays preach & breath the
mantra of USA , for everything be it infrastructure , flexible labour
policies , it compares itself with those prevailing in the USA.
Now , the corporate India is getting infrastructure at dirt free
prices ( very high in the USA ) , has got hire & fire mechanism by
employing contract labour , very lenient environmental norms , very
lenient food & drugs safety rules , relaxation in Factory Act , ESI &
PF acts , etc add to it the rampant corruption in all govt departments
by which you can get any certificate for a price.
In the USA , of course there is hire & fire policy , however the
minimum wage levels are also very high , so that during good times
workers can save money for their future. Also , there is social
security net to take care of ousted workers , then why not Indian
corporates paying good salary to workers during good times ? why not
corporate India making good contribution to social security net ? in
the USA , there are good infrastructure facilities they take pride in
paying taxes to the government , the corporate India always lobbies
for tax cuts , subsidies , loan waivers , etc. in the USA the
environment norms are very strict , the companies manufacturing
hazardous chemicals which were ousted by the US government have set up
shop in India . Government of USA treats lives of people as precious ,
where as Indian government treats lives of it's people as dispensable.
In the USA , the food safety & drugs , medicines safety standards are
very high , the drugs , high level adulteration food products banned
by Government of USA are sold in the India , this is the difference
between government of USA & India , the way they treat their people's
lives. Loan recovery , investor safety norms are very high in the
USA , where as in India , loan defaulters , share holder swindling ,
Non Performing Assets is very high. Inspite of all the strict norms
we have seen enron , Xerox debacles in the USA & recent bank fallouts
in the USA. In India with such lax norms , only you can guess.
The lesson here for the government of India is , development must be
allround , must not be at the cost of thousands. Listen to the voice
of public but not to the commands of greedy selfish corporates ,
lobbies . Do stop thinking that only babus , IAS officers & minister
are brilliant knowing all and the public people are fools fit to be
herded by IAS officers. Do remember that India is a democracy not a
BANANA REPUBLIC.
The lesson for corporate India , aping the USA intoto is O.k , but
not by parts & bits , follow corporate USA in every aspect of
corporate duties & responsibilities , transparency.
Final word , when it comes to the question of survival , life ,
livelihood , it know no bounds . After all STRUGGLE FOR SUVIVAL is a
basic animal instinct , it is a basic human right of every
individual .




CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY IN INDIA
CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY Scandals related to the appalling practices
of multinational corporations like Union Carbide (now DOW), Enron,
Coke, Cadbury, and
others may have shocked the nation and the world in the recent past,
but the media rarely highlights corporate crimes that extend to
murders, destroying habitats, threatening indigenous cultures, causing
disease, contaminating the planet's food supply, poisoning
our groundwater and even destroying the very air we breathe.

You think this is an exaggeration? Well consider this. In Bhopal,
India more than 8,000 people died in the first three days after 40
tonnes of lethal gas spilled out from Union Carbide's pesticide
factory in December 1984. People woke in their homes to fits of
coughing, their lungs filling with fluid. 520,000 people were exposed
to poisonous gases. 150,000 victims are chronically ill, and even now
one person dies every two days. Union Carbide merged with Dow Chemical
Corporation two years ago and has ceased to exist as an entity while
the present owners Dow refuse to accept any pending liabilities in
Bhopal including clean-up of the abandoned site.

In Kodaikanal, India, Hindustan Lever, a subsidiary of Unilever Plc,
an Anglo-Dutch multinational dumped mercury waste from its thermometer
factory in the surrounding forests and on an innocent local community.
When the scandal was exposed, first the company denied that there was
a problem and later fudged facts and figures until the Indian
authorities forced them to come clean. Since then Unilever has
retrieved and sent back to USA some of the waste for disposal but are
shying away from compensating affected workers and further
environmental remediation measures.

Monsanto, one of the world's largest pesticide companies, continues to
sell its genetically engineered seeds to farmers around the world
despite growing evidence of failure of crops like Bt cotton, that has
reduced once well-to-do farmers in the developing world to penury and
poverty while the threat of contamination of indigenous species by GE
seeds increases everyday.

Bayer AG, a German transnational continues to manufacture and sell
phased out pesticides like Methyl Parathion (brand name Folidol/
Metacid) in Asia despite an assurance to their European investors and
stake holders that they would stop manufacturing these organo-
phosphate poisons.

Ship-owning companies (and indeed, their countries) like Bergesen
(Norway), and Chandris (Greece) meanwhile, regularly violate
international and national laws and dump their hazardous wastes at
ship-breaking yards in India, Pakistan, China, Turkey and Bangladesh.
The voluntary guidelines issued by International Marine Organisation
are not enough and it is imperative that these guidelines are made
mandatory to make the ship-owners liable and responsible.

In the era of globalization, multinational companies increasingly move
around assets, products and wastes on a global chessboard to maximize
their profits and minimize their costs. These companies are using
differences and loopholes in national environmental and health laws
for example to export pesticides and destructive technologies to
poorer countries to the detriment of local communities. What
international body oversees them, or sets rules for their behaviour,
or holds them accountable when they transgress?

It is no longer just the conspiracy theorists who believe our world is
increasingly ruled and ruined by large multinational corporations. The
World Trade Organisation has supplanted environmental treaties and
regulations. Corporations have become accountable only under the rules
of a free market, free trade and a free for all on human rights and
the environment.

The state of our environment has not improved, in fact it has
deteriorated. The gap between the world's rich and poor has widened.
Instead of providing developing countries with the tools for
sustainable development, corporations have pushed their dirty
technologies and polluting industries on to some of the world's
poorest countries.

A recent UN report revealed that Exxon, with $63 billion, is worth
more than Peru or New Zealand. General Electric more than Kuwait.
Shell is worth more than Morocco or Cuba.

In the past ten years, corporations have not only resisted
environmental challenges, they have lobbied to water down
international treaties and even succeeded in getting countries to
pull out of environmental agreements altogether. They have maintained
their unsustainable practices in all sectors. It is apparent that
more than just voluntary measures are needed to control these
corporations.

A recent report by WWF states that if we continue at current levels
of consumption we will use up all of the Earth's resources within 50
years, and we will need two more planets to meet our resource needs.
We either take urgent action to save the planet, or we get off.
The UN Environmental Programme agrees that "the state of the planet
is getting worse." They say "there is a growing gap between the
efforts of business and industry to reduce their impact on the
environment and the worsening state of the planet."

At the root of our environmental problems are the unsustainable
practices of the corporations that shape our economies. But what is
the good of a short-term healthy economy if we can't drink the water,
eat the foods in the fields or breathe the air?

Current systems of governance in Asia (as elsewhere) are proving to
be deficient against the activities of abusive multinational
corporations. To roll back the excessive powers of corporations and
to pressure governments to check corporate abuse and prosecute
corporate crimes, greater public participation is a must. The Rainbow
Warrior's Corporate Accountability Tour of India is part of a global
movement to change the climate of opinion against abusive
corporations and to turn the tide in favour of fundamental human
rights.

Corporations need to be held accountable for their actions that are
destroying the planet, destroying people's lives around the globe.
There is only one answer. We must stand up to the corporations. Our
governments must agree on international, legally binding rules for
corporate responsibility, accountability and liability: a set of
rules that business must follow, and governments must enforce.
The list of rules is long, but so are the crimes.

The world needs corporations to be held accountable to the following
laws – no matter where they operate in the world. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
is calling upon the Indian Government to endorse the Bhopal
Principles on Corporate Responsibility, which call on Multinational
Corporations to:
• Accept liability for environmental damage and compensate victims of
pollution;
• Accept liability for the damage, no matter when it happens, what
the cause or who in the corporation is responsible;
• Accept responsibility for damage and injury beyond national borders
including accidents in the oceans and atmosphere;
• Ensure that they do not infringe upon basic human rights;
• Disclose all information regarding releases into the environment to
the public;
• Protect human and social rights including the highest standards for
rights to health care and a clean environment;
• Avoid influence over governments, combat bribery and practice
transparency;
• Allow states to maintain their sovereignty over their own food
supply;
• Implement a precautionary principle and take preventative action
before environmental damages or health effects are incurred; and
• Promote and practice clean and sustainable development



CORPORATE FRAUDS IN INDIA

Corporate fraud is nothing new to india , satyam company is just a
new addition to it. Satyam co was able to commit such a huge fraud &
keep it under wraps for years goes to prove the honesty , integrity of
our public servants , government officials belonging to SEBI , RBI ,
tax dept , pollution control , labour depts. , etc & the honesty of
auditors & company secretaries. Ofcourse , still there are few honest
people in public service , auditing & company secretaryship , but
majority of them are hand in gloves with corporate criminals.
Definitely , this fraud will also be brushed under the carpet after
certain time as other frauds happened , afterall these frauds are the
money spinners for political party funding , mafia , underworld &
other criminal activities.

IN INDIA , government reports , records , everything can be bought for
a price. During Karnataka lokayukta raids huge wealth amounting crores
of rupees were found with each of the corrupt government officials
like police , engineers , tax officials , etc. How those government
officials with few thousands of salary earn so much , by compromising
with their government duties , by creating fake government reports ,
records , etc . The government & the courts of justice treat those
government reports , as sacrosanct like TEN COMMANDMENTS DIRECTLY FROM
THE MOUTH OF GOD HIMSELF.

The CORPORATE CRIMINALS & RICH CRIMINALS buy favourable government
reports , records from the government officials commit bigger crimes ,
escapes from legal prosecution by proving their innocence , honesty
with the aid of BOUGHT GOVERNMENT REPORTS & RECORDS. The courts of
justice lacks broad vision , it has only narrow vision as a riding
horse's vision is narrowed . courts of justice is only bothered about
technicalities , evidences , records , it lacks the spirit of QUEST
FOR TRUTH , it lacks truth finding mechanism out of massive reports ,
records , evidences. The rich criminals are in a position to
manipulate , buy out evidences , government reports , so definitely
they will escape from hook. Today , I can convincingly state that our
legal system is such that , even the terrorists who attacked our
TEMPLE OF DEMOCRACY - THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT will be let free , when
they can fully buyout evidences , reports , etc.
In this backdrop , the corporates technically maintain clean public
image although privately they are frauds , criminals. If anybody makes
a statement of truth against them , those corporate criminals will
slap defamatory & other criminal charges against such persons. The
courts of justice upholds the claims of not the speaker of truth but
the corporate criminals , on the basis of bought evidences ,
government reports. The courts doesn't go into the truthfulness of
those reports , evidences & sends the speaker of truth to prison. If
any person has made any complaints of fraud against Satyam Co , two
months back he would have definitely faced criminal prosecution &
jail term. As all the records , auditor reports , company secretary
report , reports of ministry of company affairs , reports of tax
departments , everything was in it's favour. The courts are only
bothered about evidences , records which were all in satyam's favour ,
the courts are least bothered about quest for truth & justice. In this
manner in India , there are hordes of private companies where frauds
have taken place & taking place & wiil be.
Just recently after Ramalinga raju's own statement , does it became
public that the reports of auditor , company secretary , related
governmet records are all false. Base linbe everything was bought. Do
remember that whether it is SATYAM FRAUD , ENRON SCAM or XEROX SCAM ,
those were not found , revealed either by our investigating agencies
or the government. Satyam's Fraud came to light due to pressure
created by the recession , market forces on the company's promoter
Mr.RAMALINGA RAJU & his resultant confession , Enron scam was
unearthed by US investigators in USA during the corse of their
investrigation , It is the same with XEROX Co . till those
revealations , those companies were good , legally abiding cos in govt
records. THAT MEANS THEY HAVE BOUGHT OUT INDIAN LEGAL SYSTEM
EFFECTIVELY.

In this manner , in India most of the entrpreneurs small shop owners
to big corporates buy out tax officials , labour department
officials , pollution control board officials , etc & openly indulge
in unfair , illegal trade practices , labour practices , legal
violations , etc , still go unpunished , as as per book , the
government records they are law abiding , persons , corporates.

