Eventually, one of the Americans escaped. Another hostage, a Norwegian, was beheaded. The other four were never found.

“The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 — Where the Terror Began,” a staggeringly well-researched new book by two respected journalists, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, concludes that the hostages were killed by local mercenaries funded and controlled by Indian army and intelligence.

The authors argue that the drawn-out negotiation, during which Indian intelligence allegedly knew the hostages’ whereabouts, was a charade, part of India’s larger effort to portray Pakistan as a sponsor of Islamist terror, thereby delegitimizing the Kashmiri struggle for freedom.

Certainly, India today no longer needs to highlight the role of the Pakistani army and intelligence in sponsoring extremist groups. It has also succeeded in shifting international attention away from the appalling facts of its counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir — tens of thousands killed, and innumerable many tortured, mutilated and orphaned. The tallying in 2009 of 2,700 unmarked graves containing the remains of people (often buried in groups) killed by security forces barely provoked any comment in the international media, let alone expressions of concern by Western leaders.

But India’s diplomatic and public relations success has been achieved at considerable costs: the rise of militaristic nationalism, the assault on civil liberties, and a dangerously enhanced role in politics for men in uniform.

Most of the million-plus men and women in the Indian military still manifest what Shashi Tharoor once described as “increasingly rare” qualities in India: “high standards of performance, honesty, hard work, self-sacrifice, incorruptibility, respect for tradition, discipline, team spirit.” As a child, I had myself wanted, like many Indians of my generation and class, to acquire the virtuous glow of an army officer’s uniform, and even attended a military school. Source

As if the government didn’t have enough troubles, the Bofors scandal which brought down Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress government in 1989 has acquired a new lease of life with the Swedish whistleblower who first suspected wrongdoing in the arms deal saying in an interview that Gandhi, while innocent himself, may have soft-pedalled a probe against key accused Ottavio Quattrocchi.

While the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it would raise the matter in Parliament, the Congress downplayed the revelations made by former Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom in an interview with journalist Chitra Subramaniam-Duella, the first Indian journalist to break news of possible kickbacks in the arms deal, that appeared on media website thehoot.org.
While a political analyst said Lindstrom’s remark that Gandhi didn’t benefit financially from the deal would be good news for the Congress and its chief Sonia Gandhi, his widow, another expert said the revival of the Bofors scandal could open long-closed scars. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has been battling a series of corruption scandals and controversies ever since it returned to power with an impressive majority in 2009.

“The government should apologize to the nation,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said. Pointing out that there was a never a proper investigation against Quattarocchi, the Italian businessmen allegedly close to the Gandhi family, Prasad said: “The entire government of India at that point in time was out to save Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, including then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.”

Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Gurudas Dasgupta alleged that the UPA government had no political will to pursue a thorough investigation. “It is very deplorable. It is a slur on the image of the country. It only means that the investigation procedure was false and government had no political will to identify who actually was behind the malpractice,” he told reporters outside Parliament on Wednesday.

To be sure, the investigation didn’t make much headway when the BJP was in power between 1998 and 2004, or when the CPI was part of the non-Congress coalition that ruled India briefly in the second half of the 1990s.

In the 1980s, Rajiv Gandhi’s government, which enjoyed an absolute majority in Parliament, found itself isolated with the entire opposition boycotting Parliament for more than a month.

After years of litigation, the Delhi high court in 2004 gave a clean chit to Rajiv Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1991, and, in 2010, the UPA government allowed the London accounts of Quattrocchi to be freed after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said that it could not link the money in the accounts to the Bofors payment.

On Wednesday, law minister Salman Khurshid said the case was closed and that there is no need to reopen it. “There was a detailed investigation and there were Supreme Court and high court proceedings that took place and the decision that came endorsed those proceedings. I don’t think we can continue to reopen these issues… We don’t want a new chapter to be opened. The final decision of the Supreme Court should not be reopened,” he told reporters.

Although the interview did not figure in Parliament on Wednesday—it was business as usual in the Lok Sabha while the Rajya Sabha was adjourned following the death of a sitting member—the revival of the issue is significant, said analysts.

Balveer Arora, former head of political science department, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said: “The statement that Rajiv Gandhi was not a beneficiary gives relief to Sonia Gandhi and family. The cloud of suspicion was hanging over them. So BJP may not like to highlight the issue as they have so many other issues to counter the government.” Source

The postponement on the so-called general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) is the latest in a string of delays and reversals by an embattled government that has struggled to seize the policy initiative.

Investors breathed a sigh of relief, lifting the rupee and pushing stocks into positive territory after they had lost nearly 2% earlier in the day.

However, yesterday’s changes to the finance bill do not appear to give any respite to Britain’s Vodafone, which India wants to tax over its 2007 acquisition of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa’s mobile operations in India.

“To provide more time to both the taxpayer and tax administration, to address all related issues, I propose to defer the applicability of GAAR provisions,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, yesterday.

He said a committee would submit its recommendations on GAAR by May 31. The rule will apply to income starting from the financial year that begins in April 2013.

Expectations for a delay had been building in recent days as investor disquiet sent the rupee skidding, exacerbating India’s balance of payments shortfall. Wide current account and fiscal deficits mean India needs to bolster foreign investment.

The rupee is down 9% since the start of March, taking it close to a record low. In March and April, India saw net portfolio outflows of $540mn, compared with $13bn in inflows in January-February.

“It’s obviously a positive in the near-term,” said Jonathan Cavenagh, FX strategist at Westpac in Singapore.

“Does it change the USD/INR trend? No would be my view. Twin deficits, elevated oil prices and cooling growth momentum (against a backdrop of high inflation) continue to create a poisonous environment for the currency,” he said.

The GAAR proposal aims to target tax evaders, partly by stopping Indian companies and investors from “round-tripping,” or routing investments through Mauritius and other tax havens. Source

This is not only borne by the increasing attendance at his rallies but also the incredible sight of political entities who hitherto had shunned Imran and the PTI like the plague scurrying to join the bandwagon. Even the stalwarts have not been immune to Imran’s charms. Two big ones - Javed Hashmi a veteran of Nawaz Sharif’s PML(N) and Shah Mehmood Qureshi , former Foreign Minister in the PPP government - have cast their lot with Imran.

