India Becomes Kenya’s Largest Asian Trading Partner

Nairobi : India, which has a thriving diaspora in Kenya estimated at 100,000, became the East African nation’s biggest trading partner in Asia in 2012, surpassing China, a government document says.

India exported to Kenya goods worth $240 million, way ahead of Asia’s biggest economy China, which exported goods valued at $148 million.The figure represents a growth of around 30 percent when compared to 2011.

The figures, according to Kenya’s National Economic Survey 2013, represented 18 percent of Kenya’s imports in 2012, asserting India’s growing influence in the east African region.

Exports to Kenya, according to Indian High Commissioner Sibabrata Tripathi, included petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, electrical machinery, steel products, hand and machine tools, yarn, vehicles and paper.

Kenya, on the other hand, exported soda ash, coffee, leather, vegetables, synthetic fibers, wool, cereals and metal scrap to India.

While the figures seem impressive for a small economy like Kenya, with a population of 40 million, Tripathi said they represented less than one percent of India’s total global exports.

“A number of factors contribute to the growing trade between India and Kenya. Relative proximity of the two countries, particularly of ports on the west coast of India, and the quality of Indian products at an affordable cost are among the major factors,” the high commissioner said.

“Close attention is paid by Indian exporters to the specificities of the Kenyan market. The commonality of business language in the two countries also helps,” added Tripathi. Much of the Indian diaspora has its origins in Gujarat and Punjab.

He said Kenya was emerging as a market for Indian tour operators, with some 60,000 of the one million tourists who visited Kenya in 2011 being from India, compared to 47,000 in 2010.

The growth has been spurred by increased direct flights between Delhi/Mumbai and Nairobi, with Kenya Airways and Emirates operating regular flights on these sectors.

“The wildlife safaris of Kenya are increasingly becoming an attractive destination for Indian tourists since they have remained relatively unexplored so far”, Tripathi told IANS.

There was also growing Indian interest in Kenya as an investment destination in areas like communications, petroleum refining, floriculture and medical diagnostics.

Already some 40 Indian firms, including a bank, are operating in Kenya, using the country as a launch pad to the 100 million strong East African Community and the wider Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA).

Among the major companies operating in Kenya are Tata Chemicals, which owns Magadi Soda Ash Company, oil firm Essar and Airtel. The Bank of India has four branches in Kenya.

A major Indian hospital was also planning to open a diagnostic facility in Nairobi, which could cut down on visits to Indian hospitals by Kenyans seeking specialised treatment.

Kenya and the East African region have benefited greatly from Indian education, with thousands of students going through Indian universities via scholarships since the 1960s, a trend that picked in the 1980s.

Underworld Has Betting Syndicates In Vice-Like Grip

New Delhi:  The joke doing the rounds in Delhi Police circles is that they are investigating the betting and spot fixing scandal in the Indian Premier League (IPL) more to keep their chief in the news till his retirement early next month.

Jokes apart, the police are aware that not only in Delhi but in most cities the investigations may not go beyond the sensational breaking-news stage for want of follow-up action owing to the lack of what they call material evidence.

“The police are in possession of every shred of information as to how organized betting and spot fixing are carried out and the men heading the syndicates doing these operations,” a senior police official told .

“We also know how the operations are carried out; yet it is not easy to file a case without evidence that can hold water in a court of law, even with confessional statements,” said the official, pleading anonymity because of the sensitive nature of these investigations.

“In the court, witnesses turn hostile and in the IPL case we have to see what will be the stand of Siddharth Trivedi, who is a prosecution witness, after the Indian cricket board said it was issuing him a show-cause notice for not sharing the information with it or the IPL Governing Council,” the official said giving voice to a fear that is plaguing the investigation agencies.

Then, look at what Umesh Goenka, a bookie and a friend of Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra, did once he was freed after 12 hours of questioning. He accused the police of torturing him to implicate the British national.

The police are not sharing any great piece of information when they say that the underworld is involved in large-scale betting and spot fixing. They are also not tired of invoking the name of the infamous D-Company and its widespread network in the subcontinent and beyond its shores.

The underworld has its own unwritten code of conduct and the last word on all aspects of betting and spot fixing is believed to be that of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar — from inviting bets and offering odds on all features of the game to the mode of payment.

“Fear of gun” and “counter-guarantees for payments” scare punters from reneging or spilling beans.

