Posts Tagged ‘Mumbai’
India can’t do a ‘Geronimo’
Lt Gen Harwant Singh (retd).
Consequent to American operation ‘Geronimo,’ at Abbottabad in Pakistan to eliminate Osama bin Laden, many in civil society have been asking whether India can go ahead with a similar operation. ‘Geronimo’ involved painstaking intelligence work spread over many years, though the final ‘fine- tuning’ took seven months or so. Detailed intelligence work and application of cutting edge technology apart, it required an enormous amount of co-ordination among those in the higher echelons of the civil administration and military high command as well as with the one who was to control the mission. The entire planning was closely monitored by the Chiefs of Defence Staff, the CIA chief and the President himself, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
For months they worked on the plan, disseminating information strictly following the principle, ‘need to know’. A mock-up of the ‘Osama house’ would have been erected and an operation rehearsed a number of times by the designated team of helicopter crews and Seals, and the latter had otherwise been undergoing one of the most vigorous training schedules. Only then was it possible to complete the mission with clock-work precision. It was the President who had to take the final call and gave written orders.
Since intelligence is the most essential input for such an operation, can Indian intelligence agencies measure up to this basic requirement? Weaknesses of Indian intelligence have repeatedly surprised the nation, be it the Chinese road across Ladakh, the scale of aggression in 1962, and mass infiltration in 1965 in J and K followed by the attack in Chamb-Jorian. Kargil was a major intelligence failure and so was the attack on Parliament where there were security lapses too. It was repeated at Mumbai, in spite of some early leads. More recent are the cases of lists of terrorists in Pakistan and the CBI team arriving in Copenhangen with an out-dated warrant of arrest. The list is endless.
Accurate and actionable intelligence is fundamental to the success of covert operations, whereas it remains our weakest point. In fact, in the case of Indian intelligence agencies, it is not the case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing but the little finger not knowing whom the index finger, of the same hand, is fingering?
At the national level we have the NSG, especially trained and equipped for such operations. At Mumbai these commandos first took too long to arrive and later too long to complete the operation. Equally, are the NSG commandos equal to the job? Just recall the visuals of a commando holding his weapon well above his head and firing at supposedly some terrorists! This visual was repeatedly shown on the American TV, where we saw the drama unfold. The NSG was commanded by an army officer, invariably an ex-commando, but now it is a police officer with no ground-level experience of commando operations. Grabbing jobs, irrespective of the suitability of the appointee, is another feature of Indian setting.
There was no centralised control over the operation and the entire scene around Taj Hotel appeared one of a ‘circus,’ with apparently no one knowing what to do. The details of ammunition and grenades expended by the commandos in this action would give an idea of the operation and our suspicion of possible collateral damage.
Both the Indian Navy and the Indian Army have special forces which can carry out missions of the type conducted by the US naval Seals at Abbottabad. They are organised and trained for such missions and have the best of leadership. Quality of intelligence inputs apart, it is the joint operations where more than one service is to take part and then problems arise. There are major fault-lines in the field of coordination and meshing together of various aspects of such an operation between the two Services taking part in the operation. This lack of ‘joint-ship’ has been the bane of Indian defence forces, which essentially is the handiwork of the politic-bureaucratic combine. The policy of ‘divide and rule’, and ‘turf-tending’ over national interest has been the dominant feature of the Indian defence apparatus.
In the case of the Abbattobad raid, in spite of the complete integration of the defence forces in the United States, the Naval Seals had their own helicopters to ensure total involvement and commitment of those taking part in the operation. In the case of India, helicopters meant for carrying such troops are with the Indian Air Force rather than the Army! So, the total commitment required on the part of all those taking part in the operation will not measure up to the level required in an operation of the type conducted at Abbottabad. In fact, discord has often appeared when two Services had to operate together. It surfaced in rather an ugly form during the Kargil operations.
In the Indian political setting, a clear direction and the will to go for the kill will continue to be lacking. At Kargil, troops were told to carry out a ‘hot pursuit,’ but were forbidden to cross the Line of Control. This is when Pakistan had violated, on a very wide front and to great depth, India’s territorial integrity and the situation called for and justified a befitting response. However, India’s timid and inappropriate reaction resulted in frontal attacks up those impossible slopes, with avoidable casualties. Pakistan suffered no punishment for its blatant act of aggression. Consequent to attack on Indian Parliament, ‘Operation Parakaram’ kept the troops in their battle locations for months and ended in a fiasco. Indian reaction to these two incidents conveyed to Pakistan that it can take liberties with India and the latter carries no deterrence for the former. At the same time, it demonstrated that Indian political leadership will never have the stomach to order an operation of the ‘Geronimo’ type, no matter how provocative the action of the other country may be.
