Deal

Defense Ministry – Delays in acquisition of critical supplies – Is Antony at home ?

Saint Antony. That is one of the names by which the Defense Minister is known as. And why so ? Because he has a high reputation for honesty that being in the Congress party has not managed to besmirch, and he is also in charge of a ministry that is now appearing in the news on a regular basis, and not in a good way. The confrontation with the Army Chief over the age matter is old news (ever since the Supreme Court did not deny the truth of the general, but did not approve of the confrontation he was having with the Government).
Who else is known to be a paragon of honesty, against whom there are no allegations of corruption ? It is the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. What else is Manmohan Singh known for ? For having the most corrupt Government in modern India, for refusing to act against corruption unless forced to do so by the media or by the judiciary (remember past speeches and comments about the policy followed by Raja being the policy of the Government, and how Kalmadi had the full support of the Government as he spent and spent money on the CWG (accompanied by huge spending by many others arms of the Government)).
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The 2G scam – Internal fighting within the Congress refuses to die …

It seems so funny now. During the first 5 years of its reign, the UPA – 1 seemed very weak, buckling down to its allies for so many issues, until the Government finally developed some spine and withstood the left parties over the nuclear deal with the United States. It managed to get a majority for this purpose through some fine tuned voting in Parliament, with a lot of suspicion that some of the vote was bought. So, there was some relief when the Congress came into power with an enhanced majority in the form of the UPA2, and less dependence on allies. In this new form, the Congress promised to make things much better, starting with a 100 day plan to do much more. What is funny is, that after this increased number of seats, the Government seems to be in more of crisis situations, almost during the whole time of its existence.
The 2G scandal was simmering ever since Raja distributed a new seats of telecom license, and after the CAG report and the admonishment by the Supreme Court, the Government has been choking on the 2G scam ever since, sinking lower and lower in public opinion. Till some time back, the Government seemed to believe that it was able to get over the impact of the scandal, by getting Raja sent to jail, and by pretending that it was all a matter of the DMK and the Congress had nothing to do with the criminality committed by an alliance partner.
The first shock to the Congress came from the PAC report (headed by Murli Manohar Joshi), which severely castigated the Prime Minister and the then Finance Minister for letting the 2G scam happen. The Congress managed to get a majority on the PAC which put the report in a limbo.
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High Court strikes down more land acquisition deals by the Noida administration

For many years now, the areas of Noida, Greater Noida, and Noida Extension near the capital city have been the center of a building boom. The many Governments of Uttar Pradesh in the past (run by different political parties such as the BJP, SP, BSP) have all played a part in this building boom, leveraging their closeness to Delhi and meeting the needs of a huge number of people who were bound for the national capital but could not afford to buy homes in Delhi. So, the Government would acquire land and give this to society and builders, who in turn would build a variety of residential units and sell these to an eager crowd of buyers.
Now, one would argue that this is part of development. After all, agriculture is seen as the starting point of economic activity, and in order to progress further, you need to build industry and residential units, and those need land. So, acquiring land for this purpose is necessary, and it would seem that the Government would be in the best position to get into the role of acquiring land and then handing this over to the people doing the building.
However, the recent past in India has been hit by a number of issues related to this very purpose, with land acquisition coming under dispute in a number of states, and the situation seems to scream out for a land acquisition act that promised to be equitable to all. The Congress has not been able to come up with such an Act because of its political issues with its allies, most notably Mamta Banerjee; and it would also seem that the Congress may be delaying such an Act so that it can apply political pressure in the prime state of Uttar Pradesh.
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