Entrepreneurs , promoters of big corporations collect public money
either through shares , debentures , bank loans or all . so ideally
public are also stake holders in such companies . The criminal
entrpreneures , promoters siphon-off companies resources in various
ways like selling company assets to their sister cos at a lesser
value or purchasing assets from sister cos at a higher value , giving
loans to sister cos at low interest rate or taking loans from sister
cos at higher interest rate , etc. in this way they siphon-off
resources of public companies / enterprises with bank loans to their
own family owned sister cos. We at e-voice of human rights of watch
are ready to catch such corporate criminals & help the government ,
ofcourse subject to conditions , are you ready ?

In india , tax compliance is worse. In our criminal justice system,
there is rigorous imprisonment for a pick-pocketer stealing Rs.10.
even the authorities spend thousands of rupees in legally prosecuting
him & the thief spends a year or more as punishment behind bars. Where
as there is no commensurate investigation nor legal prosecution nor
punishment for corporate thieves , evading tax to the tune of crores
of rupees. In contrast, those tax thieves pay a part of that booty to
the ministers & political parties and get crores of rupees tax
exemptions , incentives from the government. Government is rewarding
corporate criminals.
The tax officials of central & state governments
are hand in glove with these corporate criminals & traders. For a
price, they are helping corporates & traders in evading tax. Most of
the tax officials are wealthy & leading luxurious lifestyles , much
beyond the scope of their legal income. The black money thus generated
every year by tax evasion , is many times more than our total annual
budget allocation. As a result, all our fiscal reforms fail &
inflation is soaring. This black money is the source of illegal
funding of political parties , terrorist outfits & underworld. It is a
greater threat to national unity & integrity.
Both the central government & karnataka state
government have failed to collect the full , actual tax dues from
corporates & traders. As a result , the governments don't have enough
money in their coffers even to provide basic needs like health care ,
education , safe drinking water , etc to the poor & needy. For every
Rs.100 tax evaded , one poor patient is dying without medical care ,
10 poor persons lack education , 100 persons don't get safe drinking
water , 100 persons barely survive on a single piece meal per day , 20
persons starve. Most of The government officials , ministers &
people's representatives who have deliberately failed in their duties
of tax collection & welfare of poor citizens , SHAMELESSLY indulge in
luxurious lifestyle at the expense of poor tax payer . they live in
paltial bungalows , chauffer driven AC cars , all living food expenses
paid by exchequer , dine at 5-star hotels , only drink bottled mineral
water , eat non-vegetarian dishes , drink alcohol sitting before
mahatma gandhi's photograph & preaching mahatma's ideals. Mahatma
preached & practiced simple living , vegetarianism & he was teto
teller , he paid for his expenses from his earnings . these public
servants are parasites , who are making merry at the expense of tax
payer.
Some non government organisations ( NGO) have
formed trusts and under the aegis of those trusts are running
educational institutions , hospitals , community halls , etc , in the
name of providing free / subsidised services like education , health
care , etc to the poor. It is only in record books , they conduct fake
medical camps , self employment training camps . in practice they are
running these educational institutions , hospitals & community halls
as commercial enterprises & collecting huge fees. they are not even
remitting full fees collected to the trust account & swindling the
money. no outsider is allowed to become a member of these NGOs , only
their cronies & their family members are in these trusts.
Numerous NGOs promoted by religious bodies , mutts
are swindling public & government money to the tune of crores of
rupees. Nobody dares to question the heads , pontiffs of these
mutts , as at his feet VVIPs , ministers fall down. These religious
bodies are hot beds of fundamentalism , terrorism & mafia. Hwere is
the accountability of religious bodies & political parties in in
india ?
Inspite of bringing specific cases to the notice
of authorities , they are mum ? hereby , E-VOICE OF HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
offers it's services ( subject to conditions ) to the governments of
india & karnataka , in apprehending the criminals – tax evaders. Are
you ready mr. singh sir & mr.Yediyurappa sir ? If you are ready to do
your duty look into the following cases , take appropriate action &
kindly inform me about the outcome.

WHY MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES ARE INVESTING IN INDIA?
We condemn the brutal massacre by police on farmers – who are going to
loss all their lands , sources.of livelihood for the sake of special
economic zones , industrial parks , etc in various states of India.

In every mega projects undertaken by government , both the state
government & central government have functioned like REAL ESTATE /
COMMISSION AGENTS for the rich & mighty . the government says it is
acquiring lands for development of industries , for public good. In
reality there is only good of rich & mighty.

For forming S.E.Zs , corporates gets speedy single window approvals
from government , lands at concessional rates – lower than market
value , soft loans from Indian banks , tax exemptions for years from
the government , dedicated power supply , etc , from the government .
these corporates are even given free hand to raise share capital in
the Indian market. the government has enacted flexible labour laws
specifically for S.E.Zs , they can hire & fire without bothering to
pay gratuity , etc and they are exempted from providing P.F / E.S.I
coverage to their employees ie they need not worry about the
occupational health hazards of their employees , they can employ them
till they are fit & throw them on streets afterwards. These corporates
take our own money, employ our own people , use our own natural
resources & finally take away the net profits to their home
countries – what they give back ? – environmental pollution , tax
evasions , low paid occupational hazardous jobs to locals , stock
market scams .


During Previous License Regime foreign, investment was not directly
welcome in India. As people at that time perceived it as "Neo
colonisation" & detested it. There were various restrictions on
foreign investments. The local industrialists under monopolistic
environment thrived, who were no way better than day light robberers,
of course with a few exception. Under the political patronage, the
cunning industrialists looted public money, cheated the government of
tax, cheated lending banks & cheated the investors
too. They easily flouted labour laws & made labourers to work in
inhuman conditions.

During 1990's under the international pressure India signed GATT &
slowly started opening it's economy. Now, from 01/01/05 even product
patent has come into force in India. Are MNCs bringing high technology
intensive industries to India? No, not at all. They are actually
denying sophisticated technologies to India. They are only
bringing the FMCG industries - salt, chips, ketch-up, colas, for which
India is a huge home market. They are into services like Hotels,
medical care, marketing. In other cases, they are just marketing the
products manufactured at their bases in U.S.A. or Europe.

They are not bringing in new production technologies in the areas like
space research, nuclear energy, bio-technology, pharmaceuticals or
pollution control, to India. Also, some MNCs are relocating their
highly polluting industries to India, as they are subjected to
stringent environmental protection standards in their own home
countries. Whereas, In India the Government is highly corrupt & can be
bought for a price. The attractive points for foreign direct
investment (FDI) in India are,

1. There is lack of comprehensive environmental norms.

2. The enforcement of environmental norms is lax.

3. The cost of health coverage, social security net to be provided to
the workers exposed to the occupational hazards is less.

4. The cost of compensation to be paid to the persons-who died or
suffered damages due to occupational hazards/environmental pollution
is meager.

5. The enforcement of labour laws are lax.

6. Public money can be easily raised through lending Banks, primary
market within India & the public can be easily cheated.

7. The tax can be evaded through various loopholes like transferring
money to holding companies situated at Mauritius or countries which
have double taxation avoidance agreement with India.

8. The tax can be evaded, company money can be cheated by lending
money to sister / holding concerns at low interest rates or by selling
shares, materials to their private companies at low rates or by buying
shares, materials from their holding/sister concerns at exhorbitant
rates, etc.

9. The corporate governance laws are almost absent in India & it's
enforcement nil.

10. Above all, the time can be bought by very slow Indian legal
system, if any dispute arise.

11. On top of it, well trained, technically qualified people are
available at low rates through contractors.

Just consider the following cases which highlight the apathy,
irresponsibility of government of India and emboldened the cunning,
MNCs:-

1. The India which boasts of so much scientific/technological
advancements, is till date has been unable to provide potable water to
it's people. People of west Bengal , Karnataka , Andrapradesh states
are forced to drink Arsenic, Fluoride poisoned water.

2. The people living near the mines of R.E.M.P. in Kerala are
suffering due to exposure to the radio active materials, Same is the
case with the people of Jadaguda, Jharkhand, living near the U.C.I.L.
plant. Both M/S R.E.M.P & M/s U.C.I.L are department of atomic energy
enterprises.

3. Few years back, In Mysore railway station containers of radio-
active materials were left unattended. The dome of reactor building at
construction stage collapsed in nuclear power plant at Kaiga. A fire
tragedy occurred in Kakrapar nuclear power plant. In the recent
Tsunami waves onslaught, certain important facilities of Koodakulam
atomic plant were damaged near Chennai.

4. In 1984, U.S. based MNC union carbide mass murdered nearly 20,000
people, injured lakhs who are still suffering health problems. The
polluted poisonous accident site i.e. Union carbide plant in Bhopal is
not yet cleared off toxic materials even after 20 years.
This is still further damaging the residents of Bhopal.

5. In the above union carbide disaster, the Government of India didn't
present the case properly before supreme courts of India & U.S.A.. As
a result the MNC just paid a pittance as compensation. As per that the
cost of Indian lives are just a fraction of cost of
American lives. Just imagine if a same disaster occurred in U.S.A. at
the plant of a MNC headquartered in India, what would have been the
consequence?

6. In India, hazardous chemicals laced with food additives are passed
through the drinks, beverages like pepsi, cola, coco cola very easily.

7. The medicines like nimesulide, paracetamol, etc. with hazardous
side effects which are banned in U.S.A.& Europe, are easily marketed
by the same U.S.& Europe based MNCs in India.

8. In India spurious drugs, medicines, food stuffs are easily
marketed.

9. In India, the clinical trials of new medicines under research are
done without proper compensation structure to those being tried upon
ie. Virtual guinea pigs.

10. In India, the genetically engineered BT crops are being introduced
without paying attention to formers, ecology or eco-system.

11. In India, during setting up of large projects, scant attention is
paid to environment, eco-system & the displaced persons.

Most of the times, in government projects itself the displaced persons
are cheated by the government in numerous ways.

12. In India, various Government as well as private hospitals dumps
hospital wastes with deadly viruses in the open, with scant regard to
public health.

13. In India, aged ships belonging to foreign countries are breaked
down to scrap in ship breaking yards of Gujarath , Maharashtra & AP.
Various toxins like the Asbestos, lead, etc & the hazardous, dirty
water, Oil inside the ship are drained into Indian seashore. The
labourers here are forced to work without any safety gears.

14. When specific cases of human rights violations were brought before
the government & Judiciary by us , both of them didn't respond at all.

All the above cases highlight the fact that, government of India &
Indian judiciary treats it's citizens lives as cheap, dispensable at
will. This is the major attracting force for MNCs to India.


