Corruption and Corporate Plunder : Some Instances

Loot of Oil and Gas Resources

Policy Shift to Favour Reliance

The private sector was first invited into the oil and gas exploration sector in 1997, and RIL was allocated blocks in the rich Krishna Godavari basin for throwaway prices, where it struck gas. In 2007, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) (including Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and then Finance Minister P Chidambaram as well as Deputy Planning Commission Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia), which was set up to recommend the price of gas, recommended that RIL be allowed to sell gas at a highly inflated price: $4.20 instead of $2.34.

Next, in 2009, the UPA Government doubled the price of natural gas produced by PSUs from $1.8 per unit to $4.2 per unit to bring it in line with the price approved by the government for the gas produced by Reliance. This was obviously done to secure the market for RIL: without this decision, lower-priced gas produced by PSUs would have been preferred by power and fertilizer producers to gas produced by RIL. By hiking the prices all around, the Government increased the burden on farmers who buy power and fertilisers – all to boost the profits of a single private corporation.

Petroleum Minister of Reliance’s Choice

It is worth recalling here that in the Radia tapes, JD(U) MP and former revenue secretary N.K. Singh tells Mukesh Ambani’s lobbyist Radia that Murli Deora has probably been reappointed Petroleum Ministry because Mukesh Ambani “swung it for him.” In another conversation Atal Behari Vajpayee’s son-in-law is heard quoting Mukesh as saying, ‘Congress to ab apni dukan hai.” (Congress is now our shop.) The Wikileaks exposé too revealed that Murli Deora’s appointment as Petroleum Minister was pushed by the US.

Even BJP Dances to Reliance Tune

But Mukesh Ambani did not only have Congress leaders at his beck and call – even top BJP leaders were obedient to his bidding. In 2009, another largesse for RIL was in the offing when Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee introduced a Bill in Parliament in 2009 allowing 100 per cent tax exemption (applicable retrospectively) on the entire capital expenditure incurred on setting up and operating natural gas or crude oil pipelines, cold chains, and agricultural warehouses. This move would benefit a single company – Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Limited (RGTIL), to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore. In a conversation with Radia, N K Singh expresses the apprehension that in the debate in the Rajya Sabha, if Opposition MPs “begin to say that Pranab Mukherjee has given a bad largesse to benefit only one company (Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance), then ... (it will put) Pranab Mukherjee on the defensive and therefore the question of extending it (tax concession) retrospectively, goes out of the window.” He then says that BJP’s Arun Shourie, who is listed as the lead speaker for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha, is likely to oppose the Bill, and therefore says, “fortunately what we have managed to do is make Arun (Shourie) the second speaker and Venkaiah (Naidu) the first” speaker from the BJP. He also says he will get Mukesh Ambani flown in to Delhi to brief Venkaiah since they are known to share “good relations.” In fact, this is exactly what took place: Naidu replaced Shourie as the lead speaker from the BJP and supported the Bill, which was then passed in Parliament.

Media ‘Dresses Up’ Truth to Suit Mukesh

Not only the ruling Congress and Opposition BJP, Mukesh Ambani also had top media-persons do his bidding. On the Radia tapes, during the tussle between Anil and Mukesh Ambani over the KG basin gas, we hear senior columnist Vir Sanghvi asking Radia “What kind of story do you want?” He tells Radia his column Counterpoint is “most-most read” and therefore the ideal place to build opinion in favour of Mukesh Ambani’s position. He is heard taking detailed instructions from Radia on how the story should be structured. He then calls her up to report that he has written the article: “I’ve dressed it up as a piece about how public will not stand for resources being cornered, how we’re creating a new list of oligarchs... It’s dressed up as a plea to Manmohan Singh, so it won’t look like an inter-Ambani battle except to people in the know.”

The latest is that RIL has sealed a deal with MNC British Petroleum (notorious for the recent oil spill), thereby giving BP access to India’s oil and gas resources. BP India’s head has expressed hopes that the deal would “set the stage for eventually lifting state control on natural gas price.”

What does the entire episode tell us?

We see how one of the richest men in the world, Mukesh Ambani, is able to appoint a Petroleum Minister of his personal choice, and ensure that the Indian Government repeatedly frames policy in order to boost his own profits – at the cost of an increased cost burden for India’s farmers struggling against agricultural crisis and suicides.

