Former telecom minister Arun Shourie on Sunday stirred a controversy by claiming in a TV interview that he was replaced by senior party leader Venkaiah Naidu in Parliament as the BJP's lead speaker in a debate on the 2009 Budget so that the party could take a more accommodating line on proposals that could favour industrialist Mukesh Ambani. Referring to tapes of a purported conversation between lobbyist Niira Radia and JD(U)...
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2G scam sideshow: Netizens lambast high-profile journalists
The people are showing who the boss is. The weapon in their hands is the internet, which, in the last five days, has seen frantic activism against "power brokering" by journalists in collusion with corporate groups and top government politicians. It all began with the publication of sensational tapes related to the 2G spectrum scam by two magazines over the weekend. Two high-profile journalists, Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi, whose names...
More »The spotlight is on the media now by Priscilla Jebaraj
The Hindu MEDIA FOCUS: "Perhaps because of the large number of journalists involved in the controversy, most Indian newspapers and TV channels have not covered the Radia tapes at all." The Niira Radia episode raises questions about the boundary between legitimate news gathering, lobbying and influence peddling. The publication of taped conversations between Niira Radia — a lobbyist for Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata with a keen interest in the allocation of...
More »Unique facility, or recipe for trouble? by Jean Drèze
It is quite likely that a few weeks from now someone will be knocking at your doors and asking for your fingerprints. If you agree, your fingerprints will enter a national database, along with personal characteristics (age, sex, occupation, and so on) that have already been collected from you, unless you were missed in the “Census household listing” earlier this year. The purpose of this exercise is to build the National...
More »Black swan in micro-finance by Ajit Ranade
The SKS IPO and the Andhra Pradesh ordinance have suddenly changed everything. Will it be the death knell or will it usher in a reformed and healthy industry? There are three basic facts about micro-finance in India. First, most of what is described as micro-finance industry is actually micro-loans. There is hardly any provision of micro-savings, micro-investments, micro-insurance or micro-pensions. This is mostly because of regulatory reasons, i.e. accepting money...
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