INDIAN CAPITALISM ALWAYS HAD A CRIMINAL SIDE - By Praful Bidwai


The Satyam [ Get Quote ] scandal has been wrongly called 'India's
Enron', after the gigantic fraud at the US energy-trading company,
which came to light in 2001 and became a metaphor for corporate crime.
In fact, the Satyam scam is much bigger in absolute magnitude and
likely impact. The amount stolen from Enron was Rs 2,866 crores (Rs
28.66 billion) at current exchange rates. In the Satyam case,
according to its promoter-chairman B Ramalingam Raju, Rs 7,136 crores
(Rs 71.36 billion) were involved. Also greater are the number of
defaulting agencies and their failures.
The impact of the Satyam scandal won't be confined to the 53,000
people on its payroll -- a number higher than the 40,000 Enron
employees. The entire Information Technology industry will be singed
by the swindle just when the global economic slowdown is already
hurting it. The World Bank's ban on IT-India's No 3 Wipro [ Get
Quote ], and Megasoft, besides Satyam, for unethical practices will
further aggravate the industry's difficulties.
The Satyam swindle has tarnished the image of India's [ Images ] IT
industry and cast a shadow over its remarkable 30 percent annual
growth, which is generally attributed to virtuousness, brainpower and
hard work, not inherited wealth. It has lowered the profile of Andhra
Pradesh as a land of gutsy businessmen -- fondly paraded by successive
chief ministers as 'Andhra-preneurs' -- who combine a robust native
business genius with a modern extrovert outlook.
Above all, the scam has exposed huge cracks in India's corporate
governance structures and system of regulation through the Securities
and Exchange Board of India, SEBI, ministry of corporate affairs and
the Serious Fraud Investigation Office. Unless the entire system is
radically overhauled and made publicly accountable, corrupt corporate
practices will recur, robbing wealth from the exchequer, public banks
and shareholders.
The Andhra Pradesh government has treated Mr Raju with kid gloves. It
failed to arrest him for three days after he made a public confession,
thus giving him time to sanitise/destroy incriminating evidence. His
detention by the state police means that SEBI has been effectively
barred from questioning him. This has bred speculation that Mr Raju
has cut a political deal under which his family would be protected and
certain officials rewarded. The Centre too is preparing to spend Rs
2,000 crores to rescue Satyam and public sector units haven't shifted
their IT operations to other companies.
Mr Raju's January 7 confession and surrender to the police should fool
no one. Contrary to his earlier claim that 'neither me, nor the
managing director (his brother) took even one rupee/dollar from the
company...', he now says he has been cooking Satyam's books for seven
years.
He is estimated to have made Rs 2,065 crores (Rs 20.65 billion) by
artificially jacking up the price of Satyam's shares and selling his
holdings (14 percent of the total). Satyam's Chief Finance Officer
Vadalamani Srinivas has said the fixed deposits shown in the books
were fictitious.
We still don't know the scam's true dimensions. But two things are
abundantly clear. First, it's extremely doubtful that Mr Raju inflated
Satyam's income by Rs 5,000-plus crores (Rs 50 billion) and even put
in Rs 1,230 crores (Rs 12.30 billion) of his own money. It simply
doesn't stand to reason that he would do this and not siphon off large
sums. Equally dubious is his claim that Satyam's operating margin was
as low as 3 percent, compared to the 25 to 30 percent for top-ranking
IT companies.
If Satyam's margin was indeed higher, then thousands of crores were
spirited out of the company. It is imperative that this trail is
rigorously traced. It would be surprising if it doesn't lead to real
estate scams or to benami accounts held by politicians. Former Union
revenue secretary E A S Sarma, a public-spirited civil servant of
exceptional integrity, has tried to find some of these tracks through
the Right to Information Act, RTI.
He looked at a private company which is building Gangavaram Port in
Andhra and found that 18 percent of its equity is held by Lakeside
Investments Ltd, a Mauritius-based company, 'apparently... a
smokescreen for tax evasion.' Mr Raju reportedly owns a company with a
similar name, Lakeview Investments, and with the same address.
Mr Sarma has also raised serious questions about the way the state has
handed out thousands of acres without competitive bidding to Maytas
(Satyam spelt backwards) Properties and Maytas Infrastructure. Maytas
Infra alone has projects worth Rs 30,000 crores (Rs 300 billion) in
Andhra, including the Rs 12,000-crore Hyderabad metro rail and
irrigation projects worth Rs 13,000 crores (Rs 130 billion). All this
warrants an in-depth investigation.
Secondly, surrendering to the police in India was Mr Raju's best
guarantee against extradition to the United States, where numerous
criminal cases have been filed against him and where the punishment
will be more rigorous and prompt than in India. For instance, Enron's
Kenneth Lay was charged on 11 counts and set to be sentenced to 45
years in jail when he died.
If Mr Raju is tried for criminal breach of trust in India, he could
get away with as little as three years. Even if he gets a life
sentence, he may end up spending 10 years or less in prison.
The Satyam swindle became possible because all supervisory mechanisms
failed, including the statutory auditor, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, PwC,
independent directors, and SEBI. PwC didn't verify the authenticity of
the account-books. It had similarly failed with Global Trust Bank,
which collapsed. Irregularities were noted in PwC's handling of Satyam
accounts in 2001, but mysteriously, no probe was conducted.
Similarly, a complaint was filed with SEBI by Member of Parliament
Ramdas Athavale in 2003. But under political pressure, this was not
pursued.
PwC, which has audited Satyam's accounts since 1991, is guilty of
grave misconduct and should have faced punitive action from the
Institute of Chartered Accounts of India, ICAI. Ironically, PwC has
two members in the ICAI disciplinary council!. The council met, but
failed to take action against PwC. ICAI, like the Bar Council or
Medical Association of India, shields, and rarely acts against, even
the most errant of its members.
Satyam's independent directors did no better. They asked no questions
about the accounts When the board met last month to approve the
scandalous proposal to invest $1.6 billion in Maytas, it didn't even
refer to the conflict of interest in buying a company in a completely
unrelated business, floated by the promoter. It only went into
technicalities of conformity with SEBI guidelines, and valuation of
assets. Indeed, one of the independent directors, Krishna Palepu of
the Harvard Business School, waxed eloquent on the merits of real
estate investment.
These directors collect fat annual fees ranging from Rs 13 lakhs to Rs
92 lakhs (Rs 1.3 million to Rs 9.2 billion) just for attending a few
meetings, but clearly lack independence. Many independent directors in
India see board memberships as sinecures or lucrative pastimes
unrelated to corporate governance and public responsibilities.
Even worse was SEBI's failure to investigate Satyam and refuse to
approve its patently foul transactions including the Maytas deal,
which was aborted by investor protests. SEBI also ignored a December
18 letter on Satyam sent by Mr Sarma. Other authorities also turned a
blind eye to various complaints about the illegal allocation of 17,000
acres of land to Satyam group companies in different cities, in
violation of their master plans.
India lacks adequate corporate regulation, and its enforcement is
pathetic. For instance, as many as 1,228 of the Bombay Stock
Exchange's [ Images ] 4,995 listed companies have failed to submit
reports required by Clause 49 of the Listing Agreement, including
information on their boards' composition, audit committees, CEO/CFO
certification of accounts, and related-party transactions and
subsidiary companies.
Corrective action is overdue if corporations are not to cheat
stakeholders and the public. Indian capitalism has always had a
criminal side to it. Our corporate nabobs often milk their companies
by appointing procurement and distribution agents, by under- and over-
invoicing imports/exports, evading taxes, indulging in insider
trading, and dressing up balance-sheets. Satyam fits this pattern,
which is widely prevalent in most brick-and-mortar companies.
Some corrective steps are self-evident. Statutory auditors aren't
enough. We need a Board of Audit, which like the Comptroller and
Auditor General of India, is authorised to conduct surprise audit on
its own or on whistle-blower complaints. Besides, no auditor should be
allowed to continue beyond three years.
The government should create a pool of independent directors from
amongst citizens of high integrity. Impartial authorities, not company
managements, should appoint them and fix their remuneration. Cross-
directorships must be banned. All agent appointments must be
thoroughly scrutinised. Penalties must be stiffened. The conviction
rate in corporate frauds, currently under 5 percent, must be improved.
Breach of trust and fraud must be heavily penalised. If an auditor
fails in his duty in India, he faces a ridiculous penalty of Rs 10,000
and maximum imprisonment of 2 years. The US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed
after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, awards imprisonment for 20
years. The US has greatly improved fraud detection by reforming audit
methods and offering incentives to whistle-blowers.
We must learn from all this and acknowledge that deregulation promoted
in the name of 'trusting' CEOs and creating a 'favourable investment
climate' is dangerous.

Satyam fraud: More than accounting skullduggery
Raghuvir Srinivasan
Is the Satyam scandal just about a promoter manipulating the financial
statements of his company to show a superior performance? Or is it
about systematic siphoning of funds from the company over the years?
Emerging events seem to increasingly point to the latter.
Let’s start with the so-called “confession statement” of Mr Ramalinga
Raju, the disgraced chairman of the company. Lawyers have already
expressed doubts over whether the statement can actually be deemed a
confession and enough to implicate Mr Raju. Indeed, they say that it
is a very well drafted document designed to draw attention to the hole
in the finances without implicating himself anywhere for any act of
commission.
Deflecting attention?
A careful reading of the statement shows that there is indeed merit in
this view. Mr Raju has pointed to cash balances not being the same as
reported in the audited financial statements, he has said of how
revenues were inflated, and so on. But nowhere has he said that he was
responsible for this nor has he pointed his finger at anyone else. Of
course, as the chairman, the buck stops with him but that is not the
same as saying “I did it”.
If anything, he has tried to project himself as the saviour by
pointing out how he “arranged” Rs 1,230 crore for the company and how
neither he nor the managing director “took even one rupee/dollar from
the company and have not benefited in financial terms on account of
the inflated results”.
Mr Raju appears to have attempted to deflect attention from what is
possibly the more serious crime of siphoning of funds to the
relatively lesser one of accounting skulduggery. This is being clever
by half. How on earth did he think that the shareholders, lenders,
legal agencies and the world at large would believe him on this?
People who were and are working in responsible positions in Satyam say
that the company has a real business going and some of its divisions
are extremely profitable and there is no question of doubting the
revenues from them. There is no way that operating margin will be as
low as 3 per cent, they say, unless of course, if money had been
sucked out of the company.
The second event that raises doubts is the carefully orchestrated
arrest of Mr Raju. He surrendered himself to the police the night
before he was to appear before the SEBI investigating team. The arrest
and remand ensured that SEBI was unable to interrogate him.
The market regulator will eventually be able to quiz him, but the
question is: Will there be evidence destroyed before that? As it is,
there is the possibility that Mr Raju may have destroyed crucial
evidence implicating him before he went public with his “confession”.
Political angle
And then, there is the political angle to the scandal. Mr Raju and his
companies (Maytas group) have been beneficiaries of large public
contracts for transport systems and irrigation projects in Andhra
Pradesh. Nexus between businessmen and politicians is an accepted
reality in this country. So is someone powerful attempting now to
protect Mr Raju? Or is it that he knows too much about wheeling-
dealings and hence needs to be kept away from investigators?
Allegations and counter-allegations have been flying thick and fast
from both the ruling and Opposition parties in Andhra Pradesh over
favours, secured and shown, to Mr Raju by both. The government
appointed board has a task on its hands. It will have to dig, and dig
deep to unravel the scandal in all its dimensions. What is now out in
public is probably just one dimension and it may be the least
scandalous one. Mr Raju has himself said that the irregularities have
been happening for years. Therefore, it is only correct to assume that
more skeletons will come tumbling out once SEBI and the Company Law
Board bury their noses into the books of Satyam.
There is the danger though that political pressure will be brought on
to scuttle the investigations or obfuscate the findings. This is where
the government-appointed board will assume importance. Not only will
the government have to appoint people of integrity and high standing
but these people will have to discharge their responsibility of
getting to the bottom of this scandal without hesitation or fear.
ICAI to take stock
Finally, a word on the auditors, Price Waterhouse. The Central Council
of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), regulatory
body of the accounting profession, is set to meet on Monday to take
stock of the developments from the Satyam scandal on the profession.
Interestingly, two members of the Central Council, Mr S.
Gopalakrishnan and Mr Harinderjit Singh, are senior partners of Price
Waterhouse. Mr Gopalakrishnan signed the 2006-07 balance sheet of
Satyam. Will the two gentlemen sit in on the deliberations on Monday
at the ICAI? Or will they opt out on grounds of conflict of interest?
Or better still, will they resign from the Central Council, which is
the policy-making and governing body of the ICAI? Is it too much to
ask for the last?
Source / courtesy: The Hindu


