File photo of Anil Ambani.

New Delhi, April 13

France waived taxes worth 143.7 million euros to a French-registered telecom subsidiary of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications in 2015, months after India’s announcement of buying 36 Rafale jets, a leading French newspaper Le Monde reported on Saturday.

In its reaction, Reliance Communications rejected any wrongdoing and said the tax dispute was settled under legal framework which is available for all companies operating in France.

The French newspaper said the French tax authorities accepted 7.3 million euros from Reliance Flag Atlantic France as a settlement as against original demand of 151 million euros. Reliance Flag owns a terrestrial cable network and other telecom infrastructure in France.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after talks with the then French President Francois Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris. The final deal was sealed on September 23, 2016.

The Congress has been alleging massive irregularities in the deal, saying the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating the deal.

The Congress has also been targeting the government over the selection of Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Defence as an offset partner for Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale. The government has rejected the allegations.

The French newspaper said the company was investigated by French tax authorities and found liable to pay 60 million euros in taxes for the period 2007 to 2010.

However, Reliance offered to pay 7.6 million euros only as a settlement but French tax authorities refused to accept the amount. The authorities conducted another probe for the period 2010 to 2012 and asked the company to pay an additional 91 million euros in taxes, the report said.

It said by April 2015, the total amount owed by Reliance to the French authorities in taxes was at least 151 million euros.

In October, six months after Modi announced in Paris about the Rafale deal, the French authorities accepted 7.3 million euros from Reliance as a settlement as against the original demand of 151 million euros.

A spokesperson of Reliance Communications said the tax demands were “completely unsustainable and illegal” and that the company denied any favouritism or gain from the settlement.

“During the period under consideration by the French Tax Authorities — 2008-2012, i.e., nearly 10 years ago, Flag France had an operating loss of Rs 20 crore (Euro 2.7 million). French tax authorities had raised a tax demand of over Rs 1,100 crore for the same period,” the official said.

“As per the French tax settlement process as per law, a mutual settlement agreement was signed to pay Rs 56 crore as a final settlement,” he said. PTI

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, April 8

The BJP is getting jawans killed and then claims that their respect for the armed forces has no parallel, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said in an election meeting on Monday.

Mamata had questioned the timing of the Pulwama attack (shortly before the General Election) and why a large convoy of CRPF personnel was allowed to move on the highway despite the government having intelligence inputs about a possible terror strike.

Taking a dig at BJP’s high decibel “patriotism”, she said she did not need to learn patriotism from people who had a role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and who never respected Netaji.

Mamata was speaking at Cooch Behar’s Ras Mela ground where PM Narendra Modi had addressed a rally yesterday. Referring to Modi as “ex-Prime Minister”, she said during his five-year tenure as the PM he did nothing other than dressing fashionably and touring various foreign countries.

Mamata said she would not have stooped so low as to launch personal attack against Modi had he also not paid scant regard to propriety while going after her in his speeches.

Extolling the virtues of religious harmony, Mamata said like a family consisted of various members, religions too co-existed in a “family of religions”. She added that she did not expect Modi to understand anything about family of any kind. “How can he (Modi) understand family? Has he ever seen one? One doesn’t need to go far. Has he seen his wife?” Mamata said.

Ridiculing Modi for promising people good administration, Mamata said Modi and Amit Shah were like “Duryadhana and Dushashan” — the two villainous brothers of Mahabharata.

She said if Modi became PM for a second time, money kept in banks by ordinary people would not be safe.

Same tricks don’t work twice: Maya

• Saying the same tricks won’t work twice, BSP chief Mayawati charged the BJP of failing to fulfil any of its poll promises
• The BJP should have released an action taken report on its previous election manifesto, she said. “But it does not have the courage to do so as the country is facing its worst days instead of the promised ‘achche din’,” she said

File photo of Christian Michel.

New Delhi, April 5

Christian Michel, alleged middleman arrested in the AgustaWestland VVIP Chopper scam, told a Delhi court on Friday that he has not named anyone in connection with the deal during investigation by the Enforcement Directorate, which has filed a supplementary chargesheet.

Michel, who alleged that the Central Government was using agencies for political agenda, filed an application after the reports appeared that ED in its chargesheet has named politicians of the previous UPA dispensation, defence personnel, bureaucrats and journalists as the beneficiaries of the controversial defence deal.

Michel’s counsel appeared with the application before Special Judge Arvind Kumar who issued notice to the probe agency and sought its reply by Saturday when he will take up the matter.

