MODI AND REDDY: THE CHOICE IS CLEAR

$200 billion in two days. Yes you are reading it correctly. Investment commitments worth a staggering nearly Rs 10 lakh crores have been inked in two days flat at the just concluded Vibrant Gujarat Investors' Summit (VGIS) 2009, breaking all records. This is on top of Rs 4.6 lakh crore ($100 billion), Rs 1 lakh crore ($20 billion) and Rs 66,000 crore ($14 billion) worth of investment promises that were made at the summits in 2007, 2005 and 2003 respectively.

The world might be in a recession, China and India may be slowing down; Modi's Gujarat is pulling powerfully ahead, all cylinders firing.

There is no one who is anyone in India's industrial landscape who is not in Gujarat already or is not going to be there soon. Ratan Tata, India's most respected business leader, had famously said at the last VGIS in 2007 that one who is not in Gujarat is stupid. He followed up his words with his money by moving the Nano plant there from Mamata's Singur. He has now pledged an additional investment of Rs 21,000 crores besides declaring that he will also set up a geo-thermal power plant. Like Tata, no one else wants to show his stupidity by not rushing to a state that is set to developmentally break away from the rest of India and look like a different country altogether 10 years down the line.

Gujarat is today the perhaps hottest investment destination anywhere in the world, thanks solely to Modi. There can be no better acknowledgment of the honest, no-nonsense, clear-headed and visionary leadership that Modi has shown as Chief Minister of the state.

In stark contrast, with an ever growing scandal, YSR Reddy's Andhra Pradesh has plummeted to new lows and has become a hot potato that no one wants to touch, much less claim.

The way skeletons are popping out in the Satyam-Maytas scandal in Andhra Pradesh, it seems that the rot is far deeper than anyone thought and is not limited to the IT firm promoted by Ramalinga Raju. It is also beginning to appear that the money trail does not end in Hyderabad and probably runs right up to Delhi. All-out efforts are on to ensure that this scandal, already far bigger and more rotten than the Bofors scandal that brought the Rajiv Gandhi government down, does not explode right in the face of the Congress party just before the general lections.

When he quit Satyam, Raju had claimed that he and his brother were the only two who knew about the Rs 7000 crore rigging of accounts that had been going on for years. Expectedly, he was dishonest in his confession then as he was in running the company. With every passing day, the list of those involved in the scam is only growing longer and more damning, despite the desperate efforts of Reddy and the Central government to prevent what is likely to be an inevitable blow out that cannot be capped for long.

Satyam CFO Vadlamani Srinivas has already been arrested and former CEO Ram Mynampati is likely to be arrested soon, as is the former dean of the prestigious Indian School of Business, Ram Mohan Rao. In yet another stinging indictment of India's bureaucracy that has become the prime mover of the rot that has hollowed all institutions, former Union Cabinet Secretary TR Prasad is likely to be arrested soon. Prasad has, in the meantime, resigned for the board of another Andhra Pradesh based firm, GMR, that is building the new airport in Delhi. One does not know how many other companies have similarly 'benefitted' from his powerful tentacles in the corridors of power, but one can be sure that none of them would be following desired norms of corporate governance and transparency and that their managements would be milking them scandalously.

CM YSR Reddy has yet not felt the heat, as he should have by now, thanks to the protection that he is continuing to receive from the Congress High Command, whose choice for the post he was. Allegations against him are flying thick and fast and it is only a matter of time before they stick.

Only the most naïve believe that Raju and family could have bought thousands of acres of prime land in Hyderabad worth Rs 30,000 crores at rock bottom prices, without giving a hefty cut to Reddy. It is an open secret that they also could not have won, in a single year, Rs 18,000 crore worth of projects, including the Rs 12,000 crore Hyderabad Metro project, whose route was changed to enable him to make a killing on the land owned by him, without scandalously partnering with the CM in the loot. And the CM couldn't have got away with this brazen dacoity for so long, even after E Sreedharan had cried foul last year, if he had not generously shared his loot with his bosses in Delhi.

