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

BP Acharya, home secretary of Andhra Pradesh state, was arrested by federal investigators Monday. He was managing director of the state-run Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corp from 2005 to 2010 when it entered a joint venture with Emaar to develop luxury villas on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Acharya was charged with criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, misappropriation of government property and cheating.

Central Bureau of Investigation officials accused Acharya of involvement in reducing the state-run corporation’s stake in the joint venture, causing huge losses to the corporation.

Three others were arrested earlier in connection with the case. Acharya said he did nothing wrong.

His arrest came after a slew of financial scandals over the past two years involving government officials. They included a telecommunications licenses sale dating back to 2008 that has seen the arrest of 14 people, including a former minister and a retired bureaucrat.

Currently, licences to provide telecom services come with 4.4 MHz of start-up spectrum. Licences are issued on a first-come first-served basis and the operators have to pay

Rs 1,650 crore as one-time entry fee for pan-India licences. This messy linkage resulted in the 2G spectrum scandal that came in for criticism from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

Now, the telecom panel has approved an entry fee of Rs 20 crore for providing services throughout the country, with no guarantee of spectrum.

Currently, operators have to pay an annual revenue share of between 6% and 10% of their gross revenue as licence fee. For high revenue generating circles such as metros, Maharastra and Gujarat, the licence fee is ten per cent, while for low revenue generating circles such as Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, North East, the licence fee is 6% of the revenue. The commission has now set revenue share at a uniform eight percent.

The refarming of spectrum means existing operators means spectrum will be taken away from existing operators who will be allotted spectrum in the 1800 MHz band.

The 800 and 900 Mhz bands will be auctioned again.

The separatist rebels sprayed the voting booth with bullets, killing three election officials, a paramilitary trooper and a civilian in Thangpi, a village south of Manipur state capital Imphal, police chief Priya Singh said.

“The militants opened random fire,” Singh told AFP, adding two other people were hurt in the attack which came despite tens of thousands of security forces deployed in a bid to thwart attacks during the voting for a new assembly.

The rebels who staged the attack on the crowded polling booth in far-flung Manipur were believed to be from the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, Singh said, but added no group had claimed responsibility.

The voting in Manipur was the first of five assembly elections viewed as a mini-referendum for Premier Manmohan Singh’s embattled Congress coalition which is at the centre of a storm of corruption and mismanagement scandals.

National polls are due in 2014.

Tensions were already elevated in impoverished Manipur after five explosions in the run-up to the polls killed two people, along with rebel calls for a boycott of the election, police said.

India’s northeast has been wracked by deadly separatist insurgencies since the country’s independence in 1947. At least 30 ethnic rebel groups are active in highly militarised Manipur, a state of just 2.7 million people.

The voting in the states of Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Goa is being staggered through February and early March with the results to be announced in early March.

While regional issues will weigh heavily in the five elections, the polls are putting to the test not only the standing of Congress but also of 41-year-old Rahul Gandhi, tipped as a future prime minister.Source

India has been so deeply mired in political paralysis that the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen recently said that the country has ‘fallen from being the second best to the second worst’ South Asian country, and that it is currently ‘no match for China’ on social indicators. This is a damning comment on a country that held such promise just a short time ago.

In early January, the American social critic James Howard Kunstler described India as ‘a nation with one foot in the modern age and the other in a colourful hallucinatory dreamtime.’ Kunstler’s view is harsh, but perhaps prophetic: India’s ‘climate-change-related problems are doing heavy damage to the food supply. Their groundwater is almost gone. The troubles of the wobbling global economy will take a lot of pep out of their burgeoning tech and manufacturing sectors.’

Indeed, suddenly, India’s economy has begun spinning out of control. Last year, the country’s GDP growth slowed, manufacturing plummeted, and inflation and corruption grew uncontrollably. Elected and unelected government officials alike, including cabinet ministers, members of parliament, and civil servants, were implicated in corruption scandals. The situation triggered recollections of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s fraudulent call for a state of emergency in 1975, when she ruled by decree for 21 months, suspending elections and civil liberties.

The population’s outraged response to these events was visceral, and previously unknown figures such as the anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare rallied thousands of Indians in meetings across the country to protest against government corruption. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government floundered, the opposition vainly sought to gain the upper hand.

But, to ordinary Indians, this political gamesmanship appeared to be merely a farce - the blind pretending to lead the unsighted. Perhaps for the first time ever, India’s government failed to enact even a single piece of legislation, much less undertake any economic reforms, restore price stability, or address widespread civil disorder.

As the Indian business analyst Virendra Parekh has observed: ‘The second fastest-growing economy in the world now has the unenviable distinction of having the fastest falling financial markets in Asia.’ Moreover, ‘the fortunes of the rupee are….tightly linked with the euro, which is in the throes of an existential crisis…’ This has resulted in another, albeit unintended, consequence: ‘Unscrupulous politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen, who have stashed their illicit wealth abroad, are bringing some of it back,’ passing off the money as export earnings. Where corruption has been absent, incompetence has replaced it.

Furthermore, weaknesses in agriculture, energy, infrastructure, and governance have all contributed to India’s current crisis. For example, approximately a quarter-million Indian farmers have allegedly committed suicide over the last 16 years, despite unprecedented economic growth.