We have seen how an Opposition MP acts as an agent for Mukesh’s lobbyist, ensuring that the main Opposition party supports the Government in its moves taken to benefit Ambani’s company.

And we have seen how the media, obligingly taking dictation from Ambani’s lobbyist, “dresses up” Ambani’s greed so that it looks like “national interest”!

And as Ambani teams up with MNC oil major BP to reap profits from India’s resources, “lifting of state control” on gas prices will mean that farmers will be forced to pay even more for power and fertilisers.

This is no exceptional occurrence. It is a reminder that corruption is in-built in the day-to-day reality of crony capitalism in liberalised India.

Telecom Scam

One of the largest scams of our times has been the telecom scam, in which procedures were violated to grant 2G spectrum – a national asset – to certain selected companies at throwaway prices leading to a loss to the public exchequer to the tune of Rs 1,76,379 crore. The Government undermined the probe into allegations of the scam and, acting under pressures from agents of companies like Reliance and Tata, reappointed A Raja as Telecom Minister in UPA-II even though he stood implicated in the scam during his tenure in the UPA-I. Eventually the CAG Report vindicated all the allegations of the scam and the Radia tapes exposed how corporations and their agents had secured the appointment of Raja as Telecom Minister.

Selling Out Spectrum

2G spectrum (i.e. magnetic airways – a precious and scarce national resource) was not auctioned but was instead allocated on a ‘First-Come-First-Served’ (FCFS) basis for a mere Rs 1,651 crore each. Companies like Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices were also given GSM and CDMA licences at prices fixed in 2001. In comparison, auction of 3G spectrum earlier this year fetched Rs. 67,710 crore.

But the matter did not rest with the choice of FCFS procedure over competitive bidding. Even the FCFS procedure was tampered with to ‘fix’ the match in favour of certain companies! Previously, applications were ranked on the basis of the date of receipt at the central registry section of the Department of Technology. However, this basis was changed to that of compliance with ‘Letter of Intent’ conditions such as bank guarantees. The CAG has further noted that the time limit for compliance with the LoI conditions was reduced to just half a day, and miraculously, certain applicants (who obviously enjoyed advance information) were all ready with demand drafts and relevant documents. Of the 122 licenses issued in 2008, 85 were found to fall short of the eligibility conditions prescribed by the DoT itself!

Further some of the companies which bagged the Spectrum allotment for a mere Rs. 1651 crore, did not have any prior experience in the business of mobile phone and then within a matter of six months sold off shares to foreign companies at the prevailing market rate making at least 700% return on their ‘investment’! Swan, a front for Reliance sold to a Dubai-based company Etisalat, and Unitech, an Indian real estate company with no interests in telecom, sold to Telenor of Norway. The beneficiaries of the scam include companies like Swan (a front for Reliance) and Unitech (a real estate company with no previous interests in telecom) which, in spite of failing to fulfil DoT guidelines for issue of licenses, bagged the Spectrum allotment (out of turn) for a mere Rs. 1651 crore, and then within a matter of six months made a killing by selling off shares to foreign companies at the prevailing market rate, making at least 700% return on their ‘investment’! Tata Group, like Unitech and Swan, also sold 25% of Tata Teleservices shares to NTT Docomo at market price for about Rs. 13,000 crore.

Complicity and Cover-Up by the PMO

The Congress-led Government has tried to deny the scam (claiming that the loss to the exchequer is “notional” and speculative) and at the same time distance itself from the scam by blaming the whole thing on its coalition partner the DMK (to which A Raja belonged). The PM himself tried to say he was “not as guilty as he was being made out to be,” and blamed “coalition compulsions” for the scam. Such attempts at denial and distancing cannot save the Congress Government and PMO. Evidence indicates that the top Congress and UPA leadership is guilty not just of inaction, but of active collusion in this multi-crore scandal.

A letter written by former Union Telecom Minister Maran to the Prime Minister reveals that the PM had ‘assured’ the Telecom Ministry that it would be free to allot the 2G Spectrum as it wished, with no interferences from the Empowered Group of Ministers!

The UPA Government only got A Raja to resign in a last ditch attempt to save its skin when the Supreme Court took matters in hand.

