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2010 by author
Author: Pratap Simha
Cover design: -----
Pages: 181
Price: Rs 120
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, record-
ing or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the author.
: Hubli Jurisdictionj
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Bellary witnessed a sensational political murder in 1987

when Babu alias Railway Babu, a Congress councillor with
criminal antecedents, was hacked to death in full public view.
Following Railway Babus death, by-election was held to the
Bellary Municipal Council from the ward he had represented.
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Congress felded Railway Babus relative and his gang
member Ramanjini alias Kunta Ramanjini.
The BJP, which hardly had any presence in Bellary then,
felded M.S. Rao, a reputed architect who was known for his
honesty and integrity. (It is another thing that only such people
were in the BJP those days.)
I was among those 15-odd RSS, ABVP and BJP
workers from all over the city who had gathered at the
polling booth on the election day. Although I was only 18
years-old, was made to sit inside the booth as BJPs polling
agent.
As Congress goondas were indulging in massive proxy
voting, I challenged them though I had been advised by our
leaders to remain silent as we were no match to the Congress
(read the dreaded gang) either in regard to muscle power or
money power.
When I raised my voice against proxy voting, I was
threatened and badly beaten up by a notorious rowdy who
was almost of my age.
When I complained to our party leaders about the attack,
Sri. G. Ranganna Shetty, who was the voice and the face
of the Jana Sangh and the BJP in Bellary for over four
decades until Sushma Swaraj entered Bellary in 1999, said:
...
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Avarige adhikaara idhe avaru hodithaare. Namage adhikaara
bandhaaga kanditha naavu avarige hodiyaana. Neenu
summane iru thamma.
The same notorious rowdy, who had beaten me on the
polling day, threatened me again at the counting centre after
the Congress candidate was declared elected.
I hoped that as Sri Ranganna Shetty had said, we too will
come to power one day and I will get a chance to retaliate. But,
I never got the opportunity.
The dreaded gangster who had assaulted and threatened
me is now the Honourable Minister for Health and Family
Welfare in our party Government.
The ringleader of that notorious gang, which was into
murders, extortion, robbery and kidnapping, was Sanna
Fakirappa of Hagari village, who could be the MP of our party
from Raichur.
The goonda councillor Railway Babu, whose murder
necessitated that by-election, is the father of the T.H. Suresh
Babu, our party MLA for Kampli.
Although 22 years have elapsed, those words of
Sri. Ranganna Shetty are still ringing in my ears. For, the
wounds have healed but not the scars.
It is another thing that the LAMP never glowed and the
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LOTUS never bloomed for Sri Ranganna Shetty who devoted
his entire life for the BJS and the BJP by even neglecting his
petty business.
Every day he used to crisscross entire Bellary on his bicycle
for the party work even when the mercury touched 47 degrees
during the summer. The BJP has now totally forgotten Sri
Ranganna Shetty as he is of little use, thanks to Bellary
Janardhana Reddy Party.
But even now Sri. Ranganna Shetty never misses an
opportunity to proudly recollect the long association he had with
Baburaoji, Jagganath Rao Joshi, Sreenivasa Saralaya, Y.S. Patil,
Gundanna, Sanjeevanna and Mallik, to name a few.j

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(Please Do Not Sell

Vinod Mehta
Indian media doesnt do introspection. We recommend it to
othersMPs, political parties, militants, judges, scientists....
They are all advised to look deep inside their own trade and clean
up the rot. Meanwhile, the rot creeping into the fourth estate is
studiously ignored or airbrushed, usually by organising a studio
discussion in which the citizen is asked: Does the media need to
be accountable? Discussion over. Issue over. Fortunately, even
that stratagem is wearing thin. The chicanery is conspicuous.
And yet who can deny that while our media has much to be
proud of, there is increasing public disenchantment, not just with
its slant, shrillness, sermonising and sensationalism, but with its
core value, namely integrity. It is hardly a secret that the media
is capable of misjudgement and laziness. However, what the aam
aadmi seldom doubts is the news it transmits. That trust, alas,
...
..
.
152
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153
is breaking down.
I am not referring to the blurring of news and opinion, which
itself violates the time-honoured principle: News is sacred,
comment is free. However, even when news and comment are
mixed up, it is possible for the alert consumer to separate the two.
