The publishing of these tête-à-têtes opened the proverbial Pandora’s box. Ranging from corporate bigwigs like Ratan and Mukesh to the pillars of the fourth estate, Vir and Padamshri Barkha to the Dalaals of the grand old party of India – nobody was spared. The first reaction to these tapes was utter shock. With an average of two major scandals each year we Indians are not averse to scams but the level of involvement of the Barking dogs (read: media) is what sent many of us in a tizzy. For anyone who has worked in the media it’s a known fact that owners lobby to receive material gains, but what these tapes did was that they put a name on the unknown faces of corruption. Sadly enough most of them were people many of us grew up citing as classic epitomes of honest work and brave journalism.
The lash-back was quite obvious. The journos said what they themselves make fun of, “I have been misquoted,” or “The quotes have been used out of context” or (this is my favorite) “ As a journalist we need to talk to all sorts of people to gain information.” Ratan on the other hand was not willing to say tata to this issue by quietly sweeping it under the rug. He went on to challenge the publications of the tapes in the Supreme Court citing violation of his Right to Privacy under his Right to Life. I wonder if he would cite similar reasons - ie improving his Right to Life by a few hundred crores - for illegally coercing and soliciting the portfolios within the UPA-II cabinet.
Coming back to the Mata Hari of Indian corporate lobbying. Nira Radia has a huge task eked out for her. Besides a tarnished image she is being charged of using unsolicited means to garner 300 crores in a span of 9 years, which roughly comes to over 33 crores annually. She even had the audacity to float the proposal for a domestic airlines service. (If a busy bee is to be believed her strength was derived from the then NDA Civil Aviation Minister, Ananth Kumar for reasons your imagination shall fill you with). All this through just corporate communications? Well mister if you are an aspiring something, chuck your plans for a techie job or a management guru profile or even for that matter all Ponzi schemers too, for Ms Radia has shown, Corporate communications is second only to Raja-Munda brand of politics if you intend to make a quick buck.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, the notorious Outlook came out with a second set of conversations this Sunday last. Since then NDTV has not come out with any clarifications and all the chirping through twitter also seems to have taken a back-seat for Sanghvi and Padamshri Barkha. Why? Here’s an excerpt.
Journalists played a key role, says Radia. “Congress ne to statement Thank God issue kar diya. Barkha ne karwaa liyaa us se.” The guy confirms the statement. "Haan woh to maine dekh liya. aa gayaa naa Manish Tewari kaa". Radia is busy speaking to a “minister” at “2 o' clock” lobbying for Raja. (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?268618)
This second lot has clearly shown that inside the Pandora’s box is another can or worms which still deeper might be housing another pregnant monster of corruption. The levels of corruption seem to be akin to a Chinese puzzle box. Besides Raja, this time it seems that Nira was specifically interested in the portfolios of Murli Deora and Anand Sharma.
Through her conversations with JDU minister NK Singh it seems that Mukesh Ambani batted for Deora to get a second term. Deora’s loyalty for his master Mukesh is affirmed by his consistent pitching in favour of Mukesh, which saved him a great deal of money (read: several thousand crores) by bailing him out of the subsidized sale of natural gas for his brother, Anil’s power plant in 2009.
Amidst all this chaos who do you think is the most relieved man today? I’ll give you a few hints. He has a beard, his initials are SK, he believes in buying toilet paper worth fifteen hundred rupees and he is the head of the country’s largest sports scam. Any guesses?
=========================
Editor's Note: Pritish Mukherjee's pen speaks and that too for an issue close to his heart. And I would like to add that there are no guesses for SK. I plainly lifted this symphony from his blog but made the title dysfunctional::
http://moleculoscope.blogspot.com/2010/12/mirror-mirror-on-wall-whos-tainted-of.html
No comments:
Post a Comment