day of the dead art

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  • Day of the Dead Children#39;s Art



  • Macaca
    03-04 07:32 PM
    Resources

    American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF (http://www.ailf.org))
    World Policy Institute (WPI (http://www.worldpolicy.org/))
    National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP (http://www.nfap.net/))
    Economic Policy Institute (EPI (http://www.sharedprosperity.org/topics-immigration.html))





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  • punjabi
    08-08 07:44 PM
    for this magnificent video!!



    a very nice video. Shows unity in a very nice perspective..

    http://www.vimeo.com/1211060

    The song is a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore.





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  • sumanitha
    12-22 07:49 PM
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VORdATj6s4w&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=zakir+naik+2008&emb=0&aq=1&oq=zakir+nai





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  • breddy2000
    06-06 04:39 PM
    the above is harshly put ..should have been in better wording but sadly the essence is correct. I had similar feeling ..after years and years if they cannot give me a plastic green card then I don't want to put my hard earned money in immovable asset and keep paying extra taxes (property plus other) year after year.
    also there is a 0.000000000001 percent chance that they may come up with law of faster GC for those who buy a house (almost impossible that it will happen but who knows and might as well keep that route open :D)

    I would not buy a home if I do not get my GC...Even if it means paying more after I get my GC....

    And if I get my GC, I will buy home paying down atleast 50-75%...Thats it



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  • Frida Kahlo- Day of the Dead



  • pbojja
    07-15 10:25 AM
    Can some one explain why do we want send the "WISH LIST" letters to DOL now ? Why not when a ROW GC applicant was getting a GC well a head of very well qualified Ind/Chi applicant ?

    Fortunately they fixed the spill over ,Indian/Chinese EB2 applicants can get their GCs sooner now , are we trying to mess this up ? I know you are going to say we are not against EB2 . I m not against ROW applicants but can I get my GC before a ROW applicant by sending a letter to DOL stating that I m more qualified than the other applicant can you send my GC please?





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  • Day of the Dead Art -- Skull



  • anai
    12-18 11:47 AM
    .... someone comes into your house, occupies it, kills your family, your brothers and sisters in front of you and kicks you out of your home and you are seeing no hope of justice... you wont stand outside your home sending flowers like munna bhai's gandhigiri.. trust me you will become a terrorist.

    Well, all of the above were done to Kashmiri Pandits by terrorists. Yet we don't find any terrorists among the Pandits, who are the real victims of the Kashmir situation.

    Stop trying to find excuses for terrorism. Stop this perverted sympathy for terrorists.



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  • Day of the Dead art close-up



  • satishku_2000
    05-16 11:28 PM
    The greater danger in life is not that we set our aims too high and fail, but we set them too low and still do � Michelangelo

    Your aim is to not get fired. You want to buy an insurance policy to a secure job as if you are the only one entitled to have a job. This is a lower aim so you are bound to fail i.e. lose your job.

    And how do you define �replacing some American workers�. There is a plant in Yuma, AZ manufacturing aircrafts for Kingfisher airlines in India. Doesn�t this mean that someone in India is being replaced by American worker???? Maybe we should stop all trade and we should have all needs of one country fill within its borders. Maybe we should say � from now on no one is going to do any business, collaboration, partnership and place orders to companies outside of the borders of the country where you live.



    The best argument of restrictionist is either talk about no H-1B or green cards or talk about unlimited H-1Bs and green cards as if the extremes make the only reality in this world. Have you ever seen numbers like 290,000 or maybe 450,000. These are called whole numbers in mathematics and reside somewhere between ZERO and INFINITY/UNLIMITED.



    Stop bickering in the name of American people. More than 99% Americans don�t even know what is H-1B visa or employment based green card. And one more thing, people�s opinion is the most foolish thing to look at when making a decision. Do you remember the % of people in favor of Iraq war in 2002? - More than 70%
    Do you know how many people are in favor of pulling out of Iraq now, putting all the blame on the Administration? � around 70%
    Do you know the % of �American people� saying that they screwed up by supporting the war in 2002? � 0%
    No one would come out to say the nations and millions of people got screwed up due to "MY" twisted ideology in 2002. So let�s keep this argument of �American People� out of this debate.