“No one dare trick the bookie, though everything is done by word of mouth. The cash transactions are usually done quietly every Thursday/Friday,” a middle-level bookie told IANS obviously not wanting to be named.

“Betting has been a full-time occupation for several people. The underworld has a vice-like grip on the entire activity in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities in the country and overseas,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Cell), Madan Mohan Oberoi told IANS.

The betting syndicates operate at different levels and in Delhi the big ones, who deal in crores of rupees, are less than a dozen and they are seen rubbing shoulders with the elite of society.

The betting is not confined to any particular strata of society. It all started with inside trading in the bullion market and they then ventured into sports. An incentive for those indulging in high stakes is that the bookies promise to launder their ill-gotten wealth and convert it into white without any hassles.

“The high and mighty in India place bets with these top-notch bookies and huge amounts of cash change hands on a regular basis and much of the money is routed through the illegal hawala channels,” said Oberoi.

The live TV sport is another encouraging source for bookies and punters to go berserk. They are invariably glued to the television sets betting on any sport, even on sports they have absolutely no clue about.

“What is there to understand? You lose money once or twice and you know the mistake you have committed. In the beginning I used to take help from genuine sports lovers who explained to me the intricacies of the sport,” said a small-time businessman, who got hooked on to betting first for fun and is involved now somewhat seriously.

“Money teaches everything, from nuances of the game to the performance swings of fickle sportspersons, more so when you lose repeatedly,” he added.

Another bookie from Delhi’s walled city says a punter can bet on anything and everything these days. In cricket, it can be right from the toss to runs in the session between strategic breaks and individual scores/wickets/fours/sixes in an over. Thanks to TV, they can keep changing bets and their rates at various stages of the competition.

“Except on the first and last 10 overs of a One-Day international, we place bets on every other slab of 10 overs,” said punter Rehman (name changed).

The accepted betting jargon has both numerical and code words. It could be 67/68, 70/73 when you are talking on the number of runs likely to be scored in a slab of 10 overs.

It is “Khokha”, for a crore, and “Petee”, for a lakh and their multipliers.

In the ongoing IPL spot fixing case, two of the bookies, Ramesh Vyas and Ashwani Aggarwal alias Tinku Mandy, hold sway over the betting syndicates in south India and north India respectively.

“Another bookie Firoz, who was arrested by Delhi Police on June 11 from Mumbai, works as a conduit between Dawood and other bookies. He also takes care of money-related issues, doubling up as the troubleshooter for the syndicates,” said Oberoi.

Will all this information help nail the real culprits? The police themselves are not too sure.

Successful Elections Answer Pakistan’s Critics

By Maria Syed

Pakistan continues to surprise everybody. While the world was busy writing a requiem for Pakistan, lamenting it a hub of extremists and militants; Pakistanis proved the opposite. It is a nation that has stood up to the gravest challenges: rule of the military regimes and corrupt and incompetent elected governments; natural catastrophes; and most importantly terrorism.

Each time the war came to Afghanistan, whether in the 1980s or in the 2000’s, Pakistan suffered tremendously. The past decade has been the most stringent for Pakistan. From being a peaceful country, Pakistan was pushed into the throes of terrorism. Terrorist incidents were a rare phenomenon in Pakistan before 9/11. A few terrorist incidents took place with sectarian undertones with involvement of foreign hands.

Since 9/11, terrorism has claimed more than 49,000 lives in Pakistan including the lives of 6000 security personnel. The economic loss has also been huge. It is estimated at 100 billion dollars during the past twelve years, according to the new Economic Survey of Pakistan 2012-13 that will be made public soon. Besides the human costs and economic losses, internal displacement has also been a nuisance. Above all general feeling of insecurity and psychological trauma in the society is intangible fallout.

During the recent general elections in Pakistan, Pakistanis proved their resilience once again. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant organization in Pakistan, prohibited the holding of elections on grounds of being unIslamic. They warned Pakistanis not to vote or to face grave consequences and vowed to target political campaigns, as well as political workers and leaders. These warnings were no jokes.

As many as 129 people lost their lives and 496 people were injured during the pre-polls violence. Bomb explosions, suicide attacks, rocket attacks, hand grenade attacks, targeted attacks – all means and tactics were employed by terrorists to prevent the polls. Political rallies, convoys, leaders and workers were targeted irrespective of their political ideologies whether from right, left or centre. Election offices and security personnel also became the victims. Intelligence reports also indicated of possible attacks on Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf’s  (PTI) central leadership. However, these efforts to sabotage the elections did not succeed.

