IPL SPOTFIXING Delhi vs Mumbai cops Wife

Wife-swapping
in the Navy?
THE WEEKLY NEWSMAGAZINE
June 3, 2013
`35
IPL SPOTFIXING
Delhi vs Mumbai cops
SUBSCRIBER COPY NOT FOR RESALE
Ashesh Nishant
10WICKETS offers a
cricketing platform
Joe Fernandes
BLUNKIT bunches
leisure activities
RNI NO. 7044/61
Lavina Mahbubani
LUMOS charges
solar backpacks
Charu Agrawal
KUKUCRATE makes
projects for kids
www.outlookindia.com
In this issue...
Volume LIII, No. 21
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Krishna Prasad
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What they said to us
LEHAR SINGH SIROYA, on corruption in BJP
“All the leaders in Delhi are disconnected from the
masses. Our leaders are Modi, Shivraj Chauhan, Manoj Parrikar.”
C U R R E N T A F FA I R S
30 The Hindutva Pitch
As Amit Shah is made in charge of Uttar
Pradesh, Narendra Modi retracts on Maya
Kodnani and Varun Gandhi is absolved of hate
speech charges, it’s clear that BJP is going all
out with the old Hindutva plank
10 INTERVIEW Lehar Singh
12 ANDHRA PRADESH Congress
Floundering in the Aftermath
14 AAM AADMI PARTY Acid
Test Ahead
16 COLUMN Chandan Gowda
I N T E R N AT I O A L
36 OPINION H.K. Dua on Nawaz Sharif
38 COLUMN Bharat Bhushan on Beijing
F E AT U R E S
22
INDIAN NAVY
46 The Ideas Hub
From being the Silicon Valley of the East, the
hub of outsourcing, Bangalore, now becomes
the Startup Capital of India
18 IB SCHOOLS Increasingly, The
Preferred Choice
40 IPL How Deep is the Rot
56 MALAYALAM CINEMA Swept by a
New Wave
60 PROFILE Maneka Sorcar, Daughter of
P.C. Sorcar
Below the Naval
As the whiff of sex scandals in the
Indian Navy reaches the ears of the
Union defence minister, it reveals the
depths to which officers can sink to
in pursuit of lust and advancement in
their career in this wing of the Indian
defence forces
REGULARS 02 LETTERS 06 POLSCAPE
62 BOOKS 66 FINE LIVING 70 GLITTERATI 72 DIARY
Cover Design: Bishwadeep Moitra
Published for the week of May 28-June 03, 2013
Released on May 27, 2013
Total no. of pages 72 + Covers
OUTLOOK 3 June 2013
1
INTERVIEW
LEHAR SINGH
SIROYA
‘Is this the party of Indira or Sonia
where you can’t question leaders?’
KPN
In an embarrassing moment for BJP
patriarch L.K. Advani, former treasurer
of the party’s Karnataka unit and MLC
Lehar Singh Siroya, who is close to
Karnataka Janatha Paksha chief B.S.
Yediyurappa, wrote him an open letter
alleging that Advani had compromised
on corruption in the past when it suited
his interest. He slammed Advani for
taking the moral high ground over corruption and pushing for BSY’s removal,
which cost the party dear in the state
election. He said Advani never inquired
where the money for his rallies and yatras
came from, nor the source of funding that
brought the BJP to power in Karnataka in
2008 and gave it the largest contingent of
MPs in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Singh
has been suspended from the BJP since,
but hopes to return. Excerpts from an
interview with Saba Naqvi:
Why are you so angry with Advaniji?
He could have fixed the politics of the
country; instead, he is fighting factional
battles. And they are acting like autocrats and suspending me because I
asked Advaniji some questions. Is this
the party of Indira Gandhi or Sonia
Gandhi where questioning the leadership is not allowed? I have been suspended, but will always work for the
bjp and remain loyal to the ideology.
It is said that if Narendra Modi’s
powers increase, Yediyurappa will
return to the party and your problems too would come to an end.
If Narendra Modi really starts to run
the bjp, Yediyurappa will be back in a
matter of a few hours. The problem of
the bjp is that it has Delhi leaders who
have no mass base.
Who else besides Advaniji are you
upset with?
Sushmaji is a great disappointment.
When many of us heard her in 1996
when she spoke in Parliament during
the confidence vote, we had great
10
expectations of her. But now she has
left no reason for us to respect her. In
Karnataka, they ask about the way she
promoted the Reddy brothers. She
patched up with Sonia Gandhi only
because she would have also got into
trouble along with the Reddy brothers.
There should be a debate in the party
on her whole role and activities.
These are very serious charges. Why
“
Sushmaji is a great
disappointment. She
patched up with Sonia
Gandhi as she too would
have got into trouble along
with the Reddy brothers.
Why should certain people
be in the BJP parliamentary
board? What is M.M.
Joshi’s contribution? What
does Venkaiah Naidu do
today? Or Ananth Kumar?
