India Abroad October 23, 2009

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US NEWS

India Abroad October 23, 2009

Envoy Meera Shankar raises corruption charges

PARESH GANDHI

SHEELA BHATT IN NEW DELHI

What, asks a senior government official who is part of a team following up official action on its contents, was the motive for India’s Ambassador to the United States Meera Shankar sending a letter May 12, containing allegations of

corruption to T K A Nair, principal secretary to the Indian prime minister? The letter lists eight instances of corruption involving five Indian ministries including the ministry of defense, uncovered by the US Anti Corruption Enforcement. The instances came to light because of the US law known as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act according to which American companies are mandated to testify before the Anti Corruption Enforcement authorities about any illegal payments made in foreign countries. The letter contains details of illegal payments by Mario Covino of Control Companies to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board; by Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation to the Indian Railways; by International Corporation to various officials in India and other countries; by AT Kearney India to state-owned enterprises; by Dow Chemicals to India’s Central Insecticides Board and by Pride International to an unnamed government official in India. The official says the ambassador’s letter is anomalous on two counts. Firstly, no ambassador writes directly to the principal secretary to the prime minister; envoys generally correspond with the foreign secretary, who at the time of the incident was Shivshankar Menon. The timing, the official points out, is equally mysterious – the letter was written after voting had been completed in the general election to Parliament, but before the counting of votes. Sources in the PMO told India Abroad the letter was

received in mid-May. On June 1, the PMO wrote to the Department of Personnel and Training, which is that branch of the government dealing with the bureaucracy, including questions of bureaucratic corruption, to inquire about the contents of the letter. The department submitted its findings August 10, and said among other things that the case relating to corruption by Dow Chemicals is ‘an old case’, and that the CBI is already looking into it. Shankar’s letter had said the company had allegedly bribed officers of the ‘insecticides department’ to get relevant permission to place their products on the Indian market. Eight days later, the PMO responded to this letter, instructing the department to proceed with its inquiries without any delay. The department filed an action taken report with the PMO October 9. The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which acquired a copy of the letter, promptly used it as a stick to beat the government with. Questioning the government over the delay in releasing its contents, the BJP in a statement said it ‘amounts to shielding the corrupt. This means that the government does only pep talk on the issue of corruption. It seems the government, which is bent upon helping controversial (Italian businessman Ottavio) Quattrocchi, has lost any nerve to fight corruption.’ The party ended up with a face full of egg when inquiries revealed that seven of the eight cases of corruption detailed in Shankar’s letter dates back to when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was in power.

Spate of burglaries has Fairfax residents in panic GEORGE JOSEPH

Seven burglaries targeting Indian homes in the first week of October have created a sense of panic in Fairfax County, Virginia. The Reston, Fair Oaks, Sully and McLean areas of Fairfax County have seen 24 burglaries this year, most of the victims being Indian Americans. “Altogether, we have lost millions worth of jewelry, electronics, other valuables, passports etc,” said Raman Kumar, one of the earliest victims of the spate of burglaries that began last October and escalated this month. “People have lost the feeling of safety. I go home from work once or twice every day to check if everything is OK,” said Abdulrahi Roda, whose house was one of four burglarized October 7. Though she is a Somali, Roda, who lost gold jewelry inherited from her grandmother, lives next door to Ramasamy, an Indian American whose house was also robbed the same day. “The robbers probably thought she was an Indian too,” Ramaswamy said. “The thieves seem to know where exactly the gold is kept,” said Roda, who works in the Fairfax School System. “They entered the house through the backdoor, removing it. There was no fingerprint or any other evidence. These are professional people, getting bolder and bolder every day. I hope

they will be caught before there’s a loss of life.” The local police station is not far away from her home. Ramasamy, whose losses include a laptop, other electronic items and his wife’s gold chain, has begun taking precautions like depositing the family’s jewels, passports etc in a safe deposit locker. “The gold chain was kept along with fake jewelry,” Ramaswamy said. “My wife often complained that she could not make out the gold one from the fakes. The thieves had no such problem – they took the gold chain and left the fake ones untouched,” he said. Ramasamy said once his children leave for school around 8:45 am, his home stands empty till his wife Meena returns around 2:45 pm. In an increasingly common modus operandi, the thieves came through the rear window, removing it without breaking the glass. They ransacked the bedrooms and the living room and left the other rooms untouched. “More than the loss, it has become a psychological issue. We come home fearing it will be looted or that somebody is still inside. The feeling of security has vanished,” Ramasamy said. Raman Kumar, who lost jewelry and electronics, says he is unlikely to get insurance cover as he had not insured the jewels separately. The Puvvada family lost $47,000

worth of jewelry, cameras, a laptop, camcorders and four wedding saris October 6. Another Indian family nearby was burglarized the same day. Himadhar Puvvada had installed a high tech security system in June after hearing tales of burglaries in the area. However, the burglars disabled the alarm system before raiding his home. Wife Vindhya says she is now scared to enter the house alone, and tends to wait in the driveway with her 20month-old child until her husband returns from work. The Puvvada home did not have any religious markings on the door or iconic displays outside the home. Earlier this year, it had been noticed that the burglars targeted homes that had Hindu symbols, like the idol of Lord Ganesh, outside their homes and garages. The police in a statement in August suggested that the robberies were the work of a gang who used the religious symbols to identify homes, bargaining on the fact that Hindus have a penchant for gold jewelry. A few of the victims have told the police of seeing a white or silver Jeep Cherokee containing a woman with red hair and two men in their twenties. It is believed that the woman knocks on the front door to ascertain if there is anyone there and, once the house is found to be empty, her male accomplices make their way to the back to

effect an entry. With the police without new leads, area residents have sought the intervention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and sent petitions to President Barack Obama and Senator Mark Warner, who represents the district. In an online petition presented to the authorities, residents have demanded that the police set up a task-force to catch the burglars. ‘We strongly believe that all these burglaries are orchestrated by an organized gang of burglars who have sophisticated equipment to detect gold, duplicate security codes and enter homes without setting off alarms,’ the petition says. ‘We have incidents where they even stole passports, Green Cards and social security cards, which raise the issue of national security. We would like to also urge the involvement of the FBI. Since these incidents, we are faced with financial losses, emotional trauma, and feel let down due to lack of attention and resources in solving this serious problem.’ The petition points out that when a similar spate of burglaries occurred in Woodlands, Texas, authorities there assigned 10 detectives in special patrols to address the issue. The gang was captured within two days, the petition points out, while asking for similar initiatives from the Fairfax police.