This statistic begs the question of why India continues to import foods and oils that could be produced domestically. Solutions offered by organisations such as the US-India Business Council or USAID do not address the problem’s roots, and the crisis will most likely continue in 2012. It is imperative that India invest in its agriculture, not only for economic reasons, but also because it is central to the country’s culture.

Another concern is nuclear power. In 2008, the United States and India agreed to a civil nuclear deal that would allow India to expand its nuclear-power capability. In 2010, India’s parliament passed the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, a precondition for activating that agreement. But, following Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, safety concerns surrounding nuclear power are large and mounting.Source

India’s wave of corruption scandals claimed its most respected casualty on Wednesday when the country’s top space scientist said he had been banned from government employment.

Madhavan Nair, former head of the Indian Space Research Organisation, has denounced an investigation into his conduct at the agency and launched a stinging attack on the Isro’s management, warning that it was being wrecked.

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Mr Nair, who supervised 25 space missions, is credited with helping to transform India’s space programme into a showcase for the country’s high-tech abilities. His efforts propelled India into a regional space race with China and Japan and earned him international recognition. He is now president of the Paris-based International Academy of Astronautics, a position usually held by American scientists, and chairs several government research committees.

The fallout over the space programme puts in jeopardy a highly prestigious programme at the heart of New Delhi’s claims to be a rising superpower.

India has in the past two years signed agreements with leading powers – including the US, Russia and France – to boost its activities in space. The space programme is a source of immense national pride; exploring space was a dream of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister.Source

The case of the politician is different. A jail experience, for whatever crime, is a badge of honour for the leader. There is no sense of shame attached to it. It leaves the politician with no stigma or the risk of social boycott. Instead, it adds to the aura of the person, making him/her bigger than earlier. Check the case of Kanimozhi, member of Parliament and daughter of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, who was in jail for her alleged involvement in the 2G spectrum scam for many months.

A near non-entity in the party before her role in the Kalaignar TV-2G scam connection hit the headlines and the court decided to keep her behind bars, she has now been elevated to the party’s top echelon, sharing the exalted space so far reserved for brothers Stalin and Azhagiri and of course, Karunanidhi himself. The party sought to make her release on bail an affair to remember and spared no effort to paint her as the victim-heroine.

The fact that he has been accused of involvement in serious scandals in the Games does not seem to worry many in the sporting establishment. It should not surprise if Kalmadi gets a rousing reception from supporters in Pune after his return and gets accommodated in the Congress organisation in due course of time. Just to remind you, both Kanimozhi and Kalmadi are out on bail. It does not mean acquittal by any stretch of imagination.

Why is a jail trip so different for politicians? It is turning out to be some kind of a pilgrimage which washes all taint on them. In all religious faiths pilgrimage holds high significance. It means purification of the soul of the sinner. All his vices are forgiven after the spiritual experience and he returns to ordinary life as a reformed person. Our politicians are giving a different interpretation to the exercise altogether.

A few decades ago, the generation of freedom fighters were proud to claim that they had suffered the jail experience during their struggle against the Britishers. It was a genuine badge of honour since it indicated that they had made some sacrifice for the country. They had a cause and were happy to fight for it and face the consequences. Cut to now. How everything has changed! Politicians go to jail on charges of corruption – it means cheating the country and its people of money – yet they put up a brave face. There’s no sense of shame at all in being treated as criminals.Source

Christine Lagarde, the former French finance minister who has been at the top of the fund since last summer, sat at the head of the oblong ring of seats in a conference room lined with portraits of past IMF managing directors, all of them men. (Her immediate predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, resigned in the midst of a sex scandal last May; his painting has yet to be put up.) Lagarde listened calmly as the 24 representatives of 187 different countries took in the bleak news, delivered by one of her key aides. Good, she thought. The staff, which has its antennae everywhere, told what the whole truth is. From her point of view, that made it a positive meeting. “Telling truth is our job,” she said. There is still time to prevent a second collapse, she believes. But not much time.

Lagarde’s mind was already turning to the speech she will deliver in Berlin this week, warning of dire consequences if Europe, America, China, and others do not find better ways to work together to stabilize the world economic system. Nobody at the fund wants to use the phrase “global depression”; instead, they talk about a “defining moment” or a “1930s moment.” But everyone knows what they mean: massive job losses, political unrest, chaos.Source

Instead the Hindu nationalist party, which began life appealing to the rising middle class, will go into state elections next month in March with opinion polls suggesting that it will struggle to do any real damage to the Congress-led government.

The reasons are myriad. But one key factor appears to be that the BJP is blamed, almost as much as Congress, for the political stalemate that has left parliament unable to operate properly, discouraged investment, hit business confidence and transformed India’s ambitious nine per cent economic growth target into something closer to 7 per cent. The stalemate is largely blamed on the dogfight between the two main parties.Source

Mr Kalmadi has been in jail since April. He is accused of conspiracy regarding the awarding of commercial contracts for the Games.

He denies any wrongdoing. The build-up to the Games was marred by allegations of sleaze and incompetence.

He was removed from his post in January last year.

The row over the Games is one of a series of corruption scandals that has rocked India in recent months.

Therefore, at the dawn of 2012, MSN India invited consumers to vote for the best and the worst of 2011 under the categories: Bollywood, Sports, leaders and the most admired women. Indians have voted up a storm and we have had a whopping 5.2 million votes!! The results are out, some are expected and some are massive surprises.

