Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Big business ammunition fires Kejriwal's guerilla war: Narayana Murthy tops list of India Inc. donors for activist's trust-Saurabh Shukla

Big business ammunition fires Kejriwal's guerilla war: Narayana Murthy tops list of India Inc. donors for activist's trust-Saurabh Shukla

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Nov 4, 2012   modified Modified on Nov 4, 2012
-Mail Today
 
THE edifice of Arvind Kejriwal’s guerilla war on politicians and big business has been bankrolled by corporate big wigs who donated to his Public Cause Research Foundation.

India Against Corruption, which has unfurled the banner of revolt against all- pervasive corruption, actually draws its lineage from Public Cause Research Foundation.

And if you were wondering where the movement got sustenance from, strangely it came from a combination of businessmen and bankers.

They provided the ballast to an anti- corruption movement which permeated the national consciousness.

Kejriwal and his India Against Corruption colleague Prashant Bhushan through phone and SMS but they were unavailable.

Manish Sisodia, Kejriwal’s close associate and Public Cause Research Foundation trustee, said, “ Some of the corporate leaders like Narayana Murthy have actively supported us.

He had some good ideas and took active interest besides his financial contribution and was also a jury member on our RTI awards.” Public Cause Research Foundation’s balance sheet accessed by M AIL T ODAY shows Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Co got ` 96.5 lakh from pre- eminent names in the world of business and finance. For starters, Bangalore- based infotech czar and one of the Infosys founders N. R. Narayana Murthy made a personal contribution of ` 12 lakh in 2010- 11. Top of the line, Mumbaibased stock broking firm Enam Securities owned by Vallabh Bhansali gave a contribution of ` 2 lakh while Tata Social Welfare Trust came forward with a cheque of ` 25 lakh. Vikram Lal of Eicher gave a cheque of ` 3 lakh from his Eicher Goodearth Trust and Nimesh Kampani’s JM Financial Foundation provided ` 50,000.

Other contributions came from IndusInd Bank boss and top banker Romesh Sobti who earlier headed ABN AMRO Bank in India.

He pitched in with ` 25,000 while Religare Enterprises CEO Shachindra Nath gave ` 20,000. The list is long and it features Sanjiv Bikhchandani of naukri. com who gave ` 50,000. The Bangalore- based Kasturi Trust provided a corpus of ` 25 lakh to Kejriwal’s foundation.

Jagan Nath Gupta Memorial Education Society that runs several management institutes across the country gave a donation of ` 13 lakh. The courier company Safe Express gave ` 1 lakh while top law firm Luthra and Luthra Law office provided ` 50,000. Circa 2011 was critical for Kejriwal and the Jan Lokpal movement as that was the year when the defining Anna Hazare Ramlila Maidan agitation took place.

Public Cause Research Foundation, which received these donations, is a Delhi- based NGO that was founded on December 19, 2006 by Kejriwal, his IAC associate Manish Sisodia and TV producer and writer Abhinandan Sekhri. All of them became well known faces in the war that has been waged by civil society against the political class. The website says the the NGO’s aim is to ‘ ensure that our society becomes more inclusive and real power rests with the common citizens of India.’ In fact, Kejriwal’s struggle has evolved from what began as a people’s movement to a shoot- and- scoot type of guerrilla war where charges are aggregated and the media is left to ratchet up the information flows thereafter.

Kejriwal donated the prize money of his Magsaysay Award as the main corpus to fund the NGO. Besides Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi are the other trustees of the foundation.

The audited report of the NGO says, “ During the year, the trust has also taken up a new activity namely IAC.” The funding seeded the Jan Lokpal campaign which was spearheaded by Public Cause Research Foundation besides some of Kejriwal’s other NGOs. At the heart of his direct democracy campaign is complete decentralisation. It goes much further than Panchayati Raj ‘ areas’, each consisting of only 3,000 voters. These voters will constitute the ‘ area sabha’ and will have complete administrative control over all civic services. The area sabha will have the right to demand financial resources from the government.

The area sabhas will have punitive powers over government officials and will be able to appoint, dismiss and withhold salaries.

In 2012, the Public Cause Research Foundation received ` 31 lakh in donations to its general fund. Interestingly, while the details of the donors for 2012 are not available in its audit report, Kejriwal’s men also acknowledge that not all their donors, who gave them cheques proved to be genuine.

They were also saddled with several cheques which bounced.

Mail Online India, 3 November, 2012, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2227479/Big-business-ammunition-fires-Kejriwals-guerilla-war-Narayana-Murthy-tops-list-India-Inc-donors-acti


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close