At any rate, even in the most advanced of democracies, the media
does carry ideological/party bias, which is refected not in the
editorial pages, but in the news columns. That practice, however
deplorable, a free press can live with.
If all these burdens were not enough for the media in the
worlds largest democracy, consider this: Sections of the media
are now for sale. For a price, you can buy news on the front
page. It is a trend which has been with us for a few years, but
thanks to the exposure by the late Prabhash Joshi, P. Sainath
and others, it is emerging as the single-most serious threat to
our collective credibility. Indeed, the system is getting fast
institutionalised, with TV channels and newspapers approaching
politicians, especially during elections, with a package which,
interestingly, is negotiable. It is an offer diffcult to refuse.
I am not unmindful of the diffcult times the media industry is
going through. The market is too crowded, the advertising cake
is too small, the economy is too sluggish. We are all furiously
engaged in fnding new and innovative ways to augment our
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dwindling revenues. Outlook (like others) is neck-deep in this
skirmish. As you may have noticed, the Outlook Spotlight
feature is sponsored, the client has almost full editorial control.
The only redeeming aspect is that the reader can easily spot it,
since it is clearly marked on the page. News for sale is not. The
purpose here is to pass off sponsored news as professional news.
Dog does not eat dog. True. In the investigation you are about
to read, the intention is to shed light on a malaise which, if not
treated, will surely destroy the Indian media. I hope our colleagues
in the business will take it in that spirit.)

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YEDDYURAPPAS MINEFIELD
Touch Reddy lairs & theres ready trouble
Karthik Subbaraman & Sai Deepika Amirapu
BELLARY
THE hour is close to dusk on
December 4 at Obulapuram on
the Andhra Pradesh-Karnataka
border and a game of cricket is
drawing to an end for the local
lads. The setting is surreal, almost
spectacular. The ground is a large
patch of level land bordered on
one side by sloping rock. On the other side, a makeshift road cloaked by a thick
layer of iron-ore dust its redness accentuated by the setting sun snakes
along on its way to the open pit mines in the distance. For as far as the eye can
see, the game of cricket is the only oasis of activity.
Until November 25, the exotic playground was only a useless corner of
the minesite of the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC). Around it, the air
reverberated with the sounds of the dynamite used to blast rock containing
iron ore. Excavators gouged out the earth for the mineral and thousands of
trucks were loaded with their cargo of ore before heading to distant ports.
And suddenly the Andhra Pradesh government was overcome by a burst
of courage: it suspended mining in the area and stopped transportation of
the mineral through the state. Obulapurams young cricketers had a new
playground.
The gates to the playground began to open in early September, when a

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helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy
came down in bad weather, killing a man who was at the peak of his career
and who ruled the state with an iron fst. The political games had begun and
its ramifcations would be felt far and wide.
In Anantapur, Divisional Forest Offcer (DFO) Kallol Biswas
Obulapuram is part of his turf was keeping an eagle eye on developments
in Hyderabad and New Delhi. Would Jaganmohan Reddy, YSRs son, be
successful in his audacious bid to become the new chief minister? If the
36-year-old made it, the status quo would continue. Mr Biswas was acutely
aware of the close links between the YSR family and the powerful Reddy
brothers of Bellary, who have been accused of large-scale illegal mining in
both Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
Janardhan Reddy and his elder sibling Karunakar are both ministers in
Karnataka while the youngest brother Somasekhar heads a lucrative milk
co-operative. Their close associate B Sriramulu is the states health minister
and the Reddy brothers command the support of some 50 legislators.
When it became clear that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was in
no mood to humour YSRs son, Mr Biswas swung into action. Within the
span of a week at the end of October and early November, mining frms
controlled by the Reddy brothers were slapped with a series of notices
for allegedly committing a litany of illegal acts. It was almost as if Mr
Biswas was trying to make up for three years of inaction. The accusations
were grave: OMC, Mr Biswas wrote, destroyed interstate boundary pillars
between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh; it encroached into a neighbouring
mine run by Bellary Iron Ore Pvt Ltd (BIOP) and it laid a road illegally
inside the forest to transport ore mined in Karnataka. Anantapur Mining
Corporation (AMC), another frm controlled by the Reddy brothers, was
accused of operating without a forest department permit and illegally
mining iron ore. Strongarm tactics were common. We would dig trenches
to prevent their vehicles from crossing over into unallocated forest land
and they would have them flled, a forest offcial observed.