India: Descent Into Darkness
By Colin Gonsalves

In the 61st year of the republic, surely, India has transited into
Kalyug. Surveys of the Union of India as well as expert reports
published by the Arjun Sengupta committee and the NC Saxena Committee
appointed by the Central government reveal that almost 77 per cent of
the population in India are below the poverty line in terms of the
food intake minimum standard of 2,400 kilocalories (kcal) per person
per day, a standard set by the Planning Commission in 1979.
Over 50 per cent of all women and children are malnourished with 17
per cent of the child population being so severely malnourished that a
whole new generation of Indians will become adults with malformed
brains and stunted growth. Even in the urban areas where conspicuous
consumption is always on display, malnourishment of children is
upwards of 50 per cent.
This is the spectre of starving India.
For the top 20 per cent of the population (and less than 3 per cent of
the sensex/stock market) who have experienced the licence to loot,
corrupt and cheat during the ongoing period of globalisation, this is
Satyug. Since the beginning of the decline of Nehruvian social
democracy in the early 1990s and the establishment of what is called
the liberalisation regime, the rich have never had it so good.
A seismic shift has taken place in the thinking of politicians,
corporations, administrators and judges, fuelled partly by
international capital and the devious planning of the World Bank and
the IMF. Whereas earlier and in accordance with the constitutional
mandate, the country was to be taken along as a whole, the resources
of the State were to be used to subserve the common good and a
reasonable part of the gross domestic product (GDP) was to be kept
aside to subsidise education, health, food, housing and transportation
for the working people. With globalisation all this began to change
drastically, systematically and with abject cold-blooded deliberation.
Education for all was quickly jettisoned with the argument that it is
impossible to educate so many poor children, that it is inadvisable
and unproductive to spread resources thinly and that since in any case
the middle classes are the engines of change, State resources ought to
be concentrated on them if the GDP is to be pushed up. Thus, while
fancy educational institutions multiply and students’ fees rise many
times over, poor students learn under trees or in the open (in
freezing cold or scorching summer) without schools, textbooks and
often without teachers and the officially promised mid-day meals.
The Supreme Court in TMA Pai’s case, made a disgraceful decision
opening the doors for commercialisation and privatisation of education
and casting a shadow on the earlier decision in Unnikrishnan’s case
correctly providing for strict State regulation and prohibition on
commercialisation.
Similarly, while some of the finest health facilities in the world
sprung up in the cities of India, government public health facilities
went into a tailspin. The public health centers lacked medicines,
doctors, testing equipment, beds and food for poor patients. As the
despair with public health care is increasing, the World Bank merrily
came along with its prescription for “user fees” requiring people
below the poverty line to pay for health services. Dalit or poor women
delivering on the pavements outside government hospitals became a
common sight.
Despite the jurisprudential exhortation that the right to public
health care, free drugs and indigenously manufactured medicines is a
fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution, the rot set in
and is too deep to reverse. How does it matter and what effect could
it possibly have on the GDP if tens of thousands of poor people suffer
ill health or die of malaria or tuberculosis? From the GDP point of
view, health care for the poor simply does not matter.
The shift in ideology away from social democracy towards what was
quaintly called ‘globalisation’ affected the judiciary as well. Senior
judges who were derisive of the post-independence emphasis on
‘egalitarian socialism’ used the enormous power of the judiciary to
undermine social policies of the government, bypass binding precedents
and generally stripped the working people of constitutional law
protections.
In the Steel Authority of India Limited case, the Supreme Court made
it possible for capitalists to convert their entire labour force into
contractual labour, thus effectively taking away all their protection
under labour laws. In Uma Devi’s case, persons who were employed and
were working for decades in permanent work positions on a pittance,
were denied regularisation, thus giving a legal cover to slave labour.
Marvelous environmental jurisprudence meticulously put in place by
Justice Kuldeep Singh and others in the Supreme Court was
systematically dismantled by subsequently appointed judges in the
superior courts who had a pro-capitalist bend of mind. They saw
environmental law and environmental activism as an irritant which
hindered the ‘development’ of the country. They, therefore, used the
quite dubious doctrine of ’sustainable development’ in an even more
suspect way to allow for all kinds of environmentally destructive
industrial activity, quite unmindful of its catastrophic and long-term
effect on the environment.
As a result, India today is in the process of being completely
devastated. The forests have been decimated in many parts
indiscrimately for big projects, the cities are polluted, lush green
areas have been mined, the rivers of India turned into sewage drains
and water shortage has become so acute that in the years to come
social upheavals will centre around this acute deprivation. The great
Indian nation is being turned into a desert with its sacred rivers
becoming dirty drains.
When the tribals, dalits, workers, slum dwellers and the dispossessed
of this country protested, often feebly, they were met with fierce
repression. Police torture is widespread and has become the principle
forensic tool for the investigation of crimes. Nowhere in the world,
perhaps, has the police force turned into such an awesome body of
ruthless creatures in uniform, as in India.
The average rate of conviction in the country in cases of atrocities
against Dalits has sunk to 1 per cent. As a result, rape of Dalit
women, murder of Dalits, destruction of their houses, burning of
standing crops, robbing of cattle, destruction of Dalit temples,
throwing excreta inside wells, untouchability and practices such as
the two tumbler system, continues unchecked till this day while the
justice system seems immune.
Despite the right to housing being declared a fundamental right by the
Supreme Court in Nawab Khan’s case and although the UPA manifesto
specifically includes a ban on forced evictions of slums, about a
million of the urban poor every year have their homes bulldozed
without notice, compensation or rehabilitation to make way for the
skyscrapers of the rich.
All this does not auger well for the legal system in India, one of the
main pillars of the democratic State. The working people shy away from
the courts and participate reluctantly when they are dragged into the
legal system through coercive proceedings. Labour court proceedings
throughout the country have shrunk by 75 per cent and the once vibrant
institutions that balanced the interests of capital and labour have
become stultified. Tribals shun the courts. Even the most serious of
crimes like rape and murder make the victims approach the courts with
grave reluctance.
This is not difficult to understand as the legal system operates just
like a colonial power, as an engine of oppression. Probably, one
million false or trivial cases are pending in the Indian courts
against innocent tribals who are forced to attend court and loose
their wages day after day. It took a Maoist uprising for PC
Chidambaram, the Union Home Minister, to understand this elementary
truth and announce the withdrawal of one lakh cases filed by the State
against tribals in Jharkhand alone.
Decisions of the Supreme Court under the Land Acquisition Act have
made possible tyrannical state acquisitions of land throughout the
country making the vast majority of Indian farmers suspicious of the
legal system. With regard to as elementary and established a right as
a woman’s right to maintenance, the woes of women in family court
matters seems never ending.
The State just can’t get its act together to enforce the appointment
of judges although it is now well settled that India has one fifth the
number of judges that it needs. Delays are not accidental, they are
intended. The legal system is designed to tie the litigant up in
endless and expensive proceedings where justice is illusory.
Public Interest Litigation, which is the only lifeline between the
judiciary and the people of India, is being denigrated time and again
and not unexpectedly because there are those who believe that the
legal system is best used for sorting out property disputes and
commercial matters. Legal aid has been reduced to a farce of seminars
with the presentation of bouquets. In death sentence cases involving
destitute persons, the legal aid lawyer may even miss a cross
examination or two.
It is sometimes all too easy to blame judges for the ills of the legal
system. If one turns to the quality of the Bar, one would notice all
kinds of elements wearing bands and gowns and committing all kinds of
illegalities. Criminality pervades many parts of the legal system.
Between democracy and darkness stands the judiciary. It stands heads
and shoulders above the judicial systems in Asia. But it is in rapid
decline. Ahead is pitch darkness.
This is the period of Kalyug. The lust for money that globalisation
brought with it has decisively depleted spirituality, morality,
collective sharing, equality and social justice. It has only
institutionalised a spiraling network of stark and relentless
injustice. Only a national uprising will reverse this trend.
[The writer is a senior lawyer, Supreme Court of India, and Founding-
Director, Human Rights Law Network]

Top 10 Financial Scams in India
- Siddharth Singh

Financial scams have a habit of cropping up with an alarming
regularity in the Indian financial system. We have reconciled to
financial irregularities to such an extent that we simply do not pay
heed to smaller scams that take place around us on a daily basis. I
am, or rather was, a part of the financial machinery for a few years,
and trust me, even the private sector is not entirely free of the
machinations of unscrupulous and enterprising scamsters. The scope of
the money involved multiplies manifold in the public sector, with a
corresponding drop in accountability.

Financial Scamsters Are Rarely Punished
Despite a plethora of scams that surround us on a daily basis,
frequently scams of large proportions come to light, and manage to
stun even our jaded sensibilities. Then, there is the usual round of
allegations, counter-allegations, enquiries and legislation. Some of
our most notable regulations and financial institutions are the
results of such scams.
I have compiled a list of ten leading financial scams in India, which
have affected a large population of investors, and involved huge sums
of money. They managed to shake the very foundations of our financial
system, and were driven by that most basest of human instincts –
GREED. In most cases, it was the greed of just one individual, or a
very small group of individuals, who managed to pull of such huge
scandals.
Insurance Scam – This scam had originated and prospered in the period
immediately following Independence in 1947. At that time, the
insurance sector was not nationalized, and a handful of private
companies ruled the roost. These companies were more concerned with
providing benefits to selected industrialists, and ignored the
interests of the common man. The government responded by nationalizing
the insurance sector, and the LIC was founded under an special Act
passed by the Parliament. This scam laid the foundation of the
nationalization culture in India.
Securities Scam – Harshad Mehta – This is perhaps the most well known
of all financial scams – probably because it happened in a highly
visible period – economic reforms had just been started in 1991.
Harshad Mehta was quick to understand the weaknesses of the banking
system, and exploited these weaknesses to the hilt. He managed to
procure huge amounts of money using the so called “Ready Forward”
deals, and used this money to purchase large amounts of shares at
hugely inflated prices. He earned the sobriquet of “Big Bull” due to
this penchant. Later, the banks got a clue of his shady deals, and
demanded their money back. The house of cards collapsed, and the rest,
as they say, is history!
CRB Scam – This scam took place in the years 1992-1996, the period
immediately following the Harshad Mehta fallout. This makes the scam
even all the more daring and surprising. CR Bhansali, the perpetrator
of this scam, floated more than 100 companies, such as CRB Mutual
Funds and CRB Capital Markets. The primary purpose of these companies
was to attract huge funds from the public by promising high rates of
interest. This interest was later paid form further borrowings, and so
on. In 1995, the stock market collapsed, and this proved to be the
undoing of CR Bhansali. He was investigated, and later arrested. After
a brief 3-month stint in jail, he has disappeared without a trace, and
nobody is asking!
UTI Scam – The UTI scam involved the flagship US-64 scheme of UTI,
which was meant to channel the funds of small investors into
instruments bearing high returns. Gradually, US-64 developed a
investor base of around 2 crore investors. The economic liberalization
in India, coupled with the absolute opacity in the operations of UTI,
led to a situation wherein the Government was forced to announce a
huge bailout of about Rs 3,500-4,000 crores in an order to prevent
default in payments to the investors. The consequences of such a
situation are unimaginable. But the story does not end here. Later, it
turned out that the UTI Chairman appointed at this time, Mr P S
Subramanyam, along with a couple of executive directors, acted wrongly
to selectively benefit a powerful coterie of brokers and
industrialists, while at the same time, jeopardizing the interest of
lakhs of small investors.
Home Trade – Around the year 2000, a finance portal emerged on the
financial landscape, and gained quick recognition on the back of
endorsements by personalities like Hrithik Roshan, Sachin Tendulkar
and Shahrukh Khan. The portal, owned by Sanjay Agarwal, claimed to
deal in gilts. Soon, RBI got suspicious of activities of some
cooperative banks in the gilt market, and a scam was uncovered. The
same old saga – brokers and bankers combining to rob people of their
hard earnings – was repeated. Funds from Seaman’s Provident Fund and
PPF were affected. The total scam size was reported to be around Rs
300 crores, and more than Rs 200 crores were spent on publicity costs
alone.

