Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Title: A Ritual Sacrifice Author: Editorial, HindustanTimesSource: Hindustan TimesDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1541791,00120001.htm

What, ask the wags, was the higher crime and misdemeanour of Paul Volcker in the eyes of K. Natwar Singh? There was Volcker’s admission that during an 18-month long investigation he and his 70 staffers never realised Singh was the Indian foreign minister. Then there was the one-line mention of Singh as a “non-contractual beneficiary” in the inquiry’s annexure into the oil-for-food programme.

The irony is that the two are not unrelated. If a bird had whispered in Volcker’s ear as to who Singh was, it is quite likely the former US central banker would have given him the benefit of doubt.

Volcker saw his task as reforming an institution, not chasing criminals. “Our focus was mainly on how the programme was manipulated and corrupted by Saddam Hussein… and what went on within the UN,” he said. It wasn’t about reaching “conclusions of guilt and innocence”.

He treated every political figure whose name was found in the files of the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization with kid gloves. They were all sent a note and their explanations accepted without a murmur.

The most flagrant case was that of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. Volcker says he had doubts Annan didn’t know that his son, Kofo, was in the kickback business. But when the UN chief requested he water down criticism of Annan, Volcker said fine. The investigator believed Kofo’s misdeeds weren’t worth toppling the secretary-general.

Volcker simply wasn’t interested in going after people. Most of the staffers who resigned in protest from his inquiry team were Americans steeped in that country’s special prosecutor culture. For them, the endgame was put evil-doers behind bars.

Volcker, far from being a misguided missile, comes out as a liberal internationalist grossly respectful of the UN and people in power. Too bad, then, he had never heard of K. Natwar Singh.

Volcker’s ignorance then left Singh exposed to a genuinely remorseless force: Indian public opinion. All the money earned by the various Indian entities listed in the annexure are loose change compared to the billions earned by their Russian, French and Chinese counterparts.

But India has been the first country to force a political figure from office.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is probably right to say this reflects well on India. But it does raise a question. Why is the Indian polity so uncompromising about financial wrong-doing at the highest level? To the point that appearance is almost as important as genuine guilt. Political scientist Paul Brass, commenting on the moral streak in Indian politics, compared it to that of the United States.

One reason is the legacy of the Independence movement. The leaders of the Congress at that time, whether it was M.K. Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru or Sardar Patel, put an enormous premium on taking the highest ethical path.

This was not just a matter of conscience. From the viceroyalty of Lord Curzon onwards, British colonialists had shifted the moral case for empire from “the White man is a superior administrator” to “the White man is morally superior”. Gandhi, in particular, understood the need to undermine this argument.

Another reason is the modernising impulse. Countries like India and China with rapidly expanding middle-classes develop rigid self-images of what their country should be like. The contrast is a Russia or France where minimal expectations regarding the future go with a blasé attitude towards political scandal.

Having tainted leaders hurts this nationalist sentiment the most. It is wholly out of proportion to the actual economic costs of bribe-taking. For example, studies say Indians pay $ 4.6 billion in bribes a year, which is probably less than the economic damage of the country’s bad roads. Beijing tries to appease its public by executing anyone who takes a bribe of more than $ 12,000 — the death toll runs into hundreds per month.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

New Delhi prefers to take the less traumatic path of judicial inquiries and the Central Bureau of Investigation. But ruling parties take special care to keep the prime ministership and the four key portfolios — foreign affairs, finance, home and defence — above reproach. When the sniff of scandal reaches these levels, business as usual grinds to a halt. Policy-making is reduced to damage control.

What is curious, if touching, is that even the most cynical countries tend to put their foreign ministers in a special category all of their own. It’s only a foreign minister who, if he mangles his grammar, or gets a bit tipsy, or otherwise strays from the straight and narrow, is denounced as having brought shame to his country. If a water resources minister makes a hash of what is otherwise a life-necessary commodity, he’s likely to be buried on page 11.

But these days foreign ministers have more to worry about than being the country’s external face. A post-modern world where moral sentiment creeps across borders has provided more reason why senior ministers need to be Caesar’s wife squared.

A lot of politics is about ritual. And, barring some ancient religious orthodoxies, nothing can quite match the rituals that accompany politics between nations. Like a shaman who is seen to have lost his link with the gods, a foreign minister with even a breath of scandal loses his ability to carry out the rituals connected to his office.

Consider the slow death of Kurt Waldheim. Better known as a UN Secretary General, after 1986 he was elected president of Austria. However, it soon came out that he had lied about his service in a German paramilitary unit that had committed atrocities during World War II.

Though the late Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal and an international commission of historians cleared him of having blood on his hands, it didn’t really matter. Country after country said he wasn’t welcome. Every press conference Waldheim held, every ribbon-cutting event he attended and any speech he made became an endless interrogation about charges he could never disprove. During his one term as president, Waldheim barely stepped out of Austria or received any foreign head of State. Perception was his reality.

Volcker, no stranger to high office, understood the damage that his report could do to governments and individuals around the world. He clearly went out of his way to avoid being a wrecker ball through the international system. He did his best to shield the UN as an institution. “Although there is a great deal of corruption in the world, the United Nations must be held to a higher standard if it is to command the respect it needs to function effectively.” In the oil-for-food programme “it fell short of that standard”. But he tried to divert any fallout of his report, insisting that the programme’s failings were “not equivalent to finding corruption throughout the UN”.

K. Natwar Singh, in many ways, was a victim of a new India, impatient with the intricacies of justice and driven by an uncompromising sense of nation. The man who would have probably liked to have saved him was Paul Volcker. But he didn’t know who Singh was. And this, to use the words of the former foreign minister, was “not a case of ignorance is bliss”.

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Title: Chidambaram To Answer Volker Questions In Near FutureAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20051109094036&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=#0

Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday refused to answer any question on the Volcker report, which allegedly named former external affairs Minister Natwar Singh in the Iraqi oil- for food scandal.

''I do not want to make any off-the cuff remarks. But I will answer all the questions relating to Volcker in two three days'', he told reporters on the sidelines of a press briefings about the meeting of the India-US financial and economic forum.

The enforcement directorate, which comes under Mr Chidambaram, had interrogated Andaleep Sehgal of Hamdan exports, one of the beneficiaries named in the Volker report. Mr Sehgal is reported to be close to Mr Natwar Singh's son Jagat Singh.

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Title: 'Credibility Of Report Going Down By The Day'

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: The Economic TimesDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1290270.cms

Claiming that the "credibility" of the Volcker committee report on Iraqi oil pay-offs was "going down by the day", Natwar Singh said he gave up external affairs portfolio in the "larger interest" of the party and the country.

He added that he did not want to be the "focus" in the Saarc summit in Dhaka. Reacting to Paul Volcker's comments in New York that he was not sure whether Natwar Singh was notified on the contents in his report on the oil-for-food Programme scam, he welcomed the statement.

He told a TV channel that from the beginning he had wanted to know, to which address he had sent the letter, since Volcker had also said he did not know he was the external affairs minister.

He was reacting to comments made by India's permanent representative to the UN Nirupam Sen, after his meeting with Volcker that his impression was that Singh was not sent any notice on the finding against him

The minister without portfolio said he had given up External Affairs even without proof of allegations against him. "I had to go to the SAARC summit. I was to leave tomorrow. The whole focus would have been on me and not on SAARC. I thought it was not correct."

When he conveyed his decision to step down pending the inquiry, the Prime Minister was good enough to ask him whether he would like to remain as a minister without portfolio, to which he agreed.

"I said yes as I am not taking it as a personal matter," Singh said adding he had told the Prime Minister that his services were available for the country and he will accept any task that is given to him.

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Title: For Natwar, News Is Good And BadAuthor: K.P. NAYAR Source: TelegraphDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051110/asp/frontpage/story_5459184.asp

New York, Nov. 9: Nirupam Sen, India’s permanent representative to the UN, yesterday met Paul Volcker for 45 minutes and received an assurance of cooperation in India’s investigations into wrongdoings by Indian entities and individuals in the $60 billion oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

A committee source told The Telegraph that the assurance by Volcker, the chairman of a UN-appointed committee, which investigated the Iraqi scam, was both good and bad news for former external affairs minister Natwar Singh.

Singh stands accused of corruption in the programme and contributing a portion of $1.8 billion to Saddam Hussein in illicit payments.

The good news for Singh and the Congress Party, another Indian entity accused in the scam, is Volcker’s promise to share his panel’s information with India’s investigating agencies.

The bad news is two-fold: first, Volcker said his co-operation with any Indian entity would be within “legal constraints”.

That implies that India’s own inquiry, to be conducted by former Chief Justice R.S. Pathak, or any search for information by special envoy Virendra Dayal should not violate the Volcker inquiry’s immunity and confidentiality agreements.

In other words, the Volcker panel has been given documents and testimony by individuals and institutions across the world on the explicit promise that they should not be identified and that their data should not be shared with anyone else.

In those cases, the Volcker committee would have to get a waiver from those individuals and institutions before sharing such information with Dayal or the Indian government.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

If those parties refuse to give such a waiver, Volcker will have no option but to withhold information from the Pathak inquiry.

It was precisely to protect such immunity and confidentiality that Volcker repeatedly sought the intervention of American courts earlier this year to prevent the panel’s documents from reaching the US Congress and to restrain Robert Parton, a former FBI agent who was on the staff of his committee, from testifying before Congress.

The second bad news for the former external affairs minister is that around 130 Indian entities and individuals have been cited in the Volcker report for alleged involvement in the oil-for-food scandal.

It would be difficult for Indian diplomats at the UN -- who will be the vehicle through which the Volcker documents are eventually transmitted to the Indian inquiry -- to go and tell Volcker’s staff that they need to speed up Natwar Singh’s case as an exception because Singh is remaining in the cabinet without any portfolio.

As a matter of principle, India can only approach the Volcker committee as part of an ethical effort to clear the names of all Indian entities and to see if anyone in India had violated Indian laws.

The committee, for its part, will be willing to share information about Indian entities and individuals as part of this effort, not simply to clear Singh’s name post-haste so that he can be reinstated in South Block.

This process may turn out to be time-consuming and require Singh to wait out the availability of any details that may clear him of charges of corruption as part of an overall effort to clear the names of Indian entities and individuals.

The committee is double-checking the exact status of the chance it had given Singh to respond before his name was put in the panel’s report as a non-contractual beneficiary in the oil-for-food programme.

At the same time, Pathak and Dayal will have to move fast because the Volcker committee's mandate ends in about a month. After that the panel becomes history and there will be no one available for Pathak or Dayal to deal with here.

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Title: Getting Natwar To Fall In LineAuthor: Neerja ChowdhurySource: Indian ExpressDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE220051108213948&Title=Second+Article&rLink=#0

The prime minister's 'half measure' of stripping Natwar Singh of the External Affairs portfolio, but letting him continue as Minister Without Portfolio (MWP) has come at the end of a week of drift and indecision which did nothing for the party or the government. But it was a political googly all right.

For starters, it was effective in knocking out Natwar Singh, who seemed to have dug in his heels and refused to resign despite many broad hints from the PM. Manmohan Singh even managed to secure the resignation of the union minister from Bihar, Jaiprakash Yadav, although the man has yet to be apprehended.

What's interesting is that even though Manmohan Singh had told colleagues from day one that Natwar Singh would have to quit, he did not ask him to do so. Meanwhile, Natwar Singh demonstrated his 'nuisance value' by making several embarrassing statements that had great foreign policy import.

Then there was the stance adopted by the UPA allies - the Left parties, DMK, NCP, RJD - which lent their support to the beleaguered minister, as he tried to frame the Volcker controversy in ideological, America versus Iraq, terms. Manmohan Singh has killed two birds with one stone by his decision to retain the External Affairs portfolio. He will have the run of the ministry at a time when the Indo-US nuclear talks are at a delicate stage, besides which US President George Bush is slated to visit India in February.

At the same time the PM signalled to Natwar Singh that by not giving the department to someone else, he was keeping the seat warm for him until his name was cleared.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

But whatever be the intended signals, one thing is amply clear. Natwar Singh will not go back to External Affairs in the foreseeable future, whatever the outcome of the Pathak and Dayal probes. Even more damaging to him than the Volcker report are the spate of statements he made in obvious desperation.

Even his statement, "I did not go to see Strobe Talbott, Condoleezza Rice came to see me", was surprising for a seasoned diplomat like him to make.

Most important for both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi was the necessity to distance the Congress party from Natwar Singh. Had he quit on day one, it would have been an admission of guilt and would have by association brought the Congress party in the firing line.

As it is, the BJP is already training its guns at the Congress, and at Sonia Gandhi. The Winter Session of Parliament promises to be a turbulent one, although one of the curious aspects of the whole controversy was the silence of senior BJP and NDA leaders on the issue.

By retaining Natwar Singh as Cabinet minister, the UPA has indicated that it has bowed to pressure for an inquiry, and Manmohan Singh has chosen two men to head the probe who are known for their competence. By removing Natwar Singh as head of the Foreign Office, it has tried to indicate a desire for a fair probe.

But damage control is one thing, the image of the party - which has taken a beating - quite another. There comes a moment in the life of a government when things begin to turn and it then becomes a downhill slide from that point.

So far the Manmohan Singh government has benefitted from a BJP being in disarray. For a spell, it was possible for the government to hide behind the argument of "coalitional compulsions" when it came to the induction of "tainted" ministers.

But this cannot go on indefinitely. There is also a limit to which the prime minister can hide behind the image of being "a decent man, unable to do much".

The Congress needs to do some soul-searching. Clearly, some of the party's troubles stem from its slow political reflexes, whether in Goa, or in Jharkhand, or when Jagdish Tytler had to quit after the Nanavati Report, or now with Natwar Singh. When it finally acted, it was seen as a case of too little being done, too late, and done under pressure.