Until the last few months, Imran has been hard pressed to replicate his skill and charisma that he so abundantly displayed on the cricket field for Pakistan in his political career. For the one-a-half-decades in the Pakistan political cauldron, what he has to show is one paltry seat in the National Assembly - his own from Mianwali in North-West Punjab.

But recent events have seemed to have turned things on their head. In the Pakistan of the last two decades, other than the two main formations of the PPP and the PML(N) - other parties have barely registered in the national reckoning. Therefore, PTI’s rise as a national alternative, as indicated by the perceptible groundswell of popular opinion, has taken most political actors and pundits in Pakistan by surprise.

Needless to say, Imran has justifiably been ecstatic and articulate about this happy reconfiguration of his political stars. He promises a “political tsunami” come elections.

Imran’s rise is attributed to the utter failure of the corrupt and discredited political class to stem the tide of Pakistan’s steady scurry into the abyss. However, what helps is his clean image, untainted by corruption scandals, which makes him come out shining red and gold, compared to the mainstream political class in the Islamic Republic. Source

Considered by its parochial supporters as a great cricket power, the Indian side had again failed, falling short of sporting greatness. Like Indian cricket, the country’s economy seems destined to never fulfil its potential.

In late 2011, the Indian government’s 12th five-year plan forecast growth of 9% between 2012 and 2017. By early 2012, India’s growth had slowed to around 6%, high by the standards of developed countries but well below the levels required to maintain economic momentum and improve the living standards of its citizens.

Elements of the India Shining story remain intact -the demographics of a youthful population, the large domestic demand base and the high savings rate. Increasingly, India’s problems - poor public finances, weak international position, structurally flawed businesses, poor infrastructure, corruption and political atrophy- threaten to overwhelm its potential.

In recent years, India has consistently run a public sector deficit of 9-10% of GDP, including the state governments and off-balance-sheet items.The problem of large budget deficits is compounded by one major cause - poorly targeted subsidies for fertiliser, food and petroleum which may amount to as much as 9% of GDP.

In March 2012, India brought down a budget forecasting a fiscal deficit of 5.9%, well above its previous fiscal deficit target of 4.6%. India’s strong rate of recent growth (an average rate of 14% between 2004-05 and 2009-10) made large deficits, in the order of 10 % of GDP, relatively sustainable. Slowing growth will increasingly constrain India’s ability to run continuing large deficits.

Indian government’s debt is around 70% of GDP. As its debt is denominated in Rupees and sold domestically, India faces no immediate financing difficulty. Instead, the government’s heavy borrowing requirements crowds out private business. Source

The government also hopes the move will boost private investment in the industry as India has become more dependent than it had been on imports because of slow domestic production.

The decision came after India’s Comptroller and Auditor General, in a draft report leaked last month, slammed the government for doling out cut-price coal blocks to private and state-owned companies without rigorous, open bidding.

Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said New Delhi will to scrap the current system, under which a government panel selects winning bidders, and move to auctions this year.

“Auctions will definitely make the allocation process more transparent and expeditious,” Mr. Jaiswal said in an interview Monday. “Coal is a valuable resource now and a price tag should be put to it. Auctions will help us in discovering its real value in monetary terms.”

The government plans to auction as many as 54 coal blocks this year with a total estimated reserve of 18.18 billion tons, Coal Ministry officials said.

The state auditor’s report was the latest bad news for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government, which has been buffeted by graft scandals since taking power in 2004. Two years ago, the auditor found that the country had lost up to $40 billion in revenue in 2008 through a government allocation of second-generation mobile-phone licenses without a public auction.

India is the world’s third-largest producer of coal, after the China and the U.S. But it has become increasingly reliant on imports from countries such as Indonesia because of slumping domestic production. This year, demand is expected to outstrip production by about 100 million tons.

State-run Coal India Ltd., which produces about 80% of India’s output and holds a monopoly on domestic sales, has failed to increase production.

In the early 1990s, the government opened up mining by companies that needed coal for their operations, such as steelmakers and power-plant operators. A government panel handed out licenses at low prices to spur production. But sometimes the panel would take years to deliberate over licenses. Other roadblocks, such as delays in getting environmental clearances and acquiring land, also delayed projects. Source

Lawmaker Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in a statement he was also quitting as head of a parliamentary committee on law and justice.

India’s parliament has been gridlocked by a series of graft scandals embroiling the Congress-led government, and the video allegedly showed Singhvi having sex with a female colleague in his legal chambers.

Singhvi, 53, said he had been forced to step down because of the controversy surrounding the “distorted CD” row, which he dismissed as “pure imagination, wishful thinking and sensationalism”.

“I have done this only to prevent even the slightest possible parliamentary disruption regarding the purported CDs being circulated about me,” he said.

The Delhi High Court earlier this month stopped TV channels from broadcasting the contents of the video, which had been circulated by Singhvi’s former driver who reportedly nursed a grudge against the politician.

The driver admitted in court that the “camera was used illegally” and said the video had been “morphed in such a manner so as to deliberately show (Singhvi) in a bad light”.

But the video was posted on YouTube and other websites, prompting a sharp reaction from the politician, who accused the media of uploading it despite the injunction against its broadcast. Source

Yet, optimism is not lacking despite dipping standards. Everyone wants to make the ‘cut’ for the London Olympics. Though officials keep projecting an encouraging picture of 25 or 30 athletes making it, the athletes know only too well how tough it is. Nine Indian athletes have so far attained the requisite standard for the Olympics. There should be some more additions till the July 8 deadline.

If the women’s longer relay team qualifies, as lot many people expect it to, the number could go beyond the 17 that made the grade for the last Olympics.

Some of the Olympic aspirants will be on view as the season opens here on Sunday with the first Indian Grand Prix. With the top six female 400m runners still under doping suspension and doubts persisting about their eligibility for a few Olympic qualification races in June, the spotlight will be on the ‘rest of the best.’

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) is banking on even the ‘second-string’ women’s 4×400m team booking the London berth, which looks impossible.

M. R. Poovamma of Karnataka leads the bunch of ‘reserves’. She is no novice at this level having been part of the Indian relay teams in the past. She has a best of 53.87s for the 400m, clocked in Kolkata last year while winning the Open National title.