“Michel has not named anyone in his statement before the agency which is being leaked to media. This is only to make the matter sensational and prejudice the case against my client,” his counsel, Aljo K Joseph said.

He claimed the copy of the chargesheet, which was filed on Thursday, was provided to the media before it was provided to Michel.

He has questioned as to how the chargesheet was leaked to the media even before its cognisance was taken by the court.

The plea said that trial by a judge and free and fair trial rights override media rights and the court can temporarily curtail the freedom of the media to ensure that.

“The court is duty bound to balance it. Even to ensure a free and fair trail the court can temporarily curtail the freedom of media to ensure free and fair trial,” the plea said.

It further said that at the time of filing the chargesheet, the counsels for the accused had asked for supply of copies of the chargesheet, but it was objected to by the ED on the ground that the court has not yet taken cognisance of the chargesheet.

“Since this court is yet to take cognisance of the chargesheet, it appeared that the ED has clandestinely provided a copy of the same to the media houses, which were publishing the same in instalments only to sensationalise the issue and prejudice the accused named therein even before cognisance was taken by this court,” the plea claimed.

It said selective portions of the chargesheet have been published in the media which make it clear that the ED was not interested in a fair trial in a court of law but in a trial by media.

“The ED is making mockery of the judicial process resulting in complete travesty of justice. The extradition treaty prohibited the extradition of accused involved in the political offences and the government is now using the ED and all the investigating agencies for the political purpose. The supply of the chargesheet to the media houses is the best example of that,” it said.

The plea said that even though the court has not taken cognisance over the documents filed before it, in order to make the entire case a sensation again in the media, the ED had supplied the charge sheet to the media.

“The act of the prosecuting agency is highly condonable and contrary to the procedure established by law. It is pertaining to mention here that the prosecuting agency is acting as a weapon in the hands of the government and by clandestinely giving the documents to the media houses engineered in media trial with ulterior motives,” it claimed.

The plea further claimed that such hostile remarks might curtail the rights of Michel to a free and fair trial as he was a citizen of another country.

The ED had told the court on Thursday that Michel and other accused received 42 million euros as kickbacks in the defence deal.

The probe agency, in its 3,000-page supplementary chargesheet had also named David Syms, Michel’s alleged business partner, and two firms owned by them—Global Trade and Commerce Ltd and Global Services FZE—as accused.

Michel, extradited from Dubai in December last year, was one of the three middlemen being probed in the case, besides Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa, by the ED and the CBI.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Italy-based Finmeccanica’s British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of paying kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore by it for securing the deal. PTI

Bharat Ratna should be bestowed upon him for exemplary achievements

Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd)
former GOC, IPKF, Sri Lanka

HAD Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw been alive, he would have been 105 years young today. He is a conspicuously eminent case of denial of Bharat Ratna.  ‘A nation that does not honour its brave is doomed to fail’ reads the epitaph on a plaque near the cricket pavilion at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun.

It was the Indian soldier who stopped the Japanese onslaught in 1943 at the eastern gateway to India. It was near here that SHFJ Manekshaw took a hail of bullets across his gut to win an instant Military Cross (MC). He was so grievously wounded in the Battle of Sittang in 1942, and so spectacular was his bravery that Maj Gen Punch Cowan, thinking the wounds were fatal, pinned his own MC on Sam’s chest. This was only the beginning of a military career embellished with heroics, exceptional leadership and service before self. The Indian Army’s motto may have been reordered to ‘Nation First’, but the ethos, customs and traditions of sacrifice, putting one’s life on the line, a continuum with Manekshaw’s example, have endured. As he rose up the ladder of command, leadership and fame, his larger-than-life  image and  persona — popularised by his beloved Gorkha soldiers as Sam Bahadur — an unconventional style combined with a rare sense of humour and charisma, and with some histrionics slipped in, made him tower above other leaders.

Whether it was working in the sanctum sanctorum, Military Operations Directorate during the Kashmir war; stemming the tide of retreat in 1962 with his injunctions: ‘I have arrived. No more withdrawal’; holding the Eastern Front in 1965 War and defeating into abject surrender, the Pakistan army in 1971, were achievements of teamwork that only the ‘Manekshaw leadership’ style could produce. The idolised Manekshaw had become integral to the imagination of the military.

The 1971 victory was achieved against high diplomatic and military odds with at least three of the five permanent members of the UNSC championing Pakistan’s cause. After 2000 years of foreign rule, subjugation and the ignominy of the Panipat and Plassey syndromes, Manekshaw presented India with a clear and unambiguous battlefield triumph.