By making Natwar Singh a minister without portfolio, the UPA has set a precedent for the future. Every time there is a minister against whom there is an allegation, or there is one who is chargesheeted, the temptation would be to make him a Minister Without Portfolio.

In other words, he would not have a specific responsibility, but would enjoy the perks of power. It is not even clear where - or if - Natwar Singh will have an office, although he is hoping to remain a member of the CCPA (Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs) and the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security).

It is time, then, for political parties to evolve a consensus on the course of action they will adopt when ministers face an inquiry, or are charged. It's also high time they took a serious view on what they intend to do about the oft-invoked but lightly taken institution of the Lok Pal, which they had promised to set up years ago.

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Title: Govt To Examine Volcker Report To Probe Company Law ViolationsAuthor: Richa MishraSource: Business LineDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/11/10/stories/2005111003300900.htm

THE Ministry of Company Affairs (MCA) is examining the Volcker Committee report to ascertain whether there were any violations by the Indian companies named in it that required scrutiny under the Companies Act.

The Volcker Committee had alleged that kickbacks had been paid to the Saddam Hussein Government by companies across the globe to obtain contracts under the oil-for-food programme.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Speaking to Business Line, the Minister for State (Independent Charge) for Company Affairs, Mr Prem Chand Gupta, said: "I have asked my officers to go through the report and see whether there is anything worth looking at by the Ministry from the Company Law point of view."

On the timeframe involved, he said: "The preliminary exercise would take a fortnight."

This comes close on the heels of the Revenue Department stating that it may look into the books of those Indian companies (about 130) that have been named in the report to see whether they had violated any tax laws.

Asked whether the Ministry has already initiated any investigations against these companies, a senior Company Affairs official said that there was unlikely to be any investigation or scrutiny before the preliminary exercise is over.

Some of the Indian companies figuring in the Volcker report are public sector entities, STC Ltd and Rites Ltd.

The report also named Reliance Industries Ltd, Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing, Kirloskar Brothers, Kirloskar Oil Engines, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Thermax, Ajanta Pharma, Arihant Industries, Dishman Pharmaceuticals, Cosmos International, United Phosphorus, Dr Reddy's Labs, Jain Irrigation Systems, and Mohan Exports, in the private sector.

The Government has instituted a judicial probe headed by former Chief Justice, Mr R.S. Pathak, which would investigate into facts relating to the allegations against Indian entities.

The former UN Under-Secretary, Mr Virender Dayal, would conduct a simultaneous fact-finding exercise on the allegations.

The Enforcement Directorate has also started investigations against those who have been linked to paying kickbacks in the oil-for-food programme.

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Title: Improper ConductAuthor: Editorial, The Deccan HeraldSource: Deccan HeraldDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov102005/editpage180182005119.asp

Mr Natwar Singh’s removal as India’s External Affairs Minister was long overdue. His continuation in the post became untenable with the Volcker report naming him a beneficiary of kickbacks in the Iraq Oil-for-Food scam. With a question mark against his name, his continuation as foreign minister would have undermined India’s credibility on the world stage. But what made his exit essential, if not imperative, was his unbecoming behaviour and irresponsible statements trashing India’s foreign policy over the past week. Mr Singh’s statements repudiated India’s foreign policy positions. He raved and ranted against the US alleging that his naming in the Volcker report was the result of a conspiracy against him. He dismissed Iraq’s transitional government as having “no credibility anywhere in the world” and then declared that he would as foreign minister, advise the Union Cabinet to reverse its September stance and vote in favour of Iran when that country’s nuclear programme comes up for another vote at the International Atomic Energy Agency meet on November 24. Mr Singh is entitled to his personal opinion. But as foreign minister he should have shown greater circumspection in what he said. To shore up support for his personal political survival, Mr Singh issued statements that were contrary to India’s policy and detrimental to India’s interests. He has caused grievous harm to India’s international standing.

This is not the first time that Mr Singh has issued statements contradicting India’s foreign policy. There have been umpteen instances over the past year when he has embarrassed India. For instance, during a visit to South Korea as foreign minister he had urged that country not to follow India’s example by becoming a nuclear power. In effect, he was being critical of India’s decision to go nuclear, a position that he should not have articulated publicly as foreign minister.

While his statements over the past year contradicting India’s foreign policy could be dismissed as gaffes, his utterances over the past week fall into a different category. They were part of a calculated strategy to ensure his political survival. He was willing to undermine India’s national interests to retain his post. Mr Singh has now been divested of the foreign ministry portfolio but he remains in the cabinet. He has shown himself to be incapable of protecting India’s vital interests. He does not deserve to remain a minister, with or without a portfolio.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Title: India Must Decide If I'm Guilty: NatwarAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEH20051109222727&Title=Top+Stories&Topic=-428&

Claiming that the "credibility" of the Volcker committee report on Iraqi oil pay-offs was "going down by the day", Natwar Singh said he gave up External Affairs portfolio in the "larger interest" of the party and the country.

He added that he did not want to be the "focus" in the SAARC summit in Dhaka. Reacting to Paul Volcker's comments in New York that he was not sure whether Natwar Singh was notified on the contents in his report on the oil-for-food Programme scam, he welcomed the statement.

He told NDTV that from the beginning he had wanted to know, to which address he had sent the letter, since Volcker had also said he did not know he (Singh) was the External Affairs Minister.

He was reacting to comments made by India's permanent representative to the UN Nirupam Sen, after his meeting with Volcker that his impression was that Singh was not sent any notice on the finding against him.

The minister without portfolio said he had given up External Affairs even without proof of allegations against him.

"I had to go to the SAARC summit. I was to leave tomorrow (Thursday). The whole focus would have been on me and not on SAARC. I thought it was not correct," he said.

When he conveyed his decision to step down pending the inquiry, the Prime Minister was good enough to ask him whether he would like to remain as a minister without portfolio, to which he agreed.

"I said yes as I am not taking it as a personal matter," Singh said adding he had told the Prime Minister that his services were available for the country and he would accept any task that is given to him.

"The validity and credibility of the report is going down by the day," Singh said, pointing to Volcker's remarks that he had himself made changes in the report to help U N Secretary General Kofi Annan.

He said it was for the country to arrive at a conclusion on Volcker's latest comments.

The minister without portfolio maintained, "no substance with proof was put forward" in the report, while his name as well as that of Congress party was mentioned as having been "non-contractual beneficiary" of the Oil-For-Food Programme.

Emphasising that the Congress had a great legacy, Singh said he found it "outrageous" for any Indian to suggest that the party or its Foreign Minister would "compromise the country's honour by selling oil". He said had he done anything wrong, "I will be the first person to put in my papers. But when I was treated the way I was, I said I am a fighter and would fight back."

To a question, he said he would not make any comment on Congress colleagues, as he was a "disciplined" party member.

"As a senior leader and member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), I do not have the freedom to go to the town or for verbal overkill," Singh said. "But I will, with the permission of the Prime Minister, Rajya Sabha Chairman and Lok Sabha Speaker, like to make a suo motu statement in parliament on what has happened," he said.

About the time he spent after resigning as External Affairs Minister, Singh said it had been "wary and tiresome". But, he added, he had "very strong nerves".

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Title: India Must Decide If I'm Guilty: NatwarAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Express IndiaDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=5804#5

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Claiming that the "credibility" of the Volcker committee report on Iraqi oil pay-offs was "going down by the day", Natwar Singh said he gave up External Affairs portfolio in the "larger interest" of the party and the country. He added that he did not want to be the "focus" in the SAARC summit in Dhaka. Reacting to Paul Volcker's comments in New York that he was not sure whether Natwar Singh was notified on the contents in his report on the oil-for-food Programme scam, he welcomed the statement.

He told NDTV that from the beginning he had wanted to know, to which address he had sent the letter, since Volcker had also said he did not know he (Singh) was the External Affairs Minister.

He was reacting to comments made by India's permanent representative to the UN Nirupam Sen, after his meeting with Volcker that his impression was that Singh was not sent any notice on the finding against him.

**** Title: Natwar, Iraq And A Hard PlaceAuthor: Ashok MalikSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE220051109221407&Title=Second+Article&rLink=#0

On the evening of Sunday, November 6, having re-written post-Cold War history and, allegedly, told the prime minister that his removal from the Union cabinet would cause Jats to revolt, K. Natwar Singh was deep in discussion with his war council at his residence in central Delhi. At one point, eyewitnesses say, members of his family barged in, waved fingers and pronounced, “You will not resign.”

Let the party and government dismiss you, went the family edict, and then you can take them on, expose them. The words used were a lot more colourful. So bolstered, or merely egged on, Natwar stood his ground the next day. He told Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi that he would not leave the cabinet, no way.

By the end of Monday, of course, he had become minister without portfolio, his mind already working overtime, probably, to figure out if he could still demand a seat in the Cabinet Committees on Political Affairs and Security.

Blackmail is not unknown to coalition politics. Yet it is usually junior partners who talk tough, insisting on staying in the government or on a particular ministry — Mamata Banerjee in the NDA and Laloo Yadav in the UPA are cases in point. They bargain hard with the main party.

Natwar presented a fairly unique case of a member of the core party holding the prime minister and party leadership hostage, and scoring at least some points. Yes, he’d lost his favourite ministry, but he was not in the wilderness predicted for him this past weekend. In surviving in the cabinet — somehow, anyhow — he had won half a victory.

Alternatively — or perhaps as a corollary — he may have only prolonged his agony. Ever since the Volcker report was released, a certain attempt by the PMO to give Natwar a long rope and allow him to tie himself up in knots was apparent. Natwar didn’t disappoint. By resorting to the most injudicious media interviews of his life, he isolated himself more and more.

Now, by keeping Natwar in the government, the Congress leadership has only pointed the opposition in the direction of a low-hanging fruit. “What could have been jhatka,” an observer remarked wryly, “has, thanks to Natwar’s cussedness, become halaal.” A demand for his absolute removal from the cabinet is bound to resurface as a suitably-televised “political crisis” later this month.

Why is the Natwar episode destined for an early Phase II? Parliament meets on November 23, a day after the Bihar election results and a day before the possible vote on Iran at the IAEA. Both events could test relations within the UPA.

That aside, from The Mitrokin Archive II—Volcker’s grandfather, sort of—to the adverse Supreme Court ruling on the dissolution of the Bihar assembly earlier this year to terrorism, there is much ammunition for the NDA.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Finally, of course, there is what the BJP considers a half-baked attempt to investigate the allegations implicit in the Volcker report. For the moment, the government seems to suggest that the business dealings of Hamdaan Exports will be inquired into. The firm will be asked how it made payments in foreign exchange, in prima facie violation of currency laws.

This is the worm’s eye view. Who was Hamdaan making the payments for? The Volcker report suggests it was doing so on behalf of Natwar and the Congress. Even if this is true, Justice R.S. Pathak and the good Virendra Dayal are hardly likely to find 16-page Iraqi oil allocation contracts signed by K. Natwar Singh or by the president of the All India Congress Committee.

What is required is a systematic tracing of money flows from Masefield’s and Hamdaan’s bank accounts. Whom did Masefield pay—perhaps via Hamdaan—for the oil that Saddam Hussein is said to have allocated Natwar? The trail will probably lead to series of numbered accounts in a series of tax havens.

An interrogation of Iraqi officials in the Saddam period—particularly those responsible for the oil allocations—will be necessary. Some of these people are in US custody, some could be accessed through the new Iraqi government.

None of this can be done by a lone judge. It requires a rigorous criminal investigation, with Indian authorities seeking the help of foreign governments on the basis of a formal anti-corruption case, rather than vague violations of local currency laws by a small-time company.

This is the sort of music the Manmohan Singh government is likely to face in Parliament later in November. To wriggle out of the mess, it will have to offer the opposition carrots. Will the first one involve asking Natwar to finally vacate his ministerial bungalow?

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Title: No Delay In Action, Says ManmohanAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/10/stories/2005111007941200.htm

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday denied that the Government had delayed action against the former External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh, in the wake of references in the Volcker Committee report on the oil-for-food contracts in Iraq, even as the Congress rejected a suggestion by the Opposition that Sonia Gandhi should resign as chairperson of the National Advisory Council.

"At the first opportunity we had said that action will be taken in the matter," the Prime Minister said in an interaction with correspondents in Chandigarh after delivering the P.N. Haksar memorial lecture.

Asked about the possibility of resignation of Mr. Natwar Singh from the Council of Ministers, the Prime Minister said that whatever action needed to be done had been taken. He said the probe into the issue would be conducted in a fair manner and that the terms of reference for the inquiry to be conducted by Justice R.S. Pathak would be announced soon.

To a question whether he saw a hidden hand in Mr. Natwar Singh being named in the Volcker committee report, the Prime Minister said he would not like to say anything that could prejudice the probe.

In Delhi, the Congress trained its guns on the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (United) leader, George Fernandes, who had demanded that Ms. Gandhi quit.

"I find it astonishing that this party should have the audacity or the moral authority to call for the resignation or to question the Government or Ms. Sonia Gandhi with regard to the baseless allegations made in the Volcker report,'' the party spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan said.

Condemning the attempt being made by some sections of the Opposition to malign and defame the Congress president, she said these were "nothing more than a bunch of political nomads, living in a political desert and wilderness.''

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Title: Oil For Junk Food

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Author: Editorial, Indian ExpressSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEJ20051109221539&Title=Second+Editorial&rLink=-42#8

In an article on the Volcker Committee report, Prakash Karat, CPI(M) general secretary, has sought to discount corruption in the UN-administered Oil for Food scandal in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Stressing “K. Natwar Singh’s assertion that the US is intent on targeting individuals and organisations that do not share its hegemonic views”, Karat has urged the Congress not to be “apologetic or defensive” about its ties with Saddam’s Iraq.

