Indian MSM - The First Line Of Defence For The Corrupt

Honey Bee – that’s the name of an alleged ISI mole in the Indian security establishment that helped plan the 26/11 attacks according to the authors of the book “The Siege”. The writers mention this information was claimed by a Pakistani Major. After this book was released November 2013, then Home Minister Sushil Shinde also stated the GOI would inquire into this. Ever heard of any inquiry? So recently when about seven people were arrested for stealing documents from the Petroleum Ministry our media, particularly TimesNow, was ranting against the BJP instead of asking why so many moles floated around for so long. The Petroleum Minister claims papers moved out freely during the previous Congress govt. Although it could be a political claim I find that quite believable. In the coming days more revelations and more moles and spies may be found. One of the arrested thieves is a journalist. Any surprise?

The media didn’t ask many questions to Congress or its allies but were seeking names from the BJP. Spokies of thuggish, corrupt parties were screaming as if they were innocent of crimes during their rule of harbouring pimps, brokers, dalals and extra-constitutional foreign stooges. I have long maintained this:

“The Indian media is the first line of defence for the corrupt”.

Two episodes in the last few days reinforce my belief. The Congress party had turned govt into a termite-infested house where all kinds of brokers and pimps had a feast. Apart from the recent thieves caught by CCTV at the petroleum ministry there have been Radias and Barkhas even fixing cabinet berths. If you look at it another way, the Congress-govt was as good as an Apex body of corrupt NGOs that had a free run. SoniaG herself had an NGO called “NAC”. I had earlier written about Congress being “A profitable NGO”. Funds flowed from all over to corrupt, anti-national NGOs. Funds flowed from all over to political pimps who paraded as social and environment activists. Funds and benefits flowed to corrupt editors and media houses that were permanently in losses. Many of them are up against the Modi govt for one strong reason:

Here’s the first thing. The recent episode of Teesta Setalvad’s bail cancellation and the urgency with which the SC heard her petition should tell us how many powerful forces are behind corrupt operators. Half a dozen lawyers rushed to the SC. Is Teesta in anyway innocent? I don’t think anyone, not even her lawyers, believes that. This riot-money scavenger was slammed by the SIT on Gujarat riots as having doctored affidavits and floating fake cases. She and her husband ran NGOs that were actually a political conspiracy to malign Modi on behalf of the Congress rather than serving riot victims. According to this moron her embezzlement cases are nothing but accounting issues:

The media is the first line of defence for the corrupt. The entire media batted for Teesta. Some “Intellectual morons” even asked ModiSarkar not to harass her as if the Centre is prosecuting this case. Shekhar Gupta, the perfect Delhi pimp just echoes others like Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt. Remember, Rajdeep is the street-thug who asked “Where is the fraud?” in the National Herald case against the Chinese Gandhis. Teesta is the tip of the criminal NGO-media complex that has long protected Congress crimes and tried their best to defeat Modi in the elections. This Gupta who thinks embezzlement is merely an accounting issue once serially trolled Kiran Bedi on the front pages of IE over her claiming business fares (offered by her sponsors) while travelling economy to generate additional savings for her NGO. For these shameless media pigs any crime from a member of their pigsty is condonable while others are culpable for small travel bill fudging.

Was it necessary to arrest Teesta? YES! The answer can be found in the court judgement. Teesta and her husband stay in Mumbai while operating their scams in Gujarat. When there were criminal complaints they got anticipatory bail from Bombay HC. When Bombay HC cancelled bail they ran to SC claiming Bombay HC had no jurisdiction. SC asked the duo to approach Gujarat HC. All this while they did not cooperate with the investigation and did not provide any documents sought by the Gujarat police. They kept dodging the investigation. Finally when the Gujarat court cancelled their bail plea they ran to SC again. Now, had Teesta and her husband cooperated with the police there would have been no need to arrest them at all. But they did not. On the scare-mongering by her lawyers and the media the SC even changed the Bench for the final hearing of her plea. This particular episode is a mockery of our judicial systems. Nevertheless, SC asked the duo to cooperate and submit documents failing which their bail would be cancelled.