PM Indira Gandhi had a special fondness for Manekshaw as he could look her in the eye and call a spade a spade. She ensured he was awarded Padma Vibhushan and made a Field Marshal despite objections. She promised to make him CDS but the offer evaporated mysteriously. The popular thinking among the military and society at the time was that he richly deserved Bharat Ratna. If it was today’s surgical strikes era, it would have been a sure-shot.

Manekshaw was treated shabbily when he bade farewell to arms.  Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram had ordered that no one would see him off at the New Delhi Railway Station when a special train would take him to Mettupalayam en route to Coonoor in the Nilgiris. When he died in a Military Hospital at Wellington, no politician or service Chief attended his cremation. Some amends were made later when Defence Minister AK Antony presented himself at the Parsi cemetery at Ootacamund when his gravestone was laid next to his wife, Siloo.

To remedy the honour delayed, the Modi government — if it returns to power piggybacking the armed forces — should confer Bharat Ratna posthumously on Manekshaw. The country’s highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna was instituted in 1954 for exceptional service of the highest order in any field of human endeavour and national public service. In the list of 48 awardees are economists, artists, industrialists, politicians, sportsmen and members of socio-cultural organisation, but no one from the military. In the US, the highest civilian awards are the Congressional Medal and President’s Freedom Medal that have been awarded to civilians for exceptional achievements and have included several decorated Generals like Colin Powell, Peter Pace and Douglas MacArthur, along with icons like Mother Teresa.

A public petition to PM Modi (acknowledged by the PMO on August 11, 2014) by Rohinton Ranja, supported by thousands of Manekshaw admirers to award him Bharat Ratna was apparently closed in April 2015 without any reason assigned. When national security is Modi’s election battle cry, it is only befitting to revive the movement urging the government to honour Manekshaw’s outstanding contribution to the country.

On November 4, 2017, the Army Chief, Gen Bipin Rawat, after unveiling the bust of the late Field Marshal KM Cariappa (and Gen KS Thimayya), had this to say in response to a question on Bharat Ratna for Cariappa: ‘If others can get, I see no reason why he should not be a deserving personality for the same.’ I am sure General Rawat would immediately recommend Manekshaw for Bharat Ratna.

The nation went berserk when the IAF carried out the solitary airstrikes after 1971 at Balakot inside Pakistan. This achievement is a drop in the ocean compared to Manekshaw’s monumental feat of defeating the Pakistan army comprehensively. He bequeathed on India not just military victory, but split Pakistan into two, mitigating threat from Pakistan and corrected a cartographical incongruity which the erudite Army officer-turned-politician Jaswant Singh has called ‘geography taking revenge over history’. It is time for correcting history by awarding Manekshaw the Ratna. In doing so, the country will also be honouring the Sam Bahadurs of the military.

M Rajivlochan
Professor, Department of History, Panjab University

IT may be said history shows that adversaries cannot be reformed as per one’s wish. So, what is it that needs to be reformed in the specific case of Pakistan? A glimpse of this was made available when Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan referred to history in his address to the joint session of his country’s parliamentarians in the aftermath of the Balakot airstrike by the Indian Air Force, post Pulwama. References to history have to be taken seriously, especially when made by politicians, since they provide us a glimpse of the template along which the mind works. Being familiar with the template helps understand the nuances of the twists and turns that the politicians are liable to take while trying to grab more power and demolish their opponents. Most Indian newspapers missed out on Imran Khan’s take on history.

This is what Imran Khan said as he concluded his speech in Parliament on the matter of the Balakot strikes: ‘If you push a community into a corner where it has to take such a decision, then a self-respecting community will fight for freedom. So today, I want to send a message to Narendra Modi that do not push anyone in that corner.’

What is important is that Imran Khan sought to preface his remarks by referring to Tipu Sultan as the hero whom Pakistan seeks to currently emulate. Tipu Sultan — in Indian understanding — has been a most secular ruler, opposed to imperialism, etc. He lost his life fighting. In contrast there was Bahadur Shah Zafar, who agreed to being jailed by the British for participating in the mutiny of 1857. ‘There was Bahadur Shah Zafar and there was Tipu Sultan,’ Imran Khan said, ‘when it came to choosing between slavery and freedom, Tipu Sultan chose the latter. Tipu Sultan is our hero.’ 

On the face of it such bombast could be little more than a face-saving device for the government of Pakistan, an effort to assure the people that their government would fight to protect them against an Indian invasion.