His larger point is implicit: an US-driven committee has “fixed” opponents. Engaging as Karat’s argument is, it falters on two counts. First, it gives Natwar Singh and the Congress an acquittal even prior to the case being heard. Before two inquiry bodies set up by the government of India have got to work, the CPI(M)’s leader has, in effect, told them that there is no political corruption for them to investigate. Second, Karat’s reading of history is flagrantly selective. The sanctions against Iraq were not unilaterally imposed as part of the “first invasion” by an Anglo-American alliance. They were put in place in 1990 by the UN and had the world’s support, including that of then Left-backed National Front government in India. The UN was responding to Saddam’s annexation of Kuwait, a sovereign nation. After Kuwait was freed, the sanctions were persisted with because Saddam refused to clearly and unambiguously alter his hostile position.

The Oil for Food programme was both a means to provide Iraq essential necessities, and also find money for war reparations to Kuwait’s residents — again, including many Indians — who had had their property looted by Saddam’s soldiers. Saddam used the programme as a tool to make easy money — by charging companies “surcharges” and to dispense political patronage. Companies that paid the surcharges/kickbacks and didn’t declare them are answerable under one set of laws. Indeed, Volcker indicts some fairly big Western MNCs on this score. Individual politicians who may have benefitted from Saddam’s largesse fall in a more sinister category. To suggest they are all victims of an American conspiracy is to surrender criminal investigation to ideological fetishes.

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Title: PM Rules Out Natwar's Exit From CabinetAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: The Economic TimesDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1290276.cms

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday ruled out the resignation of Mr Natwar Singh from the Union cabinet.

After delivering his inaugural address at the lecture-cum-seminar series in memory of P N Haksar here at Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), Singh told the media that any action in this regard would be taken after completion of the two probes into the Volcker committee report that had named the Congress and Mr Natwar Singh as beneficiaries of Iraqi oil payoffs.

“Whatever action was needed to be done has been taken,” he said informally. He, however, made it clear that the inquiry into the issue would be conducted in a fair manner and the terms of reference and other details of the probe would be announced soon.

The government had ordered two probes into the matter one by former diplomat Virender Dayal who has been named special envoy to collect relevant material in the Volcker report from the United Nations and other countries and a judicial probe by former Chief Justice of India R S Pathak.

Mr Natwar Singh was divested of the external affairs portfolio following him being named in the Volcker committee report. The PM said that at this juncture he would not like to say anything as it may prejudice the probe. To a question that there was delay in the action taken by the government in the matter, the PM said, “At the very first opportunity, we had said that action would be taken in the matter.”

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Title: Politics Of Accusation, Culture Of SuspicionAuthor: Harish Khare

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Source: HinduDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/10/stories/2005111005801000.htm

IN A remarkably thoughtful essay, entitled Gravitas and Style: Indira Gandhi, penned sometime in the early 1990s, Natwar Singh has recalled his last meeting with Indira Gandhi, a couple of days before her assassination: "I told her that I was shortly leaving for Bharatpur to start politicking. My first priority would be to acquire a new wardrobe — khadi kurta-pyjama, Jawahar jacket, the Congress livery. Her reaction was: Now that you are coming into politics, a thicker skin would be more useful."

Indira Gandhi's witty remark was not an invitation to a life of cynicism. It was only a reminder that those who choose to vie for a place in public life needed to balance the demands of decency, obligations of morality, and rites of integrity, on the one hand, with the hazards of misinformation, deliberate lies, plain falsehood or even worse. The balancing act is never easy and often tests the very core of a man's value system. Mr. Singh discovered this last one week how testing and tormenting this balancing act can become.

Mr. Singh's pain became more painful because of the larger culture that our political parties have nurtured for nearly three decades now: a working political style of accusation and suspicion. An undue premium is placed on motives and morals of those in power; any and every suggestion of wrongdoing, whether credible or not, whether substantiated or not, is ipso facto treated as correct and the onus is placed on the accused to prove his or her innocence. Over the years those in power have also learnt the art of using the state's resources to create a miasma of suspicion and doubt about their political rivals.

Take, for instance, the hullabaloo a few weeks ago on the so-called Mitrokhin papers. A defector, a professional intelligence officer, a life-long trained operative in the art of misinformation, published a book that sent a section of our political leadership into a tizzy. Even L.K. Advani, a man who was Home Minister of India for six years and should know a thing or two about the shadowy world of intelligence agencies, demanded a "White Paper." Mr. Mitrokin, a man who betrayed his own country, was prima facie judged to be telling the truth about our leaders.

Perhaps the origin of this culture of accusation can be traced to the early 1970s when an omnipotent Indira Gandhi and equally omnipresent Congress Party induced a sense of total political and electoral helplessness among the Opposition parties. Without a hope of ever having to discharge the responsibilities of power, the Opposition leaders freely and recklessly levelled allegations against Indira Gandhi and her aides. This was truer of the north Indian politicians and political parties.

It was perhaps a coincidence that this politics of accusation jelled very well with the Sangh Parivar's penchant for whispering, rumour-mongering, and other tools of character assassination. This was a time when the inner cities in north India were still the sites of political activity and word of mouth travelled fast within the communities; the only medium of expression was the wall-poster.

This creeping recklessness was in sharp contrast to the Nehru era when the Opposition, though miniscule, did its homework and often got the better of the government. For instance, there was Ram Manohar Lohia's famous argument with Jawaharlal Nehru on the daily income of an Indian wage-earner; that was an argument that Lohia was seen to have won. On its part, the Government was sensitive to the Opposition's criticism.

An eminent Finance Minister, T.T. Krishnamachari, had to go after the Chagla Commission found a lapse of judgment by the Finance Ministry in the so-called Mundra affair. Then, there was the S.R. Das Commission against Pratap Singh Kairon, then Chief Minister of Punjab, and the intrepid maker of modern Punjab had to go. It was still a world of responsible opposition and civilised government.

After the 1971 Bangladesh War, when The Economist anointed Indira Gandhi as "the empress" and Atal Bihari Vajpayee hailed her as "Durga," the Opposition began wallowing in a political style of accusation rather than debate. Correspondingly, the Congress developed the habit of outright denial and rubbishing of the Opposition allegations. The outcome was stalemate in the polity. Be it the "Gujarat Movement" or the "Bihar Movement" or the "JP Movement," the spark came from accusations and suspicions that this Chief Minister or that Cabinet Minister was engaging in "corrupt" practices.

The Emergency experience injected such an abiding doze of partisanship in our body politic that rivals could do nothing right and each and every accusation was deemed to merit only a full-throated denial.

The Bofors episode, the Harshad Mehta scam, the Hawala business, the UTI scandal, and the Tehelka exposé all became milestones in this politics of abuse and accusation. The Volcker Report fitted eminently in the prevailing political ambience. This politics of abuse and accusation finds an easy partner in the new media, game for any kind of sensationalism.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Leaders and families

The Volcker storm goes beyond Mr. Singh's travails. This culture of abuse, accusation, denial, and stonewalling distracts from the larger issue of keeping private lives separate from the public domain. Our political leaders have developed such thick skins that they are no longer sensitive to the requirement of keeping their families out of the sphere of their official and public roles. Unfortunately, politics is becoming a family enterprise; sons, daughters, sons-in law, fostered or otherwise, all get enmeshed in the rent-seeking activities of the political leaders.

In fact, in most cases it is the leader's this or that "chamcha" who entices a son or a daughter or a son-in-law to take an "interest" in his father's activities; what begins as an innocuous intervention in getting some petty official transferred becomes a heady engagement, with the excitement of easy money and easier commissions. Soon the son or the daughter seeks "protection" with an appointment in the father's party's youth wing; in case of the smaller, leader-centric parties, the son right away gets the party's nomination.

This all-round invasion of the family in the party system invariably results in personality-centric politics, within the party as well as in the inter-party disputes. This distracts attention from issues and ideologies. Charges, suspicions, allegations, and accusations become the staple diet of political discourse. Much against their inclination party activists and managers find themselves having to put up a stout defence against rivals' allegations. Any suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of the son or the daughter is immediately seen as an attack on the "leader."

The cumulative consequence is that attention gets diverted from serious issues of policies and programmes. For instance, the National Democratic Alliance has been content to raise issues of "taint," while it has been left to the Left Parties to talk of serious issues of direction of economic policies and autonomy in foreign policy.

The quality of policy debate is much poorer today than it was two decades ago, resulting in an accent on boycotts and disruption of Parliament. Worse, the media too finds itself sucked into this game of name-calling; rather than doing serious evaluation of evidence or attempting a competent evaluation of charges, the tendency has become to accept at face value any allegation against anybody.

Unless political parties learn to extricate their organisations from the leaders' families, we will continue to get sucked deeper and deeper into the politics of accusation. The politics of accusation induces a culture of permissiveness within the parties. Any reasonably well-informed political reporter, covering the AICC or the BJP, can smell the presence of "wheeler-dealers," the buccaneers and the dubious entrepreneurs who are inexplicably deemed to be "useful."

Only political leaders seem to be unaware of what goes on within their bailiwicks. This, of course, is a charitable assessment. The crux of the problem is that most political parties permit individual party leaders to "collect" funds for the organisation; as the culture of permissiveness has got more and more entrenched, the party system has lost the will to institute any kind of in-house vigilance regime.

Above all, the Volcker storm has once again exposed the Indian polity to the dangers of manipulation from the outside. Given our politicians' and the media's willingness to lap up any accusation, and given the increasing integration of the Indian economy with a global business environment, it is child's play to produce damning "evidence" against any public figure.

As a society and as a polity we have to demonstrate an intellectual maturity, a degree of self-assurance, and a capacity for self-criticism to deal with the foreigner and his indictment or praise. Political leaders, cutting across party lines, have to summon a new morality and invent a new style of conducting their rivalry; otherwise, the Indian state will become more and more vulnerable to professional manipulators.

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Title: Sonia Quit: Bjp; Cong 'Slips' OffAuthor: VolckerSource: Express IndiaDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=5805#2

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The Congress on Wednesday rejected BJP-led Opposition’s demand for resignation of Sonia Gandhi as chairperson of the National Advisory Council in the wake of the Volcker report. “Those who are seeking to malign the Congress and its president are nothing more than a bunch of political nomads, living in a political desert and wilderness who have been sent into exile by the people of India in last Lok Sabha polls,” party spokesperson Jayanti Natrajan said.

Reacting sharply to the demand by BJP and JD-U, she said Congress is ‘not in controversy’ and had denied any involvement in the Iraqi Oil-For-Food scandal. “There is absolutely no question of the Congress president resigning from the chairpersonship of the NAC,” he said.

Attacking the saffron combine, Natrajan described BJP as the ‘most scam-tainted party in the history of India’. She said those who in their lust and desperation for power never vacated even a ‘seat in a bus’ are demanding resignation of one who said no to the office of the Prime Minister. Claiming that BJP has no moral authority, she said the saffron party leaders had ‘stooped to the lowest levels’ while attacking Gandhi.

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Title: Volcker Not Sure Natwar Was Informed Of ChargesAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: The Economic TimesDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1290278.cms

Paul Volcker seemed unsure whether India’s former external affairs minister Natwar Singh had been informed about being listed as an illegal beneficiary of Iraq’s Oil-for-Food Programme before the report was published, India’s ambassador to the UN Nirupam Sen has said.

Speaking to the media after a 45 minute meeting with Volcker, who headed the UN committee on corruption in the $64-bn oil deal, Mr Sen said on Tuesday that he got the impression that the former US Federal Reserve chief was not sure whether Natwar Singh was informed personally about the findings of his report.

“The committee is still examining documents to reach a final conclusion on that,” he was reported as saying.

“Apparently, Mr Singh’s case was not thoroughly probed by the committee. Those who were thoroughly investigated were given the chance to respond,” Mr Sen added.

According to Mr Sen, Volcker had collected information from several witnesses and some of them might have given it on the understanding that they should not be identified.

“In such cases, the committee would need to get a waiver from them before releasing the documents,” he said.

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Title: Volcker Probe Had Fatal Flaws: Cong Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Deccan HeraldDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov102005/national183782005119.asp

Just days after requesting the United Nations to furnish all information related to the Volcker Committee’s mention of the Congress and its senior leader K Natwar Singh as “beneficiaries” in the Iraqi oil-for-food programme, the party on Wednesday tried to run down the UN-appointed panel’s credibility.

The AICC, referring to reports that the committee was unsure whether it had sought comments from Natwar Singh, who was removed as the minister for external affairs following the release of the report’s contents and the subsequent furore, said that there were “fatal flaws” in the procedure adopted by the panel.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

“From day one we have been saying that there is no notice and if there is no notice, there could not have been opportunity or adjudication proceedings. Both are fatal flaws,” AICC spokesman and leading lawyer Abhishek Singhvi said here. “In view of this, the credibility of the report is naturally completely eroded,” he said.

“If the committee had sent any such notice, it would not take more than two minutes to produce a copy of the notice to reveal to when, whom and what address it sent any such communication to the party. The Congress has been insisting that it had not been served any notice by the panel,” he said.

Mr Natwar Singh also continued his attack on the report, saying its credibility was “going down by the day”.

He further said that he had given up external affairs portfolio in the larger interest of the Congress party and the country.

“I did not want to be the focus at the SAARC Summit in Dhaka,” he said on Wednesday. “I had to go to the SAARC summit. I was to leave tomorrow. The whole focus would have been on me and not on SAARC. I thought it was not correct.”

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Title: Volcker To Cooperate With India's ProbeAuthor: A N Sudarsan Rao Source: HinduDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/10/stories/2005111013530100.htm

Paul Volcker, author of the report that has named Natwar Singh and the Congress party as beneficiaries in Iraqi oil payoffs, has offered full cooperation with Indian investigations into the allegations but was unsure whether he had sought Mr. Singh's comments before recording the observations against him. The assurance came during a 45-minute meeting India's Ambassador to the U.N. Nirupam Sen had with Mr. Volcker on Tuesday.