The muck that is floating in Andhra Pradesh is making the much maligned Modi stand out taller than ever. He is clearly a man on a mission, a selfless mission to power his state to development and prosperity in a manner that has not been done in India by anyone anywhere, and at a scorching pace that even now seems impossible in any state except Gujarat. In a country where a hopelessly corrupt, unresponsive and inefficient bureaucracy has stalled India's progress with single-minded ruthlessness through the weapon of an all-pervasive red tape, in collusion with corrupt politicians, Modi has proved that impossible is nothing indeed.

Modi has become the beacon that has illuminated the truth that an honest, competent and visionary leader can single-handedly turn red tape into a 'red carpet' and get errant and arrogant babus to do their jobs as they are supposed to. No wonder Gujarat is by far the the best governed state in India and is motoring ahead of all other states. The most heartening thing is that despite so much of money being invested there, there is not even the whiff of a scandal anywhere. The absence of kickbacks to politicians and babus and a rare collective zeal inspired by Modi to get things done for the people is getting the world to rush to Gujarat.

Despite this near revolution that Modi has unleashed in a corrupt India that is being mirrored by Andhra Pradesh, our media, unfortunately, continues to treat him as a pariah, thanks to the shrill campaign of a few disconnected 'intellectuals' stuck in 2002. In a lively discussion on CNN-IBN on January 12, 2009, about the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year, Sagarika Ghose was blunt enough to voice the fact that, thanks to them, Modi will not be in any list where "a certain degree of the values of the awards are at stake". To them, politicians with suitcases full of looted money have been, and will continue to be, acceptable. But anyone who does not conform to their warped idea of 'inclusiveness', despite all evidence to the contrary, will have fight to earn his prize in the heat and dust of real India. They will not gift it to him in a five star hotel, no matter that he may actually be beyond all competition. That is saying a lot about the credibility of such awards, but who cares!

Fortunately, the people of India are far wiser than most of those who do the rounds of TV studios. They do not carry either fake ideological baggage or ulterior motivations to promote or pull down political leaders. They know well the difference between what is happening in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. They know that Narendra Modi personifies the symbol of his party perfectly as much as Reddy personifies the filth that is draining India. In this vast ocean of politico-bureaucratic muck, Modi stands out as the pristine lotus. Sure he is not the only one out there. There are a few, really few, others too, but he is clearly the tallest and strongest.

Narendra Modi is emerging as the transformational leader that India has been yearning for. With every passing day, that realisation is dawning on more and more of those who were violently opposed to him earlier. That is why Suhel Seth, once one of his greatest critics, is now one of his staunchest supporters. That is why the captains of India's industry have given him a 21-gun salute. That is why the people of India will pull him sooner rather than later to lead them and their country to long delayed glory.

The way the genie that unexpectedly emerged out of Satyam is growing despite best efforts to keep him covered, there is little doubt that, no matter how hard the government may try, the 'aam aadmi' will not be fooled. He knows exactly which face of India is represented by Modi and Reddy, now better than ever before. He is seeing the impossible being turned into a reality in Gujarat. He is also seeing in Andhra Pradesh the ugly underbelly of politicians from whom he had no escape earlier. He knows that he now has before him a clear choice to make. And he will make it wisely, no matter what efforts are made to confuse him with falsehoods yet again.

There is hope yet for India.
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MAYTAS: TRUTH INVERTED; GREED IS KING

Maytas is 'Satyam' (Truth) written backwards. It appears that Ramalinga Raju named the IT firm that he established in 1987 'Satyam' after a great deal of deliberation. During those initial days he was perhaps motivated by the trail of truth that had been blazed by Narayana Murthy led Infosys that had established new norms in corporate governance and transparency. Or was it that he chose that name only to project an Infosys-like face to hoodwink employees, shareholders and other stakeholders about the bug of greed that had bitten him even then? Whatever may be the truth, 21 years down the line, he finds himself in jail and his Satyam in respected hands led by HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh.

