Illicit India - Implosion: India's Tryst with Reality - page 209

that had been reserved for the public sector. 64 This created a furore because Birla had been
regarded as beyond reproach, and the lobbying he appeared to have been doing was normal
business practice in any country. This led Manmohan Singh to break his customary silence
and his office issued a statement saying he considered the allocation of the block to Birla
as 'entirely appropriate'. 65
The prime minister did indeed have a reasonably sound case, which he had spelt out in
parliament in August 2012, 66 but his words did not resonate for long in the furore and clam-
our generated by a parliamentary opposition bent on undermining the government and by
an over-excited media. Singh's line was that coal was urgently needed for power projects
and the quickest way to mine it was to award licences and contracts on a select basis with
favourable terms for private sector companies that would quickly generate electricity. As
Singh said in parliament, the allocations were not regarded as 'revenue-generating activity'
but a way of boosting electricity supplies - according to that argument, the CAG's calcula-
tions of losses were wrongly based.
There was, of course, nothing wrong with allocating licences, provided the policy was
clear, and provided strict and fair rules and conditions were set and monitored so that they
allowed no favouritism. Unfortunately, in India, corruption and discretionary powers are
so deep-rooted that such arrangements are unlikely to be operated ethically and are under-
standably (and usually correctly) regarded with suspicion. In the 2G case, it was clear from
the start that licences were being awarded to unqualified and undeserving companies and,
in the coal case, the rules were so loosely drawn and administered that undeserving com-
panies received projects. The responsibility for both cases rested with Manmohan Singh
because on 2G he knew what Raja was doing and failed to stop it. On coal, he himself had
been the coal minister and therefore presided over the malpractices and resisted moves to
switch to competitive bidding. Coal blocks were allocated to undeserving companies and
reputable companies were unwilling or unable to complete projects and generate power be-
cause of bureaucratic and other delays.
Paid Media
India's media is often lauded as one of the most free in the world. It is not, however, really
free because of widespread corruption which leads to distorted, biased stories and editorial
lines. Journalists and editors are also richly rewarded by companies and politicians, and a
considerable amount of what appears in the media is 'planted' by vested interests. In a Brit-
ish Journalism Review article in 2001, 67 I wrote that, with some notable exceptions, editors
and reporters were not so irreverent towards authority as their counterparts in many other
countries, and they were far more flattered by the attention of people in important positions.
This made them more vulnerable to accepting planted information favourable to their con-