However, Tipu Sultan, carries a completely different meaning in Pakistan. According to the textbooks of Pakistan Studies on which Pakistani students are brought up, Tipu Sultan is depicted as a defender of the faith. Pakistani army blogs frequently mention Tipu Sultan as a great warrior who won numerous battles against infidels, experimented with new technology and made Mysore a very prosperous territory. The veracity of such claims is a matter of historical debate. 

What does not require debate, though, is a letter by Tipu Sultan to Bekal’s governor, Budruz Zuman Khan, in 1790, which is cited in disgust by Pakistani columnist Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, who warns Pakistanis against having bad role models. ‘Don’t you know I have achieved a great victory recently in Malabar and over four lakh Hindus were converted to Islam?’ Tipu writes. ‘I am determined to march against that cursed Raman Nair (Raja of Travancore) very soon. Since I am overjoyed at the prospect of converting him and his subjects to Islam, I have happily abandoned the idea of going back to Srirangapatanam now.’

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s reference to the ‘self-respecting community’ is to ‘Muslims’. The ones in India — the defence minister of Pakistan claimed in his press conference soon after the Balakot airstrikes — are a ‘persecuted community’. The falsity of that narrative has often been pointed out by various social scientists.

Neither are the Muslims of India persecuted nor do they form a homogenous community, except in the minds of Hindu and Muslim communalists. Communalism is roundly condemned. Communalists attract strong censure by society and polity in India.  Yet, insisting that all Muslims form a singular political and social group is a point that forms the basis of Pakistan’s attitude towards India.

It also forms the guiding principle for bodies such as the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, which was formed as an umbrella body of 26 political, social and religious organisations in the state of Jammu and Kashmir for the cause of Kashmiri separatism. The word ‘hurriyat’ means ‘freedom’. The slogan with which it works, too, is ‘azadi’. The context in which it is used gives it the meaning of ‘azadi for Muslims’. Now, that would never do for a multi-cultural country like India that is committed to secularism and pluralism.

Col Mahesh Chadha (retd)

Walking for miles to school across Shimla dales, drinking water at a flowing spring; pelting stones at some pear, apple, plum, fig tree and savouring the raw fruit; plucking a berry or some wild flower; admiring a farmer ploughing his terraced fields with a pair of oxen; giving a helping hand to a whistling shepherd to mentor his sheep and caressing his lamb are unconvincing stories for my grandchildren. It is no surprise, brought up as they are in modern cities, devoid of such heavenly benevolence. They go to school by car or bus, nor do they come across blossoming fruit trees. For them, fruits and flowers are only purchased from vendors; milk from a machine or a carton.

They wonder at my confidence when I tell them that on the very first day of my school, in 1952, I walked back home to my mother’s utter surprise as she failed to pick me up. Appreciating my initiative, she showed no signs of worry. Shimla was a peaceful, walker’s paradise, then — no traffic hazards; people along the way knew us and children were considered safe everywhere. Today, children wear identity cards, carry mobiles and are collected from school by guardians as a ritual.

They do not believe that I used to venture out in severe winter, wearing heavy woollens knit by my mother, to enjoy the soft snowflakes on my face; making a snowman and snowballs to hit friends and siblings with! For them, snow may be fun, but shortlived — only during holidays, that too if luck favours it.

They go to sleep while watching cartoons on TV, whereas for me it was the melodious ringing bells of the mules passing by our house or, at times, the deafening growl of a leopard or a barking deer not far away in the jungle. Sundays meant a picnic, walking to Glen, Annadale, Naldhera or Mashobra for juicy apples and peaches etc. The ‘Big Ben’, mall road, Ridge, ‘Scandal Point’, and Gaiety Theatre were where we would cross path with dignitaries like Dr Rajendra Prasad and Marshal Tito. After a tiring walk, there would be a feast of bhutta, doodh-jalebi or puri-bhaji at Mehru and Nathu halwai. For the kids now, it is malls, pizzas and burgers.

The heart laments — koi lautade mere beete hue din, that often lure me to the now-flattened hills of my childhood — sans pristine beauty. All that one sees now is dying pines and deodars; drying chashmas, concrete jungles, noisy traffic, pollution, growing population and nobody shaking hands with a tourist.

Shimla is as bad as other cities where grandchildren live, rendering it worthy of their taunt and unworthy of a melodious story anymore.

Tribune News Service
Moga, March 19

Rifleman Karamjit Singh (24), who was killed in a ceasefire violation along the LoC in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir, was cremated with state honours at his native Janer village in Dharamkot on Tuesday.