After the meeting, Mr. Sen said his impression from the discussions was that no notice had been sent to Mr. Singh by the Committee, prior to publication of his name as a ``non-contractual beneficiary'' of the Iraqi oil-for-food programme.

"Legal constraints"

Mr. Sen said the Committee was still examining documents to reach a final conclusion on that.

Asked to elaborate on the term ``legal constraints,'' he said evidence had been collected from several witnesses and some of them might have done so on the understanding that they should not be identified. In those cases, the Committee would need to get a waiver from them before releasing the documents.

Asked about the remarks of Mr. Volcker that responses were sought from all those who had been mentioned in the report, Mr. Sen said the report contained those who were thoroughly investigated and those who have been just mentioned on the basis of the documents that the Committee considered authentic.

On the remarks of Mr.Volcker that responses were sought from all those who had been mentioned in the report, Mr. Sen said the report contained those who were thoroughly investigated and those who had been just mentioned on the basis of the documents which the Committee considered authentic. Apparently, Mr. Natwar Singh's case was not thoroughly investigated by the Commitee, he said. But he cautioned that the final judgment would have to await the examination of all relevant documents by the Committee. Those who were thoroughly investigated have been given the chance to respond.

Mr. Sen said that the Committee, as a policy, would share information and documents only with the investigating agencies after they inform it exactly what they are looking for. But it would be necessary to move quickly as the Committee's mandate ends in just over a month. India had sent a letter to the Committee on the information it is seeking but that would need to be fine-tuned, he said.

Asked whether the investigations would be stalled if some witnesses refused to give waiver, Mr. Sen said there were other ways to get information. For example, it could be asked bilaterally. ``We shall cross the bridge when we reach there.'' he remarked.

To a question, he said the Committee was aware of the political storm the report had created in India.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Mr. Sen said Indian investigators would have to look into the allegations that the names were not given by the Iraqis but by other ``vested interests.'' "That is why India is asking for documents and other information."

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Title: We Don't Accept Volcker Report At Face Value, Says Karat Author: Special Correspondent, The HinduSource: HinduDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/10/stories/2005111005320600.htm

Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said on Tuesday that his party did not accept the Volcker Committee's findings at face value.

Interacting with reporters here after releasing Tamil software packages and open source tools developed by Panacea Dreamweavers, Mr. Karat said the CPI (M) had made its position clear on the Volcker panel report.

To a query, he said divesting K. Natwar Singh of the External Affairs Ministry portfolio was not the main issue. Two enquiries had been ordered and once the truth came out whatever is necessary could be done.

Labour laws

Asked about the CPI (M)'s stand on forming unions in the Information Technology industry, Mr. Karat said the party was of the view that the labour laws should apply to that sector, too. "Employees of the IT sector should have the right to form unions if they wish to do so." In many IT companies and enterprises all over the world, there were unions.

Earlier, speaking at the function, Mr. Karat said in the world of IT, a struggle was on to make technology available to all sections, even while challenging monopolies with open-use software.

He described the Tamil software packages and open source tools as a big stride forward in democratising IT, besides making software available to Tamils, more particularly small businessmen, members of self-help groups and non-Governmental organisations.

M. Anandakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor, Anna University, said the open-use software would accelerate the process of a participatory and democratic way of development. College students should be encouraged to improve the software or develop new ones by using the source code made available to them.

He suggested that competitions be organised for school students in the use of Tamil software.

Former Vice-Chancellor, Manonmaniam Sundarnar University, Vasanthi Devi, commended the efforts of the Panacea Dreamweavers team led by R. Duraipandi.

T.K. Rengarajan, CPI(M) central committee member, said the development of the Tamil software and open-source tools would go a long way in tackling the digital divide. Duraipandi, director (technology) Panacea Dream weavers, said the software would be provided free of cost to the social sector.

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Title: Who Is BJP To Demand My Resignation: Natwar Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Express IndiaDate: November 10, 2005URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=5799#5

Training his guns on BJP, Union Minister K. Natwar Singh on Tuesday said the party had no moral authority to demand his resignation as many ministers of the NDA government had themselves been charge sheeted.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

“Former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and former Union Minister Murli Manohar Joshi had been chargesheeted, but neither Natwar nor Sonia Gandhi have got a chargesheet. Then why should I resign,” he said addressing supporters at his residence.

“Who is BJP to decide what we (Congress) do and what we should not do. BJP is a party which has weakened the nation and created fissures in society,” said Singh, who was relieved of his External Affairs portfolio on Monday after a judicial probe was initiated into findings of the Volcker report.

Singh said one NDA minister had even accompanied terrorists to Kandahar in Afghanistan, but did not take Jaswant Singh’s name.

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Title: ``Congress Letter Will Be Given To Volcker'' Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/09/stories/2005110916971400.htm

The United Nations can facilitate contact between Indian authorities and the Volcker Committee, U.N. Under-Secretary General Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday.

Speaking to PTI here, Mr. Tharoor said the U.N. was no one to reply to the Congress letter seeking the documents and references in the Volcker Committee report about the party.

"We will pass this on to Mr. Volcker," he said commenting on the letter sent by the Congress to the U.N. Secretary General seeking details.

To a question on allegations that the Volcker Committee report was aimed at maligning those who had opposed sanctions against Iraq, Mr. Tharoor said the Secretary General had appointed the committee with the approval of the Security Council. "He has expressed full faith in the integrity of the Committee. Each finding [of the Committee] needs to be investigated," he said.

Asked if the U.N. was bound to take any action on the Volcker Committee findings on the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, Mr. Tharoor replied in the negative. "It is not for the U.N. to do so. The report is addressed to the member-states and it is for them to take action if they deem it fit," he said.

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Title: BJP Has No Right To Demand Resignation: NatwarAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20051108090908&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=-42#8

Training his guns on the BJP, Union Minister K.Natwar Singh said the party had no moral authority to demand his resignation as many ministers of the NDA government had themselves been chargesheeted.

“Former deputy Prime Minister L.K.Advani and former Union minister Murli Manohar Joshi had been chargesheeted, but neither Natwar nor Sonia Gandhi have got a chargesheet. Then why should I resign,'' he said addressing supporters at his residence here.

“Who is the BJP to decide what we (Congress) do and what we should not do. The BJP is a party which has weakened the nation and created fissures in society,'' said Singh, who was relieved of his External Affairs portfolio on Monday after a judicial probe was initiated into findings of the Volcker report.

Without naming Jaswant Singh, Natwar Singh said one NDA minister had even accompanied terrorists to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

“I have not done any wrong. Even if I cannot do right, I will never do wrong,'' an emotional Singh said. “Our fight is against the BJP and we will do it openly, not by levelling false allegations.''

“I am a strong person. I will not succumb to these sort of allegations,'' Singh said.

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Title: Clearance Sale! Politicians Going CheapAuthor: Rajinder PuriSource: StatesmanDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=9560#9

The Mitrokhin Archives dealt with the Soviet period. The UN’s Independent Inquiry Committee Report investigating corruption in Iraq’s oil-for-food programme during President Saddam’s regime deals with recent events. The three-man committee was chaired by Mr Paul Volcker who served two terms as chairman of America’s Federal Reserve System The report named Foreign Minister Natwar Singh and the Congress Party as beneficiaries of Iraqi corruption. The Volcker Committee based its report on four sources — Iraqi government records, UN databases and records, records of financial institutions involved in oil financial transactions, and records provided by parties involved in the purchase of oil from Iraq.The report listed 119 prominent Indian firms supplying humanitarian material to Iraq. These firms knowingly or otherwise paid kickbacks to the Iraqi government. Former CBI director, Mr Joginder Singh has written that the biggest kickbacks were paid by an obscure Indian company, Priyanka Overseas, which supplied tea, sugar and a wide variety of material to Iraq. In this same report the names of Mr Natwar Singh, the Congress and Mr Bhim Singh figure as beneficiaries. Both Mr Natwar Singh and the Congress Party rubbished the allegations.

Iraq warIf the report has erred, Mr Volcker and colleagues will look very silly. On the other hand, if either Mr Singh or the Congress Party is found eventually complicit in the oil-for-food programme, they will look more than silly Mr Natwar Singh believes that the report targeted him because he opposed the Iraq war. He said: “I opposed sanctions, I opposed the war, and I opposed sending Indian troops to Iraq.” Mr Singh’s reasoning of why charges are levelled against him may well be correct. On the other hand, if it transpires that he profited from the oil-for-food programme, his arguments would turn against him. People would reasonably conclude that his vehement opposition to US policy was inspired less by conviction than pecuniary advantage derived from Iraq. The media is hot on the trail. Doubtless the truth will come out soon. Political scandals are proliferating worldwide. These are due to the greater height and reach attained by corporate business, the closer interaction between nations in a shrinking world, and the vast accretion of power to the agencies inhabiting the spooky world of espionage. Also, the internet era gives the public much more information than was available in the past. Transparency is becoming less a choice than compulsion. In the Mitrokhin Archives, the KGB is credited with the view that corruption in India was so widespread that the country appeared to be on sale. Corruption, at a time when terrorism holds the world in thrall, has acquired a dangerous dimension affecting national security. Probity in public life is not just a desirable norm. It has become a security imperative. Vulnerability to blackmail is what conspirators seek in victims they target. Corruption offers them just that. The security risk arising from a permissive attitude towards observance of law has a long and depressing history in India. Even Pandit Nehru was not beyond reproach. During the 1962 China-India war the government seized the accounts of the Bank of China in Calcutta. It discovered an account in the name of Pandit Nehru had not been declared in his tax returns. The deposits in that account came from the Soviet Union in payment for royalties of his books sold in Russia. Apparently Pandit Nehru’s books were surprisingly popular among Soviet readers. Mr Morarji Desai was the Finance Minister in 1962.

National interest

Much later, this scribe in a private conversation asked Mr Desai why Pandit Nehru’s undisclosed bank account was not made public. “It was not in the national interest to do so,” Mr Desai replied coldly. Before 1962 the Russians and Chinese were close allies and Pandit Nehru had touching faith in both. But to infer that his political ideology was influenced by the unseen pecuniary and other advantages obtained from the communist bloc would be uncharitable. Possibly, Pandit Nehru’s failure to declare his Bank of China account to the tax authorities arose from forgetfulness similar to what afflicted Mr Jagjivan Ram when the latter failed to file tax returns for ten years.

Mr Krishna Menon’s infamous Jeep Scandal arose from the purchase of sub-standard equipment from a British firm. Subsequently, India steadily purchased defence equipment from Britain. Sometimes, as in the case of the Westland

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

helicopters purchased during Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister, the equipment was so poor that even British forces refused to use it.

More recently an unknown offshoot of the Bofors scandal could have been the Jain Hawala Diary case. The police told the court that the illegally obtained money from abroad distributed to over 40 national politicians cutting across party lines was sourced to Mr Octavio Quattrochi, the Italian businessman whose name also figured in the Bofors case. The amount distributed to politicians in this case equalled the first known kickback in the Bofors case, the equivalent of Rs 64 crores. The politicians named in the Jain diaries were exonerated because the Supreme Court in defiance of all logic found insufficient evidence to proceed. By burying the case Kashmiri recipients of the money from the same conduit in the same case never came under the scanner. One of those Kashmiris was an obscure separatist, Salauddin, who later rose to become the chief of the Hizbul-e-Mujahideen. He is presently based in Pakistan. He deserves, of course, much more respect than India’s furtive politicians who preferred to breach national security rather than admit the truth.

Potentially the most deadly security risk arises of course from the ongoing Telgi fake stamp paper scandal. The earlier fake currency notes scandal inspired the technique employed in the fake stamp paper scam. In the 1990s the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) replaced the highly reputed machines that printed Indian currency notes by inferior machines that had a suspect track record. This scribe petitioned a Mumbai court arguing that this involved a national security risk. Fake currency notes would proliferate and could finance terrorism. RBI conceded in court that the new machines were inferior and could cause “teething troubles”. Nevertheless the petition, again in defiance of all logic, was rejected. Fake money flooded the market. According to official agencies it was exploited by Pakistan’s ISI. In the course of a police investigation RBI confessed its inability to distinguish fake currency from genuine notes. Later the printing process for currency notes was quietly upgraded.

Fake notesInferior printing machines had allowed counterfeiters to produce fake notes indistinguishable from genuine notes. In the stamp papers scandal machines and dyes actually used for printing stamp papers in a government press were illegally auctioned to print fake stamp papers indistinguishable from the genuine article. Over Rs 30,000 crores of black money has been generated by this scam. Even a fraction of this could finance an army of terrorists. The media basing itself on unofficial police briefings has named a large number of prominent political leaders cutting across party lines who were directly or indirectly involved. The prime accused, Abdul Karim Telgi, claims he is terminally ill and wants to confess, revealing names of all politicians. The police are reluctant to accept his offer.

The question arises: why were printing machines for currency notes changed in the first place? Who inspired this move? While the change was being contemplated several MPs wrote letters of warning to the Finance Minister of the day. One of those MPs was Mr Somnath Chatterjee, presently Speaker of the Lok Sabha. The former Finance Minister is the current Prime Minister. Will Dr Manmohan Singh care to enlighten us even today? Such cases reflect the decline of democracy subverted by greed, conspiracy and unprecedented wealth in the hands of the few who act on the truism that money is power. This will change. Worldwide exposures herald transition. Technology will ensure transparency. Democracy will triumph over the conspirators who subvert it.