The men’s 4×400m relay team is also hoping to make it to the Olympics standard, though its task looks tougher than that of the women’s quartet. Just one man (Shakeh Mortaja) clocked a sub-47 last season; three did it in 2010.

Among the others, the performances of Asian Games champion Joseph Abraham (400m hurdles), Renjith Maheswary (triple jump) and Saurabh Vij (shot put)) will be keenly watched.

Abraham has not been in great form after winning the Asaid gold in Guangzhou. He had a best of 50.38s only last year. But he is capable of touching the Olympic standard of 49.80s. He has four career marks below that.

Renjith’s best last year was 16.09m in contrast to his National record of 17.07m for the bronze in the Commonwealth Games the previous year. Young Arpinder Singh (16.63m) became the new National champion last year and could be capable of stretching Renjith.

As is routine in Indian athletics, even in an Olympic year, enthusiasm is invariably missing for a season opener. With the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) stepping up its out-of-competition testing programme, and its team almost routinely camping at the National Institute of Sports (NIS), the prospective ‘dopers’ have naturally taken a step back.

Just four women’s events have been scheduled but there are doubts about even three or four athletes competing in those events.Source

Speaking from the British High Commission in New Delhi, Mr Osborne on Monday said that the Indian tax provision could hurt trade between the two countries.

“We are concerned about the proposed budget measure, not just because of its impact on one company, Vodafone, but because we think it might damage the overall climate for investment in India,” Mr Osborne told the Financial Times.

The bold comments made by Mr Osborne are likely to add further pressure on Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, and his coalition government, which has been tarnished by a series of multibillion dollar scandals and has failed to stimulate foreign investment.

India’s plans to amend laws relating to taxation of overseas acquisitions of domestic assets, which risks reopening a USD 2.9bn tax dispute settled earlier this year with Vodafone, has drawn harsh criticism from foreign investors already downhearted by the country’s unpredictable regulation.

The chancellor’s comments come after seven international trade groups, including the US-based Business Roundtable, the Confederation of British Industry and the Japan Foreign Trade Council, wrote a letter to India’s prime minister threatening to scrap future investments in the country.

“The sudden and unprecedented move in the Bill has undermined confidence in the policies of the Government of India toward foreign investment and taxation and has called into question the very rule of law, due process, and fair treatment in India,” said the industry group representing more than 250,000 companies.

“This is now prompting a widespread reconsideration of the costs and benefits of investing in India … Some of our member companies had already begun re-evaluating their investments in India due to increasing levels of controversy and uncertainty regarding taxation in recent years,” they added.

In January Vodafone won a supreme court case against India’s tax authorities, which had spent years pursuing the UK-listed telecoms group for capital gains tax the authorities claimed was due on its USD 10.9bn acquisition of Indian mobile operator, Hutchison Essar, in 2007. Legal experts say the new tax is designed to ensure that transactions between international companies with Indian subsidiaries are liable to pay domestic capital gains tax, in effect overturning the Supreme Court’s decision in January.

The UK chancellor said he had candidly conveyed his concerns to India’s finance minister, who introduced the tax measure in last month’s national budget.Source

In 2008, the Abu Dhabi United Group bought Manchester City for 330 million dollars, a historic team in English Premier League football which is over a century old. In 2010, Sahara India forked out 370 million dollars for Pune Warriors, a cricket team that didn’t exist till it was bought at an auction in a league that was just three years old. And that is the essential contradiction of the IPL, this lack of a context. It is the act of paying money which validates everything - from the worth of a player to the cost of a team to the value of the league. How do we know that Ravindra Jadeja is worth two million dollars? Because Chennai Super Kings bought him for that amount at this year’s auction.

What about the IPL itself? It was valued at 4.13 billion in 2010 by a branding consultancy (which presumably included its fees in the valuation). A year later, it was 3.67 billion. Is that true? We will know only if someone pays that amount to buy it out lock, stock and Chris Gayle’s bat. How do they arrive at these figures? Why not 8.98 billion, or 650 trillion? They are equally meaningless, after all. The Australian writer Gideon Haigh calls it “asset valuation plucked from thin air.”

Yet the IPL somehow survived its contradictions in the first four years. Court cases, the resignation of a Union Minister amidst allegations of favour-mongering, the sacking of the Commissioner Lalit Modi, who reputedly had four live cameras trained on him at every match, the scandal of the supine governing council and embedded television commentators, brought under one roof what the novelist Amitav Ghosh has called India’s national obsession, ‘Cripoliwood’ - cricket, politics and Bollywood.

Scandals worked well for the IPL, keeping it in the public eye. On February 4 this year, the day of the IPL auction (other sports have action replays, the IPL has auction replays), South African Richard Levi was a relative unknown, and went unsold. Then he made 117 in 51 balls with 13 sixes and a strike rate of 230 against New Zealand and suddenly became hot property. Mumbai Indians bought the 24-year-old.Source

India has taken this relationship to new heights in recent years, with scandals of all stripes being given an extra frisson of B-grade spy movie intrigue by the appearance of tapes that purportedly confirm otherwise he-said-she-said or he-said-he-said allegations.

The latest: Earlier this week, India’s army chief, General V.K. Singh, told a newspaper that he was offered a 140-million-rupee ($2.74 million) bribe to clear the purchase of substandard military vehicles. In the article he said nothing about having recorded evidence; he only said he had told Defense Minister A.K. Antony of the claim. Mr. Antony confirmed that and said he has referred the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation for a probe.

And before you could say “Hit Record,” the Press Trust of India reported that on Tuesday the CBI had received a tape allegedly containing an animated exchange between Gen. Singh and the person whom he claims tried to bribe him, a retired Army officer. Citing unnamed CBI sources, the PTI report said the tapes had not been authenticated.

The fact that Gen. Singh’s conversation was apparently recorded shouldn’t really be a surprise. Who can forget in the winter of 2010 the fact that what started a scandal over the 2008 second-generation telecom spectrum allotment shot off in hundreds of different directions – to the role of the media, to lobbying, to cocktail dresses and corporate honchos — with the release of the Radia Tapes.

“The state of the major (fighting) arms i.e., Mechanised Forces, Artillery, Air Defence, Infantry and Special Forces, as well as the Engineers and Signals, is indeed alarming,” Singh wrote in the letter.