It is common knowledge that when greed takes grip, the first casualty has to be truth. No one ever admits that, except to friends bathing in the same 'hamam'. But, the signs begin to show. Maytas, the name of the company set up by Raju in the name of his son for his forays into real estate, construction, infrastructure etc, represents that unconscious slip. It may sound trendy and not repulsive like 'Mar' (kill) that emerges when you write 'Ram' backwards, but it cannot conceal the inversion of 'Truth'. Not now in any case when the truth has finally emerged.

Is it any wonder that Raju bled Satyam and fed Maytas over the years? As the skeletons tumble out, it is emerging that Raju was not just inflating Satyam's profits; he was siphoning money out of the firm to fuel his limitless greed for land, among other things. According to his own admission, Maytas Properties, owned by his family, has a land bank of 6800 acres in Andhra Pradesh, most of it in Hyderabad. And, according to some reports it has been acquired in collusion with the government at rock bottom prices, to make a killing thanks to projects bagged by another sister firm.

Maytas Infra Ltd has grown exponentially over the last few years. In three years, its turnover has increased eight times, from Rs 220 crores in 2005-06 to to Rs 1,670 crores in 2007-08. Last year alone, it won more than Rs 18,000 crores worth of new projects, including the Rs 12,000 crore Hyderabad Metro project. It may be recalled that E Sreedharan, the spotless father of the Delhi Metro, had in September last year said that "The BOT operator (Maytas) has a hidden agenda which appears to be to extend the Metro network to a large tract of his private land holdings so as to reap a windfall profit of four to five times the land price." But, then no one was listening to him, we now know why. On the contrary, Chief Minister YSR Reddy was going over the top in extolling the virtues of the project. Naturally.

The inversion of 'Truth' dose not end at Maytas. Raju has also floated an ambulance service company, the Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), ostensibly a not-for-profit organisation, that has entered into partnership with governments in 10 states. It already runs 1300 ambulances and plans to increase the number to 10,500 by 2010-11. This translates into a capital expenditure to the state governments of Rs 1,800 crores for the vehicles and Rs 300 crores for control rooms. In addition to this is a recurring annual expenditure of Rs 1890 crores on the ambulances. All this on a platter, without competitive tendering.

Raju had manifestly spun a complex web of bribes and kickbacks across the country, involving top political leaders and babus as well as those in the lower echelons in the government, to facilitate his blind greed. Satyam was apparently the cash cow that he looted to death to finance his blazing growth. Everything was going according to plan and he would have probably covered his tracks too had there not been an unanticipated global meltdown and a slowdown in the Indian economy resulting in a crash in property prices and virtual evaporation of demand in the real estate sector.

But, that was not to be. And today, Ramalinga Raju's empire based almost solely on untruth has all but collapsed and he is sharing a prison cell and an Indian-style WC there with ordinary, petty criminals.

Not all Rajus are going to meet this fate. Many have got away undetected and many will still pursue their dreams in the same fashion. "Greed is...good". Michael Douglas had uttered these famous words in the 1987 movie 'Wall Street'. In 2009, in the light of what we have seen in Satyam and in Wall Street, he would have not hesitated to say that those words were a serious understatement.

As the Satyan-Maytas-EMRI saga unfolds more and more, we will get to know, at least in whispers, that the amount of money stolen by everyone in the system is much, much more than what Raju had obliquely admitted in his clever letter of 'conscience'. He may be down and out today, but don't be surprised if, at the end of it all, he and all others at the top of the power heap who have made untold fortunes by deceit, get away lightly.

The establishment in India has not just institutionalized corruption, it has turned it into a fine art respected and prized more than a Hussein painting. On top of it, our lax judicial system is designed to make conviction almost impossible, at least in a practical time frame. So, it is now the turn of a few great lawyers to make the biggest killing of their lives on the ruins of Satyam. They too will spare no efforts in milking Raju and co, in a manner little different from the one the latter had adopted to milk Satyam and the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Greed is King. Has been, will be. The Satyam fiasco is not going to stop those who are consumed by it. On the contrary, considering the fact that Raju and gang almost got away with billions with ease, it will only make them greedier and 'smarter' in a world that defines almost everything in term of bucks. Black bucks may be an endangered species in the wild, but in the thick jungle of corporations and governments, their population is only going to rise exponentially.

