Sweat Love Story - Part 1

Each day I wake up I realise I’m totally out of sync with this tech-age; that I’m not fashionable. It’s just a few years ago I learned that PDA stood for ‘Personal Digital Assistant’. So when Sunanda Pushkar (SP) told NDTV “I don't know. I can only say it's very sad that in a country like ours that they don't believe in PDA because the point is we are a country...” I was totally flummoxed. I was wondering what a stupid PDA had to do with her defence of the ‘50Crs GF’ tag or Shashi Tharoor. Thankfully, Sunetra Chaudhary quickly clarified that SP’s PDA means “Public Display of Affection”. These things keep changing faster than I can learn. And hold on, I did go to a convent school for a few years of my primary education. You know, we were taught about cows and dogs.. as in 'domestic animals’. In some exams we even loved drawing pictures of animals. But hell, that convent never taught me what “cattle class” was. And SP insists only those who went to a convent school would understand that. I’m now wondering if it’s a good idea to ‘sue’ my school.

So this Sunanda was on all the English channels and all the ballerinas in the news channels were shocked over the 50Cr GF comment and how it was ‘sexist’ and an insult to ‘womankind’. All very nice! But it doesn’t alter the fact that 50 or 70crs of ‘sweat equity’ was the reason why Tharoor was sacked from the ministry earlier. Nothing had changed in between to bring him back. That was a question no news channel wanted to ask. Well, it’s election season in Gujarat so that part can wait. I’ve seen the Bachchan movie “Khoon Pasina” and even heard of the rock-band ‘Blood, Sweat & Tears’. Salman Khurshid explained the blood and tears part well. There was his ‘Ink & blood’ comment and then how SoniaG had ‘tears’ in her eyes over the Batla House shoot out.

However, it took the Tharoor-Sunanda duo to bring home the full understanding of ‘Sweat’. Theirs is a true love story as Tharoor indicated in his tweet-back to Narendra Modi. Like PDA this ‘sweat equity’ is also a concept that’s not very old. Start-up companies which don’t have lots of money issue equity shares to people like lawyers, marketers etc. in lieu of cash payments for their services. The shares, of course, are liquid assets like any other. But this sweat can also be misused to reward people as bribes under crony capitalism. And the best place to borrow capitalist concepts from? You guessed it – US of A! Nobody does it better. Every form of economic system or ideology has its evils; or should I say evil people? For instance govt officials handing over land or public facility to a private citizen or entity for a small price and then getting kickbacks. Or buy a piece of land dirt cheap, sweat over it with govt help and then sell it for an extraordinarily high value. I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking Robert Vadra but we’ll get to him later.

In the meantime let’s remember what Swami Vivekanand or even Stephen Covey has talked about many times. Good is difficult to emulate but evil can and will always be exceeded. In other words, it’s hard to pick up good practices or habits but bad habits are usually exceeded from where they were picked up. If one is a smoker, chances are the person is probably now smoking more than the person from whom the habit was picked up. Remember September-October 2008? That’s the time many crony American companies with fake balance sheets and figures, companies with nothing but paper assets crashed. Those included AIG, Merrill Lynch and housing loan companies. While many in the public suffered, the owners or management members of these companies made a killing. The sweat love story is not very different. You’ve heard of Cash4Votes, of Cash4Questions in parliament. Here’s something similar: Kids4Cash. The story is old and also features in Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore.

In the year 2001 a private company in Pennsylvania (PA), US offered their company, PA ChildCare, to replace a county’s Juvenile Detention home and the contract of detentions outsourced to them. The two people who offered this “social service” were as Greg Zappala and attorney Robert Powell. As it happened Powell had a friend in Judge Michael Conahan who shut down the public juvenile facility since it was “run down” and stopped its funding by end 2002. In due course the contract to run the detention centre was handed over the privately run PA ChildCare of Robert Powell. That’s not all; the contract was a $58 Million per year lease. So essentially, Powell’s company built his private detention centres with public money and had an annual lease amount too. Nice, isn’t it? But, that’s not all.

Powell’s company added a sister company to the original PA ChildCare and both started operating juvenile detentions for the govt. Powell’s business of reforming of spoilt brats of PA flourished. He even bought a private jet and yacht that was ironically named “Reel Justice”. Now that the detention business was privatised, more and more kids were convicted for juvenile offences. The number of kids being sent to the detention centres grew, business grew. In a 5 year period Judge Mark Ciavarella (seemingly a partner in crime of Judge Conahan) sentenced an astonishing 6500 kids to Powell’s detention centres. You see, the more kids they sent to the juvenile centres the more the money to the private businessmen. More money to the private businessmen meant … Hmmmm! That’s the beauty!

Both Judges Conahan and Ciavarella received up to $2.6 Mn in kickbacks and bribes. It came to be known as the “Kids for Cash” scandal which broke in 2008. Both judges also didn’t report this income and didn’t pay income tax on it. The case broke just around the time financial markets were crashing in the US. Both judges were prosecuted. On February 18, 2011, following a trial, a federal jury convicted Ciavarella and the prosecutors said the former judge used children "as pawns to enrich himself." On August 11, 2011, Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison as a result of his conviction. On September 23, 2011, Conahan was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in prison as he pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy. On November 4, 2011, Robert Powell was sentenced to 18 months in prison for failing to report a felony and being an accessory to tax conspiracy. Consequent to the frauds all the 6500 convictions by Ciavarella were also overturned. Read more at Juvenile Law Centre site.

There are only two things that separate the crony capitalism of the USA and India. One is that their media, probably equal with India’s in every other way, does not directly support crony capitalism. The other is the Justice system. The US justice system appears to be fair and is definitely far swifter. It is merciless on any criminal regardless of who the person or entity is. Out here, there is an outpouring of tears in the media for Rajat Gupta and he would have probably not been tried for another 25 years even. The concept of sweat equity was originally a good one. But as we keep observing, crony capitalism ensures equity and assets pass to hands without anyone running or breaking into a sweat.

Just about two years ago Sunanda Pushkar was a hounded woman with many media crooks painting her a “vamp”. Now, she is being painted a “victim”. For the media everybody is a victim where it concerns Narendra Modi. In her interviews she goes around saying “there’s no money on the table”. She even quotes from Jerry Maguire and says “show me the money”. Well you see, viewers are either idiots or didn’t attend a convent school to understand that the very reason for “sweat” equity is because the start-up doesn’t have enough cash. Question remains, why exactly was she given that equity for. There’s no evidence she had done anything for the Kochi IPL team, unless it’s a big secret. She didn’t run and break into a sweat. It must have been Kochi’s way of expressing affection. Sweat is thicker than love, it’s priceless. 

To be continued...

 

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.