As the terrorist threat mounted manifold, Pakistanis refused to be hostage to terrorists’ agenda and be intimidated. Defying the terrorist threat, the nation turned out in large numbers to vote. The voter turnout stood at 55 percent in these elections that generally varies from 40 to 45 percent. The women participation was also phenomenal. The youth were in the forefront. There was a general feeling of enthusiasm.

Refuting the popular misconception that militants have made inroads into Pakistan and extremism has gained roots, Pakistan today is a nation of peace-loving people who want the democratic process to proceed. It has proven it time and again by bringing down three military regimes. The unfortunate experience with corrupt and inept governments one after another has also not abated the belief in democratic process. The support for religious parties is  on the wane. It is most notable for the Province of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK) bordering Afghanistan and Tribal Areas of Pakistan where allegedly militants have gained a stronghold. A centrist party PTI won with a clear majority in KPK. People have demonstrated that they are looking for someone who can extricate them out of current socioeconomic morass, a person with a valid plan.

Nevertheless, the new government that is to take oath soon must also deliver on its promises. It faces huge challenges on the economic front, on the militant front and also on external front. The failure to deliver will wipe out the victorious party from the electoral scene as it did to the previous governing party.

The international community must make a mental note of Pakistan’s outright defiance of terrorism. Resilience is an attribute that defines Pakistanis now. It is just a matter of time provided there is a good leadership that the country will prove its mettle. Hence no more sap stories about Pakistan.

Maria Syed is a Researcher at Islamabad Policy Research Institute, and an op-ed contributor to many national dailies. She can be contacted at mariaumair@gmail.com

Senator Mike Duffy

by Gregory Thomas

Senator Mike Duffy certainly isn’t the first Ottawa politician to get some unwanted scrutiny from RCMP investigators. But unless politicians of all political stripes get serious about accountability soon, it’s certain that Duffy won’t be the last either.

It’s been disturbing to witness the speed with which Duffy and fellow senators Patrick Brazeau, Mac Harb, and Pamela Wallin have been thrown under the bus in recent weeks while Senators and MPs move to sweep the broader question of accountability under the carpet.

Under enormous pressure, the Senate board of internal economy met in public, for the first time ever, and tightened up its rules relating to expense claims.

But the ten rule changes only served to reveal how ridiculously loose the old rules had been. Senators will now need to submit a receipt if they want to be reimbursed for a taxi ride. Previously, they didn’t need to do that. As part of the Senate’s “honour system,” they simply needed to assure the Senate expense office that they had taken a taxi ride, and a cheque would be issued, no questions asked.

Unbelievably, the Senate continues to withhold basic documentation on expenses from the public, including the actual claims signed by senators, and supporting receipts. And the Senate still refuses to bring in the Auditor General to inspect the claims of every Senator.

Senator Duffy claimed Ottawa living expenses on 49 days when he wasn’t actually in Ottawa. The only reason Canadians know about it is that somebody leaked the Duffy story to the media. Understand this: Canadians still have no right to see Duffy’s expenses: he’s exempt from the Access to Information Act, and he’s exempt from the scrutiny of the Auditor General, just like every other Senator.

It’s the same story with MPs. Our most important anti-corruption legislation simply doesn’t apply to the politicians on Parliament Hill, unless they’re cabinet ministers.

Senator Duffy’s problems are nothing new. The RCMP laid criminal charges against Liberal Senator Hazen Argue in the 1980s over the way he handled his office budget. (Those charges were dropped because the senator was terminally ill). Just two years ago, Quebec Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne was convicted of two counts of fraud. Senator Lavigne fudged his expenses and even ordered Senate staff to cut trees on his neighbour’s property, during office hours.

The House of Commons is also under suspicion: Joe Fontana, former MP and now mayor of London, Ontario, is facing criminal charges over allegations that he expensed his son’s wedding reception while serving in the House in 2005.

MPs and Senators don’t want the Access to Information Act to apply to their expenses and their office budgets. And they don’t want the Auditor General looking over their shoulder.

