Robert Vadra - Priyanka Vadra’s Husband

He used to be short and chubby. But in recent months, Robert Vadra has shed 20 kgs. He loves body-building and showing off his muscles. His facebook profile has a picture of Robert flexing his muscles. Given who he is, isn’t he entitled to that at the very least?

He loves dancing, cycling and golf and is often seen alongside Priyanka at public events. But even though shutterbugs make a beeline for the couple, Robert prefers to keep a low profile. Son of a businessman, Robert ran a small-scale costume jewellery export firm, Artex, on the outskirts of Delhi when he married Priyanka in 1997. Sources have revealed that he shut down his business a few years back and got into the real estate sector.

In 2002, Robert severed ties with his father and brother. It is believed that his decision followed reports that his brother Richard had approached a Congress chief minister and used Priyanka Vadra’s name to secure a contract for a major project.

Another Congress leader claimed that Robert’s father, Rajinder Vadra, had called on him for a favour and sent his visiting card with "father-in-law of Priyanka" written on it. Robert distanced himself from his family to avoid controversy.

Every major religion is represented in Robert’s family. His father, Rajinder Vadra had married Maureen, a Roman Catholic. His eldest son Richard married Saira, a Muslim: Saira's mother is a Roman Catholic and father a Muslim and Robert has wed Priyanka, whose mother Sonia is a Roman Catholic.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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The night that never ended

As the Copenhagen Summit Mulls measures to save the earth, victims of one of the world’s worst-ever industrial disasters continue to face apathy and injustice 25 years after the catastrophe, writes K Raghav Sharma

As the world meets in Copenhagen to save the earth and discuss climate change, carbon emissions and melting glaciers, the lives of many of Bhopal’s gas leak victims continue to be a never-ending nightmare. Fobbed off with inadequate compensation and left to grapple with severe disabilities and diseases, they are as good as dead – men and women who are paying for the sins of greedy multinationals, insensitive governments and a lethargic legal machinery.

Consider the case of Kiranbai. On the night of December 3, 1984, she delivered a baby boy. Even as the infant lay beside her, happiness eluded the mother and thousands of other residents of the city. They were fleeing, trying to escape from the deadly gas, methyl isocyanate, which had burst out from the Union Carbide plant. The gas didn’t spare the newborn. It seeped into his brain cells.

The boy born on the day of one of the world’s worst-ever industrial disasters is 25 years old today. But he is still a child. People call him Gasu. His real name, Chandrasekhar, is all but forgotten. “He lapses into illogical acts at times,” Kiranbai mourns. But there is nobody that she can turn to for solace.

The story of Kiran and her hapless son is a live illustration of the irreparable damage that corporate avarice and administrative collusion can wreak on mankind. For those who suffered on that fateful, frightful night and continue to suffer to this day, the Copenhagen Summit is akin to a cruel joke. The world is seeking to clean up its act after messing up the lives of these gas tragedy victims and is looking the other way. Will anyone speak up for their cause in Copenhagen?

Gasu is among countless children who have been left maimed, scarred and brain-damaged by the horrific gas leak. His friend, Akram Khan, unhappy at Gasu’s fate, has other things to bemoan. His father, Ibrahim, was sapped of all his energy by the deadly gas. His tummy bloated like a balloon and he lost his job. Life is a daily grind for him and his family. “I have no appetite and every day is living hell,” he told TSI.

Many children born later have also developed severe neurological diseases as a direct impact of the gas leak. Three-year-old Sakshi, sitting on the lap of her mother Babita Sahoo, is even unable to cry. A weak sound escapes from her lips when she tries. Sakshi can’t walk properly. “We have no money for her treatment and whatever I earn is spent on her,” Babita told TSI. To this day, the mental scars are visible everywhere. One still hears bizarre stories of how the entire state administration, including the then chief minister Arjun Singh, his ministerial colleagues and the senior-most bureaucrats, had fled the capital of Madhya Pradesh, leaving the trapped citizens to fend for themselves.

That night, Neelabai, a young woman, was taken to the cremation pyre in an unconscious state and petrol was poured on her body. But she returned to her senses in the nick of time and ran for her life. She was six months pregnant then. The pregnancy got aborted. Speaking to TSI, a deeply distressed Neelabai said, “If the disaster hadn’t happened, I would have had a child as old as you.” For her, the corridors of a hospital are second home. Six years after the tragedy, Neelabai received only Rs 50,000 as compensation.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Lord Jagannath Getting Richer

Fund-starved temple places donation box in Bhubaneswar

Devotees of Lord Jagannath in Bhubaneswar have started contributing generously to the temple fund than ever before. The “donation box” of Jagannath Temple of Puri, also called “Jagannath Hundi” and placed in front of the state secretariat at Bhubaneswar, has received about Rs one crore in just one month.

“This is the highest ever collection since the Hundi was set up in 2007,” expressed Ashok Kumar Meena, chief administrator of the Shree Jagannath Temple. A temple official, who monitors the counting of donations, said we collected about Rs 96, 61,045 in November. “Earlier we used to collect Rs one lakh or less on an average per month. But now it has hugely gone up. We received about Rs 1.70 lakh on the very first day.”