Though a tragedy for Rukshar Shah and her family, the diagnosis might otherwise have been unremarkable in India, which for years has been the world’s greatest exporter of the devastating disease.

But Rukshar’s polio may turn out to be the last case registered in the country.

Barring any 11th-hour detections - which cannot be ruled out, given the struggle to improve sanitation for the bulk of the 1.2 billion-strong population - India could be declared free of endemic polio in a matter of weeks.

Should independent analysis next month confirm what hundreds of participating scientists believe to be true, the achievement would mark not only one of India’s greatest public health milestones but also remove the biggest hurdle to global polio eradication.

It is a triumph of national and international co-operation, involving thousands of bureaucrats at local, state and national level, and hundreds more scientists and campaigners from the World Health Organisation, Unicef, US Centre for Disease Control, Rotary and Gates Foundation.

India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the last countries where polio remains endemic. If India can stay free of the disease for another three years then the entire WHO-defined Southeast Asian region could be declared polio-free, the fourth of sixth regions to be thus confirmed.

It is a rare piece of good news for India’s central government, facing the fallout from major corruption scandals, flagging economic growth and stubbornly intransigent figures on other health issues. But it has not come easily; the scope of the effort is mind-blowing.Source

In this regard former French President Sarkozy case of “$900 million deal of Agosta Submarines with Pakistan in 1994″ almost emerged as hallmark of global corruption. The French Investigating Authorities probed the said deal and proved that Sarkozy when he was a budget minister has signed the Agosta deal in 1994. Alleges stated that under the terms of the said deal, Pakistani officials would receive 338 million francs as a commission, while another 216 million would be added to the price of the contract and returned to Balladur’s campaign account as kickbacks.

Even Former President Nicolas Sarkozy has been implicated in an investigation into the circumstances behind a 2002 bomb attack in Karachi that killed 11 French people. Families of the victims have said Sarkozy should be summoned for questioning in the probe, which aims to clarify whether the attack was a reprisal against France for a decision to stop paying commissions on Agosta submarine sales to Pakistan or otherwise.

Similarly many American electric companies have also been alleged in smuggling of that devices equipment to India which was later on used in nuclear programme and missile technology. However, famous Bofors scandal till today is known as one of the biggest scandals in Indian politics. The scandal started when India decided to purchase 400 155mm Howitzers (fancy word for really-big-kickass-gun) from Swedish company Bofors AB for $1.4 billion in 1986.

In 1987 the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused of receiving kickbacks for this deal. Ottavio Quattrochi was a businessman close to the Gandhi family and a prominent man in the hallowed passages of Indian government. His name came up as the middleman in this deal. The Bofors scandal was huge. Rajiv Gandhi lost the 1989 elections due to the backlash of these allegations.

Although corruption is present almost in every country on various level, yet case of India is of special attention since the local level corruption has overridden the internationalized bribe or corruption.

In the end of last year, there was much uproar in India’s upper house between the Congress party led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the anti-corruption bill was postponed to be passed by the house. Three days after the fiasco, BJP said that Congress had been spreading “factually incorrect, false and malicious allegations” against it on the failure to pass the bill. BJP, while calling Singh, the weakest prime minister of India, again asked him to resign.Source

India’s anti-corruption protests have gone largely unreported and John Pilger’s recent article is an example. He gravely predicts that India will experience its own Arab spring and yet not once cites the anti-corruption protests rippling across the country.

With pervasive official corruption, sclerotic parliamentary opposition, an inept Prime Minister and an increasingly menacing financial class, the anti-graft movement faces a near Herculean struggle. But the new year marks new beginnings and now is a chance to reflect on the pertinence of India’s anti-corruption movement.

Anna Hazare, the movement’s elderly figurehead, and the anti-graft movement have returned to the political fore after the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s parliament, failed to pass an anti-corruption law. Parliament is now in recess and the bill will not be reconsidered until March. Hazare, who threatened to resume his fast in response, has fallen ill and amid claims of changing tack the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement has begun to stagnate. Yet the movement is, for several reasons, a strategic success.

Foremost, the IAC movement is a vindication of organised peaceful protest as an effective political tool. The movement has served as a lens through which focus on corruption has intensified and the pressure on parliament increased. Passing a LokPal (public ombudsman) bill has been tried seven times already since 1968. In the long and old fight to combat graft, the anti-corruption movement now dominates India’s political and popular discourse like never before. In a society so divided by capitalism, caste and creed the movement has become a rallying point.

Despite the actress insisting the shoot was “bold” but not nude, her father Malik Mohammad Aslam turned his back on his daughter.

In an interview at the time, he said: “I have disowned her.

Now, the brunette model has opened up about how the x-rated photos scandal has impacted on her relationship with her family.

Speaking to Alpha, Ms Malik vowed not to speak to her father until she has proved her innocence.

She reportedly said: “My father won’t speak to me on the phone right now. My mother told him I didn’t pose nude but he doesn’t want to listen.

“So I will not speak to him until I have proof in my hand that I did nothing wrong. Yes, I did a bold shoot but not a nude shoot.

The star, who caused a stir when she was reported missing amid the scandal last year, added: “My father knows the type of personality I have.

The scam involving millions of dollars is the latest in a string of scandals that last year triggered a nationwide civil protest movement against India’s deep-rooted culture of corruption.