Civil society has suddenly woken up and is now seeking answers to searching questions on these issues, having closed its eyes and switched off its mind to national security issues all these decades. The inescapable fact is that the full potential of various components of the defence forces just cannot be realised without adopting the concepts of Chiefs of Defence Staff and “Theater Commands” along with the integration of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Services headquarters on the lines of the Pentagon. What has currently been carried out by way of amalgamation of Defence Headquarters with the MoD is a joke and a fraud on the nation. Yet civil society has remained a silent spectator. The Arun Singh Committee Report continues to gather dust, as it stands consigned to the archives of the Indian government.
Besides the above fault-lines in the Indian security establishment, it is the watertight compartments in which various organs of the state work. Foreign policy is evolved and practised in isolation of national security considerations and consultations. Intelligence agencies are never made accountable and have inadequate interaction with the defence Services.
Protests mount against Indian nuclear plant
SAKHRI NATE, INDIA: In the busy Indian fishing village of Sakhri Nate, it’s obvious what the locals think of the plan to build the world’s biggest nuclear power plant just across the creek.
A worker wearing a protective suit points at a cracked concrete pit near its No. 2 reactor of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, April 2, 2011.
“Say No To Nuclear Power. We Don’t Want To Get Sick,” reads one slogan in Hindi on the side of a tarpaulin-covered shack selling sweet tea and sugary snacks.
Chalked on a wall around the corner is a message for the French company that has signed a $9.3-billion deal to supply the plant’s first state-of-the-art pressurised water reactors.
“Areva Go Back,” it says simply in English.
Opposition to the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project runs deep in this part of the Konkan region of western India, whose people have earned a living from fishing and farming for generations.
As with many in the hard-to-reach coastal area 400 kilometres from Mumbai, 45-year-old fisherman Abdul Majid Goalkar’s argument is well-rehearsed.
At least 5,000 people work on about 600 boats, bringing in 50 tons of fresh fish, prawns and squid every day, he says. If the plant is built, he warns, all those jobs are under threat.
Others want to protect the village’s most famous export – the creamy, Alphonso variety of mango – grown on rocky, clifftop land earmarked for the 2,318-acre plant.
Over the last four years, the grassroots campaign against Jaitapur has built up a steady momentum and become increasingly vocal.
But resistance has hardened since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima plant, forcing a rethink on nuclear safety around the world and calls in India for a halt to atomic expansion.
Pravin Gaonkar, a fisherman and mango farmer spearheading the anti-nuclear campaign, said the Japanese nuclear crisis was all the more relevant, as the Konkan coast is prone to regular seismic activity.
Another development is that the so-far largely peaceful anti-nuclear campaign has turned violent.
On Monday, the police opened fire on a crowd of protesters, killing one and injuring several others.
The victim, Tavrez Sejkar, was buried in the red earth of the steep hillside cemetery in mainly Muslim Sakhri Nate on Wednesday.
Comparisons have been drawn with Singur in West Bengal state, where Tata Motors abandoned its plans for a new factory to build its Nano car after violent protests from farmers backed by local political parties.
Fast-growing, energy-hungry India, which wants to increase the share of nuclear in its energy mix from three percent to 13 per cent by 2030, could pay a high price if Areva followed Tata’s example.
At full capacity, the six-reactor Jaitapur plant would provide 9,900 megawatts of electricity – more than double the current energy deficit in all of Maharashtra, home to commercial capital Mumbai.
Supporters say it could provide power to a chunk of the 500 million homes across the country that are currently off the grid and is vital to India’s economic progress.
India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh has angered opponents by insisting that the project will go ahead, even as he conceded that additional safety measures may be required because of Fukushima.
“India cannot afford to abandon the route of nuclear power,” he said on April 18. “From a greenhouse gas point of view, nuclear power is the best option.”
Professor Surendra Jondhale, head of political science at the University of Mumbai, doesn’t think the project will be be abandoned, although a delay is likely while the government reviews safety.
“We are now seeing the real issue being very much politicised. It’s overshadowed the real, genuine protests.”
Back in Jaitapur, where a giant poster of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray and local leaders has been put up on the main street, locals Mahesh Karankar and Chetan Narkar say the impact of the violence has already been felt.
Police have locked down the area, fearful of further unrest. As a result, three days’ worth of fish is rotting in warehouses.
