'The government’s 2 am decision to oust director Alok Verma as the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation came hot on the heels of not just his request for sanction to arrest an official considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also his interest in the controversial Rafale deal. Last week, the CBI filed an FIR charging Rakesh Asthana – special director in the CBI and a Gujarat cadre police officer propelled to prominence in the agency by the PMO – with bribery and corruption.
'India's opposition parties are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over allegations of corruption in a multi-billion dollar fighter jet deal. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the main opposition Congress party, has alleged that Mr Modi "favoured" an Indian company that is part of the French deal. Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has denied the allegation, saying the government signed the deal to meet the Indian Air Force's combat requirements and had no role in choosing the French manufacturer's local partner.
'...the core of the issue is not who met whom – it’s how Mallya was allowed to leave India, given the enormous burden of his loans. As it turns out, a few months before the Kingfisher Airlines owner flew up to London, the Central Bureau of Investigation had diluted a lookout notice for him... The CBI circular, which asked the Bureau of Immigration to detain Mallya should he attempt to exit the country, had been issued on October 16, 2015. However, in a month, the Central Bureau of Investigation changed its mind.
'The whispers are getting ever louder that Gujarati billionaire jeweller Mehul Choksi was allegedly assisted by the Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to not just flee India after swindling Indian banks of thousands of crores, but allegedly also to seek citizenship in Antigua where he will be beyond the reach of of Indian agencies. Choksi can now travel all over the world, except India, with his Antiguan passport.
'Nearly two months after Cobrapost first reported how some media houses were prepared to strike business deals to promote the Hindutva agenda and help polarise voters in the run up to the 2019 elections, the website has released a second batch of video recordings shot surreptitiously by an undercover reporter that shows managers and owners of some of the largest newspapers and TV channels succumbing to the same package of Hindutva advertorials.
'When it comes to the bureaucracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has placed all his favourite loyalists in plum posts, sometimes even giving the services rule book a go-by. Meet the 'Gujarat-Modified officials'... One pronounced characteristic of the Narendra Modi government is its excessive dependence on Gujarat cadre officials who hold key positions at various levels in important central ministries. Prime Minister Modi also believes that the Gujarat cadre officials who have worked with him in the past are a special tribe in the all-India services like the IAS.
' In 2013, the Karnataka government handed over cases of illegal export of iron ore mined from its state to the CBI. Among the accused were the powerful Reddy brothers of Ballari, candidates and top campaigners for the BJP. The charges pertained to the illegal export of ore worth Rs12,000 crore from 9 ports spread across 4 states. Four years later, as the Karnataka elections neared, the CBI began to close the cases in state after state, citing technical reasons, documents reviewed by NDTV reveal.
'At the peak of the controversy surrounding whistleblower Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi exposing major corruption in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a telephonic call to the then health minister Harsh Vardhan to discuss the issue, an RTI has revealed. The hospital administration and the Union health ministry had been pushing for Chaturvedi’s removal from the post of chief vigilance officer (CVO) at the premier medical institution at the time.
'Though the scheme to issue electoral bonds was announced by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech in February this year, the Ministry of Finance, the Election Commission of India (EC) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have all claimed to be unaware of the plan in their replies to queries filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
'In the months leading up to his sudden death three years ago, the judge who was hearing the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case in which BJP chief Amit Shah was the prime accused was allegedly offered a bribe of Rs 100 crore for a “favourable” judgment. The sister of Brijgopal Harkishan Loya – who presided over the CBI special court in the matter till his death on December 1, 2014 – told The Caravan that some weeks before his death, the judge had confided in her about the bribe offer which she alleged had been made by the then chief justice of the Bombay high court, Mohit Shah.