It’s a simple question – If you were accused of fraud and embezzlement and if you happened to be clean, would you rush to clear your name with documents and evidence or would you dodge the police? The conduct of Teesta and her husband ever since the allegations surfaced should be enough circumstantial evidence of their culpability.

I have linked the Gujarat court order and if you go through it, the financial transactions and pilferage is nothing short of shocking. Foreign organisations donating so much money which again went to personal accounts of Teesta and her husband instead of stated causes is enough to nail her. There were earlier reports that she splurged on wine, jewellery and personal shopping with this money. Has to be a lot of wine I think, because the Teesta-duo has grown into fat cats. One of the sweet-smelling lawyers of Teesta, Indira Jaising, also runs an NGO that gets funds from Ford Foundation. The amounts have no explanation or why Ford would fund a legal-services-NGO without any benefits. I guess Ford is one of those Saints of the Congress’s lost causes. The amounts are stunning:

The best part is that this scumbagini Jaising compared Teesta’s embezzlement with the suit gifted to and worn by Modi. All of Lutyens free-floating pimps. The media has to defend the corrupt because people like Teesta collaborated with their anti-Modi campaign and a lot of worms will crawl out if she’s interrogated and prosecuted. There is only one outcome I can estimate for Teesta: a definite conviction. Let’s move on to the second thing.

Many will recall how people like Shekhar Gupta, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose and assorted pimps tried to tarnish ex-CAG Vinod Rai when he exposed 2G and Coalgate scams. Rajdeep went to the extent of reporting internal conflicts at the CAG office over the 2G loss reports of 1.76 lakh crores. Little does the corrupt Rajdeep understand that in any auditing organisation there may be differences over way entries and transactions are treated. However, the final word rests with the boss. See how Rajdeep at CNN-IBN then ran a serial campaign to tar him. Rajdeep implies one of the auditors questioned Rai after his report was released. It doesn’t work that way but anything to tar an honest man. So too in the case of Coalgate where the CAG projected a loss of 1.86 lakh crores. The defenders of the corrupt were again quick to tar the man:

The only #Porngate one sees every day and night is on the channels where Rajdeep & Co work. Nonsensical debates, lack of verifiable facts and invariable defence of the corrupt Congress and its allies. Nothing is surprising. There isn’t any domain of govt operation that the Congress corruption hadn’t touched. Yet the media kept tarring those who exposed the corruption. The man who blew the whistle on Coalgate was not any media house (as TOI grandly claims in one of its reports) but a BJP member; Hansraj Ahir. The current round of coal auctions are set to cross 10Lakh crores according to progress reports and govt estimates. If anything, Vinod Rai was rather conservative about the losses and the scam and not exaggerating. The faces of the media scumbags who defend the corrupt deserve to be blackened:

There’s another report on CNN-IBN about serious security lapses at the currency printing press which was suppressed by the Congress govt. It also states the supplier of the currency paper was neither suspended nor penalised. Who knows, had Rajdeep still been in CNN-IBN even this report may have been suppressed. People remember how the Cash4Votes sting was suppressed by him to protect the Congress.

The moles, pimps and brokers in the govt corridors didn’t surface suddenly. They have been floating around for the last 10 years along with corrupt, anti-India NGOs. Many equally corrupt editors have enriched themselves through political pimping. Some of these editors still remain the first line of defence for the corrupt Congress and their cronies. But there are good signs things may change.

For India to Progress, Congress Must Dissolve

Products and brands have a life-cycle. Commonly this cycle progresses as development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline. The pioneer of mosquito repellents in India, the Tortoise brand (popularly called ‘Kachchua Chaap’) is still famous but dead. The toothpaste ‘Promise’ is now mostly given in small bathroom packs in hotels. Ambassador car is a dead brand that is being artificially sustained. The first low-cost one-rupee pen in India, Comfort, is dead. The first famous courier service in India, Skypak, is now into other businesses or exists in other forms. Where’s Daewoo? Across the world brands have been killed by businesses either because they have outlived their purpose and value proposition or they couldn’t survive innovations and competition.