“Whether the Shiv Sena is with us or against us we don’t care,” said 23-year-old Narkar. “We don’t need anyone to help us carry on our protest.”
Another demonstration is planned for Sunday. Pravin Gaonkar says there will be no let up after that.
“If the government does nothing, at least 5,000 fishermen and farmers will go to Delhi and protest,” he added.
Advani: bring back black money stashed away abroad
MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani on Sunday welcomed the Supreme Court’s move to make public the details of black money stashed away abroad by Indians.
Senior BJP leaders L.K. Advani at the ‘Mahasangram’ rally in Mumbai on Sunday. Others in the photograph are, from left, JD (U) president Sharad Yadav, BJP president Nitin Gadkari and Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray.
Speaking at the Mahasangram rally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) against corruption and price rise here, he said, the Supreme Court pulled up Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam and asked him why the government could not divulge the details of those who had kept black money abroad.
Mr. Advani said that he would appeal to the court to take the steps on this front to a logical conclusion. The Indian government must ensure that all the money abroad was brought back and it must punish the people involved and make special laws, if necessary on this issue. He called on the Congress which had belittled him when he raised key questions on black money and said it must reply to NDA’s letter on this issue and called the party to account.
This had happened in other countries, the U.S. and Germany got back money and there was a law on this subject, he said. Linking the issue of black money in foreign banks to corruption and scams, Mr. Advani said this was the key issue related to corruption.
“In 2009 I said black money by those who have earned it through nefarious means, is kept in countries like Switzerland, where banking norms allow having secret accounts and no one will even ask you. Banking secrecy laws are there in many countries. Now there is a chance, the U.S., Germany felt that their money should return to their countries during the time of the economic slowdown. The United Nations passed a Convention on corruption and now laws are being drafted for the repatriation of money,” he pointed out. “When NDA raised the issue, the Congress reacted by saying no country will change laws for us, how will they give us back the money and they made fun of me,” he added.
Before the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had created a task force, and Vaidyanathan who was a member, gave examples of how much money was stashed in foreign banks. Global Financial Integrity, an international group published a small booklet and estimated that Indian money abroad at Rs. 20.85 lakh crore, Mr. Advani said.
The NDA rally on corruption and scams came down heavily on the Congress and the Maharashtra government. BJP president Nitin Gadkari, said this was a government which looted its people by making laws to suit them. For instance, for the Commonwealth Games, there was a rule that contractors had to have previous experience with such games and thus all the Indian contractors were ruled out.
Suicide by farmers
He said lakhs of farmers have committed suicide, and there were reports which said that in India 70 per cent of the people spend less than Rs. 20 a day. On the one hand, while Mr. Pawar was Agriculture Minister, foodgrains were rotting, there was no storage facility, gas prices were spiraling, he said.
Calling on the Congress to reply to all allegations of corruption, Mr. Gadkari said that he had all the evidence of Win Chaddha’s son’s accounts, and also proof that Quattrochi had deep relations with the Gandhis. He also had information on Mr. Quattrochi’s bank accounts but refused to divulge more details.
He also reiterated the NDA’s demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into 2G scam and asked the Congress “what is wrong thing we have done by asking for a JPC?” The Congress was afraid because their faces were already blackened and they were afraid that more scams would spill out. Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav said this was a fight for justice. He said a majority of the parties wanted a JPC probe into the 2G spectrum and the Commonwealth Games scam, even the Congress allies were game, but the Congress with 206 seats was not relenting. “Even during the meeting with Pranab Mukherjee all of us had agreed to the JPC probe from 1998. It is the Congress which by its refusal has put a lock on Parliament,” he said.
Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said, the Congress and its allies had no shame. He said “an economist heads the country and a farmer’s son is the Agriculture Minister. Yet farmers are committing suicide and prices are going out of control.”
Referring to the Adarsh Society, he said, while the Environment Minister suggested that the building be demolished, the question of the Lavasa remained to be seen. Mr. Sharad Pawar’s ‘connections’ with the Lavasa implied that little was said about it, he alleged. He dared the Environment Ministry not to clear the Lavasa. If the Adarsh was not demolished by the government then common people would take the law into their hands, he warned.
The Congress wanted to target Hindutvawadis as terrorists, said Mr. Thackeray. “Action must be taken against whoever is against the State. But why give a colour to terrorism,” he asked. How did Aseemanand’s confession came to the press and Digvijay Singh first, he wondered.
India divided
By: Swati Gauri Sharma
A powerful Hindu extremist party has held a firm grip on Maharashtra. But the people are starting to fight back.
