Fire This Official!

The person responsible for the action noted below needs to be fired immediately, for he/she is obviously trying to create a black market that organized crime can exploit.

The following notice is from PallumIndia,  a network of palliative care providers.

"The Indian Palliative care community is aghast at what can only be described as a calamity The Government of India has banned Dextropropoxyphene. The axe has fallen on the least expensive step II opioid available for oral use.

"Any other step II opioid is five times as expensive. 100 mg of Tramadol four times a day would cost twice the daily income that defines the poverty line. Stringent narcotic regulations restrict the availability of oral morphine to a tiny fraction of the needy. What the average Indian could afford and could get is Dextropropoxyphene. The major argument against it seems to be that westerners use it to attempt suicide. This is hardly relevant for India.

"The evidence against Dextropropoxyphene is flimsy. Positive scientific evidence is usually available only in favor of expensive drugs because drug research is costly, because 90% of drug research is funded by the Pharmaceutical industry which has little interest in inexpensive drugs and because it suits the interest of the industry if inexpensive drugs are pushed out of the market.

"We should not accept this. We have the duty to present the evidence before the authorities and to seek a solution."

Perhaps the jackal journalists of Headlines Today who were dissuaded by public disgust from pursuing the Dhoni "conflict of interest" story could take up this far more legitimate scandal.

Laugh Out Loud Television News

Indian television provides many laugh out loud moments.  

Headlines Today could easily be repackaged as a News version of Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily!" (In case readers don't remember, that dates back to the time when Chinese films were a novelty and Allen, then still funny, provided his own riotous subtitles to one.)

Any interview by Prannoy Roy, especially on foreign affairs or economics, is usually rich in laughs. His most recent outing, on the US election, did not disappoint for its premise was that the world's most disciplined under control democracy is on the verge of becoming "ungovernable." He seems to have fallen for the "deeply divided electorate" line that US television anchors resort to when voting patterns get too mind-numbingly predictable.
 
Arvind Kejriwal's Press Conference on HSBC bank accounts was comic in a refreshingly new way. It showed broadcasters in the role of Wily Coyote who in his heyday was always running off cliffs and remaining airborne until he looked down and saw there was no ground under his feet.

Anticipation was high before the show, with excited reporters speculating on what was about to be revealed. Once it began, there was an almost visible deflation. Moments after Mukesh Ambani's name was mentioned as one of the account holders Headlines Today began noting it as a "faux pas" by Kejriwal: a crawler said HSBC had apologized to the Mumbai billionaire. Another noted that his account had "zero balance."

Kejriwal evidently realized he was not on a good wicket right away and a look of gloom settled in under the high cap. He was quite clearly completely at sea about the information he was divulging, and seemed to think the HSBC accounts are all hawala arrangements. Most are probably the proceeds of trade mispricing.

Luckily for him, there were few questions. The journalists present exhibited no curiosity at all about any aspect of the revelations.

In contrast to Indian television, the BBC provides few occasions for laughter.

Only a grammarian would crack a smile at the shop-girlish exchanges of "Thank you very much indeeds!" by anchors who seem not to know the uses of an adverb. (I live in dread of the day one of them will sing out "Hello Indeed!")

So, while we are on the subject of HSBC, it is probably appropriate to mention that the BBC's coverage of the bank's black accounts story -- back when it broke this summer -- had one laugh out loud moment.

The story this summer was that investigators in New York had found HSBC routinely laundering drug/terrorist money and were threatening to take away its license. (They seem to have settled for a billion dollar fine.)

The humor came from one of BBC's inimitably fustian financial analysts who waved away the concerns about British ethics expressed by Business News editor Sally Bundock. HSBC's long-running criminality he said, was an "amazing lapse of concentration."

Anyone who thinks he was being droll should read the testimony of HSBC officials before a United States Senate subcommittee last July. Every single one of them took the line that the money laundering was the result of managerial oversight. Now that the Americans had brought it to their attention, things would change, by God!

Which Congressman?

A couple of days ago I voiced the suspicion that someone in the Intelligence Establishment was leaking copiously to Arvind Kejriwal.

He told the Press on Friday that the source was a "senior Congressman."