India became independent in 1947 but there is still no reason to believe we have freedom. The British left and the Congress party replaced them. Ever since, it has been downhill. The tragic fact is that for a vast country like ours we borrowed a parliamentary system of a tiny island. We borrowed from the US Constitution but borrowed the workings of a small island. A terrible lack of vision! In the US there are no ‘ceremonial’ offices. The US too had many political parties in the beginning. The Whig Party, The Federalist Party, The Democratic-Republican party and the Independents. Most of the Presidents initially came from these parties or were independents. After about 60 years of the US independence these parties disappeared and then came the Republican and Democratic parties as we know today. If one looks up US politics they too have a whole lot of regional parties but at the national level two parties dominate the law-making and governance. After 65 years we must finally accept that the Congress in India needs to die. When the Nixon hearings were conducted, the Senate committee comprised members of both parties which finally led to his resignation because of the US Supreme Court. In India, the Congress is capable of even turning a JPC into a scam.

We have all heard of huge elephants unwilling to shake off the chains that bind their leg. The elephant can easily do so but was bound to it since it was a baby and lives in the belief that it can’t shake off that chain. This is true of the Congress party in India too. The baby elephant that India was in 1947 was chained to the Congress party. 65 years later the huge elephant is still tied to that chain. Mahatma Gandhi wanted the party dissolved immediately on independence but those who replaced the British became the British. In the early 1970s one of the first movies to portray the corruption backed by violence in politics was Gulzar’s “Mere Apne”. It reflected the direction in which politics, largely led by Congress alone, was headed. Corruption, violence, destroying democratic institutions, electoral malpractices and a huge black economy all came from the fountainhead called Congress.

In a history of the Congress party full of bad governance, unfulfilled promises and intolerable corruption the latest attempt to cover up the Coalgate scam is as bad as any crime ever experienced in a democracy. Not since the Mughals or the British has the nation been plundered so badly. When the Emergency was declared in 1975 some newspapers carried black borders in protest and some crawled. Since then, much of the media not only became slaves of the Congress party and the government they have even become traitors of the people they were supposed to serve. What else explains the frequent clean-chits and “honest” title defence of Manmohan Singh? A PM who has watched lakhs of crores worth of scams happening right under his nose was being defended by our media. Shameful!

It’s more than the massive corruption. Every institution of India’s democracy has been corrupted and misused to serve the security and comfort of the party and one family – The Gandhis. Everyone in the Congress should be wondering how they became such slaves. It even provides for special security for Robert Vadra, Priyanka Vadra and exemptions for them from screening during air travel or travel anywhere in the country. This country has been reduced to those that have tin-pot dictators like North Korea, Syria and Zimbabwe. I wonder if even Cuba does so badly. The off-springs of this very Congress who broke away, like the NCP or the Samajwadi Party have continued the same standard of corruption and misrule. Not just that, they have completely destroyed any concern and respect for ordinary men and women. They have turned the common people into specks of dust to be just wiped off the desk very frequently.

In the name of fake secularism the Congress party and its supporters have divided the nation through religious reservations and privileges. Every policy of the party smacks of vote-bank politics and nothing more. Instead of moving towards an equitable society and more towards a uniform law for all the Congress has now even set up Sharia courts. Rahul Gandhi campaigns in Karnataka and talks about corruption. With what face does this non-performer talk about corruption? His own personal integrity or commitment to public work is suspect going by his poor attendance and participation in parliament. The same goes for the PM who promises a corruption-free state in his insipid campaigns. All of this, while they represent the most corrupt party in the entire democratic world! What does it say about the slavery of Congress and its supporters who still live a life of slavery to one family which is protected like a royal household? Sonia Gandhi enjoys all the trappings of a queen without the slightest responsibility or accountability for any deeds of the govt or her party.