Sandwiched between fellow nuclear powers China and Pakistan, India is the world’s top weapons importer. It is spending billions of dollars updating equipment purchased from Moscow in Soviet times, but it often takes decades to finalise contracts. Procurement has been slowed by corruption scandals.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony confirmed the existence of the letter and said it should not have been made public. Politicians from all parties reacted angrily and some called for the army chief’s resignation if he was found to be behind the leak.

“The government is determined to do all that is needed to continue to assure the safety and security of India,” Antony told parliament. “Publishing secret documents will not help the nation.”

In a rare show of unity, opposition parties rallied around the government, a sign of concerns about the army chief’s habit of challenging his civilian masters.

Earlier in the year Singh took the defence ministry to the Supreme Court after claiming he was a year younger than military records showed. He lost the case.

On Monday, he said he had been offered a $2.8 million bribe to buy faulty trucks for the army, an accusation seen as an attack on the defence ministry for not taking action on corruption in weapons procurement.

Better known for its cameras, the company is pinning its future on medical equipment and in particular diagnostic endoscopes in which it already controls about 70 percent of the global market.

“Without growth in our medical business, I do not think there will be a revival for Olympus,” Hiroyuki Sasa, the firm’s president-nominee and head of Olympus’s medical equipment marketing business, said at an event for the product launch.

It has survived has the $1.7 billion fraud case that surfaced last October in one of Japan’s worst corporate scandals, partly because its profitable medical business, which accounts for about 40 percent of total sales.

But the company has been unable to shake off criticism of its management, with foreign shareholders pressing their demands for an independent board.

Sasa, also an executive officer, was nominated by Olympus in February to become president and take over from Shuichi Takayama who has been sued by the firm for mismanagement.

Olympus also nominated a new board, including a former banker from its main lender Sumitomo Mitsui Banking as chairman.

But a group of foreign shareholders, who want a board free from the influence of the company’s creditors, demanded a more independent chairman.

“The proposed Chairman’s and certain other proposed board members’ close connection with Olympus’ main banks gives rise to a potential conflict of interest,” the shareholders, including Southeastern Asset Management and Indus Capital, said in an emailed statement.

“To accept a bank-led rehabilitation would be a setback, in our view, to the interests of shareholders, as well as to the earnest efforts of the Japanese Financial Services Agency and the Tokyo Stock Exchange to improve corporate governance standards in Japan.”

A regulatory filing showed last week that Southeastern had cut its stake in Olympus to 3.95 percent from 5.09 percent.

Foreign shareholders are worried that creditors could push Olympus into a big, dilutive sale of new equity, possibly to another Japanese company eager to gain some exposure to its profitable endoscope business.

Among firms rumoured to be interested in making a strategic investment in Olympus are electronics firms Sony Corp <6758.T> and Panasonic Corp <6752.T> and rival endoscope maker Fujifilm Holdings Corp <4901.T>.

The nominees for Olympus’s new management team are subject to approval at the firm’s April 20 shareholders’ meeting.

Here Comes the List For Scandals In India since years. It is really shameful for our country that India Scams cost For About Rs. 910603234300000/- .

Starting From 1948 till date this list contains almost all the scams taken place in India,and if missed out then the price can be increased further.God knows when will Indians understand their responsibilites.

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati: Swamiji has spoken about it in a scriptural context. What is going on in the West is that they are simply looking to rationalise things. The West is good at taking a piece of eastern philosophy - typically Hindu, sometimes Buddhist as well - totally out of context, turning it into something that works very well for their framework and then using that to justify how they want to live.

When I took sanyas, people asked: ‘India is the land of Kamasutra, why celibacy?’ When you talk to them about Indian spirituality, it only takes a few sentences before the subject turns to tantra and the Kamasutra.

It is interesting to tell them that India has sutras for everything. The body does a lot of things, it procreates, it goes to sleep at night, it moves, exercises and everything we do should become an offering to God. If there’s a right way of doing something, it doesn’t mean we do it all day long. The point is that if you are going to do something anyway, make it an offering to God.

Manouso Manos: Everyone is interested in this topic because it is provocative. Yoga began in the Bhagwad Gita. The Gita talks about the yoga of devotion and the yoga of karma; not once is sex mentioned. In the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, there is no mention of sex. But there is a mention of siddhis or certain powers; you start to get some understanding, some appreciation. Then some of the yoga moves sideways - understanding that comes from the loins and starts to move upwards. Is this all that yoga ever was? No. But it sells. Certain people will always be interested in yoga because of this aspect.

Mohan Bhandari: Tantra is the mother of Hatha Yoga. However, whatever is not convenient, Hatha Yoga has left it out. Hatha Yoga is the purified version of tantra. Today, the word ‘yoga’ is used with everything. You can sell anything with the yoga tag. If you want to practise tantra, then practise tantra, but don’t add the yoga tag to it.

Bookies also expect a business of around Rs75,000 crore during the

Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament, which starts on April 4, claim insiders who refused to be named.
They say that Vicky Seth, whose name cropped up in the recent match fixing scandal, is also accepting bets on the Asia Cup and is currently operating from India.

“Such a scandal does not affect our operations,” a bookie said.

Even the International Cricket Council (ICC) investigation would not affect business, he said, adding: “We work through mobile phones, and always use fake names.”

Rates for the IPL would be decided around four to five days before it starts.

“The major bookies will decide the rates after the IPL schedule is announced,” the bookie said.

He added that such scandals would also not curb attempts to fix matches. “It involves such big amounts that no inquiry deters match-fixers,” the bookie said.

Cricket involves an annual turnover of more than Rs1.5 lakh crore for bookies, he claimed. “During the world cup, another Rs50,000 crore is added to the turnover.”

According to the study conducted by global research firm Ipsos, 71 per cent of Indian surveyed said that corruption and financial or political scandals are their biggest worries.

Terrorism emerged as the second biggest concern for Indians (38 per cent), followed by crime and violence (34 per cent) and poverty and social inequality (31 per cent). As per the survey, these were followed by concerns related to unemployment and jobs (28 per cent), high tax rate (15 per cent) and healthcare and education (14 per cent).