ANTI-IMMIGRANT and anti-Muslim sentiment is spreading fast in Europe and the United States. In India, these sentiments aren’t new, and have long been a tactic used by Hindu extremists to retain power in the western state of Maharashtra. Their party, the Shiv Sena, also opposes the influence of Western culture, putting it at sword’s point not just with Muslims but with the growing cosmopolitan community in India as well. How this conflict plays out will be a test of India’s democracy.
Last month, the Shiv Sena, which means “God’s army” in Hindi, initiated aggressive protests and book burnings against a novel, Rohinton Mishtry’s “Such a Long Journey,” because the Sena claimed it made derogatory remarks about the party and its constituents. In a surprise response to the protests, the University of Mumbai has banned the book, which had been short-listed for the Booker Prize.
The Sena also recently protested against the two Pakistani participants of a popular reality show, “Big Boss,” which is India’s version of “Big Brother.” The protests resulted in many cable operators banning the channel that aired the show.
Now, the party has decided it would like to ban the burqa, a troubling issue for a secular country with at least 100 million Muslims.
Although the power of Shiv Sena and other Hindu fundamentalist groups throughout the country has dwindled over the years as India has prospered, the Sena always held on to their base by insisting on government jobs for natives of Maharashtra and denying them to immigrants from other parts of India.
Because of the Sena’s strong hold on Maharashtra and its largest city, Mumbai, the entertainment and financial hub of India, few have successfully spoken out against the party. But the country’s new urban and intellectual class became concerned that that the university and cable operators’ concessions to Sena pressure would institutionalize the party’s regressive and racist platform.
The secular community’s most recent successful push-back against the Hindu fundamentalists involved Shahrukh Khan, one of the most popular stars of the Mumbai-based film industry in India, known as Bollywood. Khan, a Muslim from North India, was demonized by the Sena for his comments supporting the inclusion of Pakistan’s cricket team in India’s Premier League and rejecting the party’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. In response to Khan’s statements, the Sena protested and threatened to use violence and political will to limit Khan’s latest Bollywood release, which was one of the most anticipated films of the year.
In previous such showdowns, Bollywood stars and filmmakers have often ended up apologizing to the Sena in fear of financial and social repercussions. But in a surprise move, Khan stood firmly against the party. Opposed by much of the film fraternity and the business community, the Sena lost this battle, and the film went on to be one of the largest box-office hits in Bollywood history.
In the wake of the devastating terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November of 2008, India showed the world that Hindus and Muslims can live peacefully together. Peace marches took the place of the communal violence that had been a usual aftermath to terrorist attacks. Today, while the Sena objects to Pakistani participants in the reality TV show, there are other musical shows dedicated to promoting peace between India and Pakistan by having Pakistani and Indian judges and contestants.
As other nations around the world are struggling with a growing vocal and often institutionalized intolerance of Muslims, Indians are beginning to stand up against religious extremists’ regressive campaigns. With luck, India’s economy will continue to flourish, and Hindu extremism will wane.
Top Indian politicians resign amid corruption probes
By Salil Panchal
MUMBAI – Two senior figures in India’s ruling party resigned on Tuesday under heavy pressure over separate corruption scandals involving apartments meant for war widows and the Delhi Commonwealth Games.
Ashok Chavan, the chief minister of Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, resigned Tuesday over his alleged role in a housing scam involving apartments reserved for widows that were sold to politicians and military officers.
The chief organiser of the graft-tainted Commonwealth Games in October, Suresh Kalmadi, who emerged as a public hate figure for his role in the fiasco, also stepped down from his position as secretary in the ruling Congress party.
Both politicians had embarrassed Congress, and the Press Trust of India reported that party president Sonia Gandhi had personally directed Chavan to step down.
“Pending enquiry, his (Chavan’s) offer of resignation has been accepted,” ruling Congress party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said in a brief statement.
Only three days ago, Chavan was the first person to shake Barack Obama’s hand when the US president landed in India.
Announcements of the resignations came as parliament resumed for its winter session and opposition MPs attacked the government over its corruption record.
India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s state general secretary Vinod Tawade accused Chavan of involvement in a “sin” of grabbing land reserved for war widows.
Eknath Khadse, leader of the opposition in the state assembly said they were satisfied with Congress’s decision, having “admitted to the corruption.”
Defence minister A.K. Anthony has ordered an investigation into the scam, which is estimated to run into several million dollars.
“A CBI probe has been ordered and the investigating agency will take over soon,” defence ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar told media in the capital, adding that the probe would “fix responsibility for any lapses.”