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Title: EditorialsAuthor: Editorial StatesmanSource: StatesmanDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=9561#3

Unless our understanding of the language has gone horribly astray, a minister without portfolio is a man without any work. And while providing jobs to the jobless may well be part of the Common Minimum Programme, it escapes comprehension why the citizen of India must pay for Mr Natwar Singh and his ministerial paraphernalia doing nothing. If at all he had to be accommodated — or mollified — after his name figured in the Volcker report on oil-for-food kickbacks and his continuance as External Affairs Minister became an impossibility, he ought to have been given a party position. Why, he might even have been considered for the post of spokesman, where displays of such felicity with the language as he has recently displayed might have provided some relief to scribes who have had to put up with the monotony of Ms Ambika Soni's circumlocutions. The promise of a restoration of portfolio should Mr Singh be cleared is as ominous as it is disgusting. Well may every minister carrying a taint — or facing a warrant of arrest — demand that he be retained without portfolio until he or she is exonerated. Considering the track records of some of our ministers, and the increasing criminalisation of the system, it would not require a genius to predict that we may at this rate end up one day with a Cabinet that has more ministers without portfolios than those

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

with portfolios. This is an absurd resolution of a serious problem and if the Prime Minister is the author of the script, he has not covered himself with glory.

On the other hand, necessity may well have forced on the government a compromise that is not entirely unwelcome by making Dr Manmohan Singh assume charge of the Foreign Office. In a dispensation where both policy and crisis management are handled by the Congress president, finally the Prime Minister has something substantial to do. Additionally, with such shifts in foreign policy as the country has been forced to make, and with traditional positions having been abandoned in quite the manner that they have, it is a good idea to project the Prime Minister as author and executor of the process, without having a minister play the role of circuit-breaker. If, henceforth, the Left or other allies have an issue with foreign policy, they will have to address Dr Singh directly, either accept his position or voice their grievance from outside the ruling alliance. After all, you can't say the Prime Minister is wrong or his policies a sell-out, and still support him.

Arrest charade Siwan MP jailed when it suits him

The sight of two lady inspectors turning up to arrest Mohammed Shahabuddin in Delhi after months of inaction when he had challenged the police to do their duty was something of a comic anti-climax. The latest picture is that of a smiling MP with eight non-bailable warrants against his name satisfied at being shifted to jail at Siwan, his home constituency. The sequence of events is revealing. He faces more than 30 criminal charges ranging from murder to abduction and offences under the Arms and Explosive Acts. While he meets the media and challenges the authorities, the police describe him as an “absconder’’. The Election Commission steps in with stern measures. But when the then District Magistrate, CK Anil, and two DGPs do their duty, they are promptly transferred. At present the MP is debarred from entering his constituency but, under orders from the court, he is to be shifted to Bhagalpur Central Jail just when Bihar is to go through with the third and fourth phases of polling. The state has a notorious record of Lalu Prasad and Pappu Yadav holding durbars and directing operations from within the prison cell. Shahabuddin and his RJD boss have no reason to be unhappy over the turn of events that make it possible for Shahabuddin to be present on “home ground’’ during the elections — in effect mocking the Election Commission.

The opposition cannot be blamed for complaining that the arrest was stage-managed to suit Lalu. The RJD leader is desperate to make a dent in the minority vote-bank claimed by Ram Vilas Paswan who is clamouring for a Muslim chief minister. Lalu cannot sacrifice Rabri Devi but has promised several incentives including reservation of jobs and a separate university for minorities. The arrest charade is the final attempt to create a sympathy wave with the MP shown as being “dragged out’’ in his night clothes. The calculated move is to enable him to manage the poll with the help of friendly jail officials. This is in tune with the climate in Bihar where Lalu, fighting with his back to the wall, uses measures fair or foul to remain in power.

He’s the greatest Well deserved honour

He tossed his Olympic gold medal into the river when denied entry to a whites-only bar; he infuriated the “establishment” by declaring he had “no quarrel with no Vietcong” and refused to fight in ‘Nam, and in opting to convert to Islam he had the church squirming. Yes, he was no “Uncle Tom” and though few would bracket him with Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, Mohammad Ali a.k.a Cassius Clay was a fighter beyond the boxing ring to which he brought so much glory. So the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the US’ highest civilian award) is one more reason for the world to endorse his claim “I’m the Greatest”.

Time was when that claim pertained only to the world of boxing, the heavyweight with the skill of Sugar Ray Robinson being among the many accolades showered upon him, but he soon became a role model for his people. A puncher for their cause in his own tough way he grew to acquire “All American” iconic status. No wonder that President Carter asked him to curtail his tour of India and head for Africa to enlist support for the boycott of the Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan. Years in the roped square have taken their toll, Parkinson’s disease has made him, physically, a shadow of himself. But nothing can impact on the aura he exudes, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom is just “official” endorsement of what we knew all along: he’s the Greatest.

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Title: Getting Natwar To Fall In LineAuthor: Neerja ChowdhurySource: Indian ExpressDate: November 09, 2005

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE220051108213948&Title=Second+Article&rLink=#0

The prime minister's 'half measure' of stripping Natwar Singh of the External Affairs portfolio, but letting him continue as Minister Without Portfolio (MWP) has come at the end of a week of drift and indecision which did nothing for the party or the government. But it was a political googly all right.

For starters, it was effective in knocking out Natwar Singh, who seemed to have dug in his heels and refused to resign despite many broad hints from the PM. Manmohan Singh even managed to secure the resignation of the union minister from Bihar, Jaiprakash Yadav, although the man has yet to be apprehended.

What's interesting is that even though Manmohan Singh had told colleagues from day one that Natwar Singh would have to quit, he did not ask him to do so. Meanwhile, Natwar Singh demonstrated his 'nuisance value' by making several embarrassing statements that had great foreign policy import.

Then there was the stance adopted by the UPA allies - the Left parties, DMK, NCP, RJD - which lent their support to the beleaguered minister, as he tried to frame the Volcker controversy in ideological, America versus Iraq, terms. Manmohan Singh has killed two birds with one stone by his decision to retain the External Affairs portfolio. He will have the run of the ministry at a time when the Indo-US nuclear talks are at a delicate stage, besides which US President George Bush is slated to visit India in February.

At the same time the PM signalled to Natwar Singh that by not giving the department to someone else, he was keeping the seat warm for him until his name was cleared.

But whatever be the intended signals, one thing is amply clear. Natwar Singh will not go back to External Affairs in the foreseeable future, whatever the outcome of the Pathak and Dayal probes. Even more damaging to him than the Volcker report are the spate of statements he made in obvious desperation.

Even his statement, "I did not go to see Strobe Talbott, Condoleezza Rice came to see me", was surprising for a seasoned diplomat like him to make.

Most important for both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi was the necessity to distance the Congress party from Natwar Singh. Had he quit on day one, it would have been an admission of guilt and would have by association brought the Congress party in the firing line.

As it is, the BJP is already training its guns at the Congress, and at Sonia Gandhi. The Winter Session of Parliament promises to be a turbulent one, although one of the curious aspects of the whole controversy was the silence of senior BJP and NDA leaders on the issue.

By retaining Natwar Singh as Cabinet minister, the UPA has indicated that it has bowed to pressure for an inquiry, and Manmohan Singh has chosen two men to head the probe who are known for their competence. By removing Natwar Singh as head of the Foreign Office, it has tried to indicate a desire for a fair probe.

But damage control is one thing, the image of the party - which has taken a beating - quite another. There comes a moment in the life of a government when things begin to turn and it then becomes a downhill slide from that point.

So far the Manmohan Singh government has benefitted from a BJP being in disarray. For a spell, it was possible for the government to hide behind the argument of "coalitional compulsions" when it came to the induction of "tainted" ministers.

But this cannot go on indefinitely. There is also a limit to which the prime minister can hide behind the image of being "a decent man, unable to do much".

The Congress needs to do some soul-searching. Clearly, some of the party's troubles stem from its slow political reflexes, whether in Goa, or in Jharkhand, or when Jagdish Tytler had to quit after the Nanavati Report, or now with Natwar Singh. When it finally acted, it was seen as a case of too little being done, too late, and done under pressure.

By making Natwar Singh a minister without portfolio, the UPA has set a precedent for the future. Every time there is a minister against whom there is an allegation, or there is one who is chargesheeted, the temptation would be to make him a Minister Without Portfolio.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

In other words, he would not have a specific responsibility, but would enjoy the perks of power. It is not even clear where - or if - Natwar Singh will have an office, although he is hoping to remain a member of the CCPA (Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs) and the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security).

It is time, then, for political parties to evolve a consensus on the course of action they will adopt when ministers face an inquiry, or are charged. It's also high time they took a serious view on what they intend to do about the oft-invoked but lightly taken institution of the Lok Pal, which they had promised to set up years ago.

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Title: How Natwar Lost ItAuthor: Editorial, Indian ExpressSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEF20051107220944&Title=First+Editorial&rLink=-42#8

In his final three days as foreign minister, K. Natwar Singh has become India’s number one embarrassment. Deciding he would leave the foreign minister’s office kicking and screaming, he swung to reckless and extreme positions on foreign policy. If he genuinely believed, as he said he did and does, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “one of the tragedies of the 20th century” or that Paul Volcker singled him out because Saddam Hussein supported Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, or that NAM’s revival is essential to take on those “who have discovered Islam after 9/11”, it was his problem. There was no reason to make Natwar’s nostalgia India’s nightmare. It took one hard knock for this Cold War warrior to rediscover “ideology”—whatever that convenient term meant in this context—in the desperate hope that communist support would keep him in South Block.

There are practical problems flowing from Natwar Singh’s recent relapse into third worldism. First, he can’t possibly represent India before those nations that see themselves as having gained independence from Soviet communism — Georgia or Lithuania, for instance, or even the Czech Republic, the president of which is currently in India. In effect, Natwar Singh has just said he considers their sovereignty a tragedy. Neither can he now possibly go to the United States or the United Nations without inviting ridicule, and a ferocious local media.

More immediately, Natwar Singh’s new-found status as a diplomatic suicide bomber threatened to derail India’s Middle East policy. For his political survival, he linked this to an alleged articulation of Muslim aspirations. Natwar Singh argued that India should consider reversing its September stance, and vote in favour of Iran when that country’s nuclear programme comes up at the International Atomic Energy Agency on November 24. He cited India’s large Shia population as a reason. Paradoxically, he attacked the new government in Iraq — which the ministry he’s just been turfed out of formally recognised only weeks ago — as having “no credibility”, even if it has empowered Iraq’s Shia majority after centuries. There are many things wrong with this country but, thankfully, foreign policy has never been a Muslim/non-Muslim issue. Natwar Singh cannot be allowed to inject this virus into the system. His world view is past its sell-by date. So is his time at the Foreign Office.

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Title: Is There A Way To Safely Escrow Our Trust In Governance?Author: D. Murali Source: Business LineDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/11/09/stories/2005110900841100.htm

THE VOLCKER Report on the manipulations in the `Oil-for-Food Programme' (OFFP) is much in news. One of its chapters is titled ``The Escrow Bank and Conflicting Interests''. If you wonder what escrow is about, it is just the time for a zero base on the same.

More so because escrow is in the news for other reasons too. "Our title and escrow database must be readily accessible to 15,000 users across 1,300 offices," says Larry Godec, senior vice-president and chief information officer, First American Title Insurance Company, on www.noticias.info. A report on www.inman.com speaks of escrow numbers, names of escrow officers and closing dates for all properties stored on Blackberry device. And SpaceShot has announced a partnership with Rocketplane; "they have executed an escrow agreement that provides maximum protection of the money to buy suborbital spaceflight tickets," says www.spaceref.com in a story that talks of "awarding space trips to people paying under five dollars"!

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Escrow is "a bond, deed or other document kept in the custody of a third party and taking effect only when a specified condition has been fulfilled," defines Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Escrow, as Bloomberg Financial Glossary defines, is property or money held by a third party until the agreed upon obligations of a contract are met.

"Escrow is a legal arrangement whereby a thing (often money, but sometimes other property such as art, a deed of title, or software source code) is delivered to a third party (called an escrow agent) to be held in trust pending a contingency or the fulfilment of a condition or conditions in a contract," defines Wikipedia. "Upon that event occurring, the escrow agent will deliver the thing to the proper recipient, otherwise the escrow agent is bound by her or his fiduciary duty to maintain the escrow account." Escrow can refer to "a special account that a lender uses to hold a borrower's monthly payments for property taxes and insurance," informs www.yourwebassistant.net.

A mid-17th century word, as Encarta informs. "Anglo-Norman escrowe `scroll,' variant of Old French escroe (see scroll)," it adds. The French connection is what one sees in the escrow chapter of the Volcker Report that begins by recounting the selection of Banque Nationale de Paris S.A., now BNP Paribas, as "the Programme's escrow bank."

Escrow bank means the financial institution designated as the escrow bank pursuant to an escrow agreement entered into by the borrower, as per a definition on www.state.nj.us. And `escrow account' means the account established with the escrow bank for receipt, investment and disbursement of escrow monies. "Originally escrow meant the deed held by the escrow agent," states http://dictionary.law.com. "Colloquially, the escrow agent is called an `escrow,' while actually the escrow is the account and not a person." A helpful explanation is on www.investopedia.com. "An escrow account can be used in the sale of a house, for example.

If there are conditions to the sale, such as the passing of an inspection, the buyer and seller may agree to use escrow. In this case, the buyer of the property will deposit the payment amount for the house in an escrow account held by a third party." And that may well be a bank. Escrow gives assurance to the seller about the capability of the buyer to pay the money. "Once all of the conditions to the sale are satisfied, the escrow transfers the payment to the seller, and title is transferred to the buyer," states Investopedia.

"While escrow is best known in the context of real-estate, escrow companies are also commonly used in the transfer of higher value properties like Web sites and businesses," notes http://en.wikipedia.org. "Real estate agents are in some jurisdictions considered to act as escrow agents when they accept deposits for the purchase of real property."