What exactly is Sonia Gandhi’s greatest contribution to India? It has to be that coterie called NAC, an extra-constitutional body that is a private club which drafts laws for the country. Each member of this coterie is from some NGO or the other which has become extraordinarily wealthy through funding and donations from mysterious sources. Most members of this coterie were rewarded for their malicious political campaign against opponents. This is the level to which the Congress has brought politics in this country to. The scams, of course, are too long to list and each time the party members have only acted to cover up the truth and protect the culprits. Naturally! It was rightly pointed out by someone that the first purpose that the Congress party sees while being in power is to accumulate enough money to fight the next election. Everything else is secondary. And then the queen talks about ‘zero tolerance’ of corruption while the ‘Prince of fails’ mocks the nation by stating “power is poison”.

In response to the SC observations on CBI on Coalgate on April 30 the Congress spokie Janardhan Dwivedi claimed that his party has always accepted court rulings. This is one big lie. It is indeed a court ruling in Indira Gandhi’s case overturning her election that led to the imposition of Emergency in this country. That’s a black deed unmatched in any democratic country during peace time. Following this, IndiraG went on to pack the SC with judges of her choice and tinkered with the Constitution like it was some baby’s toy. This is how the Congress members forget their own history and brazenly claim they have respect for the law and Courts. It is also a party where a Gandhi is a lifetime president. Democracy does not course in the veins of Congress. A party that does not have or respect democracy at home cannot respect democracy in the nation.

In the attempt to keep its stranglehold on power at any cost the party has destroyed almost every democratic institution in this country. Judges and investigators have landed themselves top postings immediately on retirement for being slaves to the party. Scheme after scheme has been named after some member of the Nehru-Gandhi family as if everyone else in India was just an also-ran in her history. This is neither the democracy nor the freedom that people who fought the British dreamt about. In all of this the media continued to treat the PM and Sonia Gandhi like Gods. They proclaimed from rooftops that MMS was “honest and uncorrupt” as if angels from heaven had whispered in their ears. Shameless editors kept giving these certificates till the Supreme Court finally burst their bubble in the Coalgate case with the bogus affidavits by CBI. The Congress has not only been brazen in defending its corruption and misrule but has now shown the audacity to dupe even the Supreme Court of the country. A shameless doormat of the party passing off as a spokie called the SC "paranoid" on TimesNow on April 30 because of its observations.

NDTV, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today, Times Now and all other media outlets have become spineless puppies that do not have the guts to address a single question to the Gandhis. They hurl the choicest abuses at all other political parties and leaders. In the case of CBI’s Coalgate affidavit Barkha Dutt even states she cancelled a discussion because no Congress spokie was willing to be on the channel. Is that how news media is supposed to operate? You would have a discussion or analysis only if the criminal is represented? Are you some court of law by yourself? In contrast all the media outlets provide a platform for the likes of Sheila Dikshit to shed buckets of tears over her own incompetence in handling Delhi as if her sainthood was tainted. The misuse of CBI was evident in many cases and yet the media maintained silence. It seems the only truthful media that is still left standing is the Supreme Court. And I have said this before too.

A company kills a brand at an appropriate time in its life-cycle. India too needs to kill the Congress party which has long outlived its purpose. It doesn’t mean killing the party’s members. There are many good members in the Congress who must free themselves from slavery and reaffirm their true independence and freedom. They must join other parties or create a new formation completely different from this Congress. Not suggesting that other parties are clean but the Congress has been and will remain the Fountainhead of Corruption or the “Congotri” of corruption. Symbolically, other parties should also remove the word ‘Congress’ from their name if they have it, like the NCP. Corruption in the air, land, water, fire and earth as someone put it (2G, irrigation, coal, land). Every reform or policy that the Congress makes has a backdoor or a window that provides for massive loot. There is hardly a single policy or action that the party and the UPA have taken in the last 9 years that has not been associated by a scam and loot. That’s not all. Caning citizens, failure in foreign relations, poor handling and religious politicisation of terrorism, tolerating separatists, discriminating between states, demonising opponents, demoralising the police and the army, farmer suicides, stagnant economy, inflation, unemployment, fake cases against political opponents, constantly appeasing enemies of the state and even poor vigil of our borders. Never has this nation felt so sunk.