Results from the Ipsos poll, conducted among over 18,000 persons across 24 countries, further showed that globally 49 per cent respondents termed unemployment and jobs as their biggest concern.

This was followed by concerns over poverty and social inequality, corruption and financial/political scandals, and crime and violence as the major concerns globally.

“India has been rocked lately by a series of corruption scandals that have embarrassed the government, rattled markets and delayed reform bills as the opposition stalled parliament and government was busy tackling agitation for strong anti- corruption Citizens Ombudsmen ‘Jan Lokpal’ bill lead by Anna Hazare,” Ipsos said.

“The country, 87th in Transparency International’s rankings based on perceived levels of corruption, is no stranger to scandals, thus it is not a surprise to see Indians are most worried about corruption and financial or political scandals,” it added.

The survey found that 45 per cent Indian respondents believe that things in the country were heading in the right direction currently, which is a big drop of 27 percentage points from a year back when the Indian economy was registering healthy growth in spite of global slowdown.

Kalmadi, who was released from prison on bail in January after nine months, had been arrested in April 2011 on charges of inflating tenders worth millions of dollars for equipment used at the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games which he was heading.

IOC vice president Thomas Bach said the issue was discussed at the Executive Board meeting but the IOC would not take any action as Kalmadi had effectively suspended himself.

“In the end he’s not in charge,” Bach told reporters. “So we won’t take any action.”

Kalmadi is a lawmaker who has been suspended from India’s ruling Congress party.

He has been replaced by acting president Vijay Kumar Malhotra as head of the Indian association (IOA) but has not resigned his post and is still the official IOA president.

Another immediate step is that the decision-making process has to start moving back to normal. In the last year or so, lots of decisions simply were not made because of corruption scandals - that was one of the most important reasons for this slowdown from about 8.5 per cent to 7 per cent. The Government machinery has to make its normal decisions rather than be in the fear that if it makes a decision there will be allegations the next day about corrupt decision-making.

Next, a lot of reform agenda has pretty much stalled through the last seven-eight years—the immediate one is a clear one, multi-brand retail foreign investment. Though there is single-brand 100 per cent direct foreign investment in retail, they put in a rider that 30 per cent of purchases have to come from within and from small and medium-scale firms. You have to be clean about it. Ultimately, you have to let companies and firms operate based on efficiency and competitive conditions. You see, Ikea [the international home products company] was going to come in, but they had to rethink because they weren’t sure whether they could source 30 per cent of their purchases from small and medium firms locally. So, the impact of a reform doesn’t really happen. I’m not sure if politics dictated this, or muddled-up thinking did. In any case, the commercial decisions should be left to commercial considerations rather than turned into social programmes.

The scion of India’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty tried over the past year to project himself as a man of the people. He dressed down and grew a beard to look more rugged as he campaigned tirelessly for the ruling Congress party in Uttar Pradesh, a vast state straddling the River Ganges that with 200 million people is more populous than Brazil.

“I want the mosquitoes to bite me like they bite you so that I can understand your pain,” the 41-year-old Gandhi told villagers at one of more than 200 election rallies in the state.

The strategy flopped.

Vote tallies last week gave Congress just 28 of the 403 seats at stake for the state’s legislative assembly, a miserable fourth place.

Gandhi’s performance was seen as a test of his fitness to take the reins of the party from his ailing Italian-born mother Sonia and eventually to become prime minister if Congress and its allies retain power in national elections due in 2014.

That made the result a stinging slap for India’s first family in the very state from which it rose as the beacon of freedom before independence from Britain in 1947.

It was also another jolt to a party that has come to define itself by the Gandhi family rather than ideology or political conviction.

The winner was the Samajwadi (Socialist) Party, a grouping founded by a former wrestler whose appeal does not extend much beyond Uttar Pradesh.

Congress has been humbled before by regional parties that are often more in touch with local issues, but Gandhi’s handling of the Uttar Pradesh campaign and his inability to even make a fight of it spells deep trouble for the party.

“The Congress party is in decline,” said Rashid Kidwai, who wrote a biography of Sonia Gandhi. “The problem with Congress is that they haven’t looked for leaders beyond the Gandhis. There is no think tank in the party, there are no big ideas anymore.”

For all the talk of the need for change, the party’s Pavlovian response has been to close ranks behind the Gandhis and insist there is nothing wrong with its strategy.

“Politically, he (Rahul) has taken responsibility for the poor performance of the party because he led from the front. That’s what leaders do,” said Sachin Pilot, junior minister for communications and a member of the Gandhi family’s inner circle.

The most important outcome from the five states which went to the polls will be from Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and its most politically significant where 200 million people live amid some of the most entrenched poverty on the planet.

Preliminary trends as reported by leading television networks NDTV and CNN-IBN showed the Congress party, which runs the federal government, trailing in fourth place, marking only a slight improvement from the last election in 2007.
The state polls are seen as an important test of popularity for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s scandal-tainted central government and what happens in Uttar Pradesh (UP) is regarded as a pointer to national politics, with general elections due by 2014.

Rahul Gandhi, the next in line in the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has dominated Indian politics since independence in 1947, has led campaigning there for Congress.
The 41-year-old presumed “prime-minister-in-waiting” faces the biggest test yet of his credibility as he looks to improve on the dismal record of Congress locally that stretches back 22 years.

The Indian Express said “there’s little doubt that the UP result will be seen as a verdict on the brand of politics that Rahul pushed (on the campaign trail).”
Success would energise his supporters and perhaps hasten his ascent to national leadership at a time when his mother Sonia, the president of the party, has been diagnosed with an undisclosed illness, rumoured to be cancer.

Failure will feed the doubters — and there are many — as well as interest in his sister Priyanka, whom some Gandhi loyalists still prefer.

“As the family has scripted it, this should be the age of Rahul,” concluded Outlook, a weekly news magazine, in a front-page article headlined “What if he fails?”

Even before counting began, the omens were causing concern. One exit poll published at the weekend indicated Congress was expected to increase its strength in the 403-seat state assembly from 22 to only about 50.

The firms targeted by the defence ministry included Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ltd, Switzerland’s Rheinmetall Air Defence, Israeli Military Industries Ltd and Russia’s Corporation Defence (CDR), the statement said.

