Opinion Cracked image

“In fact,it looks worse than the Bofors days. But there is a difference. Unlike under Narasimha Rao and Rajiv Gandhi,the UPA’s PM and senior party leaders are not seen as even remotely linked with the scandals. But the PM is increasingly seen as philosophically tolerating scams,” says an article. Arguing that the perception may be right or wrong,it notes that public ire seems to be focused on the prime minister’s failure to root out the sources of corruption. It says that even Congressmen are worried about about the growing perception of the government’s ineffectiveness.

Running scared

An article in the CPM’s official journal,People’s Democracy,raises the question: Why is the Congress afraid of 2G? If the ruling party is not involved,and privately blames A. Raja as the sole perpetrator of the scam,then why is it shying away from a JPC?

It also dwells on the beneficiaries of the 2G spectrum allocation identified by the CAG. “One is,of course,the real estate company,Unitech. They were in deep financial crisis …the records now make clear that the 2G licences were the mechanism through which Unitech re-floated itself,” it says. Unitech also got loans running into thousands of crores. Swan Telecom,Loop,Datacom (Videocon) and Stel also got loans. “Is this why Congress is afraid of a deeper probe? Did all this happen with these companies waving in front of the banks the telecom licences that they had illegally secured or were there more hands in the till?” More links have come to light through the Radia tapes,it notes. It says that both Tata and Anil Ambani’s Reliance group,which held CDMA licenses,benefited from the allocations. “The key issue before the Congress and the UPA is that they either stonewall all the questions and let the corporate houses pocket all the wealth generated from this gross undervaluation of the spectrum,or come clean and take action. Action is not just throwing Raja out after resisting the demand for his ouster for as long as they could,” it says.

Standing up for liu xiaobo

The lead editorial in the CPI(ML)’s weekly journal ML Update discusses the Nobel peace prize awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The Nobel prize,more often than not,carries a political message,it says — referring to the selection of US President Barack Obama last year to refurbish US’s image and the choice of Liu this year,inspired by the intention to delegitimise Communist Party-ruled China as an authoritarian regime.

It says that by imprisoning Liu,pressuring other countries to boycott the Nobel ceremony and preventing Liu’s wife from receiving the award in his stead,China has obliged its opponents with the most potent symbolic weapon they could have hoped for. It notes that it is not just advocates of capitalist political reform,but also voices that point to growing social disparities that have been similarly suppressed in China.

“Not long ago,a man whose five-year-old son was poisoned by toxic milk in China was sentenced to jail for setting up a website to organise other parents against melamine poisoning. Workers’ protests too are known to meet with repression. The same repressive stick has been wielded to deal with popular outbursts at regional and cultural disparities in Xinjiang and Tibet,” it says.

At the same time,the Nobel episode also unavoidably highlights the hypocrisy and double standards of capitalist liberal democracies,says the article. “Even as Obama and others express pious outrage at how China treats its dissidents,they have all participated in the manhunt for Julian

Assange,the founder of WikiLeaks which ‘blew the lid off the horrific war crimes’ in Iraq,Afghanistan and other parts of the world.”

“The double standards are no less visible here in India. How would the Indian state and mainstream media,quick to castigate China on Xiaobo and Tibet,have responded,were Irom Sharmila,that powerful icon of protest against the Indian state’s war on its people,to have been awarded the

Nobel Peace Prize?” it asks.

Compiled by Manoj C.G.