“So far we have arrested a total of four people, three of them being former public servants,” said Dharini Misra, spokeswoman of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in New Delhi.Detectives have raided 60 locations over charges that some of a 10 billion rupees ($197 million) package of funds to revamp the state’s creaky health facilities was siphoned off.Source

Anna Hazare’s supporters, some of whom had pledged their lives to his cause, barely bothered to show up at his last hunger strike, which was called off after less than 36 hours. Government officials speak of him derisively. Hazare’s ultimate goal, legislation to create a powerful anti-corruption watchdog organization, is stalled in Parliament. Hazare himself is in the hospital, with doctors insisting on rest.

The man who dominated Indian TV news channels for much of the year now seems like an afterthought, raising questions about whether his following was ever as large as it was portrayed.

“The movement has run out of steam,” said Siddarth Mishra, a columnist for The Pioneer newspaper who has written extensively about the anti-corruption campaign.

At its August peak, tens of thousands of middle-class protesters turned out in New Delhi to support the former army driver, often wearing paper hats proclaiming “I am Anna.” The protests received relentless, often-breathless coverage by TV news channels. The anti-corruption campaign became a ratings bonanza, and some channels began calling on viewers to join the protests.

But in a country of 1.2 billion people, where protests that large are fairly commonplace, many now wonder if the Hazare phenomenon was more about television than reality.

“The media made it look very big,” Mishra said. “It provided for a lot of discussion on television but nothing beyond that.”

In the end, the movement had only one weapon: an elderly man who portrayed himself as a near-saint, compared himself to India’s greatest hero, Mohandas Gandhi, and threatened to die for his beliefs. For a time, those threats terrified the government, suddenly giving Hazare immense political power.

“His willingness to say he would die for this cause is what was so startling,” said Mukul Kesavan, a professor at Jamia Milla Islamia university in New Delhi. “But how often can a 74-year-old man starve himself to death?”

He believes, though, that the movement won’t disappear.

“I think they live to fight another day,” said Kesavan. “It will be interesting to see how they fight,” he said, and whether Hazare’s fasts remain the center of the campaign.

Certainly, corruption remains a deeply felt issue in India, where nearly everyone has been forced to pay a bribe at some point. Small bribes are often needed to get anything from a birth certificate to treatment in a government hospital. Political parties give and take bribes as part of the ever-shifting tides of India’s parliamentary alliances. For businessmen, bundles of cash delivered to powerful officials are needed to secure many government contracts.

In a wide-ranging briefing with journalists, Tata, who will retire in December as head of the Tata Group, India’s biggest business house, also said the steel-to-software conglomerate had paid a price for not participating in corruption.

Four years ago Tata Motors unveiled the Nano in what was seen at the time to be a crowning achievement for the silver-haired Tata, but sales have trailed far behind early expectations following a series of setbacks.

“We never really got our act together when the 100,000 were depleted,” he said, referring to the first batch of Nanos sold through a lottery system when initial demand exceeded supply.

“I don’t think we were adequately ready with an advertising campaign, a dealer network,” he said during a two-hour breakfast meeting with journalists on the first day of the India Auto Expo — the same event where a euphoric Tata and his Nano stole the show four years ago.

A rising price — the entry level Nano now costs 140,000 rupees (US$2,657), above the 100,000 rupees initially envisioned — as well as production delays, quality concerns following two voluntary recalls, and a stigma over the car’s “cheap” image have all dented demand.

“We’ve never pushed it as a poor man’s car. We pushed it as an affordable all-weather family car. Period,” said Tata, 74, who over two decades has built the Tata Group into an $83 billion conglomerate that generates two-thirds of its revenue outside of India.

While the Nano has failed to live up to expectations, Tata Motors’ $2.3 billion purchase of luxury car-marker Jaguar Land Rover in 2008 has exceeded them. CLSA recently upgraded Tata Motors to outperform on the outlook for the two British brands.

Asian Games double gold-medallist Ashwini Akkunji and her 4×400m relay teammates Sini Jose and Mandeep Kaur were among the dope offenders after being caught for using banned steroids in May and June.

They were handed one-year bans by a National Anti-Doping Agency panel, virtually ending their London Olympic dreams and more than that turning them into villains from stars they were last year.

The tainted athletes though had something to smile about as the panel ruled that there was no significant fault on their part as the banned substances could have entered their body from the contaminated food supplements given by their Ukrainian coach Yuri Ogorodnik who was sacked after the scandal.

Besides the trio, top quartermilers Priyanka Panwar, Jauna Murmu and Tiana Mary Thomas were handed reduced penalties of one-year bans while long jumper Hari Krishnan was banned for two years.

The dope scandal hogged the limelight in Indian sports this year and the sports ministry had to form a one-man committee under Justice Mukul Mugdal to probe into the whole episode that rocked the country in May-June.

The committee, however, is understood to have given a clean chit to the athletes, holding that they had consumed ginseng - a permissible supplement - contaminated with prohibited substances.

With Pakistan players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer in a British prison for conspiring to cheat for money during a London Test against England in mid-2010, the teams meet in the neutral United Arab Emirates for three Tests, four one-day internationals and three Twenty20s from January 17 to the end of February.

On arriving in Dubai on Tuesday, England captain Strauss said it was time to move on from one of the worst scandals in cricket history.