These donation boxes, set up in different places of the state, have now emerged as major sources of income for this 12th century shrine. The very idea of donation boxes was first initiated by the Jagannath Temple administration after it faced financial crisis. At that time, the temple was getting an annual allocation of Rs eight crore from the Orissa government. But that was not enough. Its expenditure runs into nearly Rs 20 crore every year. On an average, priests perform 108 rituals for Lord Jagannath every day and the temple itself pays for the various rituals. Unlike other temples, there is no entry fee. For centuries, donations have been the only source of income for Jagannath temple, but when it started drying up, the administration started looking for innovative ideas. In 1983, a Hundi in the temple premises was placed. Initial collection from this donation box was not encouraging; only Rs eight lakh came in 23 years. But now things have changed. Lakhs are raised every day. A senior priest of the temple told TSI, “We received a sum of Rs 32, 45153.00 from the Hundi in the temple on November, 11, 2009. This was the highest ever collection since the Hundi was established in 1983.” And the amount is increasing day by day. It is all Lord’s mercy.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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We’ve turned Earth’s thermostat up…

Science writer and geologist Kate Ravilious insists that there is enough proof to warrant action... NOW.

Global warming: it is a term that conjures up an unfortunately cosy picture. To those of us living in the higher latitudes, or in mountainous regions, global warming doesn’t sound too bad. A rise in temperature of a few extra degrees would reduce the heating bills, make winter much more bearable, and spare us the need to travel somewhere hot for a summer holiday. But of course, there is much more to global warming than a rise in the average temperature. The extra energy contained within hotter oceans and atmosphere will fuel more extreme weather events – floods, droughts, tornadoes and tropical storms. Meanwhile, oceans expand as they warm, and combined with melting glaciers and icecaps, sea levels will rise, flooding vast areas of land.

Already we are starting to see evidence that global warming is for real. The latest measurements show that sea level has risen more than five centimetres over the last 15 years, 80% more than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001. This rapid rise has already claimed a number of low lying islands, the first of which was the uninhabited Pacific Atoll nation of Kiribati, in 1998. By 2006, the first inhabited island disappeared beneath the waves. Once home to around 10,000 people, Lohachera Island, part of the Sunderbans, is now populated by fish, seaweed and shells. Above the waves, the summer melting of Arctic sea ice has been unprecedented in recent years.

On land, the total surface area of glaciers (excluding ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic) has decreased by around 50% since the beginning of the 19th Century. And satellite measurements show that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are both melting fast.

Meanwhile, over the course of the 20th Century, the average global temperature has risen by more than 0.7°C, with the majority of the warming occurring in the latter half of the century. The last decade has been warmer, on average, than any other decade in the previous 150 years, and 2005 was one of the hottest years since records began.

It is impossible to connect specific weather events with global warming, but evidence is growing that extreme weather is becoming more common. Such events include this year’s unusually destructive typhoon season in South East Asia, the summer heat wave across Europe in 2003 (estimated to have killed over 35,000 people), persistent droughts in South West Australia and the Mediterranean, and heavier rainfall in places like the UK. All this is irrefutable, but it still isn’t enough to convince some people that global warming is for real.

Recently a large number of emails were illegally hacked from the Climate Research Unit in the UK. Since then the carefully selected phrases from these private email correspondences between eminent climate scientists have been leaked out to the media, aiming to demonstrate that climate change scientists have been manipulating their data, and that the whole idea of climate change is one big hoax. It is incredible that the climate change sceptics were able to find only a smattering of comments amongst the thousands of emails they trawled (dating back to 1996) to provide some support to their view.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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IPS officers in short supply

108 positions against the sanctioned strength of 207 lie vacant

Shortage of Indian Police Service (IPS) officers in Orissa is scuppering the state government’s effort to root out Maoists. Besides, there are fears that officers' shortage in the police force can result in poor law and order situation. State home department sources confirm that Orissa is running short of 108 officers. Some 57 per cent of these vacancies are in the direct recruitment quota.

To fill up these vacant seats, the state government has asked the Centre to allot eight officers every year. But till date, the Union ministry of home affairs has allotted only four IPS officers from the 2009 cadre. Due to this, the police force is facing an acute manpower crisis. The administration is facing difficulties in filling up vacancies at the SP level.

Reshuffling of SPs in the Maoist-hit districts like Malkangiri, Koraput and Rayagada are on the cards. The problem has been further compounded with the state government giving promotions to IPS officers of the 1995 batch. This means that SPs of the crucial districts like Berhampur, Puri and Bolangir will get senior positions. Though all these districts need dynamic and young IPS officers, the Director General of Police has a limited pool to pick suitable top cops from.

Earlier, the shortage of IPS officers had forced the state government to post officers of Orissa Police Service (OPS) as SPs in other nine districts. “Scarcity of IPS officers has become a problem for the police administration. Filling up these posts is imperative to combat Maoist extremism in Orissa,” said former DGP B. B. Mishra.

Above all, “central deputation” has contributed greatly to the ongoing crisis. According to the state home department, 19 direct recruit senior IPS officers of Orissa cadre are now serving outside the state under the Central government. Realising the gravity of the problem, chief minister Naveen Patnaik has put an end to further deputation. Figures updated on November 11, 2009, show that there are some 99 IPS officers in Orissa against the sanctioned strength of 207. “Many IPS officers opt for Central deputation. And when they are not given posting of their choice, they lobby in the administrative circle of New Delhi to serve the Central government. But for Orissa, the absence of 19 senior officers matters a lot,” said a senior state home department official on the condition of anonymity.

This crisis can be managed if 48 sanctioned posts for promoted IPS officers are filled up. “Unfortunately, all these promotion posts are lying vacant and the state government has not taken a decision to recruit Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSPs) directly. Discontinuation of the direct recruitment of DSPs through Orissa Police Service Examination since 1976 has resulted in the reduction of promotional quota of IPS officers over the years,” said a senior officer. Things look grim even at the national level. Around 700 posts are lying vacant. Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh are also facing the same problem as that of Orissa.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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