Congress govt 'killed' the Bofors case: Arun Jaitley: CNN-IBN Videos

Congress govt 'killed' the Bofors case: Arun Jaitley: CNN-IBN Videos:

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Bangaru Laxman gets 4 yrs in jail, fined Rs 1 lakh: CNN-IBN Videos

Bangaru Laxman gets 4 yrs in jail, fined Rs 1 lakh: CNN-IBN Videos:

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President Pratibha Patil grabs 261000 sq ft of land meant for soldiers and officers - Moneylife Personal Finance site and magazine

President Pratibha Patil grabs 261000 sq ft of land meant for soldiers and officers - Moneylife Personal Finance site and magazine:
President Pratibha Patil grabs 2,61,000 sq ft of land meant for soldiers and officers
April 11, 2012 07:20 PM |  
Vinita Deshmukh

An RTI activist from Pune, Col Suresh Patil (retd) remarked, “Dr Rajendra Prasad donated his land to Vinoba Bhave and here we have Pratibhatai Patil taking away the land for of her own men

Consider this: Eight hundred jawans of the Territorial Army (TA) are presently posted in Pune but there is residential accommodation for only 14. This being a family posting (a bonanza offered after a harsh field station posting), each jawan desires to bring his family, otherwise left behind in his hometown, when he is guarding the nation’s frontiers, often in a challenging geographical terrain. However, due to lack of official accommodation, a jawan is asked by his seniors to refrain from getting his family to Pune. Those jawans who decide to get their families to Pune nevertheless, live in slum-like conditions in one-room dwellings, near the Pune cantonment, with no drinking water facility.  In addition, paucity of residential accommodation for hundreds of soldiers and officers in the Indian Armed Forces in Pune is causing great inconvenience to the families.

Now consider this: Pratibha Patil, president of India and the supreme commander of the armed forces is building a palatial home for herself on a whopping 261,000 sq ft of land in Khadki Cantonment in Pune (out of which the bungalow occupies about 4,500 sq ft). The land belongs to the defence. It will now have a fortified home, the construction of which is nearing completion.

The president is eligible for only 2,000 sq ft bungalow in any part of the country if he/she wants the government to hire a home for him/her, after retirement. Otherwise, he/she is entitled to a government-owned Class V bungalow (around 4,500 sq ft) if it is available.  He/she is not eligible to builda home on government land. Some former defence personnel from Pune who are campaigning against this illegality are taking strong objections to the fact that Ms Patil is constructing her house on government land, when hundreds of jawans and officers are facing official accommodation crisis.

This revelation under the Right to Information (RTI) Act was procured by Col Suresh Patil (retd) and founder of Justice for Jawans (JFJ), RTI activist Anup Awasthi and Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) who are campaigning against Ms Patil’s ‘snatching’ away land meant for soldiers andofficers.

The RTI application was sent to the president’s office. As per the reply, under the President’s Emoluments and Pension Act, 1951 and rules framed under the President’s Pension Rule, 1962, “where suitable government residence is not available for allotment to a retired president, the size of the residence to be taken on lease to be provided to a retired president shall have a living area not exceeding 2,000 sq ft”.

“A place where government-owned accommodation is allotted to a retired president, the size of the residence is comparable to a residence allotted to a minister in the Union council of ministers and if the highest type of government residence available as a particular place is less in size than a residence allotted to a minister in the Union council of ministers, the highest type of accommodation available at that place shall be allotted to the ex-president. At present, a minister is entitled to a plinth area of the bungalow as 4,498 sq ft”.

The reply under RTI also stated that she is eligible to drinking water and electricity supply, free of cost, throughout her life.

States commander Ravindra Pathak, member of the IESM and who invoked the RTI, “taking away more than 2.5 lakh sq ft of defence land is sheer looting by Ms Patil. We are sending a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to take up the case suo moto. We have no money to pay for lawyers’ expenses.”