“The firms were recommended for blacklisting by the Central Bureau of Investigation on the basis of evidence collected against them,” the statement by the defence ministry said.

The two other companies blacklisted were both Indian firms — RK Machine Tools Ltd and TS Kisan and Co Private Ltd, the statement faxed to AFP said.

No comment was immediately available from the companies named in the statement, which said those blacklisted cannot do business with the Ministry of Defence “for a period of 10 years”.

India froze deals worth $1.5 billion in 2009 with seven companies after police arrested a top defence ministry bureaucrat on charges he allegedly accepted bribes from the firms.

The firms were issued notices to show why action should not be taken against them in relation to the bribery case, the statement said.

“The decision to debar (the companies) was taken today after taking into consideration their replies,” the statement said.

Indian defence procurement has traditionally been an opaque business, marred by postponements, and repeated re-negotiations over cost and scandals.

An artillery bribery scandal in 1986 involving then Swedish firm Bofors AB led to the downfall of the government of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Broad, the author of a recent, much-hyped piece on how yoga can wreck your body comes back with another sordid story on the downside of all those down dogs, including a short history of yoga (how it started as a way to pleasure your body) and the science behind that pleasure (the postures and breathing can boost hormones and other brain chemicals to increase sexual arousal) and concludes that, well, it’s not surprising that sex and yoga are often deeply connected. My personal favorite: The concept of “thinking off.”

If it lets Vijay Mallya’s airline fail, however, the government will hurt state-run banks, which own about a fifth of Kingfisher’s shares and three-quarters of its $1.3 billion debt.

Kingfisher is struggling with fewer flights and pilots, staff demoralised by unpaid salaries, and outstanding dues to aircraft lessors, oil companies, airports and tax authorities.

It needs at least $400 million quickly to keep flying, figures Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), a consultancy . Mallya’s plans to raise funds through a share sale have been stalled and he has been lobbying the government to get state-run banks to lend more.

But a senior executive at State Bank of India (SBI), the lead lender to Kingfisher Airlines (KING.NS), said at the weekend it would not consider any fresh loans for the carrier until it raised new equity itself.

“Everything depends on equity infusion - how much comes in, whether that will meet the requirements,” the bank’s Deputy Managing Director, R. Venkatachalam, said in an interview on Saturday in his Mumbai office. “First it has to come.”

The fast clip at which the government has moved to change regulations in the past two months - airlines can now directly import fuel, lowering their costs, and private carriers can fly overseas more - has lifted expectations that Mallya may eventually win the help he needs from the government.

“India: Kingfisher’s national carrier,” one Tweeter quipped last week.

A government bailout for a private carrier would not go down well with the public in India, where airlines are still not the common man’s preferred mode of travel. Conscious of that, the government insists it is not looking to bail Kingfisher out.

Mallya avoids the bailout word too and, instead, says he is only asking for more working capital, which Aviation Minister Ajit Singh says is up to the banks to decide on.

However, late last year Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke of finding ways to help Kingfisher, which has led many to believe that in the end the government will come to its rescue.

The government, already weakened by a string of corruption scandals over the past year, will face further political heat if it tries to rescue a money-losing private carrier - especially one owned by a flamboyant liquor baron.

If it lets Vijay Mallya’s airline fail, however, the government will hurt state-run banks, which own about a fifth of Kingfisher’s shares and three-quarters of its $1.3 billion debt.

Kingfisher is struggling with fewer flights and pilots, staff demoralised by unpaid salaries, and outstanding dues to aircraft lessors, oil companies, airports and tax authorities.

It needs at least $400 million quickly to keep flying, figures Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), a consultancy. Mallya’s plans to raise funds through a share sale have been stalled and he has been lobbying the government to get state-run banks to lend more.

But a senior executive at State Bank of India (SBI), the lead lender to Kingfisher Airlines, said at the weekend it would not consider any fresh loans for the carrier until it raised new equity itself.

The 39-year-old, who was once regarded as automatic heir to his father Rupert’s media empire, has cut ties with Britain and its newspapers.

Parent company News Corporation said the move would enable him to focus on expanding its global TV business following his relocation to New York.

Mr Murdoch’s sudden resignation comes after months of fierce criticism over his handling of the scandal and repeated questions over just how much he knew about phone hacking at the News of the World.

The controversy has seen journalists arrested and the firm forced to set aside a £20million fund to pay damages to those whose voice messages were intercepted.

Although the move distances him from the firestorm that has engulfed his father’s UK newspapers, Mr Murdoch is expected within weeks to be criticised in a Commons culture, media and sport committee report.

Days ago the Murdoch empire was rocked again when the Leveson Inquiry was told of a ‘culture of illegal payments’ at the NoW’s sister paper, The Sun.

Earlier, the West Bengal chief minister had shocked everyone by claiming that the rape of a mother of two was a conspiracy cooked up to malign the image of her government.

But with criticism against her mounting and the police confirming that the rape indeed took place, the tempestuous politician has now done a volte face.

The CPM jumped at the opportunity and rapped Mamata over her “irresponsible” comments. Leader of the Opposition, Surya Kanta Mishra, said she had tried to influence the investigation by irresponsible statements even before verifying the truth.

“She often says that the law should take its own course. But when the time comes, she does exactly the opposite. If the CM herself gives such irresponsible statements, it is bound to impact the course of criminal probe into the case,” Mishra said.

After emerging out of a meeting with Mamata on Monday, Kolkata Police joint commissioner (crime) Damayanti Sen said the police had worked as a “team” to zero in on the culprits.

But will the Mamata Banerjee government now apologise for victimising the victim? Om Prakash Mishra, General Secretary, WBPCC, said, “Apology is the first step towards self-realisation. Her comments were unnecessary. The government shouldn’t have doubted the victim’s credibility. She was victimised even more. The government should say sorry to the victim.”

The statement came after the police managed to arrest 3 of the accused, who confessed to the crime. Sumit Bajaj and Ruman Khan were arrested while they were on their way to Howrah station to leave the state. While Naseer was arrested much later. The police have recovered their vehicle, a silver Honda civic. The gun, however, hasn’t been recovered yet.

Damayanti Sen, Joint CP (Crime), said, “We have found out that one person in the presence of others raped the woman. These persons used fake names and created confusion of identity. Our investigations have revealed that the persons whose names were taken were not present at the time of the incident.”

