The Pioneer, November 16, 2010 Chandan Mitra For a long time, I did not even know that J Gopikrishnan was a stringer based in Thiruvananthapuram working for The Pioneer’s now-aborted Kochi edition. So when he came to Delhi pleading for a job at the headquarters once the Kochi edition shut in 2007, I was rather…
[My blog published on January 15,2011] I am just outlining the violations/timeline of the 2G Spectrum Scam and other related telecom scandals. This is just a synopsis of the biggest scam the country witnessed. # A Raja becomes Union Minister for Environment and Forests in May 2004 and shifts to Ministry of Communications and IT…
5 dodgy firms received Rs 26,000-cr bank loan The Pioneer November 29, 2010 The loans provided by public sector banks to 2G scam-tainted companies are not limited to Unitech and STel. Investigations carried out by The Pioneer show that many more companies were liberally funded by these banks even when the Central Bureau of Investigation…
NAFED’s crores used on Husains, beauty pageants The Pioneer – August 9, 2010 The Centre is sitting over a shocking inquiry report, submitted 20 months ago, on the blatant corruption in the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED). The inquiry committee headed by Justice RR Misra has exposed allotment of more than…
(Article written in Pioneer on March 25, 2012) At last fraud 122 telecom licenses granted by former tainted Telecom A.Raja is cancelled by Supreme Court. The Congress and UPA Government have not yet learned lessons. That is why they filed review petition without any remorse. The motive of the review petition simply exposes that A.Raja…
J Gopikrishnan (Article written on Dec 31, 2011) The year 2011 can be remembered as the year of uprising against corruption in India. The year started with nationwide raids of CBI on 2G Spectrum Scam and the arrest of tainted former telecom minister A.Raja, leading to the arrest of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi,…
TAPPED and TRAPPED (Published in Pioneer on April 28, 2010) Govt taps PR honcho’s phone, gets clinching evidence against Raja The cat is finally out of the bag. The CBI has acquired clinching evidence showing that a high-profile woman public relations lobbyist acted as powerbroker in the mutli-crore 2G spectrum scam and that she was…
(Published in Pioneer on Feb 1, 2010) In shortlisting WiMax franchisees, the BSNL has violated its own guidelines which make it mandatory for the eligible bidder to have Rs 100-crore turnover per year for two consecutive years. Neither the shortlisted company, Ampoules & Auto Pvt Ltd, nor its re-born entity Starnet communication Pvt Ltd meets…
[The Pioneer, October 28, 2009] The 2G spectrum scam might not have taken place but for the clout that A Raja wielded in the UPA-I Government, when his party (the DMK) — as a major ally of the Congress — called the shots at the Centre. Documents available with The Pioneer show how the Telecom…
[July 1, 2009 – The Pioneer] The father-son duo that tried to influence a Madras High Court judge through a Union Minister for a favourable verdict in a criminal case was close to Telecom Minister A Raja. Justice R Reghupathy created a sensation on Monday evening in open court in Chennai when he alleged that…