How does escrow operate in the software field? "Software source code escrow agents hold source code in escrow in the event that the creator of the source code refuses or is unable to release the source code to the user of specialised software if that software no longer functions or in certain other events." `Source code escrow' is "an arrangement where some source code is held in escrow by a third party as long as it is supported by the vendors, but should they cease to support it, it becomes the property of the purchasers so that they can arrange for its continued maintenance," defines http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk.

Another specialised application of escrow is `key escrow', in the context of conducting "covert surveillance within the changing environments brought about by new technologies", as the Centre for Democracy and Technology (www.cdt.org) explains in one of its reports. "Key escrow is an arrangement in which the keys needed to decrypt encrypted data are held in escrow by a third party, so that someone else (typically government agencies) can obtain them to decrypt messages which they suspect to be relevant to national security," states the ever-helpful Wiki about a controversial idea.

Through the OFFP, the UN created "a dependency that is totally unique for its kind," writes Christian H{macr}rleman in a poignant article on www.transnational.org. And the escrow for the Programme was a unique and a specialised case. "BNP was named by Iraq despite the fact that it had not been included on the United Nations' long list of most technically qualified banks," noted the February 2005 interim report of Volcker.

In June 1996, when six banks on the short-list were invited to submit proposals for the Programme's escrow account contract, "the Request for Proposal (RFP) was less detailed than the norm; the deadline for response to the RFP was shorter than normal; and the evaluation and selection were completed more quickly than usual." One learns from the Volcker Report that BNP's duties as the escrow bank included the ``establishing and managing an escrow account to receive proceeds from the sale of Iraqi oil and to disburse funds for Iraq's purchase of humanitarian goods,'' apart from confirming letters of credit (LCs) issued from banks retained by companies buying oil from Iraq, and issuing letters of credit for the purchase of humanitarian goods.

`Escrow analysis' is "the periodic examination, by the lender, of an escrow account for purposes of determining if the amount withheld from a borrower's monthly mortgage payment is sufficient to pay for expenses such as property taxes and

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

insurance," defines Homeglossary.com, ``The World's Most Complete Real Estate Directory''. "Companies selling to Iraq were formally paid from an escrow account run by the UN. In itself, it was all above board. But the seller would agree to slip cash back to Saddam's regime, usually about 10 per cent of the price," reports Fraser Nelson on www.thebusinessonline.com.

An analysis of covert payments is found in section IV of chapter 4 of Volcker's recent report. BNP was among the banks that transferred $229 million of `illicit oil surcharges' to Iraqi-controlled accounts in Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates, notes the report, providing a list of payment transactions, most of which flowed through Geneva.

"Some of the movements of funds, such as large deposits followed quickly by similarly large withdrawals from the account, combined with other factors, including the identity of the recipient of the funds, are examples of possible money laundering behaviour perpetrated by some of the lesser known companies, which went undetected by the Bank," observes the Independent Inquiry Committee (www.iic-offp.org) headed by Volcker. We are bound to hear more about these payments, which are already threatening the credibility enjoyed by many companies and governments. Wonder if there is a way to safely escrow our trust in governance too?

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Title: Manmohan Singh Says Govt Image Not Hurt By Volcker StormAuthor: Kamil ZaheerSource: ReutersDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-08T180643Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-222595-1.xml

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday the government's image was unmarred after his foreign minister stepped aside during an inquiry into claims he benefited from irregularities in the U.N. oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

"Our image has not been spoilt," Singh told a press conference in the eastern city of Patna in Bihar state.

Foreign minister Natwar Singh quit the foreign minister's job on Monday, the first political casualty of a report by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who said many politicians profited from the $64-billion programme.

Natwar Singh is now minister without portfolio and Manmohan Singh has taken extra charge of the foreign ministry.

Natwar Singh was named in the report along with the ruling Congress party, which heads the federal coalition. Both have denied any wrongdoing or having anything to do with oil-for-food contracts or oil allocations made by the Saddam Hussein regime.

Manmohan Singh earlier this week ordered two probes into the Volcker report, despite the references to the Congress and Natwar Singh being "unsubstantiated", he said.

"We want to go deep into this...and find out what the truth is," the prime minister said. "This is a matter of pride for our government."

CONGRESS CRISIS

Some analysts and newspapers say the Congress-led government is facing its worst crisis since coming to power in May last year and the prime minister -- whose image as an honest and decent politician is his strength -- should be worried.

"Manmohan Singh should be worried about his own image," political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan said. "Corruption has hurt the Congress in the past," he said, referring to an arms kickbacks scandal that dogged the Congress government in the 1980s.

Though analysts saw no immediate threat to the government, which is backed from outside by communists, it could be under severe pressure from the opposition if the Congress and its allies lose a key state election later this month.

Polls have forecast the opposition nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies were ahead in the eastern state of Bihar, one of India's most populous states.

"After Volcker, the government should become anxious about the Bihar results, Rangarajan said.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

"If the Congress and its allies lose Bihar after Volcker, it will enthuse the BJP and make it very aggressive."

The Congress party, smarting from the Volcker report, has written to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking him for all evidence relating to Natwar Singh and the party.

The U.N. said it did not expect its ties with the Indian government to be hit due to the report.

"The report is not tantamount to either a legal chargesheet or a finding that some wrong has been committed," U.N. spokesman Shashi Tharoor told NDTV television news.

The Indian prime minister leaves for Dhaka on Friday for a regional South Asian summit.

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Title: No Evidence Against Congress And Natwar: PMAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20051108091859&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=-42#8

Dubbing the Volcker committee findings as “unsubstantiated'' references, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said there was no evidence in the allegations against Congress party and Natwar Singh. Claiming that the raging controversy over the alleged pay offs in Iraqi oil deals has not sullied “our image'', he told reporters here that setting up of the judicial inquiry and the fact-finding mission is a “search'' for truth.

“Our image has not been sullied. Only unsubstantiated reference has been made in the Volcker committee. There is no evidence. The names of the Congress party and Natwar Singhji have been made in the tables. Anybody can write this anywhere. This does not prove how much truth is there in this. We will go to the depth of this and find out the truth,'' he said.

The Prime Minister said the government had instituted a judicial commission under the chairmanship of former Chief Justice of India R S Pathak and appointed veteran diplomat Virendra Dayal as a plenipotentiary to probe the whole affair. “The attempt will be to how to get to the truth of the matter. In search of this the inquiries have been launched,'' he said expressing confidence that the truth would come out. Asked whether Natwar Singh, who has been stripped of External Affairs Portfolio, would continue in various core committees of the government, he said, “We will see....A decision will be taken soon.''

Asked if he felt Natwar Singh was prima facie involved in the scam, the Prime Minister said, “No comment should be made at this stage. The truth will come out.'' About Justice Pathak, he said he was the only living Indian who had served at the International Court of Justice. Dayal, he said, had a great standing as an international diplomat and as a plenipotentiary he can go to the UN and other countries to find out the truth.

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Title: No Proof Against Congress And Natwar Singh: ManmohanAuthor: K. BALCHANDSource: HinduDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/09/stories/2005110913840100.htm

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday maintained that the Volcker report was "unsubstantiated" and that there was no proof against the Congress and former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh.

The UPA Government was committed to finding the truth in the issue, Mr. Singh said. He was addressing newspersons here after addressing two election meetings in the State.

Denying that the report had tarnished the image of the UPA Government and the Congress, the Prime Minister stressed that the UPA Government took pride in the action it had initiated though the report was unsubstantiated. "There is no proof in the report. There are a couple of tables and there were names of the Congress and Mr. Singh. Anyone can write any name, any story. That does not prove anything."

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Dr. Singh said the Government was keen on understanding the entire issue by getting to the root of it through the judicial commission set up under former Chief Justice of India R. S. Pathak.

Asked if he saw a foreign conspiracy, Dr. Singh said he would not comment but expressed confidence that the committee would come out with the truth.

As for Mr. Natwar Singh's continuance as a member of the core group of the Union Cabinet after he was relieved of his portfolio, the Prime Minister said no decision had been taken and that it was for him to decide.

To a query on Mr. Natwar Singh's statement about India revising its stand on Iran's nuclear programme at the next meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Prime Minister said the country's official line would be known in due course. He said several details had to be discussed and a number of countries were engaged in consultations for sorting out the problems in Vienna and it was quite possible that they would find a way out and avoid a division. "So it would not be proper to underline what stand we will take on the issue at the next meeting of the IAEA on November 24."

While underling his respect for the Election Commission, the Prime Minister said political parties had the right to air their grievances and that no restriction could be put on them.

Unfortunate development

Dr. Singh described as an "unfortunate development" the controversy over the Bihar Governor, Buta Singh. "Constitutional authorities should be above suspicion and they should conduct themselves in a manner that they don't invite adverse comments."

On the differences between Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan saying that two people need not agree on everything. He, however, denied that Mr. Prasad exerted pressure on him. "He is a senior member of the Cabinet and his advice is considered and the decision is taken through consensus."

Asked to clarify on his statements on whether Mr. Prasad would be the next Chief Minister if the alliance came to power in the State, Dr. Singh said the decision would be made by the legislators.

Dr. Singh accused the NDA Government of neglecting the State and denying its due during its six years of rule at the Centre.

Promising to eliminate poverty and create employment, Dr. Singh assured better education and a mid-day meal for all schools. Mr. Prasad was present at the Sitamarhi rally while the former Chief Minister, Rabri Devi, accompanied him at Saharsa.

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Title: No Reason To Believe Fees Paid Were Illegal: Tatas Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/09/stories/2005110916981400.htm

In the midst of the controversy over the Volcker report, the Tatas said on Tuesday that Tata International, one of its companies named in it, had no reason to believe that fees imposed by Iraqi authorities on goods supplied to them was "illegal or illicit."

Responding to queries, a Tata International spokesperson said the company had not received any communication from the U.N. or its committee in this regard.

He said all contracts were properly approved by the U.N. Committee monitoring the oil-for-food programme.

Stating that the company had supplied goods of various Tata companies under the programme, the spokesperson said all contracts were approved by the Iraqi Government as well as the U.N. Committee.

"In the year 2000, the Iraqi Authorities had imposed inland transportation fees and after sales services fees on all contracts. Tata International had no reason to believe there was anything illegal or illicit in such payments," the spokesperson said.

www.whatisindia.com

Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

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Title: Piercing The Veil On Volcker Committee And IraqAuthor: Prakash KaratSource: HinduDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/09/stories/2005110904071000.htm

THE FINAL report of the "Independent Inquiry Committee," headed by Paul Volcker, on the United Nations' Oil-For-Food Programme (OFFP) in Iraq has led to a major political controversy in India. In one of its annexures, the report has listed External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh and the Congress Party as "non-contractual beneficiaries" of Iraqi oil sales in 2001 under the OFFP. A host of Indian companies have also figured as paying surcharges for the purchase of Iraqi oil or paying other charges for supplying goods under the U.N. Programme.

The Volcker Committee report has brought Iraq and the U.N. sanctions back into the limelight. The sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations Security Council lasted for 12 years — from 1990, that is, before the first attack on Iraq by the United States-led coalition, up to the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq in March 2003. These were the most brutal sanctions imposed on a sovereign country. Iraq was prohibited from selling its oil or trading in goods or purchasing medicines and other essential commodities. `No-fly' zones were enforced and Iraq was subjected to continuous aerial bombing by the U.S. and British air forces.

The horrific effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people are well documented. More than 1.5 million of them died owing to the effects of the sanctions. The worst affected were children. According to a UNICEF study, 500,000 children died needlessly between 1991 and 1998. According to the Ramsay Clarke report to the U.N. Security Council, the annual number of deaths of children under the age of five grew more than ten-fold from 1989 to 1999. From 1990 to November 1999, 502,292 children under age five died from diseases such as diaorrhea, gastroenteritis, respiratory infections, and malnutrition.

Sanctions were imposed not to punish Iraq for its occupation of Kuwait. On May 20, 1991, President George Bush (Sr.) declared: "At this juncture my view is that we do not want to lift the sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." The aim was clear. Iraq had to undergo a regime change and sanctions were a weapon for this.

While the United States and Britain insisted on the maintenance of strict sanctions that prohibited even the import of medicines, the sufferings of the Iraqi people caused worldwide outrage. It was due to the pressure of world opinion that the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution in April 1995 allowing the sale of oil to finance the import of humanitarian goods. The OFFP was implemented only from December 1996. The U.N. Office for Iraq would decide how much oil would be sold every six months, and two-thirds of that amount was to be used for Iraq's humanitarian needs. The OFFP fund was the money of the Iraqi people; there were no foreign funds whatsoever. The money from the sale of oil did not go to the Iraqi Government but to a U.N.-designated account. Claims for reparations for the 1991 Gulf war were made by the U.S. and its allies. Out of the total Iraqi oil sales of $65 billion during the relevant period, only $46 billion went for the OFFP.

The OFFP provided a tenuous lifeline for the Iraqi people. From 1998, the terms were relaxed further to allow more sale of oil. In December 1999, the ceiling on export of oil was removed by the Security Council. But every contract to buy humanitarian goods was scrutinised by a committee that had Security Council members and each single contract was approved by representatives of the U.S. and Britain.

The OFFP was a paltry step to alleviate the sufferings of the Iraqi people but even this came under attack from U.S. right-wing circles. They targeted the U.N. demanding the programme be stopped. Allegations of corruption and malpractice were levelled and it was claimed that Saddam Hussein had made anything from $10 billion to $20 billion out of this programme. While constantly sniping at the OFFP, the U.S. was complicit in allowing Jordan, its key ally, to benefit most from the oil trade.

Saddam Hussein's government tried various means to beat the sanctions and circumvent the humiliating terms and conditions. The Iraqi Government approached a number of companies and organisations in various countries that were well disposed to Iraq and prepared to cooperate with it. Unsurprisingly, most of the oil contracts as well as orders for goods needed by Iraq went to countries that had good relations with it.

