E XC LU S I V E PA R T N E R
BUSINESS
French food on cultural heritage list
Joins Spanish flamenco dancing and Peking
opera on Unesco list
New Delhi / METRO ■ Vol. LXXXVI No. 275
NIFTY 5,998.8 +10.1
The Hindustan Times
Leadership Summit kicks off
today, with a theme that
couldn’t be more appropri-
ate – winning in testing
times. Hundreds of leaders
and experts from diverse
field will congregate at the
summit in New Delhi to
debate ideas and insights on
issues that will shape India’s
course over the next decade.
The Dalai Lama, the spiritu-
al leader of the Tibetans,
opens the two-day summit
that will be addressed by 26
speakers from India and
abroad, including Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh
and former British prime
minister Gordon Brown.
LIVE ON CNN-IBN,
10 am onwards
LIVE WEBCAST,
UPDATES AT
www.hindustantimes.com/ht
summit
Inside:
Cultivating a broad
vision, a creative mind
and a compassionate
heart are important to
deal with the challeng-
ing times we are in, says
Sri Sri Ravishankar > P4
short
stories
SC PULLS UP
MCD, DDA
NEW DELHI: Days after 70
persons died after an
illegal building collapse in
east Delhi, the Supreme
Court slammed the
Capital’s civic bodies —
MCD and DDA — for
treating the victims as
“pigs” and not “human
beings” and paying too lit-
tle compensation. P3
>> CRIMINAL LINKS, P5
>>PICKING UP THE PIECES, P8
Govt opens home for
pregnant minors
NEW DELHI: In a unique ini-
tiative, possibly for the
first time in India, the
Department of Social
Welfare has started a sepa-
rate short stay home for
pregnant minors at its
Nirmal Chhaya campus in
west Delhi. P10
comment
BIHAR’S MR FIX-IT
Nitish Kumar looks
set for a second
stint in Patna. His
real challenge —
how to manage
rising expectations
— begins now. >> P14
weather
today
HOTTEST IN INDIA
HIGH28°C BARODA 35°C
LOW 16°C
COLDEST IN INDIA
SHYOK -19°C
FORECAST: Cool morning. A partly cloudy
sky. Evening and night will be comfortable.
India weather report, P 6
TODAY: 56 pages, including 20
pages of HT City. (Areas specific
Lives and add-on supplement
pages extra).
* Jodi Price in Faridabad & Ghaziabad
along with Hindustan R 5.00
MOTOR VEHICLE
& India’s rising economy.
Other Classifieds
on page 35-36
> P18
SENSEX 19,930.6 +65.5
The minister who acted like a Raja
FIEFDOM Gave three-month
advantage to favoured firms by
secretly changing procedure
Rajesh Ahuja
■ rajesh.ahuja@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: At the centre of the
2G scam is the change of dates
in the application process to be
allotted spectrum, which is
believed to have given some bid-
ders an unfair advantage.
HT has now learnt that deci-
sion was taken three months
before and kept a secret by then
telecom minister A Raja, so that
a few select companies had
enough time to get their papers,
money and bank guarantee
together. At the same time, other
firms were kept in the dark.
The initial dates for submit-
ting applications were between
September 24 and October 1,
2007, and the depart of telecom-
munications (DoT) sent out a
press release saying as much
on September 24. But on January
10, 2008, it sent another release,
which said that only those com-
panies that had applied by
September 25 would be eligible
— even though the decision to
change that date was taken three
months in advance.
That the DoT had taken the
decision to change the dates is
Supreme Court wants PM affidavit
on ‘inaction’ over Raja prosecution
Satya Prakash
■ satya.prakash@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: Terming the alleged
inaction in responding to a
plea for sanction to prosecute
former telecom minister A Raja
an “extremely serious” issue,
the Supreme Court on Thursday
sought an affidavit on
behalf of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh explaining
the inordinate delay.
BJP dithers over AI sacks COO with
Yeddyurappa unsafe track record
BRIEF RESPITE Core group divided
over K’taka CM, to meet again in 2 days
HT Correspondents
■ letters@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI / BANGALORE: The BJP
core group meeting in Delhi on
the fate of Karnataka chief min-
ister B S Yeddyurappa, follow-
ing the uproar over alleged allot-
ments of land to his family mem-
bers at throwaway prices, ended
inconclusively on Thursday
night.
The group, comprising top
Bharatiya Janata Party lead-
ers such as L K Advani, Sushma
Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and H N
Ananth Kumar, instead decid-
ed to meet again in the next two
days for further discussion.
“The core group discussed
the news reports that have
appeared on the Karnataka gov-
ernment,” said Jaitley. “The
chief minister and other lead-
ers may be called to Delhi for
talks with the party’s national
leadership.”