Worst of all, the PM and Home Minister ignored widespread protest and went ahead with the appointment of tainted telecom secretary P J Thomas as the CVC! Not only does Thomas have a criminal charge-sheet on the Palmolein import scandal of 1992 in Kerala pending against him; as the telecom secretary under Raja, he had objected to inquiries by the CVC and the CAG into the allotment of 2G Spectrum licences. Obviously Thomas was being ‘rewarded’ for facilitating the 2G Scam by being appointed as CVC! The head of the country’ apex watchdog body himself was among those accused in multiple scams! Eventually the UPA Government was forced to drop Thomas as CVC only after a Supreme Court ruling on the matter.

Similarly, the government’s choice of AG Vahanvati to answer before the SC for PMO’s inordinate delay in acting on the 2G spectrum scam, has come under serious questioning as according to a 26 December 2007 letter of Raja, it was Vahanvati, who in his then capacity of the Solicitor General has “advised” the telecom minister “to go ahead.”

Privatisation Leads to Series of Telecom Scams

The 2G scam is not the first to hit the telecom sector, though it is certainly the largest. In fact privatisation of this sector has led to a series of scams, in which big telecom corporations ever since have influenced appointments of telecom ministers who in turn have facilitated the loot of public resources.

In 1995, Congress Minister Sukhram was at the centre of a telecom scam that accompanied the first moves to privatise telecom. And now, the size and scope of the scams have grown with more rapid privatisation of this sector.

In the NDA regime under Vajpayee, it was widely perceived that telecom corporations secured the removal of Jagmohan from the Telecom Ministry, because he fixed a deadline for private telecom operators to clear their license fee arrears. In July 1999, in keeping with a recommendation by a Group of Ministers headed by Jaswant Singh, the fixed licence fee regime was changed to a revenue share one, benefiting private telecom operators. The CAG back then had made an adverse assessment of this decision.

In the same NDA Government when BJP leader the late Pramod Mahajan was Telecom Minister, he faced allegations of bending rules to favour Reliance, offering it “full mobility” in its cellular operations without paying the full licence fee, defying TRAI recommendations!

The NDA Government and its then Telecom Minister Arun Shourie disinvested VSNL in favour of the Tata group, giving away, for a mere Rs 1,439 crore, a strategic PSU complete with rich cash reserves, a monopoly over international and STD calls, infrastructure worth hundreds of crores and over 1,200 acres of land, of which 773.13 acres (in Chattarur, Kolkata, Pune and Chennai) was a surplus land bank meant for future expansion.

Loot of Land and Minerals

The mining sector was opened up for private investment in the 1990s, and since then, it has become the worst instance of the corrupt nexus between corporations, political power, loot of resources and state repression.

Bellary Bleeds

The most notorious instance is that of the Bellary district of Karnataka, where the mafia writ of the ‘Bellary brothers’ (G. Karunakara Reddy, G. Janardhana Reddy, and G. Somashekhara Reddy) prevails over the rule of law. The illegal mining empire of the Reddys has made them a powerful political force, and their political clout in turn has ensured that administrative authorities turn a blind eye to the rampant illegal activities in the Bellary district.

Two of the Reddy brothers, Janardhana and Karunakara, are Ministers in the Cabinet of the BJP State Government, while the third, Somashekhara, is the Chairman of the powerful Karnataka Milk Federation. The Reddy brothers proudly proclaim that BJP leader Sushma Swaraj is their ‘thayi’ (mother), and in every instance where their will has clashed with that of the Chief Minister Yeddyurappa, the BJP top leadership has intervened on behalf of the Reddys. It is the money power of the Reddys that fuelled ‘Operation Kamala’ that enabled the BJP to buy over MLAs from the JD(S) on a large scale.

Bellary is rich in the finest quality iron ore, which came into great demand especially in countries like China. Iron ore prices soared from Rs 300 in 2002 to Rs 5000-7000 in 2005-06, and the Bellary brothers became multi millionaires through indiscriminately and often illegally stripping the region of iron ore which was then exported to China.

