Open Magazine: redeemed?

Open's climate change denial story looks even sillier one year out, but their willingness to run the Radia Tapes was no small thing

Just about a year ago, Open Magazine ran an extraordinarily bad cover story. In the 'Climate Change Fraud,' Open basically recycled a pile of press releases from right wing think tanks and threw in some quotes from a small group of well-known climate change deniers and skeptics, most of whom give quotes for a living.  No effort was made to examine the issue from multiple perspectives, and to make matters worse, the article was poorly written. The story made me doubt the integrity of people willing to run a controversial cover simply to stir the pot and sell magazines. I gave up reading Open for a long time.  

Then Open broke that Radia Tapes story, something most news outlets were afraid to do. The beauty of a free press is not that it gets things right all the time, but that it gets things right at least some of the time. And some of the time can make a big difference. Albert Camus put it this way: 'A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.'  So hats off to Open and Outlook for being good, at least this time around.  And let's not forget The Hindu, which ran two very good pieces last week explaining why Kapil Sibal's recent attack on the  CAG report cannot really be take seriously, except as a political ploy. Read: Sorry people, we're hanging up on you, and Head in the sand.

Back to climate change, things have not been going well in the year since Open ran 'Climate Change Fraud.'  In fact, last year tied for the hottest year on record.  I know one year doesn't prove anything--it's the long term trends that matter. But if we remain silent, then we leave the field to skeptics, who like to cry foul every time snow falls anywhere.  But for the record, anyone still talking about 'global cooling' may benefit from a review of some basic maths and science. My son is almost finished with his fifth standard text books; that might be a good place to start.  Here's a reality check from a piece that originally ran in the New York Times:

Two agencies, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reported on January 12 that the global average surface temperature for 2010 had tied the record set in 2005...[2010] was the 34th year running that global temperatures have been above the 20th-century average; the last below-average year was 1976. The new figures show that nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since the beginning of 2001.

Not good news, for those of us who consider things like the future of our planet. Full story here. 

So, what are we doing about it? Not as much as we should be.  The climate talks in Cancun last month were not the complete disaster many of us expected, but they fell far short of any real solution. Here are three different takes on those talks for those wanting to dig a bit deeper:

Cancún agreement rescues UN credibility but falls short of saving planet: The Guardian (full coverage here)

Cancun clinches deal--for polluters  from CSE's Down to Earth.

Green Lantern Mira Kamdar's more positive take on the Cancun summit. 

For more on climate, go see the Green Light climate page. For more on the 2G, check out our 2G-CWG page.

Why leak the Radia Tapes? It's time to talk motive

More important even than who leaked the tapes may be another question: why?

It is illegal to leak government secrets.  This is true in every country in the world, and there are a lot of really good reasons for it: governments--like businessmen, lawyers, and mental health professionals--sometimes need to do things confidentially.

Of course there are times when breaking the law is called for in order to prevent something terrible from happening. It is OK to break the speed limit, if you need to get a dying man to the hospital. It is OK to reveal confidential documents that will prevent large scale theft or corruption; and following orders is no excuse for committing or aiding in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity.

We don't know who leaked the Radia Tapes yet, but they probably could have come from one of only three places: the Finance Ministry, the Home Ministry, or the Prime Minister's Office. Who knows? Not me.  But a lot of people like me have been assuming that whoever leaked the Radia Tapes has done us all a great favor by shining the light on some very bad things, and that he or she did so for reasons having something to do with an admirable desire to set wrong things right.

I think I even said something like that at a party recently, and the politically savvy people I was talking with promptly set me straight--after they had a good laugh at my expense. Sure, this leak has revealed some ugly truths we should all know about. And yes, it could have been motivated by a love for truth, justice and Mother India. But there are other, more plausible reasons why someone in a high place may have wanted this information public. Today, I'll list three. There are probably many more, but I've forgotten what they might be. If you've got a good one, why not add it in the comments? Of course, this is all just idle speculation. But remember, motive is something every crime show detective knows to look for, and it seems to work for them!

Damage control: A lot of money was lost to the public in the 2G scandal.  In a previous post, we laid out just how much 1.76 lakh crore rupees really is in terms we can all understand.  For now, let's just say the 2G scam will likely turn out to be the largest in modern Indian history. Whoever leaked the tapes knew that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report was going to make a lot of people look very, very bad. Not just people in the Telecom Ministry, but people in Finance and even in the PMO. The Radia Tapes help to focus public outrage on A. Raja and the Telecom guys. The tapes framed the story, so as to crop out certain very, very important people.

Coalition politics: The Radia Tapes made it possible for Congress to sack A. Raja, putting the blame on him only, while keeping the DMK in the UPA coalition. Presumably the DMK is not just worried about its electoral position in Tamil Nadu and its friendship with Congress, but also whether the CBI and friends have any dirt that goes beyond Raja. If that were the case, they would pretty much need to keep their mouths shut, wouldn't they?.