    In free market and capitalist economy, the measure of productivity doesn�t come from some lawmaker who is out of sink with reality or from the ideology of orgs like IEEE-USA or from posters like you. The measure of productivity comes from the employers and the companies. And if that is how it works best for the economy, society and the nation, then so be it. That is the reason why this society is more advanced. You may be afraid of such a situation but I am not scared of a scenario where someone who can perform a better job, either a citizen or on H-1B, takes my job. But that is ok, your way of thinking is all based on the premises that every one out there is after you and some how you have to eliminate this competition at the soonest.



    You have used the argument of abuse, productivity, economy, outsourcing, country of origin and the color of Dick Morris� underwear - to argue against H-1B and to come extent green card number increase. Time and again I have said that this is not about H-1B. We, the people on this forum, want to discuss about GREEN CARD BACKLOGS. But you want to keep the discussion away from green card backlog and want the discussion be in the arena of H-1B. I must share with you that I have received atleast 7 different private messages telling me to �not waste my time with idiot like yourself�.
    Like you ass, you keep your views and your opinions with yourself. Don�t poke your ass and your views into a place where they don�t belong. And please stop worrying about being displaced by someone else on H-1B. You have not even gotten green card and you have already turned into a restrictionist. Please wait for sometime and there will be enough time and opportunity for you to join the ranks of IEEE-USA. This makes me to think that there are 2 possibilities:
    1.) You have very low self esteem and you think very lowly about yourself. Thus you are scared of the competition
    2.) You are not capable enough or technically sound to compete with other around you. And just like IEEE-USA you are looking for ways to eliminate your future probable competition using words/phrases like �displacement of US workers�.



    I tried to explain this guy Senthil that I already proved in form of permanent labor certificate and I 140 petition that I am not displacing any american worker and why I have to prove the same fact for every renewal and he comes with a logic that GC is for future job and H1b is for current job. But you know what my GC application was filed very well in the past ...:) , I mean more than 3 years ago ...

    Somehow some people think they are better than every one else in the crowd and things dont go wrong for them because they have either a particular degree or work in a so called permanent Job .

    These guys are in more alignment with view of ALIPAC and Numbers USA where people think some elses loss is my gain. Having said that reasonable people disagree these guys are totally unreasonable or they are totally out of touch with reality .

    These guys love Mr Durbin so much who dont see any problem with illegal immigration at all ....I would call this height of hypocrosy.





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  • unitednations
    08-02 10:47 PM
    Thanks for your valuable suggestions UN.

    So, do you think it's a better to take a letter from the current employer stating that the position will be available at the time of GC approval, just in case?

    Also if I start working on EAD before 180 days, will that cause any problems in getting I-485 approval?

    Thanks again. I really appreciate your help.


    Keep in mind that not many people post all of these issues. People keep these types of rfe's, denials closely guarded. When I used to have my contact info. on the boards; people would call me and discuss with me and I would remember a similar posting. The posting would have been that persons but what they posted had only 10% of the story of what it really was. Point is that people need to educate themselves on these scenarios. At the same time; uscis usually just goes and approves the case by glossing over it and missing it. However, when you get an adjudicator who wants to make a mark for him/herself they may go after these gray areas. I was pretty ignorant about it until my case went for a loop and then I got obsessed with learning these issues.

    From a common sense point of view; future base employment or if you leave an employer before 485 is pending for less then 180 days and say you had intent to work with them until 485 was pending for 180 days is pretty much not genuine. However; it is in the law. If uscis sees that you were working with a company and left early and said you were going to return or had intent up until 180 days was over to join them; then they can start going after the intent issue. That is; if you went to self employed, totally different field; made substantially more money and said that you still had intent up until 180 days to join upon greencard approval; then you have to be really careful about it.

    Confusion within the law is that ac21 says you can "switch" employers after 180 days. The word "switch" implies that you were in that employment for 180 days and then you changed.

    However; uscis clarified in all of the memos that since greencard is future base; there is no standard to even work with the employer until greencard is approved. Since there is no standard to work with them prior to approval then a person could use ac21 to change "intention" after 180 days. However; they always talk about "intent", "bona fide", etc. These words have so much wiggle room for uscis to abuse their powers or make things difficult for you.