Col Suresh Patil (retd) elaborates, “Two defence bungalows have been pulled down to make way for Ms Patil’s bungalow and the vast expanse of land, over 2 lakh sq ft has been fortified for her. We are saying that let her keep the 2,000 sq ft she is entitled to and give away the remaining land for constructing official accommodation for soldiers and officers. Otherwise, there are numerous bungalows in the three cantonments of Pune and she could have been given accommodation in one of these.”

No other president has made such claims for personal gains, alleges Col Patil. He adds says, “Dr Rajendra Prasad donated his land to Vinoba Bhave and here we have Pratibhatai Patil taking away the land for of her own men—after all she is the supreme commander of the armed forces.”

RTI in this case provided information but who’s going to tie the proverbial bell round the cat? Hence, we need a strong anti-corruption law.

(Vinita Deshmukh is consulting editor of Moneylife. She is also an RTI activist and convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book “To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte” with Vinita Kamte. She can be reached at vinitapune@gmail.com)

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Tatra case: Rishi's money trail leads CBI to UK - India News - IBNLive

Tatra case: Rishi's money trail leads CBI to UK - India News - IBNLive:

India | Updated Apr 08, 2012 at 09:46pm IST

Tatra case: Rishi's money trail leads CBI to UK 

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New Delhi: The CBI is looking into the payments made by defence PSU BEML to Tatra Sipox UK for the supply of all terrain trucks and plans to send judicial request to the United Kingdom seeking details of its financial transactions and ownerships.

The agency suspects that payments from BEML were actually going to a tax haven, CBI sources said, adding that they are probing into it but added that the investigations are in preliminary stage.

The sources said at present they are likely to send Letters Rogatory to the UK seeking information on financial transactions of Tatra Sipox UK in which Vectra Chairman Ravinder Rishi has been a Director, owning substantial shares.

The agency will also demand details of Tatra Sipox UK's association with Czech-republic based Tatra a.s, they said.

Rishi has refuted allegations of any wrong doing and is said to be co-operating with the agency during his questioning sessions during last week, the sources said.

The CBI is now focusing on the role of officials of Defence Ministry, BEML and army and may question them in connection with the case soon, they said.

The sources said it was in 1997 that Tatra Sipox UK signed the truck supply deal with BEML which was in alleged violation of defence procurement rules which say that procurement should be done directly from original equipment manufacturer only.

The CBI has alleged that since Tatra Sipox UK was not the original manufacturer of these all terrain trucks, the rule that defence procurements should be made from original

manufacturer was violated.

Meanwhile, Czech Republic-based Tatra a.s. had said in a statement that it supplies for India various truck components ("CKDs") that make up approximately 30 to 35 per cent of a complete vehicle.

"The remaining components are made or supplied by other manufacturers or by BEML, an Indian government controlled company that also assembles the Tatra branded vehicles and then sells and delivers them to customers within India under license agreement for Tatra a.s," it had said in a statement.

It had also stated that neither Ravi Rishi nor his investment company Vectra Limited, control or have controlled -- directly or indirectly -- Tatra a.s. "The British company Vectra Limited is a minority stakeholder in Tatra holdings and in principle holds one of

the four votes.

"Nonetheless, Tatra will request from Mr Rishi and Vectra Limited an explanation of the information about any initiated investigation of him and Vectra Ltd by Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as it relates to sales of products branded with the 'Tatra' name," it had said in a statement.

(With additional inputs from PTI)

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Sushant K. Singh: India Can't Shoot Straight - WSJ.com

Sushant K. Singh: India Can't Shoot Straight - WSJ.com:

By SUSHANT K. SINGH

The leaked contents of a letter India's army chief sent to the prime minister sent shock waves around the country last week. In the letter, Gen. V.K. Singh warns that the military is obsolete and unfit to go to war. The government is furious about the leak, while it's also battling suggestions that its relationship with the military is strained. Yet New Delhi hasn't acknowledged its own failure to liberalize the defense industry is a big part of the problem.

The government has been quarrelling with Gen. Singh recently over a legal challenge about his mandatory retirement age and allegations of a lobbyist offering him a bribe. In this, as well as a media report this week of unauthorized troop movements toward Delhi, the spotlight is on how the secret letter was leaked. Regardless of who slipped a copy to the press, this missive performs a useful public service in highlighting just how unprepared the country is for military action.