“I think its important that both England and Pakistan players put what’s happened before behind them and don’t have any preconceptions that this should be a difficult series,” Strauss said. “Let’s go out there and enjoy our cricket, play some really entertaining cricket; it’s bound to be highly competitive.

“We don’t want to see any flare-ups, we don’t want to see any off-field stuff happen. We want everyone’s attention to be on the field and if we’re able to do that then the game’s better for it.”

Strauss added they were happy to play whoever Pakistan fields, considering the inclusion of fast bowler Wahab Riaz and batsmen Umar Akmal and Imran Farhat, who were implicated in the spot-fixing trial but not charged.

Pakistan has played well since reaching the World Cup semifinals 10 months ago, beating Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in test series and drawing with West Indies.

England rose to the top of the test rankings after sweeping India at home last summer, but hasn’t played a test since August.

Besides the trio, top quartermilers Priyanka Panwar, Jauna Murmu and Tiana Mary Thomas were handed reduced penalties of one-year bans, while long jumper Hari Krishnan was banned for two years.

The dope scandal hogged the limelight in Indian sports this year and the Sports Ministry had to form a one-man committee under Justice Mukul Mugdal to probe into the whole episode that rocked the country in May-June. The committee, however, is understood to have given a clean chit to the athletes, holding that they had consumed ginseng - a permissible supplement - contaminated with prohibited substances.

Justice Mudgal’s report to the Sports Ministry is learnt to have said that the banned substances had entered the body of the athletes “accidentally,” through contaminated food supplements. The results of the tests done on the food supplements by the National Dope Test Laboratory established that they were contaminated with banned steroids.

On the international scene, India did not have much to show as their athletes expectedly failed to win a single medal in the World Championships in South Korea while they did a decent job in the Asian Championships in Japan. Discus thrower Vikas Gowda and long jumper Mayookha Johny reached the finals, but finished seventh and ninth respectively.

Mayookha was also the lone gold medal winner in the Asian Athletics Championships in long jump as India won 11 medals (one gold, two silver and eight bronze). Mayookha grabbed her second medal - a bronze - with a new national triple jump record of 14.11m.

In a statement on New Year, Mr. Advani said the inability of the government to push through the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha had rendered Manmohan Singh a lame duck Prime Minister.

The BJP leader described 2011 for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) as annus horribilis (horrible year) as the Congress-led government found itself in the quagmire of one corruption scandal after another, each of which robbed it of its legitimacy to rule.

Mr. Advani maintained that mired in corruption scandals, the government exhibited ‘arrogance, ineptitude and deceit’ in equal measure in dealing with the demand for a strong, independent and effective Lok Pal.

Targeting Dr. Singh, the senior BJP leader contended that since Independence not once did an incumbent government invite such ignominy upon itself because of the virtual evaporation of responsibility on the part of the Prime Minister.

“The fraud on democracy, which the nation witnessed on the night of December 29, was unprecedented. At a time when India expected honest transparent leadership from the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh chose conspiratorial silence and acquiescence.”

The Pakistani model at the center of the FHM India naked cover girl row, who was reported missing on Friday has turned up safe in a hotel in Mumbai, India.

Veena Malik, who posed nude for the Indian version of FHM magazine, apparently vanished last week, causing her manager, Pratiek Mehta, to report her missing.

The actress was supposed to be in Hyderabad on Sunday for a fashion show for designer Riyaz Gangji. But India’s Central Bureau of Investigation did not allow her to leave Mumbai.

A citizen from Pakistan needs to have a visa to visit another city. In Veena’s case, Riyaz did manage to get her a visa to come to Hyderabad for the show but was not allowed to leave Mumbai.

Her manager also got worried when the actress did not turn up for her shoot. The actor has been untraceable since December 16 and hasn’t been in touch with family and friends ever since.

The model-turned-actor was shooting for a Bollywood horror film, “Mumbai 125 km”, at Film City in Goregaon. Mehta said that Malik left in a car after pack-up on Friday and has not been reachable since.

She was supposed to report at Film City (Mumbai) on Saturday morning but did not turn up. Her mobile phone is also switched off and no one has been able to reach her for over two days.

Pakistani media have been reporting that Veena Malik has gone back home through Wagha border. She returned home clad in burqa to avoid fuelling further controversy. According to Pakistani TV Network Geo TV, the actress secretly returned to her home country to renew her visa.

Despite all such reports designer Riyaz confirmed to the Indian daily The Times of India that the actor is in India.

He spoke to the actress who seemed very depressed about the entire nude shoot scandal. She also apologised for her absence from his show. Riyaz also disclosed that she has been getting threatening calls, emails and someone has filed a case of indecency against her.

The problem isn’t opportunity, he said. It’s India.

“Every large investment, there was no transparency,” Piramal said.

His dilemma is a worrying sign for India. With the country mired in corruption, bureaucratic red tape and unclear and changing government policies, many of the men who made their billions here are saying maybe it’s time to quit India. It’s got to be easier to do business elsewhere.

In May last year, Piramal’s healthcare business sold its generic drug operations to US pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories for $3.8 billion. Piramal, a tall big man in a country that still measures prosperity by girth, was eager to set that cash pile to work. He wanted to expand one of his chemical plants, but was told it would take five years.

“The same plant could be set up in China in two years,” he said. “I love India, but my customer is not going to wait.”