Mr Janardhan Reddy insists that the allegations are untrue and claims
he is on the correct path.
The son of a police constable, Mr Janardhan Reddy is the most
enterprising of the three brothers. He headed a chit fund called Ennoble
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India, which was ordered in 1998 to stop operations for violating norms
relating to acceptance of deposits and investments.
After Mr Janardhan Reddy took control of OMC in 2002, his fortunes
soared, with generous help from regime of the late YSR. The turnover
of OMC, which owns just three leases totalling less than 135 hectare,
skyrocketed from about Rs 35 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 3,000 crore during
2008-09.
Mr Biswas notices were just what Chandrababu Naidu of the opposition
Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was waiting for in Hyderabad. For years, he had
tried to pin down YSR on the issue of illegal mining but had met with little
success. With the Andhra Pradesh strongman out of the way, Mr Naidu
trained his guns on the Reddy brothers. He was taking aim at Jagan. While
Mr Biswas busied himself issuing notices, an insecure Karnataka chief
minister B S Yeddyurappa had a bout of bravado. Believing that this was
the opportune moment to strike, he transferred top offcials perceived to be
close to the mining barons from their perches in Bellary. He also decided to
impose a levy of up Rs 1,000 per trip on trucks carrying iron ore.
For the Reddy brothers this was too much. Andhra Pradesh was nearly
out of their grasp and they could not afford to let the situation in Karnataka
get out of hand. They struck back hard, precipitating a 15-day crisis that
pushed the frst BJP government in southern India to the brink of collapse.
BSYs attempts to control Reddys failed
MR YEDDYURAPPA, with the blessings of the Reddys godmother
Sushma Swaraj, was made to eat humble pie. He was forced to rescind the
transfers, put on hold the transport levy, drop close aide Shobha Karandlaje
from the cabinet and remove VP Baligar as his principal secretary. Mr
Yeddyurappa tried to contain the Reddys but he failed. The party decided
that it was better to lose one district (Bellary) and save the state, a senior
BJP leader said.
While the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh has gone ahead and
roped in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a probe into
illegal mining, Mr Yeddyurappa has stoically refused to allow any such
thing.
For the Congress, the entire state is at stake but for us it is only a
question of one district, which we have already conceded. But if the CBI
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is serious and starts investigating opposition politicians in Karnataka with
links to illegal mining, then things will change, the BJP leader added. With
a chastened Mr Yeddyurappa arm-twisted into an uneasy truce, the mining
barons, with Mr Janardhana Reddy at their head, are targeting their ire at
the Congress and Mr Naidu and attempting to consolidate in Karnataka.
Mr Janardhana Reddy is especially concerned about the fate of the
Brahmani Steel project promoted by him in Andhra Pradeshs Kadapa
district. Estimated to involve an investment of about Rs 20,000 crore, hell
be in deep trouble if it comes unstuck. If the situation in Andhra Pradesh
becomes unbearable for him, observers expect the project to be relocated
to Bellary, where Mr Reddy has conceptualised the Vijayanagar Area
Development Authority as a steel hub.
Attack me politically; I have no problem with that. But dont try and
harm my business interests, Mr Janardhana Reddy said.
The TDP leader, in particular, has been the target of acerbic
comments. He has been described by Mr Janardhana Reddy as politically
unemployed and a hater of the Reddy community. The Karnataka tourism
minister has even promised to end the political career of Andhra Pradeshs
opposition leader.
For Mr Naidu, the fght has taken on a personal edge, and he is vowing
to take the issue to its logical conclusion.
He thinks he can overcome the legislature, buy the executive and
overcome the judiciary. I have been in politics for 28 years, chief minister
for nine years and am the leader of the principal opposition party. A man
who has been in politics for fve years has the guts to say he will fnish my
career, remarked a furious Mr Naidu, referring to Mr Janardhan Reddy.