Ketan Parekh
Securities Scam – Ketan Parekh – That our system never learns its
lessons was proved by this scam. Ketan Parkekh, a qualified CA, and a
stock broker, identified a number of stocks (popularly called the
K-10), and took up huge positions in these. For this purpose, he used
a large number of Benami accounts and smaller stock exchanges, such as
the Kolkata and Ahmedabad stock exchanges. He also borrowed heavily
from banks such as Global Trust Bank and Madhavpura Mercantile
Cooperative Bank. Unfortunately, he was stuck in a bear cartel, and
was soon pounded to pulp on the stock exchange. The extent of the scam
was estimated to be around Rs 1,500 crores.

Abdul Karim Telgi
Fake Stamp Papers – This scam promised to be the mother of all scams
in India, with the initial reports quoting a figure of Rs 30,000
crores as the scam size. Later, RBI clarified that this figure was
“rather exaggerated”, and the “correct” figure was around Rs 200
crores. Again, this scam exposes how the India system works – Mr Abdul
Karim Telgi, the scam kingpin, paid bribes to get access to the
security press in Nasik, where stamp papers and currency notes are
printed. He later used this knowledge to print fake stamp papers. At
the height of the scam, Telgi’s network spanned 14 states, 125 banks
and more than 1,000 employees.
DSQ Software – Though this scam was modest in terms of money involved
(only Rs 600 crores!), and did not affect the general public to a
great extent, yet it is notable for how it came into being. The main
player in the scam was Mr Dinesh Dalmia, who was the MD of DSQ
Software Ltd. This company issued around 1.3 million shares in 2001,
and these shares were allotted to four companies on a preferential
basis. NSDL, a stock depository, dematerialized and helped in
delivering the shares. Nothing wrong in that, except that the shares
were not even listed on any stock exchange! Oops!
IPO Scam – A number of key operators, including corporate stock
brokers such as Karvy and Indiabulls, were involved in the IPO scam
that spanned the years 2004 – 2005. The modus operandi was simple –
the operators would open thousands of fake accounts to purchase shares
in IPOs, in the hope of selling later at huge profits. A spate of IPOs
issued during this period were heavily oversubscribed due to this
scam, sometimes by as much as 40 times!
Satyam – On a cold January morning in 2009, Ramalinga Raju, chairman
of Satyam Computer Services, admitted to falsification in the company
accounts and various other irregularities, and sent a chill down the
collective spine of the Indian financial system. Coming on the back of
the global recession, this incident promised to bust the Indian
outsourcing industry and the stock market, but for some deft bailout
work by the government. The matter is still under investigation and
litigation, and the true extent of the scam will be known in the
future, perhaps. Mr Raju himself had admitted to irregularities worth
around Rs 12,000 crores.
An analysis of the scams reveals a common script – greed, corruption,
unscrupulous brokers, colluding bankers, irresponsible authorities and
hapless investors, who refuse to learn their lessons. But then, these
are the essential ingredients of a worthy financial scam!
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A brief about Top 10 Investment Scams in India

1. The Securities Scam
The capital market witnessed its foremost investment scandal in the
form of securities scandal in the year 1992. It revealed the utter
anarchy and lack of administration in the prevailing fiscal market.
The money market at that time permitted funds to be relocated with
impunity from financial institution and corporates into equity and
consequently witnessed crores of bank's capital to transfer into
brokers' account. This illegal market practice was later asserted as
"legal and acknowledged".

In an attempt to punish the tricksters, a special court was initiated
and scrutinized around 70 cases registered by CBI. Surprisingly, not
even a single trickster was found guilty by the dreadfully sluggish
judicial system. As a matter of fact, the scamsters made frequent
attempts to re-enter the market with same set of traps and resulted in
losses to investors.
2. The IPO scam Soon after the entry of international organizational
investors, the Control over Capital Issues was banned as the market
saw heavy bull trend resulting in the revitalization of the secondary
market from the previous scandals. The ban of Control over Capital
Issues unlocked the prospects of massive scandal in Initial Public
Offerings (IPO). The scam was executed in two parts; the first part
was carried out by the firms that increased their market costs to
incur profits in order to sponsor lucrative projects. The second part
saw the unison of small time merchants, CAs, investment bankers and
traders to hoist new firms and heave public capitals.

The IPO scam prevailed for three long years from 1993-1996 and finally
saw its downfall when the costs of the registered firm started
deteriorating.
3. Favored share scam
The scandal was an outcome of the extensive cost fixing on the
derivative market. Besides increasing fresh capital, advocates of
Indian firms promptly coordinated general body authorizations to
transfer shares to themselves on a privileged basis and at a
considerable reduction to the market, thinking that the share prices
would never see the ground. Conglomerates started this trend and
accrued profits of nearly 55o crores until Securities and Exchange
Board of India (SEBI) formulated strict guidelines to abandon the
market practice.
4. CRB's cardboard scam
The Rs 1000 crore finacial multinational named as Chain Roop Bhansali
(CRB) was the only biggest firm and most impudent of all to benefit
and disappear in the loosened market ambiance of mid-1990s. The
services offered by his firm entailed FC collection, mutual fund,
banking, etc. The clearances obtained by the firm for the trading of
these services required sufficient inspection by SEBI and the RBI and
the fact that they managed to qualify shows the supervisory weariness
of the regulators. Facilitated by the clearances and profitable credit
ranking, CRB accrued greater profits based on high value financing.
The CRB collapse not only affected the investors but also the other
finance firms.
5. Plantation firms' scam
Since few firms in mid-90s were subject to no guidelines, the
plantation companies during that time also got away with profit
protrusions. The plantation firms projected themselves as a part of
IPO and assured massive returns. The investors were lured and the
companies accrued profits from fake campaigns of around Rs 8000 crores
plus.
6. Mutual Funds scam
After several mutual fund scams, the UTI bailout reflected the lack of
proper guidelines in the Indian capital market. Since UTI was
initiated under its own regulations, it was the tax payers who
suffered the loss of Rs 4800 crore in the process. After three years,
the company was back purchasing Ketan Parekh's controlled scrips and
incurring massive losses in the process. The evidence of the private
mutual funds performance has also been inconsistent after hitting the
downfall in 1999 and 2000. It took a considerable amount of time for
capital market to win back the trust of mutual fund investors.
7. The 1998 scam
The scamster of 1992 scam, Harshad Mehta came back with a bag of
tricks again in 1998. This time he lured investors through a website
by trading stock tips. His unremitting manipulation of several shares
resulted in the much expected collapse of Bombay Stock Exchange.
8. Home Trade scam
Initiated in 2000, Home trade invested rs 24 crore in promotional
campaigns to attract investors. The scam affected 8 co-operative banks
that lost Rs.82 Crore in EPF scheme. The Chief Executive of Hometrade,
Mr. Sanjay Aggarwal was convicted by Nagpur Police later.
9. DSQ Software Scam
In the year 2000 and 2001, the Managing Director of DSQ Software, Mr.
Dinesh Dalmia, was held responsible for ambiguous mergers and
prejudiced allocation of the amount of upto Rs.595 Crores. He was
later convicted in the year 2006.
10. Satyam Scam
After manipulating the firm's documents for several financial years,
the former Chairman and Chief Executive of Satyam Computers,
Mr.Ramalinga Raju, was arrested for committing scam, following
unethical practice and forgery. He showed greater profits and
committed fraud of Rs 700 crores.

Shame! India sold its dead cheap Shobhan Saxena,

Around 22,000 dead. More than 1,20,000 injured. Rs 1 lakh for each
body. Rs 25,000 for every poisoned lung and damaged heart and blinded
eyes. 26 years of long wait. And just 2 years in jail for the men who
committed the worst crime against the people of this country. And this
mockery of justice after such a long wait. Twenty six years after 40
tonnes of lethal gas seeped into the lungs of Bhopal, families of some
17,000 men, women and children are still waiting for the so-called
compensation. Thousands more are still waiting to be accepted as
victims. People of Bhopal are still drinking toxic water poisoned by
Union Carbide in December 1984. And the main culprit is living life
kingsize in a mansion in New York.
No country sells its people so cheap.
No country sells its poor so cheap.
No country sells its dead so cheap.
Today – on the day of Bhopal disaster judgment -- if there is a failed
state in the world, it’s India. It’s not Iraq. It’s not Somalia. It’s
not Sudan. It’s India.
India – its government, judiciary and corporates – accepted the
ridiculous amount of $450 million dollars for the people killed and
maimed by methyl isocyanate leaked from the Union Carbide factory in
the heart of Bhopal three decades ago. In all these years, the poor
victims have done everything they could to get justice and
compensation. They have cried and died on streets, sat hungry and
faced police lathis on roads and filed court cases in the hope that
one day they will get justice.
Today, they were denied justice. Today, they were told that they
should be happy with the peanuts thrown at them by Union Carbide.
Today, India proved once again that it doesn’t care for its poor.
Today, it was proved all over again that those who do politics in the
name of poor in this country, always rule for the rich.
What justification does CBI have for not being able to produce Warren
Anderson in court. The chairman of UC at the time of the gas attack
(it was not an accident, the gas leak was caused because of cost-
cutting steps taken by him) on the people of Bhopal, Anderson was
arrested and later released on bail. He ran off to US in 1986 and we
have not been able to find him or ask the US to extradite Anderson to
India. Why? The government says it doesn’t know where Anderson is.
What a lie. What a shame.
Last year, on a balmy July day, a bunch of victims danced on the
streets after hearing news that the Chief Judicial Magistrate of
Bhopal had ordered the CBI to arrest Anderson and produce him before
the court without delay. The court also asked the CBI to explain what
steps it had taken since 2002 to enforce the warrant and extradition
of Anderson, who was declared an absconder in 1992. Though the CBI and
US government failed to track Anderson, supporters of Bhopal victims
traced him to the elite New York neighbourhood of the Hamptons. In
2003, Greenpeace activists paid Anderson a visit at his home and
handed him an arrest warrant.
Today’s ridiculous judgment in Bhopal didn’t say anything on Anderson
as he is a “proclaimed offender”. This status suits him fine because
he doesn’t have to bother about coming to India and answer some very
crucial questions:
*Why did Union Carbide not apply the same safety standards at its
plant in India as it operated at a sister plant in West Virginia, US?
*On the night of the disaster, why did the six safety measures
designed to prevent a gas leak fail to function?
*Why was the safety siren, intended to alert the people living close
to the factory, turned off?
The victims have always alleged that Bhopal happened because of
negligence by the Union Carbide and that was caused by cost-cutting
measures taken by Anderson. Is it because of this reason that Anderson
has been 'hiding' in the US?
A criminal has a reason to hide, but what reason does our government
have to let a mass murderer like Anderson go scot-free. Is it because
he is an American? Can an American come to India kill people in this
country and run away with no consequences? That seems to be the case.
We are still struggling to get a chance to question David Headley
Coleman, an American citizen responsible for the worst terror attack
on an Indian city in 2008. Will we succeed in getting Headley
extradited to India? No way. Never.
Today, India proved that it doesn’t really care for its people,
particularly if they have been slaughtered by powerful people from the
most powerful nation in the world. Instead of taking on America and
fighting for justice for its poor, India is more than happy to sell
its dead cheap.
Rs 1 lakh for every body. Rs 25,000 for every blinded eye. This is the
cost of poor life in a failed state.


BP and Union Carbide:
Corporate Responsibility or Corporate Liability
by Mukesh Williams

Two momentous events separate in time and location have seared our
consciousness—the British (Beyond) Petroleum Gulf Coast oil spill on
April 20, 2010 and the American Union Carbide Bhopal Gas Tragedy in
December 3, 1984. Twenty five years separate these two environmental
and human disasters but the greed of big multinational corporations in
connivance with state and central agencies still remains insatiable.
With a keen eye on profit, big companies compromise safety standards,
falsify data, overstate their strength, underestimate their drawbacks,
bribe officials, lobby for protection and misinform the public. It is
rather difficult to fuse ethical economic standards with ravenous
profit-making schemes. Though oil and gas stink most multinational
corporations love it.