India, still a beacon of relatively fast growth despite a troubled world economy, should be a magnet for capital. Instead, since the beginning of 2010, the amount that Indians have invested in businesses overseas has exceeded the amount foreigners are investing in India, according to central bank figures.

In part this reflects the confidence and aptitude of India’s maturing companies and the current malaise in the global economy and financial markets. But it also reflects deep problems at home. India’s big coporations may be cash rich but the failure to invest that money domestically is bad news for a developing country that needs capital to build the roads, power plants and food warehouses that could help lift hundreds of millions out of dire poverty.

Indeed, movies are made of such stuff. So while Malik’s manager, Pratiek Mehta, has informed the Bandra police in Mumbai on Saturday and is waiting for another 24 hours before filing a missing person’s complaint, the Pakistani actor and model in question is apparently on roadtrip.

The paper claims that Malik entered Pakistan through the Wagha border crossing, between Amritsar, India and Lahore, Pakistan, the latter being the controversial queen’s hometown.

Allegedly, Malik’s 45-day Indian visa was set to expire, and so had to return to Pakistan to have it renewed in order to finish shooting her new film, “Mumbai 125 Kilometre”.

The newspaper quotes sources as saying that she wore a burqa in order to maintain secrecy but it is possible that the border guards failed to recognise her considering her passport lists her name as Zahida Malik rather than the stage name of Veena Malik that she goes by.

The model-turned-actor was shooting for a Bollywood horror film, “Mumbai 125 km”, at Film City in Goregaon. Mehta said that Malik left in a car after pack-up on Friday and has not been reachable since.

She was supposed to report at Film City (Mumbai) on Saturday morning but did not turn up. Her mobile phone is also switched off and no one has been able to reach her for over two days now.

Her manager, Mehta, told the Times of India: “Even if she was planning to go home, Veena would have told me. I got a call from her at 5.30am on Friday, but I couldn’t speak to her.

Meanwhile, many from the Bollywood fraternity think this could be the case of a tragic story of a Pakistani girl being victimised because of her daredevil attitude.

Malik has been in news for the past few weeks because of thenude shoot controversy with an Indian magazine.

Malik created a storm after she posed nude for FHM India. The image shows her posing nude, with “ISI” tattoo on her arm.

The actress has accused FHM of morphing and using the image without her consent. She sued the magazine and was counter sued.

She later admitted to the shoot and confessed going topless. But she reiterated that she just went topless but not nude.

She also admitted that it was a bold step on her part but she was not ashamed of what she has done.

Critics of the legislation have long said it falls short of adequately empowering the watchdog agency it would create, including a Lokpal, or citizen ombudsmen to address graft issues.

Meanwhile in Mumbai, the elderly crusader, who brought the corruption issue to the fore, fell ill while keeping to a hunger strike to protest the weakness of the proposed legislation.

Supporters of a frail Anna Hazare urged him to call off his fast, which he said would last as long as parliament debated the bill. Tuesday night, ambulances arrived at the Mumbai commercial complex where Hazare was staging his fast, ready to transport the 74-year-old to a hospital.

“There are some very special moments in the life of a nation. This is one such moment,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said during Tuesday’s debate on the bill.

“Others can persuade and have their voices heard,” he said, alluding to Hazare. “But the decision must rest with us. … We have seen how public anger has manifested itself in the last one year. Let us, therefore, endorse this bill as proposed.”

But opposition leaders said Singh was leading a corrupt party — Congress’s reputation has been marred by scandal — that had put forth a weak anti-graft bill.

In a new Transparency International survey published last week, 64% of Indians said they paid a bribe to police, the highest corruption rate of any institution. And less than a quarter thought their government’s efforts to fight corruption were effective.
One point of contention in the proposed legislation is that it excludes the Central Bureau of Investigation from the purview of the Lokpal.

“Without an investigative agency, what is the purpose of Lokpal?” Hazare said in a December 17 letter. “It’s better we don’t have such a Lokpal.”

Corruption has been a part of daily life in India for many years. But it was a series of high-profile scandals that rocked the current administration and investor confidence in Asia’s third-largest economy.

In April, a former government minister in India was among a dozen defendants charged in a multibillion-dollar telecom scandal.

The things people do for five minutes of fame, and this aspiring model milked it for all its worth by promising to strip down to her birthday suit if Team Blue won the World Cup. She even wrote to the sport’s governing body, BCCI, requesting permission to treat the boys in the locker room, but naturally, she was denied the honour.

But the notoriety was enough to secure her a spot on the hit reality TV show, “Big Boss 5”, along with garner a larger fan following with some scandalous images on her Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Up until two years ago, India enjoyed a luminous presence at the World Economic Forum, trumpeting its imminent elevation into the orbit of double-digit GDP growth, and hosting sparkling parties that showcased the sensory delights that India is justifiably famous for. ‘India Everywhere’ was the Indian delegation’s brand message a few years ago, soft-selling the country as the world’s next big economic superstar with the promise of untold riches for foreign investors who were then lining up in droves.

But after a year in which the Indian growth story collapsed spectacularly under the weight of economic mismanagement, when the hangover of monumental corruption scandals induced a policy paralysis in government, and when an already fractured polity descended even lower into the depths of discord, foreign investors have so lost their appetite for India that our brand message at Davos this year might more honestly be “India Nowhere”.