The Iraqi Government tried to generate revenue by levying surcharges on the oil contracts and inland transport charges and after sale service charges on the goods supplied to it. For those who opposed the sanctions, Iraq had every right to do so. For those who supported this assault on Iraqi sovereignty and the Iraqi people, these were "kickbacks." The Volcker Committee takes the latter view.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Only craven apologists for Washington justify the economic warfare waged against the Iraqi state and people. After the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, a crescendo of attacks on the U.N. was orchestrated by American neo-cons. Kofi Annan and his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, were brought within the ambit of the charges. It was in response to these attacks that the U.N. Secretary General appointed a three-member committee to look into the charges of corruption and malpractice in the OFFP.

Those who mounted the attack on the U.N. and the OFFP are totally silent about the loot of Iraq and the profiteering by U.S. corporations. It is under U.S. occupation that the Security Council ended sanctions against Iraq and proposed to set up the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI). In 2003, the OFFP was wound up and $9.978 billion was transferred to the DFI, which was to be administered by the "Coalition Provisional Authority" set up by the occupation forces. The U.S. got its hands on this development fund, which grew to $20 billion in 2004. American companies have made a killing through contracts for the reconstruction programme. This is a scandal of huge proportions that the U.N. will not have the courage to enquire into.

The U.S. and the British governments have been keen to tarnish the image of all those who supported Iraq and opposed the sanctions and the war.

The Volcker Committee report cannot be taken at face value. There have been official Russian and South African refutations of the authenticity of some of its documents or findings. A whole host of Indian companies that did business with Iraq through the U.N. office of the Iraq programme cannot be legally charged with any wrongdoing since the government of a sovereign country asked them to pay levies or charges on the goods they sold. Can all these payments be considered "kickbacks"? There are some exceptions in the oil contracts that need investigation.

The mention of Natwar Singh and the Congress Party in the annexure of the report belongs to a different category. Mr. Singh was a leader of the main opposition party at the time. The Congress Party and Mr. Singh as chairman of the foreign affairs cell of the AICC maintained relations with Iraq and the Baathist party during the entire period when sanctions were imposed and the attacks on Iraq continued. Mr. Singh has rightly defended his views opposing the sanctions and the war on Iraq. The Congress Party need not be apologetic or defensive about its ties with Iraq and other third world countries and organisations intent on defending their national sovereignty. Much of the attack directed at the United Progressive Alliance Government and the Congress Party by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the right-wing media stems from their ideological affinity with the U.S. and its designs on West Asia.

Unfortunately the Manmohan Singh Government — with its new-found dependence on, and willingness to collaborate with, the U.S. — does not seem keen to remember this past. The Government may now find uncomfortable Mr. Natwar Singh's assertion that the U.S. is intent on targeting individuals and organisations that do not share its hegemonic views.

The CPI (M) announced, following the publication of the final report of the Volcker Committee, that the allegations against the Foreign Minister and the Congress Party and a host of Indian companies should be investigated by the Government so that the facts and evidence could be collected. Only then could proper conclusions be drawn. It has become clear that despite Volcker's claim that all individuals and parties were given notice to explain their association, none of the Indian political entities and individuals was issued such notice.

The link between Hamdan Export, Masefield AG, and their alleged connection with the "non-contractual beneficiaries" can be uncovered. This issue must be clarified: was it a case of an illegal deal through political patronage or a business transaction like the other contracts entered into by Indian business enterprises?

The Government has announced two types of inquiry into the charges in the Volcker Committee report. This is a correct step. Mr. Natwar Singh has stepped down during the pendancy of the inquiries and this should help facilitate impartial fact-finding. But it should be noted that he is being targeted for leading a Congress Party delegation to Iraq in 2002 and for opposing the sanctions and the invasion of Iraq. For the Congress and Mr. Singh, an impartial inquiry would help counter the charges that they were "beneficiaries" in the oil deal.

In the recent period, the UPA Government has taken a series of steps that violate the independent foreign policy it promised to pursue. The Indo-U.S. defence framework agreement, the joint statement of July 18, and the vote in the IAEA on the Iran nuclear issue are such instances. The CPI (M) is concerned about how foreign policy will be conducted by the Government. There is in India a strong pro-U.S. lobby that hopes the exit of Natwar Singh will help consolidate the pro-U.S. direction in foreign policy. The CPI (M) and the Left are determined to see that the Government adheres to an independent foreign policy. In the coming days, the CPI (M) will give the highest priority to this issue.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

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Title: Ready To Help Delhi With Volcker Details: UNAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20051108110406&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=-42#8

The United Nations has said it's willing to cooperate with national authorities, including the Indian Government, if they wanted to undertake further investigations into the Volcker Committee report.

Farhan Haq, spokesman, office UN Secretary General, told this website’s newspaper that if necessary, the UN and the Volcker panel were willing to "take action" against any corporations or individuals under their jurisdiction.

A spokesman of the Permanent Mission of India to the UN, said the Ambassador, Nirupam Sen, is in constant touch with offices of SecretaryGeneral and Volcker Committee on the issue. Sen has sought an appointment with Paul Volcker, who is chairman of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the Oil for Food Program.

However, Haq said that the UN and the Volcker Committee were unlikely to share or provide any information to any "private association" or a "political party" about the findings of the Independent Inquiry into the Oil for Food Program.

Haq's response was in context of both the Congress and the NDA's moves to write to Secretary General Kofi Annan to get documents related to the oil deal in which Natwar Singh and the Congress party are named.

"The IIC (Independent Inquiry Committee) and UN are willing to cooperate as appropriate," Haq said. He added the committee is a fact-finding body and cannot make any binding judicial determination of fact or law.

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Title: Tharoor Didn't Demean Volcker Report: UNAuthor: PTISource: Press Trust of IndiaDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/$All/20D19449B693FEA1652570B40019C4A2?OpenDocument

United Nations Under Secretary General for Public Information Shashi Tharoor had denied saying that there is nothing much in the Volcker Committee report on the oil-for-food scam and that it is to be disregarded, a spokesperson of the world body said today. Former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh was quoted as saying that Tharoor had told him that there was nothing in the report and it was to be disregarded.

But the spokesperson said she had talked with Tharoor, who is on vacation in Delhi, and he had denied making such remarks. PTI

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Title: The Minister’S Private WarAuthor: Kuldip NayarSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEM20051107220807&Title=Main+Article&rLink=-42#8

The bureaucratic Manmohan Singh appears to push back the political Manmohan Singh too often. The former has this time changed the proposal to appoint a committee of eminent citizens to examine the Volcker Committee report on the Iraq oil-for-food programme. Instead we have a fact finder — and that too a bureaucrat from the Indian Foreign Service, to which the accused foreign minister, Natwar Singh, also belongs. Maybe they have served together somewhere in the outside world, if not in Delhi. The ex-ambassador, Virender Dayal, may have served the country well, but fact finding work requires a different type of person, one who does not arouse scepticism. Dayal’s Foreign Service background will raise suspicions of pliability. The fact finding probe may come to be considered a whitewash. His work is the foundation upon which the edifice of further inquiries

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

will be built. It will be a major point of reference which an ‘interested party’ can influence in one way or the other. Even an iota of doubt over the way facts have been assembled may make the entire exercise futile.

As for Natwar Singh, his utterances in the last few days were inconsistent with his responsibilities as a foreign minister. He tried to corner the UPA government in a bid to save his own skin and cultivate the Left for any future eventuality. In a recent statement Natwar Singh observed: “If a resolution is placed at the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Commission), which is more severe than the last one, which says that this matter must go to the UN Security Council, I can, as foreign minister of India, tell you that my recommendation to the government will be to revise our vote.” It is Natwar Singh, let’s remember, who openly gloated earlier that India’s vote had saved Iran — and the world — from catastrophe. He also met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to reportedly assure her that India was with the US all the way. In a child-like boast, he also narrated how Rice had called on him — rather than the other way around — and how his foreign policy was popular.

Some Congress leaders feared that if he was ousted from the government, he would have taken the fight right into the heart of the party. The Congress-led government now is clearly hoping that the fact finding probe will divert attention away from Natwar Singh and the party. The Volcker committee took 16 months to prepare the report. The fact finding task may take half that length of time—although the government has given only three months to Dayal, with the proviso that the time frame may be extended.

The government was then confronted with the question as to how it should deal with Natwar Singh in the meantime. Should a tarnished foreign minister represent the nation? He will inevitably be an embarrassment. Wherever he went he would be hounded by the media of that country. Will our diplomatic missions abroad then have to usher him in through the back door and escort him out through the same door? His name would be referred to in foreign newspapers and TV networks as that of someone indicted by the Volcker Committee. However strong his denial—and he will have make one in every country he visits—his involvement in the oil deal will get repeated. It was realised that he had become a lame duck foreign minister who would not have commanded the required respect because he would be seen as damaged goods. And the first test was to come at next week’s SAARC summit. Given all this, he was divested of his responsibilities as external affairs minister and made minister without portfolio.

Natwar Singh should have himself realised that his enemies—and every politician has plenty of them—have unsheathed their knives and are preparing to use this opportunity to target him. It would have been far better for him to have avoided all the tension of the last few days and stepped down gracefully. If he had done that, he would have been following the high traditions set by some Congress leaders. Once Sardul Singh Keveshwar, a leader from Punjab, was appointed a CWC member. Before the list was made public, it was sent to Mahatma Gandhi for approval. Gandhiji put a question mark against Keveshwar’s name. When Keveshwar heard about this he went running to Gandhiji, for an explanation. The Mahatma then brought out from his almirah a postcard which alleged that Keveshwar had not returned a sum of Rs 500 he had borrowed. Keveshwar pleaded with the Mahatma that the loan was time barred. The Mahatma said the question was moral, not legal. Keveshwar withdrew his name.

If Natwar Singh had followed these standards and quit the government for the duration of the fact-finding probe of his own volition, he would have returned with his stature enhanced, as a man who came clean. India still remembers with reverence Lal Bahadur Shastri for having resigned after a major railway accident. He was not to blame but, as railways minister, accepted the moral responsibility for the tragedy. He did not even meet the then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, before putting in his papers.

In contrast, Natwar Singh has met the PM more than once since his indictment by the Volcker committee. After every meeting, Natwar Singh underlined that they “discussed foreign policy”. Such absurd behaviour did little credit to him. His guilt, or lack of it, is yet to be proved. So why did he choose to behave in the manner he did? By repeating that he was not guilty, and that he will not resign, he laid himself open to ridicule. I, for one, was disappointed with the manner he handled this crisis at the climax of his political career.

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Title: Three Accords To Be Signed At Saarc SummitAuthor: PTISource: Indian ExpressDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20051108110627&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=#0

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Three new trade facilitation agreements are expected to be signed at the 13th SAARC summit in Dhaka on November 12-13, which will be attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Terrorism, poverty alleviation and initiating regional collaborative projects would be high on the agenda of the summit of the seven-nation grouping comprising India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan.

The accords likely to be firmed up are on establishment of a SAARC arbitration council, mutual administrative assistance in Customs matters and a limited multilateral treaty on avoidance of double taxation.

Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran will leave for Dhaka on Wednesday to attend the two-day meeting of the SAARC standing committee of foreign secretaries (Nov 9-10).

This would be followed by the meeting of the Council of Ministers (November 11) with India being represented by Minister of State for External Affairs, E.Ahamed.

India would be tabling a number of new proposals with a view to usher in the third decade of SAARC with renewed vigour and enthusiasm and to augment cooperation in sectors like education, textiles and handicrafts, civil aviation, health care and sports, the External Affairs Ministry here said.

New Delhi would also support Afghanistan's bid to become a new member of SAARC. It favours a decision on the issue, which is expected to come up at the Dhaka meet, through a consensus by all member states.

“We will welcome Afghanistan as a member of SAARC,'' Ahamed, who leaves for Dhaka on Thursday, said.

Ahamed will go in place of K.Natwar Singh who has been divested of the External Affairs Ministry portfolio following government announcing a judicial probe into allegations made in the Volcker Committee report on pay offs to him and the Congress party in Iraqi oil deals during the Saddam Hussein regime in 2001.

Following directions from the Prime Minister, Ahamed cut short his trip to Sudan and returned to the capital this morning. Officials briefed him on the upcoming Dhaka meet.

India will host the next SAARC summit in January, 2007. An announcement on this will be made at the Dhaka summit.

The next meeting of the committee of experts on SAFTA has been scheduled for November 28-29. Outstanding issues of SAFTA are expected to be resolved at this meeting, so that it enters into force on January 1, 2006 as decided earlier. India hopes that SAFTA would now consider expansion of its scope to include trade in services.

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Title: Vajpayee Asks Un To Provide Details To Preserve India's Respect And Nail CongressAuthor: Preetam SohaniSource: India DailyDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/5397.asp

It is time for them to go and may be for ever. There is no scope of this kind of corrupt behavior! Give us the proof to bring self respect back to india says Vajpayee, the former Prime Minsiter to United Nations.

According to media reports, Preparing to nail the ruling coalition on the Volcker report in the upcoming winter session of Parliament, the Opposition NDA on Monday approached the United Nations and sought documents which had named the Congress party and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh in the Iraqi oil deals.

In a letter to United Nations secretary general, NDA leaders including former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and alliance convenor George Fernandes also sought to know whether the Volcker Committee gave prior intimation and opportunities to persons concerned in India to explain themselves as also the modalities followed in the probe.

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Title: Volcker To Cooperate With India's Probe Agencies

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Author: A N Sudarsan Rao Source: Hindustan TimesDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1541105,00050001.htm

Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN oil-for-food programme has assured India that his panel would fully cooperate and share information with the country's investigating agencies within the "legal constrains."