Even the opposition in the House of Commons is in on the act. NDP leader Tom Mulcair said the Auditor General last year “gave the systems in place a clean bill of health for being able to determine if the expenses were valid and if there was a proper tracking system.” Did Mulcair read the same 2012 Auditor General’s report as the rest of us? The Auditor General didn’t audit MPs or the work performed by their employees or consultants in their Ottawa offices or constituency offices, nor did he audit professional services contracts awarded by individual MPs. In fact the AG examined only 264 transactions – less than one for each of Canada’s 308 MPs – out of the 85,000 transactions processed in that entire fiscal year.

Canadians simply have no proof that MPs and Senators are clean when it comes to their expenses. We rely on leaks to the media to find out how our tax dollars are being spent.

Until MPs and Senators are subject to the Access to Information Act and the Auditor General has unfettered access to their secret financial records, more will cheat and more will be caught and quickly thrown under the bus.

And it’s getting a tad crowded under that bus.

Gregory Thomas, is Federal Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

BJP Can Either Promote Modi Or Rhe NDA

When RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat arrives in the capital Tuesday to meet L.K. Advani and other BJP leaders, the party faction floating in the clouds after Goa will come down to earth. Of course, the key decision taken at the party’s conclave in Goa will remain unchanged. Narendra Modi will remain the campaign panel chief for 2014, but just as Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan held that position in 2009 and 2004 respectively. In other words, Goa will not look like the beginning of a Modi coronation.

What the Bhagwat-Advani meet will bring into bold relief is also something that has been pretty clear to the panic stricken BJP leaders who trooped into the senior leader’s Prithviraj Road residence and established telephone lines between him and Bhagwat in Nagpur to pronounce a simple message: Advani, at 85, is far from having sung his swan song. We need him to stay in the game, seems to be the voiceless chant of leaders who, in their own deep heart’s core, were denied the limelight in Goa.

The leaders who knelt before him were not demonstrating their adoration for Advani. Rather, they saw in his eclipse a shrinking of their room for maneuver, an end to whatever dreams they may have nurtured. And there is no end to their dreams. That Advani himself had grasped this reality comes across in his letter of resignation from party forums. “Most leaders of ours are now concerned with their personal agendas.”

It is extraordinary how the electronic media for months sustained a chant in unison about a gladiatorial combat between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi. Evening after evening, six faces screamed out of six windows on the TV screen their unprocessed wisdom on the Rahul-Modi contest when no such contest was on the cards.

Digvijay Singh was for Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Ministerial candidate, thus ending the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh bipolarity at the top. In determined opposition to this line was another Congress general secretary, Janardan Dwivedi. He thought the bipolar power structure was, for the Congress, a gift from the Gods. So, the Congress need not snicker at the unseemly factionalism in the BJP.

What no one quite expected is the scale of the eruption in Goa: a showdown between the party’s most experienced and its most popular face. In the process, skeletons in a very securely stacked cupboard of the RSS also came rattling down. The RSS supremo is having to intervene in order to restore balance in favour of Advani after his colleagues, Ram Lal and Suresh Soni, had tilted the scales for Modi.

The manner in which the media has supported Modi’s current elevation makes it amply clear that Corporate India supports the move. After all, the nose of the media ends where that of the Corporates begins. But why would Corporate India support a candidate who repels coalition partners in an age when no government can be formed in New Delhi by any party on its own in the foreseeable future?

Corporate India cannot have extended support to Modi simply because he has been extraordinarily hospitable to them in Gujarat. He must have other uses.

He is by all accounts, decisive, firm, strong willed, obstinate, but with many managerial skills too. These could be attributes of a successful manager of a party like the BJP not its Prime Ministerial candidate as some of his ardent supporters would like him to be.

A Prime Ministerial candidate in the coalition era must have one overriding attribute: suppleness and an infinite capacity to give other points of view a patient hearing. These were the qualities that moved Atal Behari Vajpayee up the ladder until he became Prime Minister.

In fact it is useful to recall that in 1999, when the NDA came to power under Vajpayee’s Prime Ministership, Advani was known as the Iron man. When Bill Clinton sent his trusted adviser Bill Richardson to evaluate the NDA leadership on the eve of the US President’s visit to New Delhi, Richardson described Advani as “the intellectual in the NDA”.

Modi may not have Advani’s “intellect” but he has some of the senior leader’s other qualities. Therefore, just as Advani made room which Vajpayee filled, so must Modi have a preferred Prime Ministerial candidate. Who, in other words, will be Modi’s Vajpayee?