The neo-classical model of economics has reduced our land and
environment to a mere abstraction that can be exploited in terms of
supply and demand without compunction. Big companies continue to wreck
havoc on our human and natural systems devastating our lives in the
name of human progress and development. At such moments we often
wonder where is the fashionable concept called social corporate
responsibility that is often taught as a philanthropic and ethical
tool in business management departments to unsuspecting students.
Corporate greed like all other forms of human greed need to be kept
under strict check by international pay czars or up-to-date
legislation based on global standards with teeth for swift punishment.
Also the rhetoric of corporate companies must be separated from what
they actually do, how long they do what they do, and what they hide. A
constant monitoring system both on the part of governments and private
groups must be effectively installed in collaboration with the media
to thwart their nefarious activities and ulterior motives.

Union Carbide Bhopal Gas Tragedy 1984

Early this month the Indian Supreme Court passed a verdict indicting
the American CEO of Union Carbide Warren Anderson who was allowed to
escape to the United States twenty five years ago possibly with the
connivance of either the state or central agencies in India. Now both
the Congress government and state ministries are trying to escape
their involvement in the murky plot. Who wanted the truth then? And
who wants the truth now? The declassified CIA report of December 8,
1984 and recent revelations by the principal secretary of Rajiv
Gandhi, P. C. Alexander, point to political intrigue involving both
state and center in releasing Anderson. Now some leaders claim that
the worsening law and order situation in Bhopal in the wake of the
accident forced Chief Minister Arjun Singh to provide a safe corridor
to Anderson out of the country. Some like Rajinder Puri even see the
direct hand of Rajeev Gandhi himself. It seems that US President
Ronald Reagan phoned Rajeev Gandhi to release Anderson. The media
would like us to believe that even P. Chidambaram and Kamal Nath were
campaigning for Dow Chemical to get special concessions so it could
invest in India. The chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi
criticized Sonia Gandhi for the complicity of the Congress Party in
the murky affair but it has come to light that he had signed an MOU
between state public sector company Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd
and Dow Chemicals in April 2008. This is the case of the pot calling
the kettle black.

Seemingly neither the American nor the Indian establishments saw the
industrial disaster as the responsibility of the MNC Union Carbide.
The company was bought by Dow Chemical Company in 1999 further
camouflaging accountability. Dow Chemical was the second biggest Texas
polluting company in 2009 and paid 1.14 million USD on eight counts of
pollution. Now it is investing again in India with the syrupy
connivance of people in power.

Even after 25 years the public would like to know if it was Arjun
Singh the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh or influential persons in
Rajiv Gandhi’s government at the center or the prime minister himself
responsible for giving a free passage to Anderson to fly back to the
U.S. India has an extradition treaty with the United States and under
changed circumstances today when America itself is suffering from
another MNC BP, there might be possibility of bringing the fugitive
CEO back to justice if India can put together enough evidence.
Greenpeace believes that in the 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal
factory in the US addressed thirty safety hazards. Anderson knew about
them and compromised safety standards causing the death of 20,000
people and affecting 578,000 to date. To make the tragedy
reprehensible the out of court settlement made Union Carbide pay a sum
of 470 million USD instead of 3.5 billion initially demanded, with
each victim getting a measly sum of 550 USD in 1989. In the same year
Exxon oil spill in Prince William Sound Alaska forced the company to
pay 5 billion USD of which it paid half. Even today there is 425 tons
of hazardous waste in Bhopal left by Union Carbide that needs to be
cleaned. Who will do it—Dow Chemical or the Indian state government?

Anderson now 90 years lives in a luxury home worth 900,000 USD at 929
Ocean Road, Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York. He is now less of a
fugitive and more of a monarch (Sonnenfeld, 1991). It is obvious that
in many cases justice delayed is justice denied. Should we stop big
companies from doing business? Should we impose heavy penalty on
erring foreign companies? Or should we reform the slow and cumbrous
judicial system? Jeremy Kahn writing in The Faster Times calls for
judicial reform rather than protectionism (Kahn, 2010). The Indian
Parliament is debating a law capping liability for foreign nuclear
power companies involved in disasters to pay 100 million USD a
pittance when compared to the US demand of 100 billion USD from BP.
Then Indian law capping liability lacks teeth and may not cover non-
nuclear companies. So they can pollute as of before.

British or Beyond Petroleum

The British are desperate to save BP from going down by bringing silly
arguments like BP has been a part of America since it merged with
American energy Amoco in 1998 and acquired the Gulf of Mexico drilling
rights (The Independent, “Cameron Warns Obama over Criticizing BP” 13
June 2010). The new British Prime Minister David Cameron has also
chipped in underscoring the sustained “economic importance” of BP to
both Britain and America. American President Barrack Obama however is
needled by US senators, whose states have been ravaged by oil spills,
to push for 100 billion USD compensation, which if realized would
force BP to go bankrupt. The British media believes that Obama’s anti-
British rhetoric is testing Anglo-American relations. Obama claims
that American relation with Britain has not been affected. The
environmental disaster caused by a British multinational company
should have nothing to do with national identity but corporate
liability. Obama has called BP the Swedish Chairman Carl-Henric
Svanberg, who earns a fat cat salary of 3.8 million USD, to the White
House for consultations.

The British are cut up with Obama’s off the cuff remark that he would
have fired BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward if the latter had worked
for him. With US pressure rising BP may not pay its quarterly
dividends which are essential to maintain equilibrium for UK pension
funds. The 6.7% shares lunge in the FTSE has adversely affected
pension funds in the UK. If the status quo is not altered by American
pressure groups BP might only have to pay 20 to 37 billion USD
provided it can be proved that BP failed to meet safety regulations in
the deep sea oil drilling.

Now BP is using two kinds of dispersants manufactured by Nalco—Corexit
9500 and Corexit EC 9527A. Corexit (deodorized kerosene) is banned in
the United Kingdom as even 2.61 ppm can kill 50% of fish in 96 hours.
The dispersants turn the oil slick into small particulates which
settle on the sea bed and make things look clean on the surface, but
they destroy marine life below. Corexit however is on the approved
list of dispersants by the US Environmental Protection Agency though
the EPA has advised BP to use less toxic dispersants. BP however
refused citing lack of availability. The toxicity of the present
dispersants increase when they get mixed with oil. BP has links with
Nalco. BPs has poured 1,621,000 gallons of dispersants in the Gulf of
Mexico to contain the oil spill and has ordered for an additional
805,000 gallons. The ill effects of the dispersant on humans can
result in various diseases, reduced growth, kidney failure and death.

The British rely on BP as the national icon and savior of British
deficit. Last year BP paid 1.4 billion dollars in taxes on its
profits. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is too far away for the
ordinary Britons but the pension funds and BP dividends are closer
home.

It stands to logic that a “large, wealthy company” which is eager to
pay 1.8 billion quarterly dividends to its shareholders and whose last
year’s sales and operating revenues were 239 billion USD, should pay
100 billion USD in damages. Since the oil spill began on April 22,
2010 till June 15, 2010, 55 days have gone by. And if we estimate the
oil spill at 50,000 barrels a day it comes to 27500000 gallons. If
each gallon spill is fined 4300 USD as the US is suggesting the actual
fine would come to 118,250,000,000 that is about 118 billion USD.
These figures may not be exact and are vigorously contested by BP
which would like to work with half the numbers. However the end is not
in sight. According to BP officials it would not be before August that
the spill can be contained. If this is true then the figure could be
doubled and BP would have to pay damages amounting to all the revenue
it earned through sales last year.

Both the American government and public are hopeful that since earlier
erring companies like Texaco was forced into bankruptcy in 1987 after
paying 10.53 billion USD claim, BP too would have to cough up huge
sums. And BP’s reputation does not help a wee bit whatever they claim
to the contrary in those daily briefings on the Internet. BP is known
as one of the “ten worst corporations” in the world when evaluated on
their environmental pollution and infringement of their human rights
record. It also has the dubious distinction of being the most
polluting company in the United States vis-à-vis EPA toxic release
data of 1991. It has been fined 1.7 million USD for burning polluted
gases at its Ohio refinery. It also paid 10 million USD fine to the
EPA in July 2000 for mismanaging the US oil refineries. The US Public
Interest Research Group or PIRG claims that between Jan 1997 and March
1998, BP was involved in 104 oil spills. Obviously a lot of wealthy
shareholders, 37% on the British and 31 % on the American side do not
want this to happen.

BP’s propaganda regarding its CSR is highly effective as it tries to
highlight only the positive aspects of what it has done. In the past
BP has invested some money in alternate fuel and green technologies
but it has been criticized for proving private funds to public
universities of the California Bay Area and closing down its green
technology office in London. Its critics call its green technology
projects as green washing projects. BP is also a leading producer of
solar panels and holds 20% of the global market in this area and it
uses this fact to great advantage for image building. It operates the
ampm convenience store chain in the US and other countries and is the
leading producer of wind power. It is also involved in funding local
and international politics. It gave 5 million USD to democrats and
republicans in 1990 and spent 16 million USD in lobbing at the US
Congress. The moral of the story is that it is not as clean as it
claims, nor concerned with the lives of common people unless it serves
its purpose or national interest.

BP in its regional spill plan for the Gulf of Mexico and site plan for
the Deepwater Horizon rig understated the dangers and overstated its
preparedness in the eventuality of a leak. Louisiana governor Bobby
Jindal criticized BP for being ‘reactive’ and not ‘proactive’ from the
very beginning. Now BP’s report is examined quite critically and it
has been discovered that an expert professor listed in its 2009
response plan died in 2005. It lists walruses, sea otters, sea lions
and seals as “sensitive biological resources” when none inhabit the
Gulf of Mexico. Also names and phone numbers of marine specialists and
marine network officers in Louisiana and Florida are not correct. The
Justice Department has to find evidence that BP destroyed key
documents or lied to the government (The Daily Yomiuri, June 11,
2010).

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility is one of the modern movements like
environmental or tribal movements that have become the buzz word in
both business and academic circles. Both businessmen and academics are
cashing upon the divine benefits of CSR making more money for their
companies and jobs for their departments. Middle level managers and
professors have extolled about the virtues of CSR with other buzz
words such as people friendly, eco friendly and sustainable. We have
come to hear about the unselfishly egalitarian aspects of CSR. It is
really a wondrous transformation of the greed-driven capitalist
economy of which the corporate system is a byproduct.

Most critics of CSR are not against it per se but against the recent
hype associated with it as a panacea of all corporate evils. It is
hard to believe that companies are out there not to make profit. We
are not talking of basket cases but any company worth its salt
aggressively markets itself to make real profit. And what’s wrong in
it. Companies are floated for this very purpose both by the
shareholders and managers. But in a changed climate of political
advocacy of human rights against corporate greed, CSR seems to a new
combative tool for companies to be both politically correct and make
money as usual. The problem however is that if business corporations
give an inch they take a mile.


Definitions and Objections to CSR

In the United States CSR is seen as philanthropy while others see it
as improving society, workforce and government. There are arguments in
favor of CSR where it is believed that it can support the social
fabric of society and promote responsible business practices. But CSR
is usually presented as a marketing strategy that articulates business
performance rather than encompass social and ethical standards. The
recent collapse of American business and manufacturing sectors has
revealed the gap between CSR and actual self-regulation. Some CSR
models take the company beyond the law into providing public benefits,
increase sales, market shares, brand position, retain employees,
reduce operating costs and increase investments (Baron, 2001 7-45).
There are models of CSR that take into account competitive advantage,
positioning, commitment, organizational integration, shareholder’s
cooperation and self-correction. CSR helps to create a positive image
of a company and brings it rich dividends. Though there are many
definitions of CSR we must see CSR as the way business companies
conduct their core business not the sops they give to society.