Not a single reporter present asked who. More interesting, no one (at least none that I watched) tried later to guess who it might be.

The opportunities to do so were ample, for the Congress top brass convened as if on cue for a day-long retreat.
 
It was as if Someone Up There had arranged a game of Clue. Was it the Finance Minister in the Library with an Axe? The Minister for Human Resources with a Rope? 
It could be the former Home Minister. After all, he was a former lawyer for Enron. And he did try to sneak in a central police force that could have gutted constitutional structures and Indian democracy. Also, if the challenge to his last election in Chennai goes wrong, he could be headed for the exit anyway.

But I doubt it. My bet, purely on a hunch and a bizarre exchange on Headlines Today, is the Human Resources Minister, bushy-browed verse-monger Kapil Sibal.

Which of the numerous bizarre exchanges on Headlines Today?

The one in which Rahul Kanwar, talking to Sibal in the immediate aftermath of Kejriwal's allegations about Robert Vadra, said to him in high glee words to the effect: "So what now for you? Prime Minister?"

Sibal, also in high spirits, stayed silent but cackled like a hen.

Now, it could be I was tripping on too much soda water and imagined the whole thing, but I swear that's what came down the pike.

It set me wondering. Does HRD cover Intelligence? If it does, could my speculation be right after all?

The Implications of Scandalmania

Indian "elite media" have been so engrossed in the obsessive coverage of corruption allegations that no one has had the time to reflect on what exactly is happening. Here are a few of the implications that people should think about:

1. Someone in the Intelligence Establishment is leaking like a sieve. Kejriwal is a jhoolahwalla ditz who couldn't walk and chew pan at the same time, much less unearth the stuff he is revealing. Subramaniam Swamy is smart but he too is being fed the information he publicizes. Where the information is coming from should be a matter of urgent speculation in view of the second implication:   
2. Somebody wants to delegitimize and destabilize the Indian political system. It goes beyond wanting the UPA out in mid-term polls. Whoever is spreading the muck wants the country leaderless.
3. Our "elite" media seem to be following a destroy-India script almost with glee. Headlines Today is way out front in that regard. It led the clumsy charge against Salman Khurshid, and after he rebutted the charges, went into a five hour paroxysm during which it did little more than urge his dismissal from the cabinet. HT was clearly trying to prevent Khurshid's elevation to the Foreign Minister's job.      

What does all this point to? We have to look at the world situation to understand.

With China on the skids (the recent "good news" from Beijing is unbelievable), the big guns of the multi-trillion dollar global black market want a place to invest their money free of bothersome things like environmental standards and social impact. They want India in the charge of a man dishonest enough to boast of "good governance" in the face of riot and death under his watch and a minister in prison for contributing to it. Hence London's sudden "normalization of relations" with Narendra Modi, followed by an India Today cover story pumping him up.

Why would our "elite media" cooperate in preparing the country for the rapists?

Consider who controls them.  

Headlines Today/India Today is under Aroon Purie, a bean counter trained in Britain who got into journalism to provide business for the large printing press set up in Delhi by his secretive "financier" father in partnership with "Lord Thompson of Fleet," the British newspaper magnate.

The patriarch of the Jain family that owns the  Times of India group also got rich wheeling and dealing under the British. He got into journalism after his father-in-law was sent to prison by India's first independent government for embezzling the funds used to buy the flagship newspaper.

The NDTV organization is owned by Prannoy Roy, also a British-trained accountant, whose father worked for a UK multinational corporation and married an Englishwoman. NDTV got its start as a news program for Doordarshan which sued Roy after it went commercial. (It is interesting that Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy is Prannoy's cousin.)

If the owners of our "elite" media are loyal to any country it is the one that controls the global black market.

 What of the Intelligence Establishment leak?

My guess is that some high-level suit has been suborned from abroad or has political ambitions and is trying to manipulate his own political ascent by destroying those who stand in the way. Whatever the cause, the current situation has highlighted the need for our Intelligence agencies to have a constitutional framework and systems for external oversight and internal accountability. 

Hazare Hysteria

The cheerleading for Anna Hazare by the major television "News channels" is so blatant I almost felt embarrassed for the poor field journalists.