Get even with the press: A lot of dirt came out in the coverage of the CWG mess. Feelings got hurt. Maybe it's payback time. The first batch of Radia tapes were carefully edited in such a way as to insure the media got it's well-deserved share of the blame for this whole ugly affair. Blaming the media is also a form of damage control, because if you can spread dirt on everyone, then the public is left feeling there is really no alternative to dirty politics and dirty business. Ratan Tata's recent effort to slam the BJP in this context is a variant of this game.

So what to do? I agree with the editors of The Hindu on this one: A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) is imperative at this point. It's hard to see what Congress gains by trying to delay this indefinitely, unless they feel UPA II wouldn't be able to withstand the truth--in that case, they've got nothing to lose by delaying except whatever public trust they've still got. 

Beyond the JPC, we have to hope that there is a thorough house cleaning, where people who are found responsible--be they members of the government, the media, or India Inc.--go to prison for long terms. You just can't fight corruption of this magnitude by giving middle level bureaucrats a few years in jail; you have to go after the big guys and you have to lock them up for long periods of time if they are found guilty. Otherwise, the temptation to play dirty will continue to be irresistible. And dirty business, dirty media, dirty government is a big part of what is killing democracy in this country.

Art, corruption, and how you can do good deeds while using the public coffers like an ATM

 What do Priya Sebastian and Ratan Tata have in common? 

Not very much, it seems.

I really should be writing about the Radiagate and the 2G scandal. There's so much to say. But we have to be careful: the Supreme Court is urging us to take care not to tarnish the images of those caught on tape talking with Ms. Radia.  The Supreme Court is probably right; after all, they  were moved to action by Mr. Clean, Ratan Tata. I mean, here's a guy who's recently made much of the dangers of 'crony capitalism.'  So he must be honest.  Plus, he's got loads and loads of money, and is not afraid to put it to all kinds of uses.

But having said that, maybe honesty is overrated--I mean what's wrong with using the public coffers like an "ATM" as long as you are a "doer"? At least that's what the illustrious former head of the Confederation of Indian Industries, Tarun Das, seems to think; he was allegedly quoted on the tapes saying, among other things, “You can do national service and also make money… and do really something worthwhile here.”  

Maybe he has a point: I mean don't servants--even public servants--deserve to be paid for their hard work? Read the exchange between Das and Radia here, if you have any questions. I don't-- I'm convinced: the rot is deep, and it will take some strong medicine to cure it. And in case you have any doubt about the extent to which we've all been robbed, read our piece about what we could have done with the 1.76 lakh crore lost in the 2G giveaway. It's almost unbelievable.

If you live in Bangalore and need a break from pervasive stink--or should we say scent--of corruption, why not go check out Priya Sebastian's exhibition? She's pretty amazing, and if I had a train ticket south and a week to spare, I'd be there for sure. If you can't get to Bangalore, you can see some of pRiYa's stuff over at the Plum Tree2.  Here's a recent post I love, only partly because green is my favorite colour.

2G Spectrum Scam: how much is Rs 1.76 lakh crore?

What could we do with Rs 1.76 lakh crore? A lot!

 Fund NREGA for 4 years, clean up a giant oil spill, stack of Mentos to the moon and beyond...

The media has been running a lot of stories about corruption lately.  Following all the CWG drama, there was the Mumbai housing scam, the paanwala in a Gujarat village who uncovered an alleged one crore NREGA scam, and fresh scandals in Karnataka.  These are all important and it's good to shine a light on rot wherever it may be.  But we have to make sure we don't lose track of the difference between corruption and what can better be described as massive loot and pillage of the public coffers.

This brings to mind the report recently released by an international watchdog saying that Rs 20 lakh crore (Rs 20,556,848,000,000 or $462 billion) in 'black money' was illegally transferred out of the country between 1948 and 2008.

Rs 20 lakh crore is a huge amount of money.  But it was taken out of the country over a sixty year period. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), it apparently took just a year or two for the government to give away 1.76 lakh crore (Rs 17,60,00,00,00,000 or $40 billion) when it allocated rights to the 2G spectrum (that's second generation wireless bandwidth) to new bidders at giveaway prices. 

Just so we are clear: the airwaves, like the air, rivers, and most natural resources, are owned by the people of India--and it's the Government of India's job to make sure these resources are managed in the interest of the people.  So selling the airwaves at ridiculously low prices is a violation of the public trust.  It's like selling a public park to a developer for a pittance: most of us lose; only the developer gets rich.