A talent for coalitions being totally absent from his DNA, Modi as BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate is only thinkable in the event of the party going it alone, to break out of indecisiveness of the coalition mould, to risk losing, in order to come back on another occasion, taking advantage of the credit accumulated by making a sacrifice of power now.

But going alone would be in opposition to Advani’s stated line in recent months, that of NDA plus. A post Advani never resigned from is that of NDA president. NDA plus would entail the BJP toning down its saffron to cast its inclusive net wider. Who knows in the event of a fractured verdict in 2014, Advani’s may be the most acceptable image.

There is yet another possibility. If Modi repels both minorities and other coalition partners, for that reason, all the hype attending his elevation may scare voters away, from the BJP of course, but also from smaller parties because vote blocs would be looking for a big party with a secure future in the Delhi Durbar.

In that case the eventual beneficiary of the Modi projection may well be the UPA under Manmohan Singh for the third time. Unless, of course, the Congress exceeds the figure of 206 seats it won in 2009. In that most unlikely of events, the coronation turban will be tied around Rahul Gandhi’s head.–By Saeed Naqvi

Successful Elections Answer Pakistan’s Critics

By Maria Syed

Pakistan continues to surprise everybody. While the world was busy writing a requiem for Pakistan, lamenting it a hub of extremists and militants; Pakistanis proved the opposite. It is a nation that has stood up to the gravest challenges: rule of the military regimes and corrupt and incompetent elected governments; natural catastrophes; and most importantly terrorism.

Each time the war came to Afghanistan, whether in the 1980s or in the 2000’s, Pakistan suffered tremendously. The past decade has been the most stringent for Pakistan. From being a peaceful country, Pakistan was pushed into the throes of terrorism. Terrorist incidents were a rare phenomenon in Pakistan before 9/11. A few terrorist incidents took place with sectarian undertones with involvement of foreign hands.

Since 9/11, terrorism has claimed more than 49,000 lives in Pakistan including the lives of 6000 security personnel. The economic loss has also been huge. It is estimated at 100 billion dollars during the past twelve years, according to the new Economic Survey of Pakistan 2012-13 that will be made public soon. Besides the human costs and economic losses, internal displacement has also been a nuisance. Above all general feeling of insecurity and psychological trauma in the society is intangible fallout.

During the recent general elections in Pakistan, Pakistanis proved their resilience once again. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant organization in Pakistan, prohibited the holding of elections on grounds of being unIslamic. They warned Pakistanis not to vote or to face grave consequences and vowed to target political campaigns, as well as political workers and leaders. These warnings were no jokes.

As many as 129 people lost their lives and 496 people were injured during the pre-polls violence. Bomb explosions, suicide attacks, rocket attacks, hand grenade attacks, targeted attacks – all means and tactics were employed by terrorists to prevent the polls. Political rallies, convoys, leaders and workers were targeted irrespective of their political ideologies whether from right, left or centre. Election offices and security personnel also became the victims. Intelligence reports also indicated of possible attacks on Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf’s  (PTI) central leadership. However, these efforts to sabotage the elections did not succeed.

As the terrorist threat mounted manifold, Pakistanis refused to be hostage to terrorists’ agenda and be intimidated. Defying the terrorist threat, the nation turned out in large numbers to vote. The voter turnout stood at 55 percent in these elections that generally varies from 40 to 45 percent. The women participation was also phenomenal. The youth were in the forefront. There was a general feeling of enthusiasm.

Refuting the popular misconception that militants have made inroads into Pakistan and extremism has gained roots, Pakistan today is a nation of peace-loving people who want the democratic process to proceed. It has proven it time and again by bringing down three military regimes. The unfortunate experience with corrupt and inept governments one after another has also not abated the belief in democratic process. The support for religious parties is  on the wane. It is most notable for the Province of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK) bordering Afghanistan and Tribal Areas of Pakistan where allegedly militants have gained a stronghold. A centrist party PTI won with a clear majority in KPK. People have demonstrated that they are looking for someone who can extricate them out of current socioeconomic morass, a person with a valid plan.

Nevertheless, the new government that is to take oath soon must also deliver on its promises. It faces huge challenges on the economic front, on the militant front and also on external front. The failure to deliver will wipe out the victorious party from the electoral scene as it did to the previous governing party.

The international community must make a mental note of Pakistan’s outright defiance of terrorism. Resilience is an attribute that defines Pakistanis now. It is just a matter of time provided there is a good leadership that the country will prove its mettle. Hence no more sap stories about Pakistan.