A report by the Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde estimated that the cost of mining, transportation and royalty came to just Rs 427 per tonne, while the sale price for exported ore was Rs 5000-7000 per tonne, amounting to a staggering profit of around 80-90%. The State Government got a royalty of a mere Rs 27 per tonne (now revised to 10% ad valorem), and since a large percent of the iron ore was illegally mined and transported, the State did not even get the token royalty. Mining regulations place restrictions on extraction, to guard against exhaustion of the finite resource and protect the environment. Indiscriminate illegal mining in Bellary has resulted in widespread depletion of thousands of hectares of forest cover. The rate at which iron ore is being over-extracted means that this rich resource is being stripped bare – not to meet our own needs but being exported to meet the greed of a single mining corporation!

Both the Lokayukta’s report and the Supreme Court Central Empowered Committee (CEC) on Bellary found that lakhs of tonnes of iron ore were being illegally exported and transported in thousands of trucks out of the state. The state’s mining and geology department as well as transport department claimed ignorance of the whole process. The Obalapuram Mining Corporation (OMC) owned by the Reddys had a mining lease for just 68 acres of land in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, that too only as a captive mine for the proposed Brahmini Steel Plant in Kadapa district. It had no licence to export iron ore. But the OMC encroached on Karnataka’s forest lands with the connivance of officials in both AP and Karnataka. Even the borders of the states have been repeatedly manipulated and pillars marking state borders destroyed! Officially, Bellary has 58 operational mines. But 12,000 instances of illegal mining have been detected since 2000. Since 2003, an estimated 3.04 crore tonnes of illegally mined iron ore has been shipped out of Karnataka, amounting to a whopping Rs 152 billion at today’s prices.

What Bellary has witnessed is primitive accumulation of capital on a scale that reminds one of the colonial days. The Bellary brothers are minting money by bleeding Bellary of its precious minerals and forest cover. Meanwhile Bellary continues to be one of the poorest districts of Karnataka. While Janardhana Reddy is building himself a 60-room house with bomb-proof shelters and a helipad for his private helicopters, children of Bellary are being employed on mining sites. The people of Bellary suffer from serious health disorders due to the red dust from the indiscriminate mining. In Andhra Pradesh, too, Karnataka’s Reddy brothers have accumulated a vast illegal mining empire, evidently enjoying the patronage of the late Chief Minister YSR and his family.

 

The mineral loot at Bellary and other parts of the country remind us of the guidelines set out by the National Planning Committee on the eve of India’s independence. (See box) The NPC had noted how the colonial regime had exploited India’s mineral wealth for export, and stressed that minerals are a precious resource of the country as a whole, to be safeguarded for future generations, not to be indiscriminately stripped by private profiteers. Today, our own governments are violating that principle and have opened the doors of the country for loot of minerals. As mining corporations earn huge profits, they pay a small percent of the profits to concerned officials and Ministers as a bribe. Corruption is therefore a fallout of the larger issue of loot of our mineral resources. Isn’t it high time we called for a stop to this plunder?

Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh:
Tribals Robbed of Land to Feed Corporate Greed

Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, are all states rich in forest cover and mineral resources, with a substantial portion of their population being adivasis (tribals) who depend on forests for their livelihood and survival. Successive governments in these states have signed MoUs indiscriminately with national and MNC mining and steel giants, including Arcelor Mittal, Rio Tinto, POSCO, Tatas, Jindals, Essar and many others. Predictably, adivasi who faced eviction from land and forests rose up in resistance. In answer, they faced severe repression. Meanwhile, the process of awarding land and mining contracts to corporations has been accompanied by large-scale corruption and violation of laws. In spite of this exploitation of mineral wealth, it should be remembered that 86% of districts in Jharkhand, 90% in Orissa, and 94% in Chhattisgarh are counted among the 150 most backward districts of India.