“The funny thing is that I have been raped, I have been assaulted, I have been victimised. And I am still being victimised,” the victim said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had claimed that the incident was a ‘fabricated story’ and intended to malign her government and blamed some TV channels for projecting it.

The woman had alleged that among the five who allegedly raped her in a car at gunpoint and threatened her while she was returning from a night club was Lavi Gidwani.

Police after investigating had found that Gidwani was in Canada since January 2, while two others were found to be elsewhere, which had prompted it to say that there were ‘inconsistencies’ in the woman’s statement.

The woman in her mid thirties and a mother of two children, had filed an FIR with the Park Street police station four days after the incident.

“I don’t know if rape was committed but if it has been, then whoever has done it deserves to be punished. I want to help police and if they want I can tell them whatever I know about him,” said Nusrat Jahan, claiming that she was in a relationship with Kadar Khan since her college days.

Three people, including the brother of Khan, have been arrested and remanded in police custody. Khan and one of his accomplices are on the run, police say.

The actress said she wanted to meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to discuss the matter as she felt there were some missing links in the probe into the case. Police are yet to talk to her about the incident.

“I know him for long, but I never felt he could commit such a heinous act. If I knew he could do such a thing, I never would have been in a relationship with him. I think there are missing links…I want to meet the chief minister because the missing links need to be discovered,” said the actress.

She said that she was trying to call Khan on his phone for the past few days but could not get through.
Khan’s family claimed that he had no reason to commit the offence as he was engaged to Jahan.

Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile phone carrier by revenue, said in a statement the tax authority’s review plea filed on Friday would be evaluated by the same judges, who it said had ruled “clearly and unambiguously” that no tax was due.

Vodafone, the largest overseas corporate investor in India, expanded into the Indian arena to balance out slowing growth in more mature European territories. Its unit in the country is the country’s second-largest mobile carrier by revenue and third-largest by subscribers.

The tax case win last month was seen encouraging foreign investments into India, at a time when the country’s image as an investment destination has taken a beating on slower economic growth and stalled policy reforms amid corruption scandals.

Sources have told CNN-IBN that the Prime Minister will now be consulted as this was a diplomatic matter. PMO sources say that by Saturday there will be some movement on the matter.

Sources also say that the advice of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) will be sought on the matter.

What has been causing the delay is refusal by the Italian ship crew to be questioned. The crew members were awaiting the arrival of a high-level team of diplomats from Italy to meet officials in Delhi and then advise them on the next step.

IG Internal Security, Kerala Police S Anand Krishnan said, “There is a problem about the jurisdiction. But we have registered a case under Indian penal code. Their authorities are claiming that the case should be pursued under international law. The exact spot is yet to established through technical corroboration. Will wait for diplomatic correspondence.”

The options with India are prosecution of the Italian ship crew as per law or the arrest of the guilty crew by forcing the ship to dock and entering the ship.

Sources also say that the Italian crew insists that India cannot take any action against them as they were in international waters, when the incident took place.

The Indian authorities say there is nothing to suggest that the fishermen were in the wrong in fact it appears the ship was reckless in opening fire. It used excessive force and violated standard anti-piracy protocols, a case of murder has now been filed against the six armed guards.

But now she is gripped with anxiety about the potentially harmful nature of the vaccine.

Her fears are not unfounded.

Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s populous Punjab province, is still reeling from the deaths of over 125 people who suffered an adverse reaction to Isotab, a brand of OPV distributed by the government-run Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) to a large number of cardiac patients.

Subsequent laboratory tests revealed that each tablet contained the antimalarial substance Pyrimethamine in quantities over 14 times the recommended weekly dose for malaria patients.

“I can’t afford to trust these people (with) my child’s life. The government’s inefficiency and the harms associated with free medicine are (dangerous) to us all,” Beenish told IPS.

The tragedy over the cardiac patients ignited severe criticism of the government from various corners of society.

The absence of a sufficient drug regulatory mechanism at the provincial level has also been dragged into the spotlight as a major health concern.

His own trade is in rosy red apples, laced with calcium carbide.

Bhim says he’s been adding chemicals to his apples for years to artificially ripen them after a long journey from the Himalayan foothills, despite being told that it causes cancer.

As far as he knows, no-one has ever died from eating his produce. So he can’t understand why the authorities are pestering him now, and why he has to pay so many bribes to keep his business afloat.

“This is an age-old practice, trust me, I know. But suddenly doctors are claiming that it causes cancer. Come now, how is that possible?” he said, wrapped up in a woollen grey cap and anorak on a chilly Saturday morning at the Azadpur Mandi market.

“Everyone still does it. The only difference is that it’s done very surreptitiously now. And let me tell you, it will never stop. Why would anyone want to harm their sales?”

An interview with a senior food safety official starkly illustrates just how far India has to go to enforce the regulations properly.

Besides, the BJP’s Surathkal wing (Mangalore North constituency) has started a drive ‘Palemar Abhimani Balaga’ for Krishna Palemar — one among the three former ministers who were caught watching “porn” in the Assembly. BJP would hold a mass meeting on Monday to redeem his lost image.

Meanwhile, the Dakshina Kannada unit of the party has started a publicity campaign against the detractors of Palemar, Lakshman Savadi and CC Patil. The BJP sent pamphlets to its various units, instructing them to portray Palemar as a “responsible MLA” who tendered his resignation after the controversy broke out.
BJP spokesperson Monappa Bhandari said Palemar’s act of resigning conformed to the highest standards of democracy. He added that the accused trio has requested the speaker of the Assembly to set up an inquiry and this shows them in good light.

The ruling party has dispatched pamphlets to the constituencies of Savadi and Patil too, stating that the party units should work towards establishing the “innocence” of the ministers and exposing the sex scandals of the Opposition parties.

The list of the Congress’s scandals include the escapades of former Andhra Pradesh governor ND Tiwari, former minister Nafeesa Fazal, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, Youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma and Congress leader Manu Sharma’s involvement in Jessica Lal case.

Advani, who blamed Congress chief Sonia Gandhi along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also praised Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy in his latest blog.

“If a comprehensive history of corruption scandals in independent India were to be written, I have no doubt that both in respect of the number of these scams as well as in terms of their financial dimensions and/or their gravity, no earlier government can out beat the stinking record of the UPA Government,” he said.