Maria Syed is a Researcher at Islamabad Policy Research Institute, and an op-ed contributor to many national dailies. She can be contacted at mariaumair@gmail.com

Senator Mike Duffy

by Gregory Thomas

Senator Mike Duffy certainly isn’t the first Ottawa politician to get some unwanted scrutiny from RCMP investigators. But unless politicians of all political stripes get serious about accountability soon, it’s certain that Duffy won’t be the last either.

It’s been disturbing to witness the speed with which Duffy and fellow senators Patrick Brazeau, Mac Harb, and Pamela Wallin have been thrown under the bus in recent weeks while Senators and MPs move to sweep the broader question of accountability under the carpet.

Under enormous pressure, the Senate board of internal economy met in public, for the first time ever, and tightened up its rules relating to expense claims.

But the ten rule changes only served to reveal how ridiculously loose the old rules had been. Senators will now need to submit a receipt if they want to be reimbursed for a taxi ride. Previously, they didn’t need to do that. As part of the Senate’s “honour system,” they simply needed to assure the Senate expense office that they had taken a taxi ride, and a cheque would be issued, no questions asked.

Unbelievably, the Senate continues to withhold basic documentation on expenses from the public, including the actual claims signed by senators, and supporting receipts. And the Senate still refuses to bring in the Auditor General to inspect the claims of every Senator.

Senator Duffy claimed Ottawa living expenses on 49 days when he wasn’t actually in Ottawa. The only reason Canadians know about it is that somebody leaked the Duffy story to the media. Understand this: Canadians still have no right to see Duffy’s expenses: he’s exempt from the Access to Information Act, and he’s exempt from the scrutiny of the Auditor General, just like every other Senator.

It’s the same story with MPs. Our most important anti-corruption legislation simply doesn’t apply to the politicians on Parliament Hill, unless they’re cabinet ministers.

Senator Duffy’s problems are nothing new. The RCMP laid criminal charges against Liberal Senator Hazen Argue in the 1980s over the way he handled his office budget. (Those charges were dropped because the senator was terminally ill). Just two years ago, Quebec Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne was convicted of two counts of fraud. Senator Lavigne fudged his expenses and even ordered Senate staff to cut trees on his neighbour’s property, during office hours.

The House of Commons is also under suspicion: Joe Fontana, former MP and now mayor of London, Ontario, is facing criminal charges over allegations that he expensed his son’s wedding reception while serving in the House in 2005.

MPs and Senators don’t want the Access to Information Act to apply to their expenses and their office budgets. And they don’t want the Auditor General looking over their shoulder.

Even the opposition in the House of Commons is in on the act. NDP leader Tom Mulcair said the Auditor General last year “gave the systems in place a clean bill of health for being able to determine if the expenses were valid and if there was a proper tracking system.” Did Mulcair read the same 2012 Auditor General’s report as the rest of us? The Auditor General didn’t audit MPs or the work performed by their employees or consultants in their Ottawa offices or constituency offices, nor did he audit professional services contracts awarded by individual MPs. In fact the AG examined only 264 transactions – less than one for each of Canada’s 308 MPs – out of the 85,000 transactions processed in that entire fiscal year.

Canadians simply have no proof that MPs and Senators are clean when it comes to their expenses. We rely on leaks to the media to find out how our tax dollars are being spent.

Until MPs and Senators are subject to the Access to Information Act and the Auditor General has unfettered access to their secret financial records, more will cheat and more will be caught and quickly thrown under the bus.

And it’s getting a tad crowded under that bus.

Gregory Thomas, is Federal Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

IPL Saga: India’s Gladiator Games

By Biswajit Choudhury

The nature and scale of the crisis engulfing Indian cricket, the country’s passion and also described as its only secular religion, makes one cast the mind back to the origin of games as a spectacle – to ancient Rome and the massive Colosseum, its rear stands still standing high in the heart of the eternal city.
A recent recreation of those times was British director Ridley Scott’s film “Gladiator”. The Roman Empire by that time had come to include various groups of people in the Mediterranean region while the gladiatorial blood sport spectacles also served to unite these diverse people under Rome in a common pastime.

The utter popularity of the games, where the gladiators were slaves and criminals and the spectacles served to instil the virtues of order and discipline of a militarized society, had provoked the Roman satirist Juvenal to comment: The people, who once bestowed imperium, fasces, legions, everything, now forgo such activities and have but two passionate desires: bread and circus games.