    If you wanted to be on the safe side, just in case uscis asked then you should get an updated offer letter at the 180 day mark that the job is still open once you get the greencard approved.



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  • gcisadawg
    12-23 12:52 AM
    Unfortunately the religious muslim leaders dont want the community to get educated, prosper and westernized because than they would loose control..its precisely for this reason that the religious leaders of this community have for centuries scared the followers of the community with gods wrath if they changed. The Muslim religion has to become progressive and moderate.

    Hmm....I'm trying to answer these questions....
    What control a religious Muslim leader has on his followers? Can he prevent them from being educated or prevent one from working after he graduates inspite of his initial control? I've some Muslim friends. I'd be curious to check with them whether their careers got jeopardised by religious or political Muslim leaders?. Can you do me a favor. If you do have Muslim friends, can you check with them?

    I'm thinking in terms of the following..Sometimes I'm naive..Pls. excuse me for that...I haven't mastered the inner workings of Muslim community yet.

    A Muslim guy gets an offer from oracle, IBM and Wipro. He goes to a Mullah/MP to get advice about which to choose? Assuming our Mullah/local MP is knowledgeable, he says "dont do Oracle because it is run by a Jewish guy, dont to IBM since it is a company of great satan. Do Wipro since it is run by a Muslim". :)

    Okay, it is a bit too much. Can the Mullah stop a father from educating his daughter? Agreed, he might have some influence. But if the father is rational/already educated, he would treat that advice as suggestion rather than a firm decision.

    To me, Muslims need to educate their daughters more and more...And Muslim men need to stay away from gulf type jobs and come to US and be backlogged in EB GC so that they can join IV and reply to this thread so that some of the burden on ss1026 is lessened!! :)

    Peace,
    gcIsaDawg





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  • sanju
    04-08 07:17 AM
    Good post, I would like to add that:

    This is an interesting bill and I feel it'll pass. There are lot of gotcha's but there are some good things. I'm glad to see H1-B rights and whistleblower sections. This was way past due. Really, this is more of a culmination of those few employers who have tried to exploit the system / employees.
    The summary document says that Whistleblower protection does not protect immigration status. So the current language of "Whistleblower protection" has NOT much new to offer because Whistleblower protection is already part of the federal law (outside of immigration act). Here is some info:

    http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/whistle.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower



    key points to ponder:

    - Finally IRS and USICS have come together. !! .. thats a big blow to the body shoppers ( may be a good thing)

    There is already a requirement in the Tax law to send the datab/W-2 of each employee (including the employees on H1) to IRS. So much so that if a company you worked for last year has closed down, you could go to the local IRS office to get your W-2 (from IRS).


    -> 50 employees cant have more than 50% H1B's. I think this will basicaly create many smaller consulting companies nothing else. This I don't like .. could be bad for genuine businesses.

    To get around 50% requirements, as the greenguru mentioned, the employers could bend around the system by having companies with employee size < 50. So it will be an inconvenience for them, but there are ways and means to get around. The problem will be faced by people already here waiting for green cards. If your employer has more than 50% on H1, they will have to file H1 from the sister company and the new law will be applicable to the new H1. So the people already here on H1 will suffer the most.


    I hope it doesnt, without any amendments. Maybe a friendlier bill with strict H1-B rights would be nice.
    Well said!! This bill is not friendly and a better bill, which is not imposing unnecessary restrictions and has worker protection provisions for all H1 employees will be better in making the H1 process equitable and workable.



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  • Ramba
    08-05 01:50 PM
    Oh my gosh..This much argument. I do not know the PD porting is law or rule. If it is law, one can not file suit against the amended law. But one can request the law maker to change. If it is a rule, one may do that. But it does not have any merit. It is waste of time.

    PD porting, in theory, is very genuine. (may be not-genuine in many cases; just to cut-short the line or line jump by creating a EB2 job) So, one cannot challagne that. Here is why. A cook may have a PD 2001 in EB3. He has right to study PhD and apply in EB1 catagory, by poring PD. There is no violation of ehics here.





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  • lfwf
    08-05 07:09 PM
    see below

    I dont know whom you are responding to but...