For the two days that Hazare sat in Tihar jail making the authorities squirm for their stupidity in arresting him, TV journalists were called upon to provide wall-to-wall coverage of a story that consisted of nothing more than crowds hamming it up for the cameras. They were reduced to asking ridiculously leading questions to elicit halfway intelligent responses from people who clearly had little knowledge of what the whole stir was about.

Some reporters with more integrity than is probably good for their careers noted the general ignorance about the issue, as well as the fact that most of the crowds seemed to be curious sightseers. Other reporters were enthusiastic propagandists. The station managements did their bit too, with crawlers and repetitive headlines that said things like “India say ‘I am Anna’” (sic), “Anna corners Government,” and “Stand up and be counted, support Anna!”

The “elite” newspapers were also unashamedly partisan. “Anna jailed, but India takes battle to govt,” screamed The Times of India’s six column headline on 17 August. The next day, in even larger type, it said “Govt Buckles, Anna Wins Round 1.” The New Indian Express declared in an all-caps headline “LOK POWER DEFEATS UPA.” The Hindu was staid by comparison, declaring in the main head: “Government arrests Anna, then Blinks,” and under it, “Mass protests across India catch Congress by surprise.” The paper diplomatically did not say what numbers of people constituted a “mass protest.”

In the two days leading up to Hazare’s emergence from Tihar Jail CNN reported there were “hundreds of people” demonstrating in Delhi. Times Now and Headlines Today reported “thousands” of demonstrators in the same period. At the Ramlila Grounds on Friday it became “tens of thousands.” The largest crowds outside Delhi were in Bangalore, a BJP stronghold.

 Television reporters and the "elite Press" studiously avoided noting the politicized nature of the support for Hazare. It was left to the lowly Business Standard to note that detail. A piece by Sreelatha Menon on 19 August reported that many who “you would imagine to be supporters of Anna are against him for being exclusivist, high handed, and a stooge for right wing parties.” Public support for Hazare, she wrote, was “perhaps more a testimony to the mounting public anger against brazen acts of corruption in the country, than any indication of concrete knowledge about Anna's Lok Pal Bill draft.”

 The article said "the number of civil society stalwarts who have lined up to speak out against Anna and his methodology for civic protest” was “remarkable."

Actress and communal relations activist Shabnam Hashmi recalled 1992 when "a similar frenzy led to the demolition of Babri Masjid."

Aruna Roy, the Right to Information activist who was part of the consultations with the government and Team Anna was “bitter about the way her views” were consistently “attributed to wrong intent and viewed with suspicion and mistrust” by Team Anna. Disagreement with Team Anna’s draft was deemed “tantamount to promoting corruption.”
Prominent activist Purushottaman Mulloli thought the whole campaign was "being scripted by political players with agendas—namely right wing ideologues like the BJP and the RSS, specifically the youth wing.” He thought it “strictly an upper caste, middle class urban phenomenon.” The BJP at its national conference in Lucknow last year had declared that corruption would be its electoral plank, and a few months later the ‘India Against Corruption’ campaign was launched.
Despite the vast amounts of airtime and print expended on the issue there was nowhere a critique of the Jan Lokpal Bill proposed by Team Hazare. Even the government did not make clear why the draft is problematic.

As far as I can see, the Team Anna draft is unacceptable for the following reasons:

1. It concentrates too much power in an unelected, unaccountable body. To open the judiciary to investigation and to put the CBI under the Lokpal is to create a Frankenstein's monster. If we call the Lokpal the Grand Inquisitor that problem should become readily apparent to everyone (or at least to anyone who knows the history of the Catholic Church).

2. To include all the lower ranks of the bureaucracy in the purview of the Lokpal is to condemn it to be ineffective. No amount of investigative power will be enough to deal with the volume of petty corruption at those levels. The solution to that sort of bribery is to set up in every Ministry a public email reporting system monitored by an outside invigilator. Anyone who is asked for a bribe should be able to report it. That should immediately reduce the volume of corruption, and if properly implemented, eliminate most of it.

3. To make the Prime Minister open to investigation by the Lokpal is to ask for trouble. If an adversarial relationship develops between the incumbents of the two posts it could tie up the whole government. The government Bill allows the investigation of ex-Prime Ministers; that should be enough.