“This Government is headed formally by Dr. Manmohan Singh, but by now there is no doubt in any one’s mind that this government is actually run by UPA Chairman Smt. Sonia Gandhi, and Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh!” he added.

Advani also listed the “ten murkiest matters that come to mind”, starting with the cash-for-vote scandal of 2008.
Following in the list were the 2G scam, Commonwealth Games scandal, Quattrochchi case, Adarsh housing case, and appointment of Chief Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas.

He also counted the government’s failure to get back black money in foreign banks and tax havens, the continuing massive illegal immigration from Bangladesh into Assam and other northeastern states, the Telgi stamp paper case and the case of Hasan Ali, alleged money launderer.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress party, struggling against repeated accusations of graft and incompetence, faces elections starting next week in a key northern state that was once its stronghold and whose voters could set the tone for 2014 national polls.

The latest ruling can still be challenged in a higher court.

The accusations against Chidambaram relate to his position as finance minister in 2008 at the time of the corruption-tainted telecoms bidding.

It is the biggest of several scandals to have emerged during

Singh’s second term, denting India’s image as an investment destination and heightening concerns over policy when Asia’s third largest economy is slowing.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered 122 telecoms licenses issued under that 2008 sale be revoked.

Two ministers, including former telecoms minister Andimuthu Raja who presided over the 2008 grant process, have resigned. Raja is in jail awaiting trial.

Saturday’s court ruling also removes one major political weapon from the opposition which has been unrelenting in its attacks on the government over corruption. For most of last year, opposition parties have repeatedly blocked policy going through parliament.

Supreme Court on Thursday revoked 122 telecoms licences issued under a scandal-tainted 2008 sale, including 22 licences Telenor holds via Uninor, a joint venture with real estate firm Unitech.

Affected licence holders can operate for four months, during which regulators will come up with new market rules.

Asked whether Telenor should heed calls by several company investors and analysts to quit the Indian market now and cut its losses, Jon Fredrik Baksaas said: “That is one alternative that is on the table.”

“The ruling is a very serious attack on our investments, (which are) based on the licence framework that was spelt out in 2008,” the chief executive said in an interview.

“We met every inch of that regulation of that licence. We have brought competition to the Indian market … just to see a ruling that has significant retroactive consequences. It is an action that we have never seen in any country before.”

Several Telenor investors and analysts said on Thursday the Norwegian firm should exit India.

India is the second-largest cellular market in the world by subscribers, with 894 million at the end of December, although fierce competition means call rates are among the lowest, hitting mobile operators’ margins.

In a crutial verdict yesterday, the supreme court refused to order the CBI to investigate the actions of P Chidambaram who was Finance Minister when Mr Raja allegedly fathered India’s biggest swindle. That decision, Justice AK Ganguly and GS Singhvi said, must be taken in two weeks by the trial court that’s headed by Judge OP Saini.Source

The verdict will likely disrupt the country’s massive cellphone market and is a further embarrassment for the scandal-riddled government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The 2008 sale of second generation, or 2G, cellphone spectrum at cut-rate prices in a bewildering “first-come, first-served” process netted the government only 124 billion rupees ($2.7 billion). Government auditors said the sale might have cost the treasury as much as $36 billion in potential revenue.

The court ruled that the 122 licenses granted in that deal be scrapped and that a fresh auction for licenses be held in the next four months.

Analysts expect the new auction to raise an estimated 1 trillion rupees ($20 billion). That might be less than the spectrum would have garnered at the time because of the subsequent introduction of 3G technology here and the consolidation of the main market players.

Such a windfall would be welcome in New Delhi, which has been struggling with a growing fiscal deficit.

Telecoms Minister Kapil Sibal said the ruling at least would bring clarity to an industry that had been frozen because of investor wariness over the government’s policy.

But the verdict is also likely to serve as a chilling reminder to foreign companies about the complexities of doing business in India. Policy flip-flops and corruption scandals have made foreign investors increasingly skeptical about investing here.Source

The ruling applies to 122 licences held by eight operators including Norway’s state-backed Telenor which said it may quit India rather than wait for new market rules to be framed.

Fewer than 5 percent of users will, however, be affected by the cancellation of licenses in a fiercely competitive market crowded with more than a dozen players.

Market leaders such as Bharti Airtel and British-based Vodafone, which last month scored a big win when the Supreme Court ruled it was not liable for $2.2 billion in tax, are poised to benefit from the ruling.

The licences affected include those held by Unitech Wireless, a joint venture of Telenor and Indian real estate firm Unitech, which has been the most aggressive of the newer operators and had more than 36 million subscribers in the country as of December.

“We have been unfairly treated as we simply followed the government process we were asked to,” the Telenor joint venture, which operates as Uninor, said in a statement.

Asked whether Telenor should heed calls by several company investors and analysts to quit the Indian market now and cut its losses, chief executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas said: “That is one alternative that is on the table.”

“We met every inch of that regulation of that licence. We have brought competition to the Indian market … just to see a ruling that has significant retroactive consequences. It is an action that we have never seen in any country before,” Baksaas said in an interview.

Telenor shares fell 3.67 percent in Oslo.

Affected licence holders can operate for four months, during which regulators will come up with new market rules, the court said.

Freed-up spectrum will be auctioned, which could bring a multi-billion dollar windfall to a deficit-strapped government.

The ruling is an embarrassment for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government, which oversaw the sale of the licences at below-market prices, costing the exchequer as much as $36 billion in lost revenues and leading to political gridlock.

The telecoms scandal is the biggest of several that have emerged during Singh’s second term and triggered street protests last year.

“It is a historic judgment. It is trying to break a corrupt nexus between business and politics,” said political analyst Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, who was one of petitioners in the case.

Two ministers, including former telecoms minister Andimuthu Raja who presided over the 2008 grant process, have resigned. Raja is in jail awaiting trial.

While the ruling may revive investor worries about the uncertainty of doing business in Asia’s third-biggest economy, it could also build confidence in the role of the judiciary and broader efforts to crack down on corruption.

“This is one step closer to transparency in policy-making,” said Kamlesh Bhatia, research director at Gartner in Mumbai.Source