District Magistrate Sandeep Hans accompanied by SSP AS Bajwa laid a wreath on the behalf of Punjab government, while Captain Gokul Ashok from the martyr’s 18 JAK RIF regiment paid tributes on the behalf of the Army.

Hundreds of people, who came from different parts of the district, gave a tearful adieu to the martyr. Karamjit’s coffin, draped in Tricolour was brought to his home in the presence of senior Army officials.

As Karamjit’s father Avtar Singh and elder brother Swaran Singh lit the pyre, a contingent of the Army gave a gun salute to the martyr.

Local MP Prof Sadhu Singh of AAP, local MLAs Kaka Sukhjit Singh Lohgarh and Dr Harjot Kamal and senior Akali leader Jathedar Tota Singh were also present.

Srinagar, March 22

Six militants and a 12-year-old boy were killed on Friday in three separate gunfights in Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

Two militants and a boy, who was taken hostage, were killed in an encounter in Bandipora district’s Mir Mohalla area.

“One Lashkar-e-Taiba commander is among the two militant victims,” the police said.

In Shopian district’s Imam Sahib area, security forces killed two militants following a gunfight.

In another gun battle in Sopore’s Warpora area, two militants were killed in the same site of an encounter on Thursday where two policemen were injured.

The police said the gunfight in Bandipora had ended but the two others were still going on.

All educational institutes in Sopore were closed and mobile Internet services suspended as a precautionary measure.

On Thursday, three militants were killed while seven securitymen and three civilians injured in three different gun battles in the Kashmir Valley. IANS

Washington, March 13

Sikh-Americans have urged the Indian Government to ensure that the work on the landmark Kartarpur Corridor is not impacted by the tension between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack.

Tensions between India and Pakistan flared up after a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed killed 40 CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on February 14.

India launched a counter-terror operation in Balakot on February 26. The next day, Pakistan Air Force retaliated and downed a MiG-21 in an aerial combat and captured its pilot, who was handed over to India on March 1.

A delegation of eminent Sikh-Americans from various parts of the US, gathered in Washington DC on Tuesday to present a memorandum to the Indian Embassy here.

The delegation, under the banner of California-based United Sikh Mission, also met nearly half a dozen lawmakers, including two Senators and Congressman Greg Pence, elder brother of the US Vice President, Mike Pence, urging them that the US play a role a role in ensuring peace in the region.

Leaders of various Sikh organizations, including SikhsPAC from Indiana, Gadhar Memorial Foundation from Oregon, Sikh SEVA from Virginia, Sikh Religious Society from Illinois, Let’s Share a Meal from New Jersey and those from various gurdwaras formed part of the delegation.

The ongoing tension between India and Pakistan “should not slow the progress” that has been made on the implementation of the Kartarpur Corridor, said Rashpal Singh Dhindsa, founder of United Sikh Mission in a memorandum submitted to Indian Ambassador to the US Harsh Vardhan Shringla.

“The approval of the peace corridor is a great step in the right direction for all parties affected by this conflict. Now is the time to continue our efforts to create a peaceful resolve to this situation,” the memorandum said. PTI

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 11

With national pride becoming a pivotal issue in the General Election 2019, in Punjab Congress Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh seems to have wrested the “nationalism narrative” from the BJP and its Punjab ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

Playing his cards well, he toured the state’s border areas immediately after the IAF Balakot airstrike. Taking the narrative to a whole new level, he interacted with border residents, assuring them of government help in case of any eventuality, expressing solidarity with soldiers posted at border posts as well as their families.

A day before the Modi-led Union Government “dared” Pakistan on February 26, the Punjab CM visited the families of Pulwama attack victims. Moved by the plight of the family of martyr Kulwinder Singh, who belonged to Rauli village in Ropar, he announced lifelong pension for his aged parents. 

Such gestures seems to have helped Capt Amarinder retain the goodwill of the people, preventing them from leaning towards the BJP. An ex-serviceman himself, the Chief Minister is being perceived as having said and done “the right thing, much like the PM”.  Earlier too the CM has taken a tough stand against “anti-nationals”, including separatist leaders and those funding their movements abroad.

Senior BJP leaders in Punjab have been left fretting and fuming at their party’s “political agenda” being  hijacked by the CM of a Congress-ruled state. The saffron party is contesting three seats — Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur. Two of these are border constituencies where nationalist fervour is running high post the Balakot strike. “We believed the party would benefit from the nationalism agenda. But this may not be so. We are now banking on ‘anti-incumbency’ sentiment against the Capt Amarinder government,” said a  BJP leader.