Illegality in India today touches almost every economic activity. It is both systemic and systematic. The Indian ruling class faced its severest crisis of credibility in 2010. Its past caught up with it and skeletons and scams were spilling out of its closets. The scams have a symbiotic relationship with the black economy. The number of scams is growing and so is the size of the black economy, which has reached...

Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat on Sunday repeated the demand for the setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the 2G spectrum allocation scam, saying that the issue needed to be investigated on a canvas larger than the Comptroller and Auditor General's “limited” inquiry. Considering the gravity of the irregularities, a “wider and comprehensive” probe was required into the 2G spectrum allocation, Mr. Karat...

There is nothing sinister or diabolic about Union minister Kapil Sibal’s latest argument regarding the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India pertaining to the loss to the exchequer from 2G telecom licences in 2007. The basic argument pertaining to the erroneous notion of “presumptive loss” has been made before and Mr Sibal’s arithmetic is credible. Too much need not be made about this being a ministerial...

Accusing Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal of “trying to whitewash” the 2G spectrum allocation scam, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat on Sunday said that the people of India would not buy the Minister's argument that the Comptroller and Auditor-General's (CAG) finding on the loss of Rs.1.76 lakh crore was “utterly erroneous and without any basis.” “Now we understand why Kapil Sibal has been put in charge of...

“We are extremely pained at the methodology adopted” The government on Friday described as “utterly erroneous and without any basis” the estimated loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore arrived at by the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) on account of allocation of 2G spectrum to telecom operators. “We are extremely pained at the methodology adopted by the CAG for arriving at the [allocation loss] figures that have no basis,” Telecom Minister Kapil...