THE WAR ON SECRECY

       This year, has been quite a profitable year for the news media with the glamour of scams and leaks competing to make headlines. The press and news channels are vying to get scoops putting the readers and viewers in a dilemma on what to read and what to watch.
      Corruption, scandals, leaks dominated the newspapers, channels and magazines of India and more such magma of issues are expected from unexpected area like that of a dormant volcano. The tidal flow of these scams rip out the base of such happenings – the political-business nexus.
The CWG corruption, 2G spectrum scam, Radia tapes all stand as a proof to such nexus between the politicians and businessmen. The Radia tape release took a step ahead revealing journalists’ involvement too. These were the most popular ones that hit the media. Many of the issues brought under light by few from print sector were left unnoticed by the news channels, as TRP is what that mattered.
     The Common Wealth Games meant to show case India’s new power in its entire splendor, divulged the deep corruptions involved to which India is pickled in. Suresh Kalmadi seems to have milked crores of rupees producing the exorbitant rates from treadmills, chairs to even toilet papers. The inept working styles of the organizing committee placed India in an embarrassing situation following pull-outs by noted athletes and raising questions even on the player’s security. Unfortunately, the question raised by the Australian player never realized the incapability of the Australian government to protect the Indian students there.

Suresh kalmadi

The financial cost of the game remains difficult to judge apart from the civic and social expenditure. The average estimated figure crosses the total amount provided by the centre to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. A very perplexing question is now posed to the centre on how to meet the educational needs of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the rehabilitation need of the Chhattisgarh tribes. Save the corruption, the disruptions in the public’s daily lives and destruction of environment caused in the name of bringing a world class appearance to the roads have left an unsavory memory in the public’s minds.

         The whole winter session of the parliament has not had a normal function following an impasse on one single issue- the 2G spectrum scam. The scam accuses former Telecom minister Andimuthu Raja of issuing 2G licence at throwaway prices not following the rules. This scam has caused a loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crores for the government. The license was issued on a first come first serve basis rather than the conventional bidding proceedings. Telecom services that did not meet the eligibility criteria and those fresh to the telecom sector like Swan telecom and Unitech wireless services were issued license at Rs.1537 crores and Rs.1661 crores. These services in turn sold 45% and 60% of their stakes at Rs.4200 crores and Rs.6200 crores respectively. The department of telecom accounted only Rs.10,772 crores for sale of 2G license. The head of the parliament, Pranab Mukharjee, has failed to convince the opposition over their demand of a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) probe into the issue as the government says no to JPC.

       The OPEN magazine had a scoop with the Radia tapes controversy, which reported the transcripts of some of the telephonic conversations of Niira Radia, a professionbal lobbyist, and an acquaintance of Mr. A.Raja, with senior journalists, politicians and corporate houses.
The tapes appear to lay bare the attempts of Radia to influence the decision appointing Mr. A.Raja as the telecom minister through some media persons and brokering a mining deal between former convicted Chief minister of Jharkhand, Mr. Madhu Koda. The Indian income tax department after getting authorization from the Home ministry tapped Ms. Radia’s telephone lines for 2000 hours of which only 10 hours of conservation is released. The home secretary said Radia’s phones were tapped during tax evasion investigations which were tracking the potentially illegal transfer of funds in and out of India.
Mr. G. K. Pillai, current Home secretary of India stated “the court could be petitioned for release of tapes. Then you cannot pick and choose. Everything will come out. This is just the tip of probe into the 2G spectrum scam.” When asked about the leakage to the Home minister Mr. P. Chidambaram he said he is against leakage of tapes recorded for investigation purposes but also added “some of it is inevitable.”

       The largest international, historic leaks, came from the whistle blower website Wikileaks. It is a non-profit organization, which won many awards since 2008 and was ranked first among ‘websites that could totally change the news’ by the New York Daily News this year. Wikileaks hit the ban list when it uncloaked the undiplomatic conversational cables of the US diplomats in November 2010.
Julian Assagne, founder of wikileaks, has created a space for himself much above the internationally famous whistle blowers like Shi Tao (Tiananmen Square massacre) and Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon papers). In April 2010, they released a set of documents called Afghan war diary, and in October, the Iraq war logs. And in November 2010, it released the US state department diplomatic cables. Although, many countries have said that Wikileaks will not cause any disruption in their relationship with the US, an internal strain in the relationships can be well assessed. The two countries reacting to the leaks with regard to cables concerning their country are Iran and Pakistan. The strain was publicly showcased when Ms. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State of US missed the Iranian Foreign minister at “hello” at a Bahrain security conference. Assagne said, all documents were redacted and only those cables were released which is accepted to be released by all the newspapers, which are in business with the wikileaks. Assagne expressed in an interview with the TIME editor through skype “we don’t have targets other than organizations that use secrecy to conceal unjust behavior and the last thing we would do is to discuss possible source. We expect to be of some assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their government and corporations”. The site is experiencing attacks by denial-of-services and its severance from different Domain Name Systems and is also banned in many countries especially the US.

       A common factor that exists between all the whistle blowers be it international or of the smaller towns of India is the reprisal from the opponents. Victimizing them is no unknown fact. The unpopular ones being washed out sooner and more easily and the rest sued and jailed. The present center of attraction Julian Assagne was charged of sex crimes following the release of US diplomats cables and was remanded after he surrendered himself to the Sweden police, even though, he denies the allegations. Shi Tao was sentenced to ten years in jail from 2005 for the release of an email regarding the Tiananmen Square massacre.
 As far as India is concerned, eight activists have been victimized for their whistle blowing job in this year alone. Sathish Shetty, who blew the whistle on land scams near the Lonavala was murdered in the beginning of the year. The latest inclusion to the murder list in the month of july was Amith Jethwa. He was killed brutally for exposing the mining activities that took place near the Kodina area of Saurashtra, which had the support of BJP MP, Dinubhai Solanki. The others in the list are, Vishram Laxman Dodiya, Shashidhar Mishra, Arun Sawant, Sola Ranga Rao, Vitthal Gite, Dattatraya patil.

        Their lives were slaughtered in their attempt to blow transparency into government’s activities. Unless such eye openers are secured, we would envelope ourselves into an opaque world cemented with illegal activities and corruption. A bill to protect whistle blowers is getting ready, but its content remains a secret.
        How well the bill will protect them and the masses relying on them, only the contents of the bill, action taken and the time will speak.