Though its defenses aren't in immediate peril, India is nowhere near having the robust military its government expects to cope with a possible two-front war against China and Pakistan, its main adversaries. The letter notes that Indian army's air defenses are "97% obsolete"; its tank fleet lacks ammunition and is night-blind; its artillery has huge shortfalls; and its elite forces lack essential arms.

No branch of the military has the hardware it needs. Of the target strength of 39.5 combat squadrons for the air force, only 28.5 are combat-worthy today. The navy will be left with only 9 operational submarines this year against a requirement of 30. The infantry likewise lacks basic equipment, with half of the 1.3 million-strong army's foot soldiers yet to receive combat kits to replace their World War II-vintage gear.

Ground-based air defense is practically non-existent, the saving grace being that the air force provides 90% of the air defense cover. India's T-72 tanks from Russia can't fight at night, unlike Pakistani tanks. Though New Delhi can deploy T-90 tanks with night-fighting capability, ordnance factories can't produce sufficient ammunition for them. Meanwhile, India last bought artillery guns 25 years ago.

Enlarge Image

AFP/Getty Images

Army T-72 battle tanks can't fight at night, but Pakistan's tanks can.

While no country can afford 100% modern weaponry, most militaries strive to maintain a balanced equipment profile—a mix of 30% modern, 40% matured and 30% obsolescent. But more than half of India's equipment has slipped into the last category.

These shortfalls have potentially serious consequences. Unless the trend is reversed, India will find it hard to deter Pakistan's army from misadventures in Kashmir, such as happened in 1999 when Islamabad felt confident enough to occupy the area around Kargil. And if its conventional forces can't compel Pakistan's army to keep jihadis in check, India will struggle to prevent terror attacks on its soil.

Pakistan now poses less of a conventional threat to India than in decades past, but China has potent and growing military capabilities that test India's readiness. Although Delhi's nuclear arsenal provides strategic deterrence, a limited conflict under the nuclear threshold would expose its under-resourced military. Beijing could capitalize on this weak deterrence and become more aggressive along the disputed Sino-Indian border. Meanwhile, the rest of Asia, which considers Delhi a counterweight to Beijing, could look elsewhere for support.

The big problem isn't a lack of resources. Delhi procures $15 billion worth of weapons every year and it has ironically been the top importer of military equipment in the last five years. Over the next five years, India will spend an estimated $90 billion on arms.

Instead, it's a mixture of bureaucracy and bad policy. Overly complicated procurement procedures take a minimum of 36 months to buy an item. The defense minister, conscious of his honest image, has blacklisted arms manufactures at the slightest bribery allegation. How can India buy an artillery gun when all the major gun manufacturers are blacklisted by Delhi?

Besides imports, what money does get spent ends up dumped into inefficient production which New Delhi wants done at home. Although domestic supply meets barely 30% of India's equipment needs, India employs as many workers in its state-owned defense companies and ordnance factories as the U.K. or France—two of the world's biggest arms exporters.

An insignificant private presence and a 26% cap on foreign investment mean that the state-owned units monopolize defense manufacturing and predictably weaken it. New Delhi mandates that a foreign company like Boeing that wins an Indian arms contract use these local units for a set percentage of production. All technology transfers in import agreements also fatten these incumbents. In an uncompetitive market, they profit by just importing equipment, assembling it and selling it to the military at a high profit.

This chicanery in the name of "indigenization" must stop. Removing the foreign investment cap would do this, and provide a better investment climate to attract foreign manufacturers. Gen. Singh rightly warns about a "lack of urgency at all levels" on matters of national security. If the government doesn't urgently bridge shortfalls in equipment, simplify procurement methods and open the defense industry to foreign investors, the world's largest democracy won't get the modern military it needs to defend itself.

Mr. Singh heads the national security program at the Takshashila Institution and is editor of Pragati—The Indian National Interest Review.

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