In Bellary, the handful of mine-owners who havent succumbed into
making deals with the Reddy brothers are angry, terrifed and almost
helpless. The Reddy mining barons dont own a single lease in Karnataka
but they control all but a dozen iron-ore mines in Bellary through what are
called raising contracts. Through such a contracts, the Reddy brothers
operate the mines owned by the lease-holders in exchange for a share of the
proft. So while Andhra Pradesh may have applied the squeeze, the Reddy
brothers have ensured that they can operate unhindered in Karnataka, their
main cash cow.
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Too scared to come on record, the holdouts say they have been
subjected to a campaign of intimidation and harassment with the active
involvement of the offcial state government machinery for not falling
in line and handing over control of their mines to the Reddy brothers.
They say false cases have been booked against their staff, their vehicles
have been seized by the traffc police and mining has come to a standstill
because the forest department refuses to give permits on false pretexts.
I am ready to die here, but I will not give in, said a mine-owner,
almost on the verge of tears. The biggest thorn in the side of the Reddy
brothers has been Tapal Ganesh, the only mine-owner who has had the
gumption to publicly defy them. He has initiated a dogged legal fght
that resulted in a Supreme Court panel recommending the suspension of
mining in the Anantapur area. I am here to fght till the last. Justice may be
delayed, but will not be denied, Mr Ganesh said. In Bangalore, the head of
Karnatakas top anti-corruption body, the Lok Ayukta, is deeply frustrated.
It has been about a year since Santosh Hegde submitted an exhaustive
report to the government detailing the vast extent of illegal ironore mining
and made recommendations to curb illicit activities. He described the state
governments response as half-baked and half-hearted.
He said there are malpractices at all levels: in obtaining the lease,
mining, transportation and forest clearances.
It is as if it is James Bonds licence to shoot and kill anyone.
Citing an example, he said transport permits are given in bulk without
the transporters name, the lorry number, the identity of the mine from
which it is being taken, where it is being taken or the quantity that is being
loaded.
All are blank, presigned and sealed.
Mr Hegde, a former judge of the Supreme Court, estimates that only a
third of the ironone in Karnataka is mined legally. The state is estimated to
mine about 35 million tonne of iron ore annually, earning just Rs 165 crore
as royalty. The state government gets a royalty of Rs 16 to Rs 27 per tonne
depending on quality of ore. Between 2004 and 2007, the market value of
the ore was Rs 6,000-7,000 per tonne. Even in the lean period, it was Rs
1,500-2,000 per tonne.The social costs of mining, too, are enormous.
Illegal mining is ruining a generation. Boys aged between 15 and 25
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are given a motorcycle and some money. They dont go to school or college
but roam around the streets of Bellary and act as informers for the miners,
Mr Hegde said. After suffering a series of reverses starting September, the
Bellary brothers had begun to breathe easier in the past few days, thanks
to the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The ban on mining was stayed and
the investigation by the CBI which has booked OMC and the Bellary
brothers for offences such as criminal conspiracy, cheating, theft and
criminal trespass has been temporarily put on hold. The government,
which is struggling to cope with the crisis triggered by the agitation for a
separate Telangana state, is somewhat distracted for now. But once again,
the Supreme Court got involved on December 17 and the wheels of justice
started grinding again: it lifted the stay granted by the Andhra Pradesh high
court and reimposed suspension on mining. After all, it was a panel of the
highest court in the land that has delivered a scathing indictment of the
shenanigans in the Bellary forest area.
In Karnataka, Mr Yeddyurappa is weakened no doubt but so are the
Bellary brothers. More than a dozen legislators who sided with the mining
barons against the chief minister are now angry that they were denied their
pound of fesh when a truce was called. Before the state Assembly meets
starting December 22, the disgruntled lawmakers can be expected to push
the BJP government once again to the brink.
The opposition Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), meanwhile, are
licking their lips in delight. They have starting baying for the blood of the
Bellary brothers and BJP government will be hard-pressed to explain its
kidglove treatment of the mining barons.
Mr Yeddyurappa lacks guts and is intent on protecting his chair at
any cost... The Bellary brothers think they can chew whatever they bite,
said Congress legislator Krishna Byre Gowda.In Hyderabad, the TDPs
Mr Naidu says chief minister Rosaiah is concerned but not concerned
enough.
There is short-term political interest and long-term political interest.
In the short term, he is worried how Jagan will react. But somewhere the
bubble has to burst. What happened to Satyams Ramalinga Raju?
Obulapurams young cricketers may yet reclaim their playground.
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