The Congress-led government has still to announce a replacement for Chavan, who insisted he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
“I will emerge clean, let the investigations take place,” he told reporters.
“I do not see this as a setback. In politics and public life, there are always ups and downs,” he said, adding he would continue to serve as a Congress party worker in the state.
Chavan took charge in December 2008 from Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was forced to step down in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks in which 166 people were killed by Islamic gunmen in a three-day siege.
Kalmadi, 66, is a veteran MP from the Congress party, and has headed the Indian Olympic Association for 14 years.
“Suresh Kalmadi’s resignation as secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party has been accepted with immediate effect by the Congress Party,” Congress general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi told AFP.
Dwivedi would not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding Kalmadi’s exit, but the chairman of the Delhi Commonwealth Games has borne the brunt of public criticism for cost overruns, shoddy planning, and graft allegations that tainted the October event.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set up a panel in October to investigate the corruption charges.
India has slipped three places to 87th spot in watchdog Transparency International’s ranking of nations based on their perceived level of corruption, partly because the scandal-tainted Games.
Activists have also called for a probe for environmental violations allegedly carried out by the group running the housing project.
India holds its breath for divisive Ayodhya ruling
LUCKNOW, India – India has ramped up security ahead of a high court ruling Friday on a bitter religious dispute responsible for some of the bloodiest sectarian violence since independence.
Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers stand alert in New Delhi
The decision on the future of the Ayodhya mosque site — and even more so the reaction to it — poses a crucial test for India and its image as an emerging global player and a beacon of stability in a volatile region.
India’s home minister P. Chidambaram appealed for calm Wednesday ahead of the politically charged judgement.
“It is the government’s earnest hope that all sections of society will maintain peace, order, harmony and tranquillity,” he said in New Delhi.
“It would be inappropriate to reach any conclusion that one side has won or the other side has lost” following the ruling that will be extremely complex and is bound to be appealed to the Supreme Court, he added.
In 1992 the demolition of the 16th-century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya by Hindu activists sparked riots that killed more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, and propelled India’s Hindu nationalists into the political mainstream.
Hindus say the mosque had been built by the Moghul emperor Babur on the site of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu warrior god Ram in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Ever since the destruction of the mosque 18 years ago the 47-acre (19-hectare) site has been cordoned off with barbed wire and steel fencing and guarded by troops.
Now a three-judge bench in the state capital Lucknow will rule on ownership of the site between Hindu and Muslim groups.
A senior Uttar Pradesh home department official told AFP in Lucknow more than 200,000 police, paramilitary and other security personnel had been deployed across the state ahead of the ruling.
“Processions of all kind have been prohibited not only in Ayodhya but also in 44 sensitive districts,” added Brij Lal, additional director-general of police.
Muslims called for calm.
“We now wait for Friday’s verdict but no one should celebrate victory or raise protests against the ruling,” said Zafaryab Jilani, lawyer for the Babri Masjid Action Committee, which wants the site handed to Muslims, India’s largest religious minority.
The government and numerous religious leaders have urged both Hindus and Muslims to accept the court ruling, no matter which way it goes.
“The way the country handles this — the aftermath — will have a profound impact on the evolution of our country,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said earlier in the month.
The radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad or VHP insisted that the government would have to give the site to the Hindus.
“The Indian government must hand over the (Ayodhya) site to Hindus through an act of parliament because it is linked to faith or else this dispute will never end,” the VHP’s national spokesman Prakash Sharma told AFP.
The drive to build a Ram temple on the ruins of the razed mosque remains a key political aim of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the main opposition party in parliament.
India’s chief Muslim cleric, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, echoed the calls for calm, but also criticised hardline Hindu groups for shunning efforts to find an out-of-court settlement.
“One can only strike a compromise with those who want to resolve the dispute through sincere talks,” Bukhari told AFP.
Mahant Gyan Das, a senior member of the Hindu trust seeking to build a Ram temple on the site, insisted that any violence resulting from the ruling would not come from the people of Ayodhya.
The government has taken out newspaper ads warning against any knee-jerk reactions that might inflame communal tensions.
“There should be no attempt whatsoever made by any section of the people to provoke any other section,” the published appeal said.
India has avoided any major outbreak of Hindu-Muslim violence since riots in Gujarat in 2002.
The government is especially keen to keep a lid on any unrest ahead of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, which begin on October 3, and the visit of US President Barack Obama in November.