A common objection leveled against CSR comes from the advocates of the
laissez faire system who complain that CSR infringes upon the human
rights of company shareholders as company managers unilaterally divert
company resources to society in the name of better management
(Sternberg, 1999). Detractors of CSR complain that there should be a
stakeholder claim in CSR as to how it is done. A business corporation
should be fair and honest to both the shareholders and customers. CSR
therefore depends on the model a company chooses and the reasons for
its choice. If a company uses CSR for image building through
philanthropy it leads to both ethical and human rights problems. You
cannot give away money which ultimately belongs to someone else. On
the flipside it also follows that if stakeholders possess sole rights
they also should bear full responsibility when there are environmental
or social disasters. However if a CSR model seeks a consensus of both
stakeholders and company managers then it must become more open to the
public. CSR must concentrate upon building customer relationships,
attracting talented people, conducting risk management and building
the company’s reputation.

Corporate Reputation and CSR

Corporate business companies such as BP or Coca Cola cannot ignore
their reputation as about 90 to 95 percent of their assets are
intangibles and the remainder immovable property. Big companies such
as General Electric, IBM or Motorola use the rhetoric of CSR to show
public responsibility and environmental concerns but while conducting
hard-nosed bullying business practices are not so transparent in their
dealings. A few years ago Sir John Browne of BP was praised for his
aggressive promotion of BP while providing environmental leadership
but now we come to know that all along BP compromised on safety costs
in oil drilling. This is happening in a powerful country like the
United States where both politics and laws are strong. Had it happened
in a developing or a poor country, things would have been quite
different. BP would have gotten away cheaply and Union Carbide once
did.

CSR invariably works for companies and countries with resources and
political clout. It is not for companies which are small and weak.
Small companies fight for survival, cut costs to make ends meet and do
not possess precious resources to waste on CSR. Nor can they follow up
on legal battles if they come under the scanner. They function in a
world of poverty, deprivation and loss.

Conclusion

It is no longer tenable to follow neo-classical economics of Smith,
Mill and Bacon that the world is made for us and for us alone. We must
eschew the economic theories of Pareto and Hayek as we can no longer
treat nature as a mere variable and commodity. Depreciation of
ecological assets has taken place at an increasing fast rate.
Economics should no longer be about inflation, economic value of goods
or maximization of income. It should take into account our natural
world as property that belongs to every one of us (McNeill, Padua,
Rangarajan, 2010 1-3). We must learn new lessons from ecological
economics and environmental history and change the way we do business.
We must rein in corporate greed by modifying corporate social
responsibility (CSR) to corporate legal liability (CLL) and connect it
to governmental deterrence, legal action and international treaties to
scare the hell out of the merchants of greed and death who have many
supporters in different parts of the world.


ARE YOU SINCERELY READY TO CATCH TAX THEIVES ?
- AN APPEL TO UNION FINANCE MINISTER & KARNATAKA STATE FINANCE
MINISTER

In india , tax compliance is worse. In our criminal justice system,
there is rigorous imprisonment for a pick-pocketer stealing Rs.10.
even the authorities spend thousands of rupees in legally prosecuting
him & the thief spends a year or more as punishment behind bars. Where
as there is no commensurate investigation nor legal prosecution nor
punishment for corporate thieves , evading tax to the tune of crores
of rupees. In contrast, those tax thieves pay a part of that booty to
the ministers & political parties and get crores of rupees tax
exemptions , incentives from the government. Government is rewarding
corporate criminals.
The tax officials of central & state governments are hand in glove
with these corporate criminals & traders. For a price, they are
helping corporates & traders in evading tax. Most of the tax officials
are wealthy & leading luxurious lifestyles , much beyond the scope of
their legal income. The black money thus generated every year by tax
evasion , is many times more than our total annual budget allocation.
As a result, all our fiscal reforms fail & inflation is soaring. This
black money is the source of illegal funding of political parties ,
terrorist outfits & underworld. It is a greater threat to national
unity & integrity.
Both the central government & karnataka state government have failed
to collect the full , actual tax dues from corporates & traders. As a
result , the governments don't have enough money in their coffers even
to provide basic needs like health care , education , safe drinking
water , etc to the poor & needy. For every Rs.100 tax evaded , one
poor patient is dying without medical care , 10 poor persons lack
education , 100 persons don't get safe drinking water , 100 persons
barely survive on a single piece meal per day , 20 persons starve.
Most of The government officials , ministers & people's
representatives who have deliberately failed in their duties of tax
collection & welfare of poor citizens , SHAMELESSLY indulge in
luxurious lifestyle at the expense of poor tax payer . they live in
paltial bungalows , chauffer driven AC cars , all living food expenses
paid by exchequer , dine at 5-star hotels , only drink bottled mineral
water , eat non-vegetarian dishes , drink alcohol sitting before
mahatma gandhi's photograph & preaching mahatma's ideals. Mahatma
preached & practiced simple living , vegetarianism & he was teto
teller , he paid for his expenses from his earnings . these public
servants are parasites , who are making merry at the expense of tax
payer.
Some non government organisations ( NGO) have formed trusts and under
the aegis of those trusts are running educational institutions ,
hospitals , community halls , etc , in the name of providing free /
subsidised services like education , health care , etc to the poor. It
is only in record books , they conduct fake medical camps , self
employment training camps . in practice they are running these
educational institutions , hospitals & community halls as commercial
enterprises & collecting huge fees. they are not even remitting full
fees collected to the trust account & swindling the money. no outsider
is allowed to become a member of these NGOs , only their cronies &
their family members are in these trusts.
Numerous NGOs promoted by religious bodies , mutts are swindling
public & government money to the tune of crores of rupees. Nobody
dares to question the heads , pontiffs of these mutts , as at his feet
VVIPs , ministers fall down. These religious bodies are hot beds of
fundamentalism , terrorism & mafia. Where is the accountability of
religious bodies & political parties in india ?
Inspite of bringing specific cases to the notice of authorities , they
are mum ? hereby , HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH offers it's services ( subject
to conditions ) to the governments of india & karnataka , in
apprehending the criminals – tax evaders. Are you ready Mr. Mukherjee
& Mr.Gowda ?

QUESTIONS FOR MONEY – PARLIAMENTARY ACTS/LEGISLATIONS
FOR ???? -improper functioning of democracy in
india

the vohra committee report has proved the criminalisation of politics
in india. There are many number of criminals in the parliament & state
legislatures. Some of those criminals are cabinet ministers as well as
members of vital parliamentary committees. Thereby, they are in a
position to manipulate , enact laws favouring , benefitting the
criminals their cronies.
Just see how the GOI gave export incentive of Rs.1800 crore to
reliance petroleum although it didn't even export a barrel. Reliance
infocom & tata teleservices were CDMA mobile service providers & have
paid license fee of few crores only equal to landline fees without any
competitive bidding . They were supposed to provide mobile service to
operate like fixed phones within a radius of 40k.m. however they were
providing service like mobile service from one state to another like
GSM mobile service providers. By this act of RIC & TTSL , the GSM
providers who have paid thousands of license fee in competitive
bidding were economically hurt , the dispute went to court. The court
was on the verge of pronouncing it's verdict awarding damages worth Rs.
18000 crore to GSM players & Rs. 3000 crore of license fees with
penalty to GOI. The government announced a unified telecom license
regime with retrospective effect. Thereby, the GOI lost thousands of
crores of rupees & the share holders of GSM players lost thousands of
crores. Onceagain the RIC was charged by PSU bsnl THAT RELIANCE IS RE-
ROUTING INTERNATIONAL CALLS AS LOCAL CALLS & SWINDLING THE GOI. This
time too, GOI bailed it out. during the dispute between ambani
brothers the younger ambani mr. Anil ambani director of reliance
himself has stated that for the favours received from the GOI , the
company gifted some shares to then IT & COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER mr.
Pramod mahajan.
Various indian & multinational companies are looting indian exchequer
to the tune of thousands of crores of rupees , through lobbying /
bribing.
In india, indirect democracy is the form of governance. In this form,
people's representatives are bound to raise the questions , issues
concerning their constituents on their behalf , on the floor of the
house. However the sad part in india even after 58 years of
democracy , is the lobbying is at it's peak. The lobbying is a
gentleman's white collared crook's way of forming favour seeker's
group , creating a corpus to pay lumpsum bribe & influencing decision
making. The people's representatives are bound to represent their
people first , then their party & party think tanks. India has come to
this sorry state of affairs , widespread corruption , huge black
economy & rampant poverty, all due to inefficient legislations &
enforcements. These think tanks & IAS lobby, consider themselves as
most super brains on earth & gives out suggestions . the present state
of affairs is a barometer of their brilliance. These think tanks & IAS
lobby are the hand maidens of lobbyists / bribers.


Xeroxing Corruption
By Ashutosh Sinha
Special to India Resource Center
September 30, 2002