    Then check. Context is everything sometimes.

    So Eb2 does not do silly coding??!!. Get a reality check. The jobs that Eb3 and EB2 does are pretty much the same. The same monkey can do the jobs of EB2 too, so I fail to see you point.

    There was no point, I said I did not believe it. I was showing the original poster that using a large black brush to tar a whole group of people is offensive and inappropriate. At least read my whole post before responding. I see I hit a nerve though. So it's ok for you t claim that EB2 means nothing and is ill gotten but not ok for me to talk about EB3?

    Also, the law does not just state that there are no qualified -- there is also a willing clause. There might be Americans who can do the job, but such Americans may not want to relocate etc.

    Bull crap. Don't make me open my mouth anout labor my friens. best we don't open this up.


    Over the lot of arguments I have seen Eb2 claiming to be superior, please disabuse yourselves of it. I am Eb3, but I lord over Eb2, and the same EB2s lord over me depending on particular expertise and problem that is being solved, that is business. No, I am not talking about telling EB2s how to switch on their computers. I am talking about hardcore technical issues.

    I'm not in IT. the more I hear IT folks go at each other, the less I think of the field frankly. And yes, i do not know about you but I met several people who came in the tech boom, whose jobs a monkey could do. Sorry, just the truth.



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  • SunnySurya
    08-05 10:45 AM
    And may I please ask how do you know that?
    May be 1% of EB2. Good to know that.





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  • gcisadawg
    01-03 02:20 AM
    My dad was a never govt employee but I'm sad that Govt folks were so much underpaid!

    When they get bribes, why bother about pay? Sorry, I've no respect for these low lifes who take bribe and make common man run from pillar to post.



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  • abhisam
    07-26 04:01 PM
    UN,

    A quick question for you. So far, I havent found anything wrong with my I-485 application.

    My wife is currently on an H4 visa and is a dependent applicant on our AOS application. She was working in our native country before coming to the US. When the lawyer filled her biographic information, she did not mention her employment in India. She just filled that section as N/A. We did not care at that moment because we thought USCIS might be more concerned about my employment history, as I am the primary applicant.

    Now after reading all this, I'm a bit worried. And my question is exactly opposite of what most people are asking. Does not stating my wife's foreign employment mean fraud to USCIS? I really appreciate all help that you can extend in this regard.

    Thanks,
    abhisam





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  • gc28262
    12-22 03:08 PM
    See me standing there in the video!
    http://www.dailypioneer.com/DisplayContent.aspx?ContentID=145268&URLName=Indian-Americans-ask-UN-to-declare-Pak-a-terrorist-state
    and
    http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/12/india-free-men.html
    ****
    Indian Americans ask UN to declare Pak a terrorist state


    ************************

    SunnySurya,
    Weren't you the one who said India should gift kashmir to pakistan to solve all terrorrist activities and war ?

    How come you became a patriot and started caring about india all of a sudden ?

    Do you have any consistent opinion ?



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  • Day of the Dead Art -- Ukulele



  • sledge_hammer
    06-27 11:52 AM
    Right, you pay for what you called "service", which is what your landlord is providing. And you pay him to let you stay in his house, which means YOU my friend are paying more than 80% of HIS mortgage. At the end of his mortgage, all his tenants would have collectively chipped in to pay more than 80% of HIS mortage and he has a house at the end of it all. What do YOU have? Zero, zilch, nada!

    Money paid as interest is the "service" cost of the money being loaned to you. You are paying so that you can live in the house you did NOT pay full cash for.

    My interest in a year is 2 times more than the standard deduction. I don't have a business yet, but when I start one, I'm going to have more deductions. Do the math!

    Its not logical to think of rent as money flushed down the toilet. It is the money you pay for a service aka for a service that provides shelter without any maintanance involved.

    Is the money that you are paying as interest for mortgage money flushed down the toilet???:rolleyes:

    Taxdeduction is overrated, remember everyone gets a standard deduction, so even if you
    dont have mortgage you get a break.