Mumbai attacks verdict due today
MUMBAI: Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, lone surviving Mumbai attacker, facing the death penalty if convicted of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks will today learn his fate, as the court reconvenes for the judge to deliver his verdict.
Ajmal Kasab, 22, is facing a string of charges, including “waging war against India” and murder, in connection with the bloody, three-day siege that left 166 people dead and more than 300 others wounded.
Judge M.L. Tahaliyani has spent more than a month considering the evidence.
Before retiring on March 31, he told the court: “May 3 will be the day of judgment.” Public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told AFP last week that he was “100 percent” expecting a result on Monday.
The end of the trial is a significant step towards the rehabilitation of India’s financial and entertainment capital.
The prosecution believes it has “overwhelming” evidence of Kasab’s involvement in the attacks, including DNA and fingerprints, security camera footage and photographs of him carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.
Kasab initially denied the charges, then pleaded guilty, before reverting to his original stance and claiming that he was set up by the police.
Two Indian nationals are also standing trial. Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed are both accused of providing logistical support to the gunmen by supplying them with handwritten maps of the city.
Judge Tahaliyani refused to allow an application for US-Pakistani national David Coleman Headley, who admitted scouting out targets for the attacks, to give evidence.
Thirty-five people are named in court papers as co-conspirators, including LeT founder Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, key operative Zarar Shah and Hafiz Saeed.
Lahkvhi and Shah are among seven suspects currently on trial in Rawalpindi.
Kasab, arrested in a stolen car after a shoot-out at a police roadblock, was the only suspected gunman caught alive. The others were killed by Indian security forces.
They were secretly buried earlier this year after a long-running row about how to dispose of the bodies.
A murder riddled with holes
The irony is that slain lawyer Shahid Azmi came to fame exposing police lapses, says Rana Ayyub
The basic rule of a criminal investigation is that if there is a witness to a crime, in this case murder, he is the first person police should contact to identify the culprits. But during the investigations into the murder of Shahid Azmi, the human rights and criminal lawyer who was shot dead in his Mumbai office on February 11, police seem to have forgotten that most basic, mandatory practice. The key witness to Azmi’s murder – his peon Inder, who saw three assailants fire at the lawyer – was not even called for identification after police arrested the accused. In a news conference four days after the murder, police produced three men who they said were Azmi’s killers and said they planned to invoke the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (mcoca) against them. But the manner in which police have handled the case and the glaring loopholes in investigation have raised a number of questions, with Azmi’s family, human rights organisations and fellow lawyers calling for a judicial or cbi probe.
Ironically, Azmi first came to note as a lawyer by bringing justice to those falsely accused of terrorism by pointing out investigative and other lapses in prosecution cases. He was particularly active in probing the abuse of mcoca and other draconian laws.
Police claim to have all but solved the murder by arresting three of the hitmen – Devendra Jagtap alias JD, Pintu Dagale and Vinod Vichare – just three days after the attack. One assailant is absconding.
Azmi’s elder brother Arif is extremely critical of the investigations. “The office peon Inder… witnessed the entire incident while one of the hitmen kept him at gunpoint. Why was he not called in to identify the four men who have been arrested? They have not even bothered to communicate with us?” he says. It was on the basis of Inder’s confession that police were able to understand the sequence of events and make sketches of the suspects. Police may eventually call on Inder for questioning but they have blundered from the outset.
The three hitmen arrested had been chargesheeted earlier and were wanted for other crimes. Police had been looking out for them for some years. Jagtap, the alleged kingpin who earlier worked for Chhota Rajan, was wanted in many cases. Not only does their arrest within three days of the crime, after being on the run for so long, appear unusual, most of the killers were arrested close to the same area where Azmi was killed.
Even more unusual is the police claim that the killers have confessed to the crime but have not revealed the murder motive. The Mumbai Crime Branch displayed the murder weapons at a news conference, but there was no mention of a forensic test on them. Police are not coming up with any answers, claiming, as they do, that the case has already been “solved”. In the meantime, public pressure for a judicial or cbi probe into the murder is gathering steam.
Paid News: A Cancer in Indian Media
By Nava Thakuria
Indian people, election commission, parliamentarians, media watchdog and even the media persons have finally woken up to the menace of ‘paid news’ culture in the mainstream media. The practice that involves money in acquiring unethically media space by the beneficiaries remained an important issue in India for many years. But lately a number of influential media persons’ organisations have shown their concern with the ill practice of journalism in the country. Then it was picked up by the Press Council of India, the Election Commission of India and the upper house of Indian parliament.
