Operation Duryodhana: Why Was Desipundit Denied Permission To Invest In SSIs?

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Now DesiPundit gets featured in sting operations, even. Today’s hottest news: The website Cobrapost.com and the news channel Aaj Tak have conducted a sting operation in which they showed 11 Indian MPs accepting money to ask questions in the Indian parliament. Amit Varma has his reactions here. Rvi has an excellent post expressing outrage. According to the story by Aniruddha Bahal in Cobrapost, one question that BJP MP Chandra Pratap Singh asked on behalf of ‘NISMA’ was:

Is it true that while NRI firms such as India Uncut of USA, Sepia Mutiny of Britain and AnarCap Lib of Netherlands have been allowed to invest in Indian SSIs, the reputed German investment firm Desipundit has been denied permission? If so, the reasons thereof? Is the Union Government of India planning to make automatic the long procedure of permission for SSIs to import new technologies such as Trackbacks, Pingbacks, Blogrolls, Splogs and Hitcounters? [link]

This is hilarious! Could this question have something to do with a blogger who works at Cobrapost?

Updates:

This issue is being discussed all over the blogosphere, and quite a few people are talking about it. Rashmi has an insightful post. There has been a lot of discussion going on, over at Sepia Mutiny. Mutineers are mulling over the cultural implications of SM being labelled British (Not to mention, some veiled speculations of an alleged insidious alliance between the two Vijs, Manish and Shivam – an idea coming across that they were labelled British on purpose!!). Amit discusses the issue, in more detail and Mridula connecting OpDur with IIT-Kan. Both Instapundit and AsiaPundit have spoken. Others to have talked about it: PickledPolitics, BD, Rajeev Roy

Update #2:

The Greatbong has an very insightful take on it, well mixed with his trademark humor. Acharya raises some important questions. Amrit says there is no reason to be surprised. Also see: Dreamweaver

Update #3:

Shivam comes up with more innovative questions to supplement killer question above: amusing. Soumyadip and Nitin have insightful views on the subject. Sakshi looks at the whole ‘feminist’ angle, and is full of praise for the women in journalism, esp Suhasini Raj.

Final Update:

Cartledge, Shuuro, Khatola Tribune, Dr. Karan T, BD(2) [the post will be unstuck shortly]

Comments

21 comments. Leave your comment »

Neha
Dec 12th, 2005 at 10:58 am | #

While it’s really sad that MPs take bribes.. I can’t stop laughing over that question!!!! Hilarious!

Shivam Vij
Dec 12th, 2005 at 11:19 am | #

PlanetSonal
Dec 12th, 2005 at 12:57 pm | #

Absolutely hilarious!!! Couldn’t stop laughing at this question.

While it’s sad things like these happen on such a large scale, on the bright side, there are courageous and determined people out there to uncover this fradulent activities. Kudos to the team of cobrapost who worked on uncovering this acts and bringing it out to the public.

I got an opportunity to watch it on Aajtak, thanks to the US screening of that channel and I think Pradeep Gandhi playing with the national flag while taking/discussing the bribe is the ultimate scene and should win picutre of the year for it’s shamelessness!

Mridula
Dec 12th, 2005 at 1:37 pm | #

Nice question:)

Sumit Dhar
Dec 12th, 2005 at 1:56 pm | #

What a question! I bow to the person who thought of that one!

Cheers,
D.

dreamweaver
Dec 12th, 2005 at 2:28 pm | #

Well, its one thing that the MPs took money to table the questions, but to think that they are callous enough not even to bother doing a backgrounder on the questions that they ask leaves me speechless!

Mihir
Dec 12th, 2005 at 10:28 pm | #

ha! desipundit should file a lawsuit and pay more to the MPs to invest more in SSI!

Aditya
Dec 13th, 2005 at 1:19 am | #

Aaie chi katkat !!! havoc

indiacorporatewatch
Dec 13th, 2005 at 3:25 am | #

Great Work by cobrapost and Aaj Tak

The blogosphere is surely in the news nowadays
and in unlikely places

Dhiraj
Dec 13th, 2005 at 3:57 am | #

Four cheers for Mr blogger at cobrapost.com for thinking of that one… Must say our Parliamentarians are very Gandhian they see, hear (and later speak of) absolutely no evil in taking money…

Mridula
Dec 13th, 2005 at 4:39 am | #

Well well, scroll down to page six of the HTML version of this document,

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:GoGdSESP5ggJ:164.100.24.167/dailyques/206/uq02122005.pdf++Sanction+given+for+Salinger+Cotton+of+Monsanto+parliament&hl=en&client=firefox-a

to see the actual Rajya Sabha document of Salinger (of the Catcher in the Rye fame) Cotton question being in the records of our parliament!

S Jagadish
Dec 13th, 2005 at 9:09 am | #

I don’t get this. Aren’t there _any_ educated MPs around who’d heard of those names and surely figured out that it was a con job?

Ambar
Dec 13th, 2005 at 9:45 am | #

They didn’t even read these things. Apparently, these guys gave signed blank question forms to the cobra post guys. Heh.

prakash
Dec 13th, 2005 at 12:10 pm | #

Rashmi’s rejoinder in her blog was quite interesting. Her analysis on the pros & cons of this stink(g) op was insightful. when i read this last night, I too thought that this would be brushed aside by the mainstream media, as the amount involved was pittance ( comparing other scams). Surprisingly, most of the newspapers carried this in their front page including vernacular dailies like ‘Daily thanthi’. Great Work. Kudos to cobra post and ‘Living Media India group.