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  • JunRN
    06-07 02:07 PM
    JunRN, it all depends on how much risk are you willing to take in what area. Equity is generally believed or historically trended to provide 10% returns over 10 years span (multiple market cycles). Where as dwelling as an investment provides a marginal 3 to 5% depending on location in a normal growth rate (Exception to Bubble). Equity market has nose dived as did housing market and people consider it too risky to invest at this stage in equity due to uncertinities (lot of companies may not make it through though times or No. PC companies which has become QPC -filed for chapter11 protection has increased) even though it doesn't involve huge amounts as housing at per unit basis. For investers, same applies for dwelling investment as well at a higher scale. More Chapter 11->more job losses->more houses on foreclosure.

    Just to counter your argument, Let me tell you one scenario, When stock market went down, I invested in shares some time back in February 09, as of today, If I look at the individual investment, it stands at 60% increased. But I do not think that it will provide me a 60% returns.. over 10 years... I expect only 10% and may increase to 15% in the long run which is a ball park number.

    Lot of sellers/brokers referred Zillow during 2006 and early 2007 (Bubble) to sell their houses at an inflated prices as I mentioned earlier, when it went up 20000 per month for several months.. Based on these numbers..people streached themself and jumped to grab one before it goes beyond their reach thinking that it will continue to go up.. Now, the houses values under water and they are whining about it every day and night.. some of their home values evapourated by 30 to 40%. (I am talking about 100,000 to 150,000 south). Zillow goes up and down.. in short term depending on historic sales and builder's listing price changes, not based on any economic outlook. Every agent wears two hats and is two-faced, because a home�s �value� has to be higher when represent a seller and lower when represent a buyer. The Zillow range of value represents best hope for buyer at the low end of the range, and highest for seller at the high end of that range.

    Here's what they say about it in disclaimer "The Zestimate is not an appraisal and you won't be able to use it in place of an appraisal, though you can certainly share it with real estate professionals. It is a computer-generated estimate of the worth of a house today, given the data we have available. Zillow.com does not offer the Zestimate as the basis of any specific real-estate-related financial transaction. Our data sources may be incomplete or incorrect; also, we have not physically inspected a specific home."

    My point is, Unless the correction happens in housing market, which is widely believed to be another 10 to 12% further south from where it stands now.. there is always a risk in buying one thinking that its going to appreciate in next 10 years. Remember though the demand cycles for realty market is lenghty ones which will rise once in 10 to 15 years but this does not mean that there's going to be another bubble again to hike it up by 100 and 200% :). It may rise as historically did to provide a 3 to 4% returns. This is regardless of location... location.. location.. First, It will take time to stabilize the market just because there's too much supply, affordiability issue and aging population.

    Buy or not, depends on whether and how much you are willing and open to take risk. Higher the risk, higher the returns.. doesn't mean it applies to stupid decisions... One thing I wanted to mention though, we have utilization value for living in a house, bigger than an apartment, again its an individual perspective.

    I have not entered into the discussion of the intrinsic/utilization value of owning a home specially with 3 small kids like mine because it's hard to put a $$ value without being biased.

    The 10 to 12% down south estimate might be true on the average. However, from where I stand now, in my county not just my zip code, house prices started to go up by 0.8% since January. It might still go down as I see fluctuations but I feel that it's stabilizing already.

    Could I have waited until home prices go down another 10%? Probably a wiser decision but as I monitor home purchase price of same model as mine in same community, not one was able to buy same model home as low as my purchase price. So I felt relieved.

    But only time can tell, right? All I'm doing right now is to satisfy myself that I made a right decision. Should I find out that it's a mistake, I should be truthful to myself that I did. There's no reason to lie to my ownself.





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  • gimme_GC2006
    04-13 09:36 PM
    Dear friend - looks like ur sugar levels are going up and down - hang in there. I think you will be fine. Thanks for sharing your experiences with people here.

    hehhehe..yeah my sugar levels and stock market indexes have synchronized themselves very well now..next up/down is always a guess :p





    gotgc?
    12-17 10:46 PM
    It is true that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists. But 99.99% of World's hardcore terrorists are Muslims.

    It is very true..and it is fact...why is that all terrorists are muslims...something is wrong ...muslims need to come forward....





