Radia’s conversations show how even cabinet berths can be decided by this select oligarchy. Her interface with discredited (now former) telecom minister A. Raja, DMK mp Kanimozhi and Ranjan Bhattacharya, the foster son-in-law of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, shows how she successfully lobbied for several cabinet berths. The transcripts suggest that journalists Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt also lobbied for Raja with the Congress party. However, both journalists, in separate statements, decried the use of the label “lobbyist” and termed their conversation with Radia as part of their normal journalistic duties. Other journalists such as Prabhu Chawla, G. Ganapathy Subramaniam and M.K. Venu also had elaborate conversations with Radia on issues ranging from telecom to the Ambani brothers’ dispute on gas pricing. At times they proffer advice and trade information.
The more than 140 conversations involving Radia that were tapped by the I-T department expose a systemic rot. These tapes are now annexures in a Supreme Court petition by lawyer Prashant Bhushan seeking Raja’s prosecution.
The reaction of the Congress leadership is surprising since all these tapes were available to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram in their capacity as finance ministers in the two UPA governments. Regardless of the existence of the tapes, the Congress leadership agreed to reinduct Raja with the telecom portfolio into the UPA-II cabinet.
The tapes also paint a dismal picture of how everything—from cabinet berths to natural resources—is now available for the right price. The now controversial 2G allocation was just one of the many manipulations orchestrated by players in high places. There are conversations on civil aviation with 1980-batch IAS officer Sunil Arora, publicist Suhel Seth and many others which have not been included here. The worst fallout, however, is that it has besmirched the hitherto ‘fair’ name of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who agreed to take Raja back in the same ministry that now stands exposed in the biggest scam in independent India, despite knowledge of the tapes.
“When it came to spectrum, they went to Raja and paid him a bribe and got spectrum allocated.”
“Uddhav’s already taken funding from both groups. I’d suggest, tell Krishna Kumar to talk to Uddhav.”
“Otherwise I will tell them to tell Uddhav to go after them. I don’t think Congress will do much.”
“I believe Maran has given about 600 crores to Dayalu, Stalin’s mother.”
Mere client Tatas bhi bahut beneficiary thhe (in the 2G spectrum allocation).”
“Senthil, Rahul Joshi, maine donon ki le li. You can’t run stories against my clients and get away with it.”
“I have a note, no, a whole dossier, on Praful Patel on the last five years jisme ye poora aspect hai.”
“Inka pichhle paanch saal mein yahi attempt to tha, inko destroy karo, donon careers ko.”
“Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Venkaiah Naidu, ye sab coterie hain na of Advani.”
“Naresh wants to kill it (Air India), Vijay wants to kill it and Praful is not really interested.”
“Raja has promised me that he will not do anything in a hurry. I made Kani speak to him as well. ”
“The solicitor general, Gopal Subramaniam, I am gonna go and brief him. He hates them.”
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?268071
The “2G scam,” as it is known in India, involves telecommunications minister A. Raja underselling mobile phone licenses in the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market.
The leaked audio tapes recorded in 2009 reveal lobbyist Niira Radia asking senior journalists Barkha Dutt, group editor of leading news channel NDTV, and Vir Sanghvi, advisory editorial director of the Hindustan Times, to mediate with the ruling Congress party about cabinet posts.
The tapes suggest Radia was lobbying for the continuation of Raja’s post as telecommunications minister after the 2009 elections and both journalists agreed to help.
Indian auditors say this cost the country some $40 billion in lost revenues as the mobile phone licenses were sold at prices set in 2001 under Raja’s watch.
Raja was forced to resign last month, but the 2G scam has put parliament in a logjam for the past two weeks as recriminations fly across party lines.
While allegations of corruption are commonplace in India, revelations that some of India’s most influential journalists were involved have shocked the public.
Dutt is known as the ‘Oprah of India’ and Sanghvi is a widely-read columnist.
“It’s very, very disappointing. Neither of them is corrupt, nobody is saying they are corrupt. But corruption when it involves ethics is worse then taking money,” senior political journalist Tavleen Singh told CNN.
Some 104 tapes have been leaked and are now widely available on the internet.
The transcripts were first published in two Indian magazines, which sourced them to audio recordings submitted recently to the Supreme Court as part of the 2G scam.
While the recordings feature many conversations, the focus has been on Radia’s multiple conversations with Dutt and Sanghvi.
In one conversation, Dutt says to Radia, “What do you want me to tell them (Congress Party)? Tell me, I’ll talk to them.”
