Kickback Grandé

When it comes to the sheer scale of corruption, we Indians are nothing short of nanobots. Western nations exist at the scale of Diplodocus Giganticus! Poor Rajiv Gandhi got bludgeoned for a measly 64 crores of Indian Rupees and the ghost of the Bofors Scandal has never left the tail of the Congress party. Fortunately for them, corruption in India has risen like the inflation and the Dearness Allowance paid to Central Government employees. 600 crores of Lalloo's is a benchmark now. But the UP bureaucrat who got caught recently is insisting on putting all politicians to shame. I kinda feel happy that Indians have so much loose cash to grease palms. On the other hand I feel sad that majority of Indians are getting cheated out of some quality public utility.

International defence procurements and kickback-grandé go hand in hand. Since childhood I've been shocked and very much amused at how governments pay off governments so that one government can order stuff from another government. Defence manufacturers world over, be it Bofors or BAE or Boeing, are privately held only for the name. They are government enterprises for all practical reasons. They get subsidies, research and technical support, and they even get commercial intelligence through commercial espionage by the country's spy agency. The embassies of their countries go whole-heartedly into promoting their cause. Their parliamentary representatives push their case whenever they visit the buying nation. Is this their weakness or their strength that they have to seek government support? And why this blatant acceptance of bribery in Defence deals the world over? Shouldn't business logic and economics triumph automatically?

Here is an article that puts several things into perspective. I really liked this insightful article into corruption in defence deals. It's a backgrounder on the ongoing Saudi-BAE corruption scandal. It's fun to see the Americans walking over red hot coals coz of this deal! ;)

ETHICS ARE DEAD. LONG LIVE BAE!
Larry Elliott, economics editor
Monday December 18, 2006
The Guardian

Imagine that you are the French trade minister, keen to derail the global trade talks for fear that they will result in a wholesale dismantling of the Common Agricultural Policy. It's been an uphill struggle but at last help is at hand.

The next time Tony Blair calls Jacques Chirac to insist that he must face down protests from angry French farmers and stand up for free trade, there is a perfect one-word response: BAE.

Imagine you are the leader of a small, poor, African country with a troubled past and a cavalier approach to pluralism and democracy. Indeed, the crackdown on dissidents has become so blatant in recent months that the Department for International Development will cut off British aid unless the standard of governance is improved. As Hilary Benn repeats his prime minister's mantra - help for Africa is a deal for a deal, aid in return for a crackdown on corruption - you whisper one word: BAE. Read more..

The Tatas are planning to get into the Military-Industrial Complex in a big way. With their strict adherence to ethics, will they be able to survive?

Why was Robert Killed?

I just finished watching the movie 'Bobby' based on the events leading to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. The movie ends with the following speech. As I heard the speech, I was surprised at how relevant it is now as it was then! Haven't we changed at all? What about America? This was in 1968. Robert Kennedy was championing withdrawing from Vietnam and end to the rift between races. Where has US come since then? Who killed Bobby? Why did he have to die? Just because he was on the side of what humanity actually stands for? What lessons can India derive from the history of our Democratic elder?

The movie is a good watch but the following speech is a must read! If you can hear it toward the end of the movie, the whole speech will actually hit you.

Remarks of Senator Robert F. Kennedy to the Cleveland City Club, Cleveland, Ohio, April 5, 1968, aka, "On Mindless Menace Of Violence" speech.

"This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one – no matter where he lives or what he does – can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by his assassin’s bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people.

Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily – whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence – whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs.”

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we known what must be done. “When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies – to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our bothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear – only a common desire to retreat from each other – only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is now what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember – even if only for a time – that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek – as we do – nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again." (Source)

Click here to listen to the speech.