“The year 2011 will probably go down in history as the year of the perfect storm for India,” notes CLSA senior economist Rajeev Malik. “Whatever could go wrong, did go wrong.”

It was the year when India lost the plot – and its nerve.

Ironically, it was a year in which, Malik reasons, India had an opportunity to stand out globally – not necessarily by doing many things right, but merely by avoiding wrong moves.

Things went so horribly wrong in the US (which endured a sovereign rating downgrade and a political gridlock), the European Union (which survived from day to day) and China (a shadow loan crisis that belies heady topline GDP growth) that India merely needed to chug along to come out looking relative better.Source

“The Nation” is the latest to report that Malik has in fact crossed the border into Pakistan to renew her 45-day Indian visa under the guise of a burqa.

Indeed, movies are made of such stuff. So while Malik’s manager, Pratiek Mehta, has informed the Bandra police in Mumbai on Saturday and is waiting for another 24 hours before filing a missing person’s complaint, the Pakistani actor and model in question is apparently on roadtrip.

The paper claims that Malik entered Pakistan through the Wagha border crossing, between Amritsar, India and Lahore, Pakistan, the latter being the controversial queen’s hometown.

Allegedly, Malik’s 45-day Indian visa was set to expire, and so had to return to Pakistan to have it renewed in order to finish shooting her new film, “Mumbai 125 Kilometre”.

The newspaper quotes sources as saying that she wore a burqa in order to maintain secrecy but it is possible that the border guards failed to recognise her considering her passport lists her name as Zahida Malik rather than the stage name of Veena Malik that she goes by.

The model-turned-actor was shooting for a Bollywood horror film, “Mumbai 125 km”, at Film City in Goregaon. Mehta said that Malik left in a car after pack-up on Friday and has not been reachable since.

She was supposed to report at Film City (Mumbai) on Saturday morning but did not turn up. Her mobile phone is also switched off and no one has been able to reach her for over two days now.

Her manager, Mehta, told the Times of India: “Even if she was planning to go home, Veena would have told me. I got a call from her at 5.30am on Friday, but I couldn’t speak to her.

Meanwhile, many from the Bollywood fraternity think this could be the case of a tragic story of a Pakistani girl being victimised because of her daredevil attitude.

Malik has been in news for the past few weeks because of thenude shoot controversy with an Indian magazine. Source

Film stories are made of the intrigue that followed with Malik accusing the magazine of photoshopping her bikini off to make her seem nude, while the

magazine has denied such accusations.

She was quoted in the media as saying: “The things I have done in life, I have the guts to stand by.

“This is my body, and I will take advantage of it if I want to. And it’s a very beautiful body. But I will not allow any man out there to morph my pictures and put it on the cover, just to sell their magazine. They are gaining. I’m losing.” Source

As the Veena Malik scandal has drawn the criticism of other actors and Pakistan officials, it has also drawn plenty of criticism from one particular community. Basically, the “fatwa” was issued by the All India Muslim Tyohar (Festivals) Committee, according to Times of India’s recent report. The order has ex-communicated Malik for “objectionable” images on various websites. In addition, it was done because she has degraded “nikah,” which is a sacred institution. They feel Malik has done this since she has signed a contract for a reality TV show where she’ll find a groom.

Ausaf Shahmiri Khurram, the chairman of Majils-e-Shura, has commented about complains their All India Committee was receiving about Malik. Khurram said:

“We were getting complaints from concerned community members who said that the activities of this Pakistani female actor was sending a wrong message to our teenagers, especially girls.”

So because of all this they will be boycotting Malik, and she’ll no longer be “entertained” by members of their community. Khurram added:

“The extreme step has been taken because the woman has openly revolted against the tenets of Islam and Prophet Mohammad. You are a Muslim only if you follow the rules of the religion. She has made a laughing-stock of the community. The social boycott became necessary to stop our community girls from following her example.”

Does she deserve all of this “treatment” after posing for FHM India and agreeing to go on a reality show? This probably seems extreme, but it coincides with the religious beliefs of the community. In the United States, it seems celebrities get away with a lot more. Even when parents might complain about Miley Cyrus or Kim Kardashian, or any other “celeb,” they are rarely “ex-communicated” by the Pope or any other religion in America. However, Malik is from Pakistan, where the rules and government are quite different. She has now been disowned by her dad, and ex-communicated by a community. Talk about a controversial actress and model! One has to wonder if the price of fame will outweigh all of the consequences of getting the fame.Source

Bhagwati, presently senior fellow in international economics at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations, said this in the presence of Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who was in the dock in October over a finance ministry note that said he could have prevented the 2G allocation by insisting on its auction.

The 2G scandal has resulted in then communications minister A. Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and telecom honchos being arrested after their arrest by the CBI. While Kanimozhi and most of the others were granted bail, Raja and another accused are still in prison.

“If the market-using reforms had been used in allocating the 2G spectrum by auctioning it off, the scandal would not have arisen,” Bhagwati said, delivering the 24th Intelligence Bureau (IB) Centenary Endowment Lecture. He was speaking on ‘Designing Institutions for Governance Reform’.

Bhagawati also said it was distressing for all thoughtful Indians to witness the “gargantuan” 2G spectrum scandal and the “spectacular” Anna Hazare agitation that it triggered.