Earlier in the evening, the
Karnataka cabinet endorsed
Yeddyurappa’s decision to form
a commission, headed by a
Two Maharashtra farmers to lecture at Harvard
Zia Haq
■ zia.haq@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: After former rail-
way minister Lalu Prasad,
it is the turn of two Indian
farmers to take the lectern
at Harvard and give its audi-
ence yet another insight into
Hemchandra Patil (40)
and Rajendra H Patil (50) —
who built decent farm
fortunes from scratch in
Maharashtra’s Jalgoan dis-
HT CITY
RAHULMAKESTHEIR
DAYINLUCKNOW
Wishes birthday girl, agrees to taking photos at a restaurant
■ R 3.00 / *Price along with Hindustan R 6.00 / Price along with Mint R 5.50
DOW JONES 11,007.9 -15.6
evident from the correspon-
dence between Raja and Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh. Raja
wrote to Singh on November 2,
2007 informing him that “the
department has decided to con-
tinue with the existing policy
(first-come-first-serve) for pro-
cessing of applications received
up to September 25, 2007”.
It is clear that a favoured few
gained from this because 13
applicants were ready with
demand drafts drawn on dates
prior to January 10, 2008 and
some had even managed secur-
ing bank guarantees.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 17
DATE WITH SECRECY
September 24, 2007: DoT
announces October 1, 2007 as
cut-off date for applications
September 25, 2007: DoT
receives 232 applications
October 1, 2007: 343 more
applications received; total
applicants: 575
November 2, 2007: Raja tells
PM that September 25, 2007
is cut-off date
“Troubled” by the PM’s
alleged “silence”, a bench of jus-
tices G S Singhvi and A K
Ganguly told Solicitor General
Gopal Subramanium it was seek-
ing the affidavit “so that tomor-
row you may not say that the
opportunity was not given to
place the records.”
“All these statements are oral,
it will be extremely serious if
we find ultimately that some-
thing is kept back from this
I will continue as Chief
Minister for the remaining
two-and-a-half years.
B S Y E D DY U R A P PA ,
Karnataka CM
retired judge, to probe all the
alleged land scams in the state
during the last 10 years.
The trouble began about 10
days ago when Janata Dal (Secu-
lar) state president HD Kumara-
swamy released some docu-
ments, alleging the CM had bro-
ken rules to allot government
land to his sons and daughter
and caused a loss of R5,000-
6,000 crore to the exchequer.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 17
>> KARNATAKA ROW, P13
IVY LEAGUE HONOUR
trict — will tell their stories
at a food security sympo-
sium at Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard on
November 21. Ray A
Goldberg, Harvard’s George
M Moffet Professor Emeri-
tus of Agriculture, will be
among those listening.
Goldberg believes their
stories could answer critical
questions, including why
some farmers succeed while
others don’t. For industry
perspectives, Harvard has
NASDAQ 2,476.0 +6.2
■ Union ministers Pranab Mukherjee (left) and P Chidambaram (right) attend the wedding of ally DMK
chief M Karunanidhi’s grandson at Madurai on Thursday. >> PAGE 12
November 2007 to January
2008: Decision to change dates
is told to a select few, other firms
kept unaware.
This allows the favoured ones to
get papers and money together,
depriving the others.
January 10, 2008: In a press
release, DoT specifies September
25 as cut-off date
court, so it will be appropriate
to file an affidavit,” the Solicitor
General said. He later told
reporters a PMO official would
file the affidavit on Friday.
During the hearing, the court
also wondered how Raja could
write a letter to Janata Party
leader Subramanian Swamy
informing him that sanction
would not be granted to pros-
ecute the DMK leader.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
ht IMPACT
Tushar Srivastava
■ tushar@hindustantimes.com
NEW DELHI: Pawan Arora has been
sacked as the chief operating
officer of Air India Express, the
low cost international arm of
Air India. The decision was
taken by the full AI board, which
met here on Thursday.
Sources said AI COO Gustav
Baldauf has protested to the
civil aviation ministry against
Arora’s removal. “Baldauf select-
ed Arora and is unhappy with
the decision to sack him. We
have told him it is up to him to
decide what he wants to do,” a
top ministry official said.
Another high-profile appoint-
ment — of Stefan Sukumar as
chief of training — is also under
the scanner, with a two-mem-
ber committee being formed to
look into the “process of recruit-
ment” and submit a report to
the board within a fortnight.
In an action-packed day, AI
CMD Arvind Jadhav and three
independent directors — Air
Chief Marshal (retd) Fali H
also invited an Indian com-
pany working with small
growers, the Mumbai-based
Jain Irrigation Systems
Limited, which has
pioneered a water-saving
irrigation technique.
Hemchandra grows
onions, Rajendra bananas.
They were once “marginal”
farmers — owning just an
acre or less of land. About
80% of India’s farmers fall in
this category. Now, each has
more than 20 hectares and
SPORT
EMAAR DHAWANSCORES
HALTS PLANS TONFORDELHI
Delhi tightens its grip over Ranji Trophy Super
Funds crunch, CWG League match against Gujarat > P22
woes hit R15,000 cr
hotel plans > P25
hindustantimes.com
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2010
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IGNORED PM’s instructions
were not followed, Raja also
complained against law minister
Gaurav Choudhury and wherever legally and technically
Nagendar Sharma feasible and revision of entry
■ gaurav.choudhury@hindustantimes.com fee, currently benchmarked on
old auction figures,” Singh wrote
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister to Raja on November 2, 2007.