3 June 2013 OUTLOOK
only against her and not other leaders from Delhi?
No, no, I say call an extended plenary
session and ask why certain people
should be in the bjp’s parliamentary
board. Why should Murli Manohar
Joshi be there, what is his contribution? What does Venkaiah Naidu do
today? What is Ananth Kumar’s role,
what are his activities? Advaniji has
said the party was purified. But so
many people facing all sorts of convictions are in the party. I ask why?
How come you are not saying anything about the rss, Rajnath Singh
or Arun Jaitley?
No one in Delhi has a mass base. I have
written to the party president, so I
don’t want to say anything. Arun Jaitley
is an aristocratic type of person, he is at
a level removed from the masses.
Who then do you think are the mass
leaders in the bjp?
All the people in Delhi are disconnected from the masses. Our leaders
are people like Modi, Vasundhararaje,
Gopinath Munde, Manohar Parrikar,
Shivraj Singh Chauhan. The real leadership of the bjp is in the states. Look
at the situation in the Congress. The
bjp should have been able to wipe
them out. Instead, the leadership in
Delhi is engaged in petty fighting.
You talk particularly about corruption in your letter to Advaniji and
accuse him of turning a blind eye
when it suits him?
There is hardly any difference between
the bjp and other parties on the issue
of corruption. The problem is the
selective manner in which leaders in
Delhi have treated state leaders and
nurtured others close to them who are
openly involved in corruption or promoting it. They don’t even mind their
image in the media or the public
because they have protection from the
bjp leaders in Delhi. 4
WHITE HAT, BL
SCANDAL
NAVY
A much-romanced force is rocked by wife-swapping allegations
by Anuradha Raman in Delhi, Minu Ittyipe in Kochi
O
NE afternoon last month, Malayalam news channels
aired the visage of a 25-year-old woman, pixellated to
protect her identity. She was the wife of an Indian navy
officer, a 26-year-old marine commando, posted at its Kochi
base. What she put on record as having undergone in the
22
3 June 2013 OUTLOOK
navy’s precincts in Visakhapatnam,
where her husband was posted before
being sent to Kochi, shocked audiences
and sent seismic waves across the naval
establishment. Here’s what she said on
TV: “My husband coerced me have to
have sex with his superiors and threatened to kill me if I refused.”
Around the same time, another young
ACK HAT
Photographs: REUTERS, NARENDRA BISHT
LAND, AHOY
In the last few months, the navy has been hit by at least four major scandals
O Wife of a marine commando based in Kochi alleges her
husband forced her into a ‘wife-swapping network’ in
Visakhapatnam. Navy response: marital discord.
O Naval officer accused of sending obscene mobile text
messages to several women. Navy response: officer
dismissed after general court martial.
O Wife of a naval lieutenant based in Karwar alleges she was
forced into getting sexually involved with husband’s colleagues.
Navy response: marital discord.
O Naval officer enters into an illicit relationship with the wife of
a superior and ‘stealing the affection of a brother-officer’s
wife’. Navy response: officer dismissed.
OUTLOOK 3 June 2013
23
BANGALORE
HUB OF IDEAS
Bangalore for y
From the IT hub, the outsourcing hub to the startup hub now, easyg
46
3 June 2013 OUTLOOK
our buck
oing Bangalore is where the action is
by Neha Bhatt in Bangalore
Photographs by Jagadeesh N.V.
T
HE idea was simple, really. To get
strangers to share a car ride in a
city notorious for its traffic snarls.
It struck Vardhan Koshal, 29, one
night out of the blue, and he tossed
and turned and finally took to hammering out the
details with his software-friend Srivatsan Mohan,
27, over endless cups of cappuccino at a neighbourhood ccd (Cafe Coffee Day, for the uninformed). When the idea crystallised into ridingO,
Jabalpur-born Koshal went to his bosses at
Marketelligent, where he worked as an analyst,
and told them he wanted to quit to launch his
own venture. The response was unexpected.
“They offered to let me and Srivatsan work out
of my old office, pro bono. Since we’re just starting
out and putting our own money into it, being
offered a peaceful workplace and some free
advice from those who’ve been there, done that,
is a huge boost,” says Koshal, who booked the
conference room at the office in a leafy lane of
hsr Layout in southeast Bangalore for this interview. “We take mentoring youngsters very seriously, even if I lose employees in the process,”
Lumos
Who: Gandharv Bakshi, 29
and wife Lavina Mahbubani, 26
The idea: To create affordable solar
powered-backpacks and apparel so you can charge
your phone and laptops on the go. Targeted at
cycling enthusiasts. You can also charge the
battery by the windowsill/in low light, as the
battery comes in a removable pouch.
Initial funding: `10 lakh, including their own
savings and contribution from friends and family
Scale-up: To increase client base, to expand into
solar-powered apparel (jackets and T-shirts).
OUTLOOK 3 June 2013
47