Most of us read these stories and think, "Wow, 17,60,00,00,00,000 looks like a really big number!" But though we all understand that a pile of money just slipped out of our collective hands, most of us don't really have a sense of how big that pile is. That's because the human brain just can't deal with that many zeros. We need something a little more concrete.

So today, I'm not going to go into the political machinations that led up to this embarrassment or the billionaires who benefited.  I just want to shed a little light on what all those zeroes mean in real life?  What could Rs 1.76 lakh crore--or Rs 20 lakh core--buy?

It can buy quite a lot as it turns out. So in case the government wants to fix this problem and recover that lost money, here is a list of things they could spend it on. Yes, there would be tough choices, but I have no doubt they will be up to the task!

1. Three percent of nearly everything

Why not start big?  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a number which attempts to measure the value of all the goods and services bought and sold in a given year. That's every cup of tea, every grain of rice, every new car or DTC bus.  In 2009, India's GDP was something like $1.2 trillion. So the money lost in the 2G fiasco alone amounts to more than 3% of our yearly GDP. Put simply, that means that in one fell swoop, we gave away close to 3% of our yearly economy to a few telecom giants.  Think about that for a moment. By the way, all that illegal foreign black money is equal to just under 40% of our GDP!

2. Rs 1500 for everyone

Instead of giving all that money to a few billionaires, why not spread it around? Admittedly this would be logistically difficult. But don't dismiss the idea so quickly. See when you give money to billionaires, they send much of it abroad, in the form of investments, or by simply buying imported luxuries.  Poor people don't do that--they spend nearly all their money close to home, where it has maximum economic impact.  And we have a lot of poor people.  Rs 1500 would amount to a more than 20 percent raise in annual income for the 800 million Indians living on Rs 20 or less every day!  (If we recovered the foreign black money, we could give every man, woman, and child something like Rs 17,500.)

3. Rural jobs at a decent wage

When you hear people say that we can't afford to pay state-mandated minimum wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), don't believe it.  The Union budget for 2010-11 allocates Rs 40,100 crore for the MGNREGA. With the money recovered from the 2G giveaway, we could fund rural employment for more than four years.(If we got back the overseas black money, we could fund rural jobs for 50 years!) If we kick in the money already budgeted for the program, we could vastly expand the wages and the reach of the program. And remember, all that extra money in the hands of rural farm labourers would fuel a boom in our rural economy, whereas extra money in the hands of billionaires too often ends up fleeing the country!

4. Double the Union budget for infrastructure spending 

The Union budget for 2010-11 calls for a total of 1,73,552 crore (US$ 37.57 billion) in infrastructure spending. The money lost in the 2G giveaway  (1.76 lakh core or $40 billion) is just a bit more than that. So if we added the 2G money to what's already budgeted, we could double the infrastructure budget for a year--or we could spread the increase over a decade. Being a green, I'd advocate putting the lion's share of that extra infrastructure money into buying clean water for all.  Then we could invest in trains, buses and other forms of sustainable public transportation. We might even think about converting T3 of the Delhi airport into a high speed rail terminus.

5. Cut the deficit in half

The central government borrows a lot of money every year, and this year is no exception. The net market borrowing of the Union government in 2010-11 is estimated at Rs.3,45,010 crore. If the GOI wants to make the deficit haters happy, they could use the money lost in the 2G giveaway to cut that deficit in half. (I wouldn't recommend it, but that's another story.)

6. Clean up the Gulf Coast

According to latest estimates, BP (or the US government) will have to pay $40 billion to clean up the Gulf coast and compensate oil spill victims. The lost 2G money is just about the perfect amount of money to pay for that!  Of course this move might be controversial with the survivors of the Bhopal disaster who would argue we should clean up their city first. They have a point.  But think of the 'big picture'; bailing out BP and the US federal government, might be enough to get us a seat on the UN security council! Or at least another visit from Obama.

7. Mentos to the Moon!

My son was helping me with this project, as you can see from the art work.  He asked, "So, how much candy could you buy with 1.76 lakh crore?" We worked it out with a packet of Mentos we had laying around, and here's what we found.  A packet of Mentos is about 13cm long, which means you need 7.7 of them to make a meter and 7,700 to make one kilometer.  According to my son, a pack costs about Rs 20.  So one km of Mentos will cost you Rs 1,54,000.  Rs 1.76 lakh crore would thus buy you 11.5 million km of Mentos.  Since the distance from the moon to the earth is only 3,84,403 km, you could buy enough Mentos to stack to the moon just about 29 times!  That doesn't include the cost of the Fevicol you would need to hold your pillar together, or the space suits and stuff.  But if you bought that much candy, you could probably get a pretty good discount.  And if we could get all that foreign 'black money' back, we'd be able to buy up enough Mentos to cross the distance to both Venus and Mars, if we timed it right!

For more on 2G, see our 2G/CWG page.