Manmohan Singh’s clear instruc- Singh was responding to a
tions for the auction of 2G spec- letter from Raja on the same
trum were flouted by former day, in which he’d complained
telecom minister A Raja in 2007, against then law minister HR
who also slammed the law min- Bhardwaj’s opinion that the
istry for recommending the matter be referred to an eGoM.
matter be sent to an empow- “In view of the importance
ered group of ministers (eGoM). of the case and various options
“In order that spectrum use indicated, it is necessary the
efficiency gets directly linked issue is first considered by an
to correct pricing of spectrum, eGoM,” Bhardwaj had written
consider introduction of a trans- to Raja a day earlier.
HT PHOTO parent methodology of auction CONTINUED ON PAGE 17
HOW RAJA STEAMROLLED GOVT’S SUGGESTIONS
November 1, 2007 November 2, 2007 November 2, 2007 December 26, 2007 January 10, 2008
LAW MINISTER HR RAJA TO PM MANMOHAN SINGH RAJA TO PRIME MINISTER
Department of
BHARDWAJ TO A RAJA MANMOHAN SINGH TO RAJA
“Discussions with the
Telecom (DoT)
“In view of the “The law ministry, “In order that external affairs minis-
issues a press
importance of the instead of examin- spectrum use ter (Pranab Mukher-
release asking the
case and the various ing the legal efficiency gets jee) and solicitor gen- applicants to collect
options indicated, tenability of these directly linked with eral (GE Vahnavati) their letters of
it is necessary that procedures, sug- correct pricing of have further enlight- intent, bypassing
the issue is first gested referring spectrum, consider ened me to take a Cabinet and
considered by an the matter to an introduction of a pre-emptive and other forums of
empowered group of eGoM…(the) opinion transparent method- proactive decision inter-ministerial
ministers (eGoM).” is out of context.” ology of auction.” on the issue.” consultations.
moreinside Cancel 70 licences for 2G service
given to 5 new players: TRAI to govt
HT Correspondent Shortly after TRAI made its TRAI, which had recom-
■ letters@hindustantimes.com recommendation on the net- mended penalty for non-com-
work roll-out failure by these pliance with the roll-out obli-
NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regu- companies that were given licen- gations, said this amount could
ON PAGE 12:
latory Authority of India (TRAI) ces and spectrum in 2008, run into several thousands of
>> HEAT SINGES TRAI
on Thursday asked the gov- Communications and IT min- crores. “So, we had suggested
>> NIIRA RADIA’S STORY
ernment to cancel nearly 70 ister Kapil Sibal called a meet- these licences should be can-
>> MOILY SAYS ALL IS WELL
licences for 2G services of five ing of top officials. celled,” the regulator said. “This
>> AN ALL-PARTY AFFAIR
new players — Etisalat, The regulator recommend- would vacate enormous amount
>> GOVT AGAINST JPC
Videocon, Uninor, Loop and ed cancellation of Etisalat’s 15 of spectrum and this can be
>> COMMENT: ALL DECIBELS,
Sistema-Shyam — as they have licences, Sistema-Shyam’s 10, given to companies serious about
NO DEBATE, P14
not met roll-out (to establish Uninor’s eight, Videocon’s 10, meeting the schedule.”
their networks) conditions. and Loop’s 19. CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
Major, FICCI secretary gener-
al Amit Mitra and Ambuja
Realty chairman Harsh Neotia
— met civil aviation minister
Praful Patel before proceeding
to the board meeting.
Thereafter, the Board unan-
imously decided to sack Arora,
on the grounds that a number
of things about him weren’t
known at the time of his appoint-
ment — as reported first by HT.
Arora joined AI on October
11. On October 22, HT exposed
the fact that the Director General
of Civil Aviation had removed
him from four key flight-safety
posts before he joined the nation-
al carrier. On November 1, AI’s
independent directors met the
PM’s principal secretary TKA
Nair to tell him they were “mis-
guided” and “kept in the dark”
about Arora’s record.
It also emerged that Arora
was the chief reference for
Baldauf, in a report by a head-
hunting agency hired to short-
list candidates for the AI COO’s
post. Within months of Baldauf
taking over, Arora was made
AI Express COO. Both earlier
worked together in Jet Airways.
>> AI CUTS LOSS BY 23%, P25
robust earnings.
Here’s what the Patils did
differently: They got a for-
mal education. They shifted
to drip irrigation, a watering
technique that’s being subsi-
dized by both the govern-
ment and private sector.
And they went for contract
farming for assured prices.
What will they tell their
Ivy League audience? “Agri-
culture has enough power to
bring prosperity if done
rightly,” said Rajendra.