No country in history has ever progressed with bad governance and excessive corruption as partners. None! The Congress suffers from this twin ailment since decades. Its survival is detrimental to the progress of India. Death is the only cure. The corrupt media protects this corrupt party and its bigwigs. Someone has coined the slogan “Congress-mukt Bharat” like the slogan for “Gutka-mukt rajya”. I wholeheartedly agree with it. For India to progress, Congress must die. And when the Congress dies so will the corrupt media and democratic institutions can limp back to normalcy! It may not dramatically end corruption or evil but it is the equivalent of pulling down the statues of Stalin or Saddam and getting rid of their ideologies. There can at least be a new start.

PS: Get your copy of the book“Social Media As Watchdog” .. CLICK HERE

Like Rats Fighting A Plague

Media introspection! Self-introspection! This is what Rajdeep Sardesai screamed for the 2016th time on his show on October 25. Here’s what I wrote in the post “Confederation of Indian Agitators”. It was an attempt at a sarcastic look into some NGO operations: “In case you haven't heard, over the last decade or so there are many NGOs created whose job is to just channel funds. They are NGO “fund raisers”. Some are even supported by banks. They collect funds from Indians, NRIs and others and channel those funds to the NGOs of the choice of the donor. Their earnings come from commissions from the funds donated.”.

Last night on Karan (The Tool) Thapar’s show on CNN-IBN they were discussing the conviction of Rajat Gupta for insider trading. Most of our media members are in deep shock over the conviction of such a “good man”. The Social Genius even tweeted she had met him once and he spoke “perfect Bengali” (Mr President, take that warning!). The judge who convicted Gupta told him there are many good men in history who have committed bad deeds. Naturally, during the Tool’s show Ramalinga Raju and his good deeds came up for discussion. Sanjay Baru, former media advisor to PM, mentioned all of Raju’s good deeds. No, he wasn’t defending Raju in any way. None mentioned the difference that Raju is still being “tried” while Gupta’s trial is over and he’s been sentenced. In some part of the democratic world, crimes do get punished and fairly swiftly. In India we should trust Beni Prasad Verma who laughed that Salman Khurshid could even be involved in a scam of 76 lakhs. Yeah, even petty NGOs do better than that.

This here is the pic of the website of Quadriga Art. The site claims it’s a “global leader in direct marketing and creative services.  We offer nonprofit organizations, fundraising agencies and commercial brands innovative direct marketing campaign solutions that produce extraordinary results. For more than seventy years, Quadriga Art has helped value-driven clients raise money and create connections”. So you see, as the first para says, this fund-raising broker thing is becoming fairly common in India too. But here’s the surprise as Anderson Cooper reported in a series of NGO frauds that had some connection to Quadriga:

“But here's the problem: Not one dime has gone directly to help disabled veterans. Instead, CNN's Drew Griffin discovered the charity sends free stuff to veterans groups - stuff they say they didn't ask for and don't need. We're talking about thousands of bags of coconut M&Ms, bulk shipments of chef's aprons and military dress shoes. The veterans groups have had to sell the items to raise money so they could buy items vets actually do need. So, where did the nearly $56 million donated by Americans go? Griffin followed the money trail to a company called Quadriga Art, a company that specializes in fundraising. Quadriga Art and its subsidiaries have more than 500 charities on their client list, including DVNF. A source who had first-hand dealings with Quadriga tells us it’s the "financial equivalent of heroin addiction for charities".

Now, the list of NGO frauds that Cooper covered in his series on AC360 is too long to cover in a single post. Just search for “AC360 Charity fund frauds” and you will likely run into a coal mine. No, this coal isn’t in mother earth. What should trouble us is the number of NGOs in India who are similarly receiving a lot of funds but nobody knows where these funds are really going. The US Senate has launched an inquiry into the NGO fraud mess. In sharp contrast some of these Indian NGO operators are celebrated TV panellists, have received Padma Shri awards and some individuals are even on govt bodies. One such person is Binayak Sen who is a ‘convict’ but is on the Planning Commission. Mine is not to wonder if he is really guilty or not. But fact is he has been convicted and his conviction is under appeal. Even before he is cleared by courts the GOI puts him on the Planning Commission. I guess, considering his brilliance, Rajat Gupta too would be welcomed on the Planning Commission by the GOI.