Not many in India might have actually seen the field gun from Bofors
AB, either standing sentinel on the borders or in operation. The guns
played a key role in the skirmishes at Kargil in 1999. The same
anonymity does not hold good for Xerox, which has now entered the
dictionary as a verb in its own right for photocopying documents.
Since its name has become synonymous with the allegations of
kickbacks, few companies would like to be compared with Bofors. But
since the deal was a big commercial success for arms dealers, some
companies would, perhaps, be tempted to employ the same tactics as the
Bofors middlemen.
The Swedish firm Bofors AB allegedly paid Rs.640 million ($13 million)
in bribes to middlemen to get the contracts for the deal signed in
1986. Nearly a decade later, Enron India spent US$ 20 million in
"educating" Indian bureaucrats about the role of private companies in
power generation, an euphemism for bribes. Two telecom companies,
Essar and Swisscom, were alleged to have paid a former minister, Sukh
Ram, a hefty amount during early 1996 to help change the original
license conditions, which it had signed with the Department of
Telecommunications. There was no case against Sukh Ram, simply because
this deal was never investigated.
Significantly, none of the allegations made above have yet been proven
in a court of law.
Xerox India was treading on familiar path, something which its US
headquarters got to know later. According to the parent company's own
admission, which emerged during its audit, it paid over $600,000 as
bribes to various government employees to win contracts. In essence,
the modus operandi was just a 'photocopy' of the way some other
companies operate.
Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), it is a serious
criminal offence for a US company to pay bribes in a foreign country
to obtain contracts. Being managed by the BK Modi group, one of Indias
oldest family run business empires, at the time when the bribes were
paid, it is now like a sword hanging at the neck of Xerox. The BK Modi
group has denied having paid any bribes. Xerox Modicorp Limited (as
the company is now called) completes 19 years in India this September.
It changed its name from Modi Xerox Limited to Xerox Modicorp Limited
in 2000.
The Indian government was quick to order an inquiry. A promise that
accompanied the order was that the inquiry would be completed in two
weeks. Over a month later, the two weeks are not yet over. Now, the
million-dollar question - for a company that calls itself 'The
Document Company' - is there enough documentary evidence to prosecute
the company?
The Department of Company Affairs (DCA), the arm of the government
that wields the stick to ensure that companies meet their stated
objectives and do not dupe the shareholders, is looking into the
details. Xerox was not duping shareholders, much the same way as the
military hardware company AB Bofors. Both were, in fact, trying to
reward their shareholders by giving the extra edge to their sales team
by "taking care" of those taking a final decision on the purchase of
their products. DCA is still not sure whether the bribes were actually
paid or if the amount was pocketed by Modi or his men.
There is a stark difference between the two cases, though. Bofors is a
European company, Xerox an American. Their products are proverbially
as different as chalk and cheese - one sold military hardware, the
other office automation products. While the Bofors payoffs involved
the government official right at the top in the government, the Xerox
payoffs appear to have been made to the operations level people in
government. Besides, the nature of arms deals is such that the best
deal has to be sewn in one shot. Office automation products are
regularly purchased by companies and governments. So, if a few people
can be identified, their palms can be greased regularly to put the
product. The agents who helped Bofors are still trying to block
investigations and any information into their money laundering. The
amount involved in the Xerox case is far smaller.
Xerox, however, does deserve a pat on the back for having the courage
to admit the payoffs in public.
There are some parallels between the two companies. Bofors money found
its way to exotic places that you would find difficult to locate on
the world map - Luxembourg, Bahamas, Liechtenstein, Channel Islands.
The Xerox India payoffs did not have such exotic addresses. Two of the
companies to which payments were made had slum areas of Delhi as their
addresses while two others were located in the western Indian state of
Gujarat.
While the Bofors deal had strong political linkages, there is talk of
the involvement of a Samajwadi Party politician, who has interests in
the paper business, in the Xerox case. That allegation is yet to be
probed, though.
AE Services, Svenska, Lotus, Tulip and Mont Blanc are some of the
names of bank accounts that are associated with the alleged Bofors
payoffs. The money has gone into a variety of accounts before
disappearing various pockets. Officials of the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI), India's premier investigating agency, suspect
that these people include the late Win Chadha, an Italian called
Ottavio Quattrochchi and the Hinduja brothers. If the Xerox India deal
had been bigger, with international ramifications, it would not have
chosen names like Charu Paper Ltd., Chadha Paper Ltd., Pioneer
Enterprises and Elite Commercial Services.
At the time when these bribes were paid, the company was controlled by
the BK Modi group, which owned majority shares in the joint venture.
When Xerox acquired control of the company (it now owns 68 per cent
while BK Modi controls 28 per cent in the joint venture) in 2000, it
ordered an inspection of the books by the audit firm
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which raised disturbing questions. The audit
firm said that it was not sure the organizations existed and, if they
did, who owns or controls them. BK Modi Group has interests in
telecom, entertainment and manufacturing.
Xerox has over 50 per cent market share in photocopiers in India. 1998
was a landmark year for the photocopier industry. Of the estimated
40,000 machines sold that year, an estimated 27,000 were Xerox
machines. However, that was an aberration and nearly 30,000 machines
are sold in the market each year at present. Nearly 60 per cent of the
sales are made to government organisations.
Incidentally, the bribes are alleged to have been paid in 1998 and
1999. In 1998, the 15-year tie-up between Modis and Xerox ended. Xerox
had entered India after a tie up with the BK Modi Group and Modi Xerox
Limited was incorporated in 1983.
The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), which had looked into the
Bofors deal before CBI started its investigations of bribery charges,
had similarly not given a clean chit to the Rajiv Gandhi government.
The government survived the day but since then, the Congress party has
never won a majority in the Indian Parliament. Bofors has also entered
India's political lexicon as a synonym for bribery.
DCA officials are tight-lipped about the direction in which their
Xerox investigation is meandering. These are just four names that have
tumbled out of the closet. Reports suggest that it is a web of 85
companies through which payments have been made. The challenge before
DCA is to verify whether payments were made to individuals in the
government or did some officials of Modi Xerox (as the company was
then called) pocket the money.
While it is still to be established where the money actually went, DCA
officials admit in private that siphoning money out of the company is
a routine affair. Just like every official worth his salt in the CBI
knows that big arms deals do have an element of an underhand deal.
Since payoffs are now a part of business, this is where the interest
of the average person comes in. Hapless investors have seen scores of
cases where the companies get sick and promoters healthier by the day.
For all the arms deal that have happened in India, whose defence
spending is over US$ 14 billion every year, only one case has been
brought to light. None have been prosecuted. Of nearly 7,000 publicly
listed companies in India, a little over 2,000 actively trade on the
Bombay Stock Exchange. The rest are companies which have turned sick,
while some of their promoters get healthier.

Radia lobbied to get Raja telecom ministry


Union Communications Minister A. Raja has been caught on tape lobbying
with a corporate PR agent for a place in the Manmohan Singh cabinet
during the second term of the UPA.

Headlines Today is in exclusive possession of taped conversations
between Raja and powerful corporate lobbyist Nira Radia just days
before the swearing-in of the cabinet.

The conversations, which were recorded by investigators for the income
tax department, raise serious issues about ministerial propriety.

The income tax sleuths had sought permission to tap the telephone of
Radia, who was being investigated by the CBI and the income tax
department in the telecom spectrum scam.

Radia is one of India's most influential power-brokers and has the
biggest corporates of India as clients.

These conversations were recorded over 300 days, starting from August
20, 2008. Raja was lobbying hard to become the next telecom minister
and was being helped in this endeavour by Radia.

Here are excerpts from a conversation recorded on May 24, 2009 at
11.05 am.

Raja: My name is cleared?
Radia: Yeah, your case was cleared last night itself. No, what is
happening with Daya?
Raja: Textiles or fertilisers?
Radia: Not for Daya though, Azhagiri or Daya only one can come in?
Raja: No, two can come...
Radia: Both?
Radia: Baalu, will be the problem, I hope.
Radia: It will be difficult for the leader to justify three family
members.
Raja: (laughs) Yeah, but everybody knows...
Radia: No she said that, Kani told me last night, that is what her
father told her yesterday, that for him to justify three family
members would be very difficult; he recognises that problem...
Raja: Let us see what we can do...let us fight.

This was how Radia informed Raja that his name had been cleared for
the telecom minister's post. The conversation had been recorded just
four days before Raja's name was officially announced as the UPA's
telecom minister.


So how does a corporate lobbyist get to know who is getting which
portfolio? And why was Raja discussing portfolios with a corporate
lobbyist?

Not just Raja, the tapes have Radia talking to DMK chief M.
Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi as well.

In these conversations, Kanimozhi - referred to as Kani - is heard
telling Radia that the DMK must get the telecom portfolio. Here are
excerpts from the conversation recorded on May 21, 2009 at 8:41 pm.

Kani: Hello
Radia: PM has already clarified that the deal has not been done. They
are still in the middle of discussing it.
Kani: They've already promised to give us telecom...but it cannot
become that they shift...
Radia: What?
Kani: They have already told us that they will give us telecom. Now it
shouldn't be given to him because he's going around planting stories.
Radia: He's planting it on all the channels while you were on the
plane.
Kani: Ya I know that.
Radia: But Kanni, the PM has just made a statement that I have no
problems with Raja and Baalu and they are my esteemed colleagues.
Kani: He can make a statement. But whoever's going to come and talk to
dad shouldn't talk otherwise.. See what people say outside and what
actually they mean is different... And all of us know that in
politics.

Not just telecom, Radia and Kanimozhi had a long conversation about
who is getting what portfolio. What was surprising is that Radia
seemed to know exactly what is happening and who was getting which
portfolio.

Here are more excerpts from the conversations:

Radia: Kani there's feedback from the Congress. They say we recognise
that the problem with the DMK is an internal problem. It's a problem
between the family. It's a problem between their own people. They have
given us a list of five people. This is not acceptable to us.
Kani: Ya
Radia: It is for them to resolve. We have told them what is the best
that we can do.
Kani: Three and four...
Radia: We appreciate that the dialogue has broken down but it is not
for us to get back to them. As far as we are concerned, Maran has been
calling Ghulam Nabi Azad on the half hour demanding all sorts of
things and they have told him that there is no point in you calling
us.
Kani: But what is the demand he's got.
Radia: He has been making the same demands that you give us five
portfolios or we will not join or give us railways, otherwise he has
also demanded coal and mines. So they are saying as far as we are
concerned this is an internal DMK problem. It has nothing to do with
the Congress at all. They have taken a decision that it is for Karuna
to decide who he wants and who he doesn't want in the formula. That
has been provided to him. It's up to Karuna to decide but they feel
that there are far too many people calling him including Maran.

The question is, is it proper for a senior leader of the DMK and a
minister in the past UPA government to be talking to a known corporate
lobbyist? Why is it that the lobbyist seems to know everything about
the allocation of portfolios, and long before the information is made
public?

REAL STORY OF Late DHIRUBHAI AMBANI of Reliance Industries
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3924530/Polyester-PrinceThe-Real-Story-of-Dhirubhai-AmbaniBanned-in-India


Another Major Scam : Govt. Favours Reliance In KG Basin


The CAG draft report that nails the connivance between Government
agencies and Reliance Industries Ltd. leading to huge losses to the
Government exchequer is yet another example of the power of corporates
in the UPA Government to subvert rules and regulations in their
favour.
The CAG has noted that the former Director-General of Hydrocarbons
(DGH) permitted Reliance to inflate its “development costs” on the gas
extraction in the D6 block of KG basin from 2.47 billion dollars to a
whopping 8.84 billion dollars. This money taken by RIL affected the
revenues of the Government. Government should prosecute the former DGH
without any delay.
The Government’s connivance with RIL has a direct impact on the aam
aadmi because increased claims of development cost get reflected in
the price of gas given to consumers and also affect the prices of
fertilizer and power. Letters have been written to the Prime Minister
to institute an independent enquiry into the complaint of artificial
jacking up of the capital expenditure by RIL for D6 KG Basin and its
hasty approval by the concerned authority to find out the actual cost
before gas price is fixed.
In a repeat of the 2-G scam, the Prime Minister’s silence on the
issue, has again exposed the UPA Government’s acquiescence to
corporate manipulation.
Related posts:
1. The Great Billion Dollar Drug Scam
2. Supreme Snub : Court SIT A Major Embarrassment For Govt
3. Now A Petroleum Scam?
4. The -Reliance KG Gas Scam Prabir Purkayastha, Newsclick
5. Way to Rural Self Reliance: National Rural Livelihoods Mission
(NRLM)
6. Demand For JPC On Spectrum Scam :Go Beyond Rhetoric
7. THE ADARSH SOCIETY SCAM A Shocking Exposure of Congress govt
Venality – Ashok Dhawale
8. SUPREME COURT VERDICT ON KG BASIN GAS -Dipankar Mukherjee
9. AMBANIS ROW : GOVT HAS LAST WORD ON KG BASIN GAS PRICE : SC
10. POOL PRICING FOR KG BASIN GAS TO HARM ANDHRA PRADESH INTERESTS
11. PRODUCTION OF GAS IN KG BASIN
12. FINDINGS OF ICAI IN SATYAM SCAM CASE


RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LIMITED - WHERE IS ACCOUNTABILITY?

Dear mukesh & anil ambani,

The reliance industries has always got a favourable treatment from the
state & central governments.there are allegations that ,
1.years ago, the central government gave import concessions for import
of certain raw materials of textile sector ,which hugely benefitted
the P.F.Y & TEXTILE projects of your's ie reliance industries.
2.the O.N.G.C which has painstakingly surveyed the oil & gas reserves
& prepared a list of lists,gave that list & you got godavari basin oil
& gas project from the government .O.N.G.C could have developed it &
earned millions.
3.few months back you were charged both by the government & cellular
operators (GSM) that you are giving S.T.D & ROAMING FACILITIES to your
reliance phone subscribers.your's was only a W.L.L. they even claimed
that you are misusing a legal loophole & causing crores of losses to
the government & other GSM operators. however while the issue was
before the T.R.A.I, the trai legalized your actions by announcing
unified licence for telecom operators.
4.now you are charged by the government of re-routing ISD CALLS as
local calls,thereby causing crores of losses to the government &
BSNL.this time also you may get the reprieve from the government. the
government ,if a commonman does not pay his electric bills in time
slaps interest & cuts down the electric supply immediately.
however the same government ,even if your company has been alleged of
causing crores of rupees losses to the government & other players,
always enacts favourable laws for you like a SANTA CLAUS.
WILL YOU PLEASE CLARIFY mr.mukesh ambani & mr.anil ambani?
the TRAI announced unified licence regime in haste that too with
retrospective effects.so all the charges against reliance were
dropped. in the same vein as unified licence got retrospective
effect , why not the government re-imburse the differece amount out of
hefty fees collected from other cellular operators ? take the reliance
fees as bench mark.anyway , finally commonman is the looser.



edited , printed , published & owned by NAGARAJA.M.R. @ : LIG-2 /
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LAKSHMIKANTANAGAR ,HEBBAL ,MYSORE -570017 INDIA cell : 91
9341820313
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