The practice of offering envelopes to reporters remained visible across Asian media and especially India and China for decades. But lately the practice appears to be becoming institutionalized, not by poverty-stricken reporters but by the publishers themselves.
It is alleged that many media houses in India irrespective of their volume of business have started selling news space after some understandings with the politicians and corporate people without disguising those items as advertisements.
First it was a meet of South Asia Free Media Association (India chapter) in Mumbai during the first week of December, where the issue of paid news was officially discussed with serious concern.
Then came the annual general meeting of the Editors’ Guild of India during the fourth week of December, where most of the members expressed concern at the growing tendency of a section of media groups (both print and visual) to receive money for some ‘non-advertorial’ items in their media space.
Condemning the unethical media practice, the guild even appealed all its member-editors to stand against the paid news. The editors’ forum sent a letter to all of them asking for pledges that his/her ‘publication/TV channel will not carry any paid news’ as the practice ‘violates and undermines the principles of free and fair journalism’.
The letter, signed by Rajdeep Sardesai and Coomi Kapoor, president and secretary general of the Guild respectively, expressed hope that ‘the entire journalist fraternity would come together on this issue’ and defend their credibility with public declarations on the subject in order to restore public trust.
Indian media has been recognised as sensitive, patriotic and very much influential tool in the socio-political sphere since the days of freedom movement. The father of Indian nation Mahatma Gandhi initiated his movement with the moral power of active journalism. Today, India with its billion population supports nearly 70,000 registered newspapers and over 450 Television channels (including some 24×7 news channels). The Indian media, as a whole, often plays the role of constructive opposition in the Parliament as well as in various Legislative Assemblies of the State. Journalists are, by and large, honoured and accepted as the moral guide in the Indian society. While the newspapers in Europe and America are losing their readership annually, the Indian print media is still going stronger with huge circulation figure and market avenues. For the democratic India, the media continues to be acclaimed as the fourth important pillar after judiciary, parliament and bureaucratic set-up.
But unfortunately a cancer in the form of paid news has been diagnosed with the Indian media in the recent past. Millions of rupees have been reportedly been paid to media houses.
Some veteran editor-journalists like Prabhash Joshi, the founding editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta, who died in November, and BG Verghese, previously the editor of both the Hindustan Times and Indian Express, warned the Press Council of India that paid news has already turned into a full-blown scandal.
It is worth mentioning that the Mumbai SAFMA meeting had serious discussion and concern on the recent trend of commercialisation of mainstream media, and degradation of media ethics and practices in the country. All the speakers in the meeting of SAFMA (which is recognized by the SAARC), were unanimous that media in the entire region must come forward in a transparent way with maintaining public trust.
Addressing the audience, eminent journalist and the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, P Sainath disclosed that that the corporatisation of the media world had simply threatened the existence of free media.
“Newspaper owners are greatly influenced by political clout,” P Sainath, the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, warned another media group. It was Sainath who raised the issue of paid news through his regular columns in The Hindu, urging the press council and election commission to take appropriate action.
“The proprietors now grant space for vivid coverage for the benefit of their ‘friendly politicians’ in the newspapers,” Sainath warned in his speech. “Furthermore, to entertain their growing demands, many media groups have even gone for arranging extra space (during election periods). Let’s finish the culture of paid news, otherwise it will finish us in the coming days.”
An official statement of the SAFMA meet, which was attended by many distinguished editor-journalists of India including K K Katyal, Satich Jacob, Kumar Ketkar (editor of Loksatta), Om Thanvi (editor of Jansatta), Vinod Sharma (political editor of Hindustan Times) etc, expressed serious concern at the growing trend of selling news space.
“Recent assembly elections in Maharashtra and elsewhere revealed the spread of the pernicious practice of accepting money for giving editorial space to contestants. In fact, this evil had been perpetrated by institutionalising it,” according to a statement by the South Asian Free Media Association.
Meanwhile, the Press Council of India, a quasi-judicial body, has decided to investigate, establishing a separate committee to examine violations of the journalistic code of fair and objective reporting. The press council Chairman GN Ray, a retired justice, acknowledged that a section of Indian media had ‘indulged in monetary deals with some politicians and candidates by publishing their views as news items and bringing out negative news items against rival candidates’ during the last elections.’
The committee has already discussed the issue with the representatives from Indian Newspapers Society, Indian Language Newspapers Association with other stakeholders.
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, an eminent media critic and also the member of the press council investigative team said in an interview that the committee had received many complains from the journalists that a large number of newspapers and television channels (in various languages) had been receiving money to provide news space (and even editorials) for the benefit of politicians.