Following the Thapar show Rajdeep Sardesai, the Monk, followed as usual. Following the Jindal-Zee extortion spat he had the same topic on his mind again: “Media introspection”. Following a series of introspections viewers will be convinced nothing will change. Rajdeep’s whole show can be summed up in one sentence of Justice Katju: “You want everybody to be regulated except yourself.. You are what? Lords and Gods”? Following another slap from Katju, Rajdeep will learn nothing. Following…. Never mind! If there was ever true and honest introspection, the news media would have wondered about many panellists they get on their shows that are dubious. Since we are on NGOs, let’s talk about Teesta Setalvad.

The most outrageous decoration ever has to be that of Teesta Setalvad. According to reports she is on ‘anticipatory bail’. Time and again the funding of her NGO, her fake affidavits and complaints from her own colleagues have been reported. In yet another damning report this is what The Pioneer carried today:

“The FCRA permission granted on November 21, 2007 to CJP by the Ministry of Home Affairs mentioned that “The bank account mentioned in your application should be used for receiving foreign contribution and no other amount should be credited to this account”. However, a local donation of Rs 10 Lakh, received from The Chatwal Groups by cheque no376284 dated 26/02/09, was deposited by CJP in this FCRA account… These were in clear violation of condition mentioned in the FCRA registration”. Huh? The Chatwal group? Oh, like Teesta got Padma Shri I recall somebody from The Chatwal Group was also awarded Padma Bhushan despite wide protests. Do read the full report in The Pioneer for the amazing transfer, handling and misuse of funds reported in Teesta’s NGO.

If newspapers are repeatedly carrying so many reports on wrong doings of Teesta how is it that she is such a favourite panellist with our TV channels? It doesn’t stop there. She not only gets a Padma award, she gets to be on Sonia Gandhi’s NAC. This is like a private club that drafts laws for the nation. Rajat Gupta must be regretting his misdeeds weren’t in India. He could have been making laws here. A convict on the Planning Commission, a tainted NGO operator in the NAC! What’s the message to ordinary citizens? Crime Pays? That’s not all Teesta is also on the govt’s Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). This is a body under the HRD ministry that influences decisions on education in India. No wonder many people joke that we might as well have Ajmal Kasab teaching marketing tactics in business schools.

The serious question is about the Coalgate issue being totally buried in the media. If Zee had, as alleged, blackmailed Naveen Jindal to the tune of 100 crores for silence why are the other channels silent on Jindal and Coalgate? Why shouldn’t one suspect that they have already been silenced through some form or the other? There is another case of payments by a steel company ISPAT to VBS (suggesting Virbhadra Singh of Congress) which has been in the news. The reports are around a page long in most sites and newspapers, including The Hindu (October 22). Buried in the report is one sentence that Rajdeep and others aren’t talking about yet. It says: “Mittal diary for 2006-2010 show routine payoffs to…. Payments to journalists for stopping negative articles and photographs are also listed in these cash accounts”. Why isn’t the media or the BEA or the PCI asking for these names? Shouldn't this raise quite an alarm in the media? Nothing!

The charade of introspection and self-regulation is as big a scam as Coalgate. Last night on Rajdeep’s show he had N. Ram as a panellist to discuss this so called “media introspection”. None of the channels has so far even vaguely reported the land grab case of N. Ram. Nothing! All the NGO representatives and business celebrities who often feature on media panels somehow turn out to be connected to some scam or wrong-doing or the other. That the media is the first line of defence for the corrupt is increasingly coming across as true. Corruption and scams are a nation-wide plague. The more one scams the more the respectability. Scams less than crores seem to have even lost respectability. The day illegal dealings and scams in the media start being punished severely I believe corruption will start diminishing in other spheres too. In the meantime, imagine a battalion of rats trying to protect you from plague.