Juvenal was speaking of the use of sport as spectacle to keep the populace content. Like the Indian Premier League (IPL) when it appeared six years back, taking cricket to new heights of popularity. Also, like the IPL, ancient Roman gladiator games had their sponsors in the provinces, while the Emperor was the biggest of them all presiding over the arena in Rome.

All major political parties as well as the National Conference are present in the persons of members of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Its composition ensures the ruling class oversees India’s most popular sport, whose early patrons were the princely families.

Thus it is also understandable that the BCCI members tread softly in speaking against their president, when he has “done no wrong” in managing a sport that plays such a vital role in social life. However, the initial silence, now broken, will continue on its inexorable logic till the issue of N. Srinivasan’s conflict of interest in cricket’s governing body is resolved and professional principles and practices are finally instituted in the organising of cricket in India.

This is the heart of the present darkness – that things have been undefined for long, or never been clarified. To the extent that many of the alleged wrongdoers perhaps also feel that they haven’t done much wrong by selling an over, some balls or runs to bookies. In fact, the authorities are now scrambling to enact laws to deter corruption in sport.

The criminal investigations apart, principles have to be defined for the BCCI once and for all, and the conflict of interest of the president as an IPL team owner has to be resolved. The criminality surrounding cricket provides the opportunity to establish principles of professional management, leaving no scope of conflict of interest or generalizations based on the phenomenon of corruption in Indian life.

Srinivasan’s dogged refusal to relinquish hold can also be explained by his belief in having done no wrong. The struggle to establish principles is generally long, but the countdown to his exit has begun.

Biswajit Choudhury is a senior journalist.

A ‘Spring Thunder’ That Keeps Shaking The Indian State

By M.R. Narayan Swamy

It would have remained — and forgotten — as another localised peasant-police clash had not the lanky Charu Mazumdar called it the start of a long awaited agrarian revolution, and promptly received the blessings of Mao, his ideological god. Thanks to China’s decision to call the May 1967 incident in Naxalbari village in West Bengal a “spring thunder” and a “prairie fire”, a brutal and violent Maoist movement soon engulfed India.

Mazumdar was a local firebrand leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) who felt the time had come to defy his party as it was steeped in electoral politics. Once the peasants in Naxalbari seeking control of land killed a police inspector with a hail of arrows, Mazumdar teamed up with like-minded comrades to split the CPI-M and set up the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist or CPI-ML as his call for a Maoist style revolution won numerous adherents across India.

The Naxalite movement – as it became known after the village Naxalbari – became the biggest pan-India armed challenge the Indian state had ever faced. In rapid strides, it spread to large parts of India, turning West Bengal in particular into a killing field. Mazumdar unleashed a policy of “annihilation of class enemies”, giving a carte blanche to his band of men and women to put to death anyone who crossed their path, both in rural and urban areas.

Indira Gandhi and her chief minister in West Bengal, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, hit back with a vengeance. By the time the Bangladesh liberation war broke out in 1971, security forces and Congress activists began hounding and killing Maoists at will. Dissension erupted in the CPI-ML. Even the Chinese Communists took objection to some of Mazumdar’s writings. The man got arrested in July 1972 and soon died in police lock-up, marking the virtual end of a movement that had shaken the Indian state for five years.

By the time Gandhi imposed Emergency rule in 1975, the CPI-ML had split into numerous warring factions. A section of the Maoists decided to embrace parliamentary politics. But two of the biggest groups, the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the CPI-ML People’s War, popularly known as People’s War Group (PWG), remained committed to the idea of a Mao style armed revolution. After remaining at loggerheads for a long time, they merged in 2004, creating the present day CPI-Maoist.

The Maoist movement abated in the late 1970s and early 1980s, partly due to state repression and in part due to ideological infighting. Andhra Pradesh, once a bastion, was virtually stripped clean of Maoists by security forces. Kerala too suffered the same fate. Maoist ideology over time lost the appeal it once had for the young and educated middle class.

Amid the lull, PWG shifted its based to the Bastar region in present day Chhattisgarh, slowly building a powerful network among the impoverished tribals, in a terrain virtually impregnable. Many of those active in the region today are Maoists from Andhra Pradesh. The MCC remained a force in Bihar and Jharkhand region. Once the two teamed up, the state found them to be a formidable foe.

