Letters: Disproportionate action

Disproportionate action

With reference to the report, “CBI raids premises of NDTV founders” (June 6) by N Sundaresha Subramanian and Archis Mohan, in a country where an industrialist like Vijay Mallya, who defaulted on Rs 9,000 crore, is enjoying the Champions Trophy in London, or the Narendra Modi government has waived Rs 1.23 lakh crore in loans between 2014 and 2017, the Rs 48 crore that Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy are alleged to have defrauded, is peanuts: It is probably the cost of one election meeting in a suburban town. 

What about the Rs 45,000 crore that Anil Ambani’s company allegedly mismanaged? The FIR filed in that case on April 28 did not say any balance was due to a bank; it was all about technical violations with regard to the Banking Regulation Act. Thereafter, no inquiry took place nor was anyone summoned by the CBI.
 

But a day after NDTV anchor Nidhi Razdan kicked Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra out of her show, the CBI raided the residence of Roy and his wife. Expressing shock over the raid and terming it a “witch-hunt”, NDTV said the move was a “blatant political attack on the freedom of the press”. 
 

Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu promptly came to the government’s defence. “If somebody does something wrong, simply because they belong to the media, you cannot expect the government to keep quiet,” he said. Naidu added that there was no political interference and the law was taking its course. I want to ask Naidu that when industrial tycoons are yet to repay their debts and the Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh is still fresh in people’s minds, why does the government not do something in these cases? 

Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee, Faridabad

Attack on media freedom

Apropos the report, “CBI raids premises of NDTV founders”, it is perplexing that at a time when the finances of banks are crippled by unpaid loans disbursed to industrialists over the years with no criminal cases filed against them by the Central Bureau of Investigation, it should act speedily against NDTV based on a private complaint over banking fraud. 

NDTV is said to have repaid the loan along with the negotiated interest long back. There is no complaint from the lending bank either. The CBI’s justification for the raid is least convincing. It is evident that the agency is a caged parrot of the current dispensation and is likely to remain so unless brought under the Lokpal, an anti-graft institution that the Narendra Modi government is curiously unwilling to make operational. 

Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu’s statement denying that NDTV was raided because of its criticism of some government policies lacks conviction. The raids were intended not only to intimidate the NDTV management but also to send out a message to all electronic media: Tow the government line or face the wrath of its agencies. The CBI raid is an unmitigated attack on the independence of the media and should be condemned.

S K Choudhury  Bengaluru

Become self-sufficient

With reference to Srinivasan Umashankar’s letter, “Air India and Mallya” (June 6), is there is any guarantee that after restructuring of debt at Air India and Kingfisher, operations at the two airlines would be smooth?

The debt problem can be solved without difficulty. In the present case, there are two airlines — one owned by the government, the other by Vijay Mallya. Both the airlines have been destroyed by their own people due to high debt or hidden reasons. The real question: How to save them from their owners? 

Aren’t there any people in India who can manage and own airlines with their own funds without depending on foreign equity? Does every airline in India have to be taken over by foreign companies?

S C Aggarwal, Australia

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