The Madhu Koda episode in Jharkhand would be fresh in our minds, since Koda was the first Chief Minister to be investigated for money-laundering. He is accused of receiving commissions for mining contracts to the tune of Rs 4000 crore. Within days of becoming CM in 2006, Koda renegotiated and signed mining MoUs and recommendations for mining leases worth nearly two lakh crore rupees with as many as 44 firms. It must be remembered that no party in Jharkhand can claim to be untainted by the Koda episode, since Koda had served in every government in Jharkhand since its formation, in influential ministerial positions, including as Minister for Mines and finally as Chief Minister. Koda is said to have charged bribes between Rs.2 crore to Rs.20 crore for signing an MoU, and between Rs 30-80 crore for each recommendation for a mining lease, depending on the quantum of coal or iron ore that the respective mine would have produced. In the entire hue and cry over the huge scale of bribes being taken by a CM, it seems that investigators and opposition parties have forgotten to ask one crucial question. Which were the corporations that actually paid these enormous bribes? If they were willing to pay up Rs 4000 crore worth of bribes, can one imagine the scale of the profits they expected to make from mining? Of course the political heads who took bribes to sell out the state’s resources, at the cost of the land, forests and livelihood of the adivasis, must be punished; but can any investigation into such corruption be complete without identifying and punishing such plundering corporations?

Odisha too abounds in instances of corruption and mining loot. Take the instance of the Vedanta/Sterlite British mining MNC, whose licence for bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills was cancelled not long ago. The process by which Vedanta got its licence to loot in Niyamgiri involved collusion by the Central Government, State Government and even the judiciary.

The UPA Government granted environmental clearance for the project rejecting the opposition of the tribal people of Niyamgiri and flouting every tenet of the PESA Act.

When the tribal people approached the Supreme Court to challenge the environmental clearance, the Supreme Court not only upheld the environmental clearance, but asked the government to grant forest clearance as well! The Supreme Court did so, deliberately ignoring the evidence presented by the CEC (Central Empowered Committee constituted by the Supreme Court itself) of widespread violations of environmental regulations by Vedanta, merely making a cosmetic concession by ordering that Vedanta be replaced by its sister concern Sterlite. The order was passed by Justice Kapadia who admitted that he himself owned shares in Sterlite, but did not recuse himself from the case!

In a money-laundering case against Vedanta, the Enforcement Directorate suddenly changed its counsel midstream, appointing a new standing counsel who has been briefing counsel for Home Minister P Chidambaram when the latter was on Vedanta’s Board of Directors and also a lawyer for mining corporations! Obviously, the MNCs are able to ensure that even judiciary and regulatory authorities are stacked with their own agents.

Eventually, following international protests and a hard-hitting report by the NC Saxena committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests documenting the widespread violations of environmental and forest laws in collusion with Odisha government officials, the UPA Government was forced to withdraw the environmental clearance.

But the people of Odisha continue to battle similar corrupt corporations – such as the Tata project at Kalinganagar and POSCO project at Jagatsinghpur – in the face of severe state repression.

In Chhattisgarh too, mining corporations like Tata and Essar have their eye on land occupied by tribals – and have therefore backed the Salwa Judum, a private militia that in the name of combating Maoism has evicted some 50,000 tribals from their villages.

Infiltrating Regulatory and Policy-Making Bodies

Corporations often manage to get people who have been on their payroll, into policy-making positions and even regulatory bodies. A prominent instance, of course, is that of P Chidambaram, who used to be a Vedanta director and the lawyer for a range of mining corporations, before becoming Finance Minister and then Home Minister. Is it any wonder that he would formulate economic policies and security policies to suit the companies who had, till recently, paid his salary?

Recently there was an attempt to introduce genetically modified Bt Brinjal for consumption in India. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) set up by the Government recommended clearance for Bt Brinjal, claiming that it would pose no health or environmental hazards. But environmental activists found that GEAC itself was hardly impartial, since it had representatives of the very same MNCs who stood to gain from Bt Brinjal!

The Co-Chairman of the GEAC, C D Mayee, was on the Board of Directors of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) which is funded by Monsanto, the very same company that has the patent for Bt Brinjal and had applied for approval! It may be recalled that Mayee was also the Co-Chair of the GEAC that approved Bt Cotton in 2001 and four years later he was appointed to the Board of the ISAAA.

Another instance is that of the Food Safety Authority panels set up by the Government to look into the presence of poisonous additives like phosphoric acid, ethylene, and other dangerous chemicals in soft drinks like Coke, Pepsi etc. Unlike pesticides present in water which make their way into soft drinks, these poisonous chemicals are deliberately introduced by the companies into these drinks. Activists who approached the Supreme Court for action against the soft drink companies found that the FSA panels were packed with people with close links with Pepsi, Coca Cola, Nestle – the very same companies which the panels were supposed to regulate! The Supreme Court observed, “the panel does not consist of independent persons; it is contrary to the (Food Security) Act. What kind of recommendations do you expect from the panel?” The SC then ordered that the regulatory panels be reconstituted and all names associated with soft drink companies removed.