Speaking to this writer from New Delhi, Guha Thakurta claims that the paid news culture has finally violated the guidelines of the Election Commission (of India), which makes restriction in the expenditure of a candidate (for any Legislative Assembly or Parliamentary elections).
“Amazingly, we have found that some newspapers even prepared rate cards for the candidates in the last few elections. There are different rates for positive news coverage, interviews, editorials and also putting out damaging reports against the opponents,” Guha Thakurta asserted.
The Indian Election Commission recently asked the Press Council of India ‘to define what constitutes paid political news’, so it can adopt appropriate guidelines. During a December meeting, the elections body also directed the press council to ‘formulate guidelines to the media house’ to require that the money involved be incorporated in the political party and candidate expenditures.
Lately, the Guild had submitted a memorandum to the election commission expressing its grave concern over the paid news phenomenon. A delegation from the Guild, led by its president Rajdeep Sardesai met the election commission on January 22 and urged the chief election commissioner Navin Chawla to ‘take strong action against both candidates and media persons who violate the disclosure norms of election expenditure in regard to media publicity.’
Rajdeep Sardesai, the editor’s guild president and also the chief editor of the CNN-IBN television news channel, speaking to this writer, said that the Guild was ‘deeply shocked and seriously concerned at the increasing number of reports detailing the pernicious practice of publishing paid news by some newspapers and television channels, especially during the recent elections’.
“We strongly believe that the practice of putting out advertising as news is a grave journalistic malpractice. Moreover the trend threatens the foundation of journalism by eroding public faith in the credibility and impartiality of news reporting. It also vitiated the poll process and prevented a fair election, since richer candidates who could pay for their publicity had a clear advantage,” Sardesai added.
While admitting the right of news media to go for advertisements in various occasions, Sardesai insisted that the ‘media houses should distinguish the advertisements with full and proper disclosure norms, so that no reader and viewer is tricked by any subterfuge of advertisements published and broadcast in the same format, language and style of news’.
The Indian Women’s Press Corps, the Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists and the Network of Women in Media, India had also expressed concern over the issue.
Condemning the practice, NWMI, the forum of women media professionals, stated in a recent release, “We strongly believe that the present crisis in the media, of which paid news is a grim symptom, requires urgent, serious intervention by media professionals working together to safeguard the principles and values of journalism and the credibility of the news media, which are both critical factors for the effective functioning of our democracy.”
Lately, the Rajya Sabha witnessed a debate on the culture of paid news. Responding the questions of MPs, India´s Information & Broadcasting minister Ambika Soni admitted that the practice is ´a serious matter as it influences the functioning of a free press´.
“The media acts as a repository of public trust for conveying correct and true information to the people. However, when paid information is presented as news content, it could mislead the public and thereby hamper their judgment to form a correct opinion. Thus, there is no denying the fact that there is an urgent need to protect the public’s right to correct and unbiased information,” Ms Soni added.
The opposition leader Arun Jaitley (Bharatiya Janata Party) earlier arued that the practice of paid news should be perceived as a trade or business with an unlawful purpose as it has nothing to do with the freedom of speech. Jaitley, who is also a senior advocate, insisted that a regulator should be set up with judicial authority (with power to impose deterrent penalties) to which all such complaints can be referred.
The readers or the viewers have the right to honest, unadulterated news, which is being denied to them. They are not even being informed that the news is motivated by monetary considerations, he added.
Jaitley went on saying that the paid news interdicts the process of free and fair elections as it violates the limits set out by the election commission for expenditure (by a candidate) in the polls. It also reflects the violation of income tax laws, he asserted.
Speaking to this writer, Hiten Mahanta, a Guwahati-based media observer claims that many regional newspapers in Northeast India in effect sell favourable reporting for extra income.
“You can find a number of examples in Guwahati, where the proprietors of the media houses had misused the media space for their individual benefits. It is amazing how some newspapers (and also news channels) change their point of views towards a politician or party suddenly after getting money (in cash or kinds),” Mahanta said.
There are specific allegations that many journalists in Guwahati, who are among the lowest paid in India with starting salaries as little as US$50 a month, enjoy regular payments like monthly lump sum compensation from politicians in power. Licenses for wine shops are offered to reporters (and accepted happily by many) with the inherent understanding that they only write positive stories and if possible, kill negative reports against their politician-financers.
However, the newspapers of Assam still maintain ethical values in respect of editorial space, as those are not being utilized visibly for earning extra hard cash till now, observers say.
But how long it will continue that remains a bigger question
Rohit Kumar's Views 