From the time when Mazumdar’s death looked as if the Maoist movement had been buried for good, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has now been forced to describe it as the country’s biggest internal security threat. Today, several hundreds – the precise number is not clear – of Maoists are active in several states, better armed than ever before, and going strong after marrying new military tactics.

The massacre in Chhattisgarh Saturday, when two senior leaders of the Congress were amongst the nearly 30 killed in a perfectly timed ambush, was the latest instance of this capability.

Will they ever win? I doubt it. But can they ever be vanquished? I doubt that too. The state-versus-Maoist war will rage for a long time.

M.R. Narayan Swamy is a senior journalist

Bollywood Goes Overboard With Cannes Fashion?

By Natalia Ningthoujam

New Delhi: Just when will Bollywood ever get it right? As the world celebrates 100 years of Indian cinema, Indian stars, it seems, went a little overboard in projecting the ethnic, oriental look at the Cannes red carpet that saw Sonam Kapoor, Vidya Balan and Sherlyn Chopra either going big on bling or heavy on jewellery and embroidery.
Aishwarya Rai, who has been a regular at Cannes for 11 years, didn’t go for the Indian look but was panned for her choice of clothes and hair.

The display seemed surprising, considering that well-known designers like Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Anamika Khanna and Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla were helping the stars put their best foot forward at the Cannes International Film Festival, which began May 15 and ends May 26.

Vidya was part of the jury at the Cannes extravaganza, where India was the guest country this year. Rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ang Lee, Christopher Waltz and Nicole Kidman at the gala, Vidya looked sophisticated in a maroon and black lehenga-choli, but thereafter, her fashion choices only earned her brickbats.

If one day she wore an elaborate nose ring, on another she chose an ivory ensemble complete with a white dupatta on her head, prompting women back home to ask just what image of India she wanted to project.

Mukherjee said the idea was to dress her in “little embellishments” and to give her “a purist ethnic” look.

Even though the traditional suits Vidya, most of her looks at Cannes, barring one – a simple brown sari with a maroon blouse – failed to impress, say stylists.

“Vidya played safe by going traditional as it has always worked for her. What she had picked up was really good but badly styled. The choice of nose ring and the use of dupatta on the head were not required,” said fashion stylist Shane Lonen, who has worked with actresses like Sonakshi Sinha, Karisma Kapoor and Prachi Desai.

Another actress, Sonam, considered a fashion diva back home, seemed to have gone overboard too – be it with her stylised sari teamed with a full-sleeved jacket, oversized nose ring or bold eye makeup. She made it up later with a voluminous floral Dolce and Gabbana off-shoulder gown.

“Sonam has mostly been a delight to watch in all appearances, but not in Cannes. She went overboard with her efforts to keep her style quotient unique and high. Had she worn the sari as a standalone, minus her eye makeup and over-indigenous nose ring, she would have been endearing enough,” fashion stylist Saachi Vijaywargia said.

Aishwarya, said Cannes watchers, has improved in her choice of red carpet ensembles over the years. This year she played it safe with either black or a heavily embellished full-sleeved multi-pastel coloured ensemble by Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla, but she could have done with some more colour.

“I definitely think a dash of colour would’ve been nice for Aishwarya’s look,” said fashion stylist Nikita Rijhsinghani. The actress slipped into a metallic blue gown one day, but she didn’t leave a black clutch behind.

Some of India’s past representatives at Cannes have been subtle and simple in their fashion picks. Nandita Das and Sharmila Tagore before her have managed to turn heads with their simple, elegant saris and classic pieces of jewellery, also representing the country’s ethnic tradition very well.

Designer Amit GT feels black and white are “outdated” colours, but they were a hit with the Indian actors this year. “Kamasutra 3D” actress Sherlyn Chopra went for a daring transparent black ensemble, and Mallika Sherawat opted for a black gown on one day of the event.

Rijhsinghani gave a thumbs down to Sherlyn, and said: “There are a million and one looks to look sensuous! Kill the transparency for starters! Sherlyn just needs to hire a stylist with better sensibilities and may be get a new mirror too.”

Sensuous can mean more than just showing skin, says Lonen.

“Sensuous and sexy don’t mean going out and revealing your skin. With the kind of body she has, she can easily pull out a look like that, or even a classy Dior gown with good eye makeup would do justice,” he said.

Mallika also went all wrong with her blingy gold dress, says Amit GT, who felt the look was “most cringeworthy”.