First Minerals, Telecom and SEZs...
Now Education Too Being Opened Up for Corporate Profit and Corruption

We have already witnessed how the cancer of corruption has spread to our education sector, thanks to rampant privatisation and commercialisation of schooling and higher education. Huge ‘donations’ and ‘capitation fees’ are demanded to admit toddlers to kindergarten, schools increase fees steeply at will, and ‘deemed universities’ and other fraudulent teaching shops fleece students while offering sub-standard higher education.

It should be obvious that this corruption in education cannot be curbed as long as private profiteers are allowed to exploit education; in other words, until the Government takes full responsibility for ensuring affordable and good-quality schooling and higher education for all. But the UPA Government, in the name of taking action against ‘deemed universities’ and ‘guarantee’ of ‘Right to Education’, is actually opening the doors for the further entry of private corporations and MNCs into India’s education sector! Privatisation of minerals, telecom and other natural resources led to huge scams in these sectors – further privatisation of education can only mean more corruption and corporate exploitation in education!

The Government claims a fund crunch, and therefore justifies privatisation of education. But as we have seen, the Government throws away thousands of crores every day in the form of scams, corporate subsidies, and black money outflows. How come the Government can afford to subsidise these super-rich and corrupt corporations, but claims to have no money to fund education?! Why not end these corporate subsidies and recover black money so as to ensure education for all India’s young generation?

The much-touted ‘Right to Education Act’ is actually a mockery of education guarantee. It ensures the continuation of two parallel systems – of poor quality government schooling for the poor and expensive privatised schooling for the rich. Those who seek a better education for their kids are forced to pay ever-increasing fees and donation/capitation. This system not only makes good schooling out of reach for the poor, it also allows corruption and exploitation to thrive in the education sector.

Similarly in higher education, a slew of Bills proposed by the UPA Government are paving the way for massive privatization and commercialization of higher education. In the name of ‘regulation’ these Bills are actually paving the way to free private and foreign education profiteers from regulatory shackles! These Bills include the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010, The National Council for Higher Education Research (NCHER) Bill 2010, The Educational Tribunals Bill 2010; The National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill, 2010; The Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Educational Institutions, Medical Educational Institutions and Universities Bill, 2010 and the Innovative Universities Bill.

These Bills plan to usher in exorbitant fee hikes, commercialization of campus spaces and facilities like health care, halls, canteens and auditoriums, extraction of “user charges” even for basic facilities like water and electricity and a fundamental shift in focus of educational curriculum towards market-oriented courses. Private and foreign education institutions will be free from any obligation to provide SC/ST and OBC reservations. Clause 9 of the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill and Clause 49 of the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority Bill allow the Government to ‘exempt’ foreign and private education providers from regulations that apply to government institutions!

Some of the provisions in these Bills seem designed to scuttle the possibility of students or teachers going to district or High Court to seek justice in cases of grievances with private education providers. Take the case of the Education Tribunals Bill, Clause 47 of which reads, “No civil court shall have jurisdiction to entertain any suit or proceeding in respect of any matter which the State Educational Tribunal or the National Educational Tribunal is empowered by or under this Act to determine and no injunction shall be granted by any court or other authority in respect of any action taken or to be taken in pursuance of any power conferred by or under this Act.” This means that it is only after exhausting the long process of first approaching the State Educational Tribunal, and then the National Educational Tribunal, that students can finally approach the Supreme Court for justice.

In our country, neo-liberal policies have pushed in SEZs (Special Economic Zones) – deemed to be “foreign territories” – where laws of the land do not apply and where corporations are a law unto themselves. This has led to an unprecedented scale of corruption. Now, the UPA is proposing to similarly turn yet another crucial sector (education) into ‘Special Education Zones’ where the law of the land on social justice, inclusion, and democratic functioning will be given a declared goodbye! This can only mean a massive increase in corruption in the education sector.