Vemaytas Jayate!

Modi and Reddy: The choice is clear
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RAJU AND PAKISTAN: GETTING OFF THE TIGER

January 07, 2008, was not an ordinary day. In the morning, Ramalinga Raju, the promoter-chairman of Satyam (Truth), India's fourth largest IT company, shocked the whole world by admitting that he had committed India's largest ever corporate fraud of over Rs 7000 crores, and resigned. In the evening, the National Security Advisor of Pakistan (Land of the Pure), Mahmud Ali Durrani, admitted that Ajmal Kasab, one of the 10 terrorists responsible for the attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, was indeed a Pakistani, and was sacked.

Raju's admission did not come due to any pangs of conscience, as he claimed. It was forced upon him because it had become clear that it was no longer possible to keep cooking the company's books, and that his big lie was about to be exposed. For years, Raju had been "riding a tiger and not knowing how to get off without getting eaten", in the hope that he would somehow find a way to get away without getting found out. But, 'Satyam' finally caught up and the tiger mauled him.

Within hours of the sacking of its NSA for being 'Pak' at last, Pakistan too found that it was no longer possible to keep lying with a straight face that Kasab was not a Pakistani; India's claim had been vetted by the US as being beyond all doubt. So, its Information Minister, Sherry Rehman finally issued an official statement confirming that Kasab was indeed a Pakistani. 42 days after the Mumbai attack and at least that many days after knowing that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai were Pakistanis, came this damning admission after all sorts of straight-faced denials soaked in falsehoods, and equally fraudulent counter-accusations against India.

Raju, in his admission, made the preposterous claim that he alone was in the know of the huge fraud and that no one else in the company had any idea of what was going on, for years. Pakistan too is trying to con the world with an almost similar lie. Mushahid Hussain, the very anti-India general secretary of the PML(Q) was till the other day aggressively scoffing at India's claim that Kasab was a Pakistani and that the terror attack on Mumbai was the handiwork of strong elements of the Pakistani state. But, immediately after Pakistan was forced to accept the reality of his nationality, Hussain appeared on Times Now and, quite like Raju, absolved his country of any culpability. He, in fact went another lying step further by claiming that both India and Pakistan were victims of terror and had to fight this common enemy together!

Raju, as chairman of the company, had to admit his own culpability because he was left with no escape route. The state of Pakistan, on the other hand, still believes that it has a realistic chance of getting away yet again, by putting the blame on 'non-state' actors and/or rogue elements in the ISI/Army/government. It still thinks it can absolve the state of the blame that rests squarely on its shoulders due to its relentless pursuance of a policy to bleed India to death by a thousand cuts. It still believes that its task will be made easy thanks to powerful elements in India working overtime still to fool themselves and their country men into believing that the democratically elected leaders of Pakistan are more Indian at heart than democratically elected Indians belonging to some Indian political parties!

The acceptance of Ajmal Kasab's nationality by Pakistan is not going to be the end of the matter, nor is it going to help Pakistan wash its hands off the the ideological war that it has been pursuing against India for decades. The likely handing over of LeT chief Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi to the US for the Mumbai attack will not enable it to get away. Pakistan's first ever admission of its involvement is going to set in motion a series of events that will result in it having to pay for the massive fraud of violence and hate that it has been perpetrating on the whole world for a long time.

Pakistan should be in no doubt that, like Raju, it will have to get off the tiger that it has mounted deliberately. That tiger is not going to maul India; it is Pakistan that is going to be its meal. If India plays its hand well at last, without getting emotionally carried away by cricket, democracy, 'stability' and Pakistan's false cries of being a victim itself, that may happen much sooner than it appears now. Ordinary people living in that part of the sub-continent will be served best when it finally does.
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