    Macaca
    12-27 06:24 PM
    The Year That Was: Corruption Scandals of 2010 (http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/12/27/the-year-that-was-corruption-scandals-of-2010/) By Tripti Lahiri | IndiaRealTime

    This week, as we countdown to 2011, India Real Time casts a look back at the big news events of this year.

    We�re not sure we can say it was the best of times, but sometimes it certainly felt like the worst of times, at least for the Congress-led government, which saw a series of corruption scandals unfold on its watch.

    Here are the top five scandals of 2010, in chronological order:

    Tharoorgate: In April, then junior foreign minister Shashi Tharoor, a first-time MP from Kerala, was forced to resign after Indian Premier League founder Lalit Kumar Modi raised questions on Twitter about the equity given to a woman close to Mr. Tharoor in a consortium that successfully bid for a new franchise for an Indian Premier League cricket team.

    Mr. Tharoor denied that he stood to gain financially from the team, which was to represent a Kerala city.

    The ruckus led income-tax authorities to examine the ownership holdings in the league�s other teams. Meanwhile the body that regulates cricket in India began to look at Mr. Modi�s financial dealings with regard to the league and also relieved him of his post as IPL commissioner.

    By the end of 2010 Mr. Tharoor and the woman, public relations executive Sunanda Pushkar were married. It also looks like a team from Kochi will play in the next season of the Indian Premier League.

    The Commonwealth Games: The Games, estimated to cost $6 billion, were plagued by allegations of financial mismanagement, instances of work safety violations, construction accidents and extreme delays in the preparations.

    At one point it seemed possible that the Games may not take place at all as visiting delegations complained of filthy and incomplete worker accommodations and health concerns around dengue stemming a surge in mosquitoes in Delhi as a result of heavy monsoon rains this year.

    It looked set to be a national embarrassment but a snazzy opening ceremony smoothed things over and roused some sporting spirit from Delhi residents, though there continued to be reports of disorganization, including around ticket sales and with getting real-time results from the events.

    After the event, the prime minster promised a full investigation. On Friday, the Central Bureau of Investigation agency officials searched the office and residence of Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi, chief Games organizer, and his assistant. Earlier, two other organizing officials were arrested.

    2G: The scandal over the potential revenue lost from from giving discounted spectrum to telecom companies in 2008 is the biggest of them all.

    The Controller and Auditor General said in November that the flawed allocation may have cost the government $40 billion in lost revenue, and the size of that figure has stoke public ire and given the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party loads of ammunition to attack the government.

    Ahead of the report being tabled in Parliament, Telecom minister A. Raja stepped down on Nov. 14, though he maintains he did nothing wrong. The Central Bureau of Investigation questioned him on Friday and Saturday.

    The 2G scandal led to even more wastage of taxpayer money than the $40 billion the audit report mentioned. The stalemate between the Congress and the BJP over the opposition�s demand for a parliamentary inquiry led to a parliamentary session that, according to some news reports, saw less than 10 hours of work take place.

    Tapegate: Just as the storm of criticism around the Congress Party�s record on governance was at its height, news reports appeared in two magazines that shifted the spotlight away from Mr. Raja and the spectrum allocations and on to reporters instead.

    The news reports carried transcripts of leaked phone taps of conversations between top reporters like NDTV�s Barkha Dutt, Hindustan Times columnist Vir Sanghvi, senior editors at various business dailies and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, who represents the Tata Group and Reliance Industries chair Mukesh Ambani. The conversations were tapped by the income tax department after a tip-off that Ms. Radia might be a spy.

    The leaked conversations led many Indians to feel jaded with the news media, so far a fairly respected pillar of Indian democracy for its sting operations on officials. They accused influential journalists of being too close to corporate and political interests and of concealing the real news. Ms. Dutt and Mr. Sanghvi have said they did not pass on any messages on behalf of Ms. Radia, and that she was just one of many useful sources.

    This scandal made bigger news on Twitter than in the Indian press at first, and distracted attention away from the 2G investigation for a good month.

    Loan-fixing: And if all that wasn�t enough, in late November came the news that eight people had been arrested, including officials from the state-run Life Insurance Corporation�s mortgage arm, state-run banks and an investment firm. The Central Bureau of Investigation said the men collaborated in a conspiracy to funnel loan money to certain firms in exchange for bribes.



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