In another recording, Sanghvi tells Radia he can offer a fully scripted and rehearsed TV interview for India’s wealthiest man Mukesh Ambani.
Radia’s public relations firm represents Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries and the Tata Group.
“When I started out as journalist in Delhi, the government had other ways of controlling the media. It used to be by giving free houses and other freebies like trips with the prime minister. Now they are controlling access. So if journalists cooperate, they are given exclusive access to information, VIP parties and this is most worrying,” Singh said.
One of the recordings also features Radia’s conversation with the head of India’s largest conglomerate, Ratan Tata.
Tata petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday to bar further dissemination of the tapes, contending the leakage has infringed upon his fundamental right to privacy.
“We have somewhat slipped into a morass of series of allegations … unauthorized tapes flooding … the media going crazy on alleging, convicting, executing … literally character assassination … stop this sort of Banana Republic kind of attack,” Tata said in a statement.
While both Dutt and Sanghvi have not denied the authenticity of the recordings, they both maintain they were simply placating a source for news gathering purposes and believe they have done no wrong.
In a Twitter post, Dutt said: “Unless we only cover news based on bland press conferences, we have to talk to all sorts, good and bad, I think there is nothing wrong in stringing along a source for info…I think EVERY journo has the right to engage a source, its NO CRIME…as a matter of record, I never passed the message. But info sharing per se is not immoral in a fluid news situation.”
Other senior journalists believe the Indian media is facing a crisis of credibility.
“The feedback I’m getting is nobody trusts us journalists anymore,” Singh said.
“Barkha and Vir are very good friends of mine, I still continue to respect them. But I just wish they had said sorry and ended it there. India has 300 television channels, most of them in very rural areas. If this is happening in Delhi just look at the consequences lower down.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/12/02/india.leaked.tapes/index.html
Related:
The allegations by her critics seem to be evolving over time, and some of the criticisms flying now seem much less shocking than when the tapes first emerged.
Let’s face it: This was an exciting media scandal because the Radia tapes were billed as containing evidence that senior journalists helped install a politician (A. Raja) in the telecom ministry who then oversaw the flawed sale of mobile-phone spectrum that deprived the country of up to $40 billion, according to a government auditor.
Outlook Magazine, in its Nov. 18 story documenting the Radia tapes, had said “The transcripts suggest that journalists Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt also lobbied for Raja with the Congress party.”
Open Magazine, the other outlet that published the Radia recordings, said in a Nov. 20 article that “Radia relied on a number of people to pass information on to the Congress and back to the DMK. In a way, these were the people who eventually ensured Raja was given the telecom portfolio.”
That sure sounded damning. But the transcripts and audio recordings of Ms. Dutt’s calls with Ms. Radia turned out to reveal more generic conversations about the Congress Party’s negotiations with its coalition ally, the DMK, over various cabinet posts.
To be sure, there is some brief discussion between the two women about Mr. Raja’s chances for getting the telecom post, but he’s one of several officials whose chances they handicap. And at no time in the recordings – at least the ones now available to the public — is Ms. Radia heard pressing Mr. Raja’s individual case to Ms. Dutt, or does Ms. Dutt agree to lobby for Mr. Raja. Indeed, Ms. Radia and Ms. Dutt are more preoccupied with the fates of other DMK officials.
Even Ms. Dutt’s critics, including those editors on NDTV last night, concede that there’s no evidence she lobbied for Mr. Raja. So that explosive charge has sort of gone by the wayside with little notice from Ms. Dutt’s peers.
What we saw in last night’s TV roundtable were other, less startling claims against Ms. Dutt. Open Magazine editor Manu Joseph said the real problem is that Ms. Dutt failed to report the story that a corporate lobbyist was trying to influence the formation of the Indian cabinet after the 2009 national elections, something he called an “error of judgment of enormous proportions.”
“This is a corporate person who is trying to mediate between two political parties,” Mr. Joseph said. “I believe that is the biggest story of the decade.”
So now Ms. Dutt is being accused of being a poor journalist, not a corrupt one? And this now has nothing to do with the alleged 2G spectrum allocation scam that involved Mr. Raja?
“There seems to be a constant shifting of goal posts,” Ms. Dutt said in the TV debate. “First the allegation was corruption, lobbying, power broking – now it’s ‘why don’t you report the story?’”
She seems to have a point there.
Also, is it really the biggest story of the decade that a company has a lobbyist who is plugged into politics the way Ms. Radia was?
Regrettable, perhaps, but surprising?
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/12/01/wait-a-minute-what-exactly-is-barkha-dutt-accused-of/
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