Rafale deal: Ambani gets favours; interest of nation ignored
Soon after former President of France Francois Hollande broke his silence over the Rafale deal, leaders of both India and France have been deeply embarrassed. Hollande’s statement has been such a blow to Indian government which had maintained that France decided all the terms and conditions of this deal. Modi government had recently said French company Dassault Aviation had chosen Anil Ambani’s company as their Indian partner and India had no role in this deal. In an interview, Hollande said Ambani’s company was suggested as partner by Indian government and they had no role in choosing an interlocutor. Even after this, the Indian government is attempting to say it is innocent in the matter, claiming there is no need to conduct any investigation in this regard.
The Rafale deal is now said to be the biggest defence scam ever, by the Indian government. This deal costs Rs one lakh crore, and Bofors scam diminishes in comparison to this. Opposition parties are pointing out that PM of a country favoured a particular industrialist, over the national interest at the cost of tax payers’ money. Modi government is giving out contradictory claims in this regard and is misleading the parliament on the whole. At one point, the government even tried to say this deal was finalized during the UPA regime.
Fact remains that UPA government had decided to buy 126 fighter Rafale jets from Dassault company to strengthen the combat power of air force. Congress government had taken enough care to ensure no corruption would take place in this deal since the party has been unable to wash off the Bofors stain from its face since many decades now. Hence it had set up armed forces committees from respective departments to ensure the deal was clean and efficient. It was mandatory to take the opinion and follow the recommendations made by these committees before finalizing the deal. The recommendations made by the committees had to undergo several levels of verification and acceptance by experts and members.
Rafale deal finalized by the UPA government had to pass through all these filters and then 126 jets were to be bought to strengthen six squadrons. UPA government was also striving to build capacities of Indian industries catering to defence sector as well. Long discussions were held in 2012 regarding Rafale deal to be finalized at appropriate prices of jets. Every jet would cost Rs 326 crore as per the deal made by the UPA government. According to that, 18 war planes were to be bought from France and the rest of 108 planes were to be assembled in Public Sector company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
Ruling party changed in the meantime after the elections and Modi government continued the talks with France on Rafale deal. The CEO of Dassault came to India in 2015, and said the deal had reached final stages with all talks having reached a conclusive level. But a capitalist PM Modi changed all terms and conditions of this deal, by turning it upside down in a few days’ time to suit his preference.
As per the 'revised agreement', the union government was to buy only 36 jets instead of 126 as finalized by the UPA. And the price had also changed from Rs 670 crore per jet to Rs 1660 crore. Earlier deal had been about buying few units of jets and then the rest would be assembled at HAL so that the PSU could build capacity. But the Modi government did away with this clause and changed it to building all the 36 jets in France.
HAL was clearly set aside, as if mocking Make in India theme floated by the very government, in this deal. Instead of that, Anil Ambani’s new company Reliance Defence Limited was allowed to have a major chunk of this deal and be a partner in this. A joint agreement was signed with Anil Ambani company as well. At the same time, Reliance had entered into a mega film deal payment to be made to Hollande’s partner Julie Gayet.
Modi government defended the deal stating the jets to be supplied to India need special parts and hence the deal was hiked to above Rs 1000 crore per unit. But the committees with defence experts with them have not approved of this deal. Modi government has another version that the jets were needed in shorter time frame and hence the rates had to be changed. But this argument does not make a cut.
Though none of this is acceptable, even after all the changes, the first jet would come to India only in September 2019. ‘Na Khaunga Na Khaane dunga’ was PM Modi’s words. Now with Rafale deal showing his clear favouritism, has this fallen flat? The government has to set up a joint Parliamentary committee to investigate into the matter and conduct an impartial investigation to bring out the truth. With this, the government has to clear the doubts in people’s minds regarding the interest factor of this government.
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SWR announces special trains for passengers stranded by large-scale IndiGo cancellations
Bengaluru (PTI): The South Western Railway on Saturday announced a series of special trains, in coordination with Central, South Eastern and Southern Railways, to clear stranded passengers following large-scale IndiGo flight cancellations across the country.
The special services will operate between December 6 and 10 on high-demand routes, including Bengaluru–Chennai, Bengaluru–Pune, Yesvantpur–Hazrat Nizamuddin, Shalimar–Yelahanka and Ernakulam–Yelahanka, officials said.
According to an official statement, SWR will run Train No. 06255/06256 between Chennai Egmore and KSR Bengaluru, 06257/06258 between Bengaluru and MGR Chennai Central, 06259/06260 between Yesvantpur and Hazrat Nizamuddin, and 06263/06264 between Bengaluru and Pune.
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Central Railway will operate Train No. 01413/01414 between Pune and Bengaluru, while South Eastern Railway will run Train No. 08073/08074 between Shalimar and Yelahanka. Southern Railway will operate Train No. 06147/06148 between Ernakulam and Yelahanka, the statement said.
Railways has advised passengers to check updated timings on its official channels and arrive early at stations.
For at least five days in a row, IndiGo flight operations have been significantly disrupted, with a large number of cancellations and delays causing hardships to thousands of passengers. In many cases, baggage has been misplaced.