“It has been distressing for all thoughtful Indians to have been witness recently to gargantuan 2G spectrum scandal, the spectacular Anna Hazare agitation that it triggered, the unedifying spectacle of even the prominent civil society leaders stooping to abuse one another, the near-paralysis in the Lok Sabha that it has accentuated, the continuing inability of the government to advance the reform agenda exemplified by the inept political handling of the now-shelved retail sector initiative by the UPA government and much else,” he said.

Tracing the history of economic reforms initiated by the Congress government in 1991, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the finance minister, Bhagwati said it had rescued India from this self-inflicted fate.

“But pretty soon, corruption spilled over in the deteriorating moral climate to lower-level bureaucrats who began to charge money to do what they were supposed to do.

“That brought in the common man who had to pay bribes to get a birth certificate, a death certificate, a caste certificate, a ration card, and other certificates, which are necessary for one’s well being.

“There is little doubt that masses of citizens who were fed up with this predatory behaviour were flocking to the Hazare movement,” he added.

It was in response that the UPA government in the last few weeks to both types of corruption by introducing a blitzkrieg of legislations — such as the protection of whistle blowers, the Lokpal Bill and the Judicial Accountability Bill — that are of the “adaptation” variety, Bhagwati said. Source

Sexy model and actress Veena Malik is recently famous for her nude FHM cover photo complete with “ISI” tattoo made famous online. She claimed that she never posed fully nude, only topless, while the magazine and the shoot workers have said otherwise.

First, there was the nude Veena Malik scandal over her alleged photos on FHM India. That was followed by lawsuits, public outcry, threats, and suggestions she had fabricated the whole controversy. Then within the past week, there was a new scandal—that she had gone missing in Mumbai. People weren’t sure whether to worry or shrug it off as another stunt.

It seems that Veena is frustrated with the way she’s being portrayed by the media. However, as Times of India mentions, Veena is “controversy’s favourite child.” She basically got herself into the Bollywood industry through various controversies. Then again, that’s the way it’s been done for many reality TV stars and even movie stars in America, so why wouldn’t Bollywood start using the idea? It seems Veena Malik is looking to cash in on fame however possible, and it’s probably best to do it while she’s at the height of her “scandals” or “controversies.” At least right now she’s got everyone’s attention, but who knows if she will several months from now!

It was being reported that Veena Malik was missing after she wasn’t seen at a film shoot location she was on over in Mumbai, India. However, some had speculated that this was yet another publicity stunt by the actress/celebrity/spotlight-stealer. Fans were skeptical of her actually being missing, and even now are still making it known on Twitter.

Of course there are many who are sick of hearing about Malik when there are much more important stories to talk about. Member @maryampiracha tweeted:

“Why are we still talking about Veena Malik? Aren’t there more important issues out there? Come on, Pakistan’s full of them. Pick one.”

It’s true, Veena Malik has managed to continually drum up the attention for herself with topless or nude FHM photos, lawsuits, comments to the press, reports of threats, and the latest story about her missing in Mumbai. Maybe the actress needs to go the way of Kim Kardashian. No, not necessarily a sex tape, but a reality show, followed by a filmed marriage, followed by a divorce weeks later!

Malik’s father, Malik Mohammad Aslam, told the daily Mirror in London in what the daily described as an emotional outburst that he has disowned her.

“I have severed all ties with her and I don’t want her to have any share in whatever meagre assets I have until she is cleared of the controversy and pledges not to visit India again,” Aslam was quoted as saying by the daily.

Aslam, a retired soldier, has made it clear that he does not support his daughter’s decision to pose naked on the cover of the For Him Magazine with the letters ISI stamped across her forearm.

Malik has sued the magazine for millions of dollars, accusing it of publishing photos she says were doctored to make her appear nude, her lawyer said. Malik’s racy photo shoot in the December issue of FHM India has triggered a fury across her conservative Islamic country, where a nude photo shoot is nearly unthinkable.
In a photo posted on the FHM Web site, Malik is shown wearing no clothing, but with her arms and legs discreetly positioned to keep her covered. Her lawyer, Ayaz Bilawala, denied the photo was authentic. He sent notice to the magazine and was filing papers in the Mumbai High Court demanding all copies of the magazine be removed from newsstands.

The suit was also seeking 100 million rupees in damages. FHM India editor Kabeer Sharma insisted the photos were authentic.

Four giants of corporate India have been charged with conspiracy and cheating in relation to their ownership of a stake in Vodafone, in a further twist of the multibillion dollar telecoms scandals that have rocked the subcontinent since early this year.

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has filed charges against three senior figures at the Essar Group and the head of Loop Mobile. The CBI says it was illegal for Essar to have a controlling stake in Loop while also holding a stake in Vodafone.
Lawyers at the special CBI court in New Delhi told the FT charges had been levelled against: Ravi Ruia, vice chairman of the Essar Group (pictured), Anshuman Ruia, an Essar Group director, Vikas Saraf, chief executive of Essar Telecommunications, and IP Khaitan of Loop Mobile. In a subsequent statement, the CBI said five individuals and three companies had been charged , without naming them.

Essar said it denied all charges and would take legal recourse. It also said the CBI’s action was vindication of Essar’s stand that it had no involvement in the 2G scandal over alleged fraudulent allocations of licences that an official audit said had cost the country $39bn.