The assurance came during a 45-minute meeting India's Ambassador to the UN Nirupam Sen had with Volcker on Tuesday.

After the meeting, Sen said his impression from the discussions is that former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh was not sent any notice by the Committee prior to publication of his name as a "non contractual beneficiary" of the Iraqi oil-for-food programme.

He, however, said the Committee is still examining documents to reach a final conclusion on that.

Asked what exactly is meant by "legal constrains," Sen said the evidence had been collected from several witnesses and some of them might have given it on the understanding that they should not be identified.

In those cases, the Committee would need to get waiver from them before releasing the documents.

Asked about the remarks of Volcker that responses were sought from all those who had been mentioned in the report, Sen said the report contained those who were thoroughly investigated and those who were just mentioned on the basis of documents which the Committee considered authentic.

Apparently, Natwar Singh's case was not thoroughly investigated by the Committee, he said. But he cautioned that final judgement would have to await the examination of all relevant documents by the Committee. Those who were thoroughly investigated were given the chance to respond.

Sen said the Committee, as a policy, would share information and documents only with the investigating agencies after they inform it exactly what they are looking for. But it would be necessary to move quickly as the Committee's mandate ends in just over a month.

India has already sent a letter to the Committee on the information it is seeking but that would need to be fine-tuned, he added.

Asked whether the investigations would stall if some witnesses refuse to give waiver, Sen said there are other ways also to get the information. For example, it could be asked bilaterally. "We shall cross the bridge when we reach there," he remarked.

Sen conveyed to Volcker the Government of India's decision to hold inquiry.

Replying to a question, he said the Committee is aware of the political storm the report has created in India.

Sen said Indian investigators would have to look into allegations that the names were not given by the Iraqis but by other "vested interests." That is why India is asking for documents and other information.

To a question whether the fact that response from some of the Indian commercial and non-commercial entities was not sought constituted discrimination, Sen said that is one way of looking at it.

But the Committee investigated only the cases where the wrongdoing was extensive. So, in case of the entities from which response was not sought, the wrongdoing would have been comparatively much less.

In its report, the Committee had named some 2,200 entities worldwide, including around 135 Indian companies, which paid bribes to get contract for the supply of humanitarian goods to the Saddam Hussein regime.

Natwar Singh, the Congress Party and Panthers party chief Bhim Singh were mentioned among the "non contractual" beneficiaries who were allocated oil to win political support.

Singh was subsequently divested of his External Affairs portfolio.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The price of sale of oil fixed by Iraq was below the market price and those allocated oil used front companies to buy oil and then sell it to the regular oil companies at the market price. The difference between the price the oil was purchased and sold was the profit the allottes got.

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Title: Volcker To Fully Cooperate With India's Probe AgenciesAuthor: PTISource: Press Trust of IndiaDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/$All/2643F44C03D96C3D652570B4001A6414?OpenDocument

Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN oil-for-food programme has assured India that his panel would fully cooperate and share information with the country's investigating agencies within the "legal constrains." The assurance came during a 45-minute meeting India's Ambassador to the UN Nirupam Sen had with Volcker yesterday.After the meeting, Sen said his impression from the discussions is that former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh was not sent any notice by the Committee prior to publicaiton of his name as a "non contractual beneficiary" of the Iraqi oil-for-food programme.

He, however, said the Committee is still examining documents to reach a final conclusion on that.

Asked what exactly is meant by "legal constrains," Sen said the evidence had been collected from several witnesses and some of them might have given it on the understanding that they should not be identified.

In those cases, the Committee would need to get waiver from them before releasing the documents.

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Title: We Are Not Afraid Of Any Probe: NatwarAuthor: Special Correspondent, The Financial ExpressSource: HinduDate: November 09, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/09/stories/2005110908991200.htm

WE ARE WITH YOU: Supporters of Union Minister K. Natwar Singh (centre) raise their hands at his residence in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: Union Minister K. Natwar Singh said on Tuesday that he would not succumb to allegations levelled against him by the Opposition and respond to them in Parliament. A day after he was relieved of his charge as the External Affairs Minister, in the wake of the Volcker Committee report that made a reference to him in the oil-for-food contracts in Iraq, Mr. Singh said he was happy that the Centre had instituted an inquiry into it.

Describing himself as a "loyal member of the big (Congress) party," he told supporters who gathered at his official residence here that he was not a coward and was willing to answer the world. "I am not a coward. I am standing here and I can answer to the whole world. The Congress party and I are not afraid of any probe."

Referring to the judicial inquiry by the former Supreme Court Chief Justice, R.S. Pathak, and the appointment of special envoy Virendra Dayal to collect documents related to the Volcker probe, Mr. Singh said he had demanded the probe and was not afraid of it. He said that no harm could be done either to the Congress or to him through these allegations. Mr. Singh said he had been in politics for over two decades and was answerable to his conscience.

No charge sheet

Taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party, he questioned the party's right to decide what the Congress should do. He said BJP leaders like L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi did not resign even after charge sheets were filed against them. He pointed to the fact that no charge sheet had been filed against him. Mr. Singh said his supporters had come on their own and the expression of solidarity was not intended to be a show of strength or to send a message to anybody.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

`They should be ashamed'

PTI reports:

He asked his supporters: "Can you believe that the Congress party which has produced several great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad can sell oil for money? If somebody levels these kind of allegations, they should be ashamed of themselves."

As the crowd cheered and jostled to catch a glimpse of their leader, an emotional Mr. Singh said:

``My friends, well-wishers and workers from Bharatpur and Alwar have come here because their heart told them to do so. They are a part of my family ... they are my strength.''

He claimed that buses carrying his supporters were being stopped at Jantar Mantar and appealed to authorities to let them come to meet him.

``I am still a Minister and CWC member. There will not be any indiscipline. I am not holding any public meeting here, let them come and visit me, as they are like my family members,'' he said.

Though he refused to elaborate on the controversy surrounding the Volcker committee report, Mr. Singh reiterated that he had not received any letter from the U.N. panel.

"I will not do anything which will force me or you to hang our heads in shame," he said.

Mr. Singh said that companies such as Reliance, Tata and Kirloskar had also been named in the Volcker report and everybody should get a chance to clarify their stand.

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Title: Congress Seeks Details From AnnanAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/08/stories/2005110806551000.htm

The Congress on Monday sought a set of papers from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Volcker Committee report and related issues.

The party said it had no dealings in the oil-for-food programme or any other oil contract with the Government of Iraq, had not authorised any company, firm or individual to represent or act on its behalf in such a contract and had not received any notice from the Volcker Committee.

In a letter sent through a law firm, the party said the sources of evidence referred to in appendix A of the report — which contained some reference to the Congress — should be made available to it.

It sought clarification on whether the committee or anyone acting on its behalf had sent notice to the Congress party or its office-bearers saying the party would be identified in the report as a beneficiary or invite the party to respond and submit any evidence corroborating or refuting the information.

Five-page letter

The party's questions and its stand on the issue was in the form of a five-page letter issued by a legal firm, Amarchand Mangaldas, and signed by its partner, Pallavi S. Shroff. The party at its regular briefing here on Monday by spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan released a copy of the letter.

The party said in case, answers to its questions were in the affirmative, it would like to know the dates of the notice(s), where they were sent, the manner or mode in which the notice(s) was delivered and sought a copy of the notice(s).

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The letter said the statements and entries purportedly referring to the Congress party had cast aspersions on it. The party "unequivocally and categorically'' said it had no dealings in respect of any oil-for-food contract or any other oil contract with the Government of Iraq or any its agencies (including SOMO) or any company or any firm or any individual.

"The Congress party is naturally anxious that the record should be set straight, that its fair name and reputation should be vindicated, and that all allegations of any involvement in any oil-for-food contract or illegal payments should be withdrawn,'' it said.

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Title: Facts Of The MatterAuthor: Malvika SinghSource: TelegraphDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051108/asp/opinion/story_5447262.asp

Natwar Singh and his son continue to dominate the news — no fresh inputs, no worthwhile responses except for the left position on the issue. Had the minister stepped down on day one, saying he wanted a probe into this ‘report’ that he categorically stated was false, our press would have been at sea and the ‘story’ would probably have died a natural death. Today, with his arrogant and aggressive posturing through television interviews, the public perception is fast moving against Natwar Singh, hitherto seen to be honourable and old-world. His constant references to Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh being supportive of him, assist in discrediting them too in the eyes of the public.

The Volcker report, sponsored by the UN does not merit the ‘importance’ that it has been given by the Indian media. Where was the UN when the United States walked into Iraq? And why didn’t the Indian press get as energetic about that event? How about an international demand for a report on that inhuman act? How can any thinking person ‘trust’ a report without the adequate supports? Any institution can institute a biased report against its detractors. This kind of defamation, based on superficial data without adequate empirical evidence, is dangerous. Had the UN commissioned a similar report on the illegal invasion of a sovereign state like Iraq by the US, would the secretary of state have been compelled to resign? No. One set of values for the US and another for the rest of the world, particularly our part of the world. We are there to be exploited by this strange animal — the ‘unipolar US’.

Media mayhem

The UN has never had any teeth when it has had to deal with the US, a nation that arbitrarily institutes sanctions upon countries that do not align with it politically, that refuse to be its client states. The unipolar status of the US allows it to believe it can invade sovereign countries breaking every decent code of conduct. It does so without remorse. It creates the ‘monsters’ that torment the world and then blames all nations, except itself, for the backlash. It then declares a ‘war against terror’ having inflicted terror on the world. Economic terror, military terror, social terror. Many such aspects of US foreign policy are uncivilized. How about a Volcker report on that?

Having said this, the allegations made against Natwar Singh need to be cleared and till they are, he should step aside as minister. It will put him in a league apart. It will reinforce the honour of the Congress president and the prime minister, and therefore, the government. So far the moves through the Congress spokespersons have been tactically weak and have not done any good to those in question. The whole saga appears to have been mishandled, allowing the opposition to get an upper hand just before parliament resumes on November 23.

India and the US have been poles apart vis à vis positions on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. We were friends, they were not. Who knows what international political games are being played out today, what manipulations are happening? So a timebound and independent judicial probe into this ‘report’ is essential. Reputations are being damaged with assumptions, not evidence. Endless press reports are adding fuel to this fire. The issue must be cleared as rapidly as possible, the truth must prevail and those defamed, if wrongly so, must be exonerated. If illegalities are proven, the law must be allowed to take over.

Maybe the time has come for the media to address itself and its rather superficial reporting of events that need serious investigation and proof. Flimsy reporting based on hearsay and speculation smacks of what my generation called ‘yellow’ journalism. Our lead stories on television and in our national dailies seem to be competing with the tabloids.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Title: Get It RightAuthor: Editorial, Indian ExpressSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEJ20051106211331&Title=Second+Editorial&rLink=#0

This is in the nature of a reality check. The response to the Volcker Committee Report appears to be taking on a life of its own. Part of the problem is that it has become intensely politicised. Now India has a well-established legacy of argumentation, but let us also be mindful of the rules of the game.

The fact is that the issue involves the government of the day, and a serving minister. As this newspaper has argued, it is for the Congress party and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh to set their house in order, and we can only hope that they do this expeditiously and effectively.

Having said that, we would also like to state unequivocally that there is no room whatsoever for fantasies to be peddled as facts and wild conspiracy theories to be given the patina of truth.

Ultimately, there are issues of national interest involved, and flat-footed attempts to embarrass the present government to score political points may well prove to be an exercise at tarnishing India’s reputation and standing on the world stage. Whatever our internal political differences — and there are many in a country as vibrant, even chaotic, as ours — we have always presented a united face to the world.

Let us always be conscious of that foundational principle as a controversy that has both distinct domestic and international ramifications has the nation in its grip. So let us get the debate on this issue right. This is not a mud pie throwing contest. It is about getting at the truth and to do so not for political gains, and certainly not to target individuals within the Congress for the sake of embarrassing them, but for the sake of Indian democracy.

If the system demands correctives because of the Volcker Committee revelations, we need to address them. That, ultimately, should be the reason why we demand to know the truth.

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Title: Get To The Truth QuicklyAuthor: Editorial, The HinduSource: HinduDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/08/stories/2005110805700800.htm

The Manmohan Singh Government's response to the crisis created by the Volcker Committee Report can be characterised as slow, confused, and politically inept — but nobody can accuse it of any cover-up. On October 29, this newspaper broke the explosive news that the fifth and final report of the "Independent Inquiry Committee," appointed by the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, had identified K. Natwar Singh and also the Congress Party as "non-contractual beneficiaries" of Iraqi oil sales in 2001 to a Swiss oil trading company, Masefield AG, under the U.N. Oil-For-Food Programme. Although the matter did not figure in the main body of the Report, the supporting tables showed the associated contracts as being valued at $63 million, and alleged that "illicit" surcharge payments amounting to $748,540 were paid on behalf of the two non-contractual beneficiaries by Andaleep Sehgal and Hamdan Export into Iraqi accounts in the Jordan National Bank. Both Mr. Singh and the Congress Party strenuously denied the charges. In a muddled response, the party threatened to send a "legal notice" to the U.N. and to Paul Volcker. Not surprisingly, the Opposition spearheaded by the Bharatiya Janata Party made the most of l'affaire Natwar Singh, demanding the Foreign Minister's head and attempting, on the basis of zero evidence, to link the scandal to the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.

It has taken a shell-shocked Government more than a week to come out of its mental haze and get some kind of focus on the development. The Cabinet decision to appoint Virendra Dayal, a well-regarded former U.N. official, as Special Envoy to liaise with the world body and "gather relevant materials including those on the unverified references in the Report regarding the involvement of Indian entities and individuals," and Justice R.S. Pathak, a former Chief Justice of India who is highly respected for his integrity and independence, to head a judicial commission is a clear indication that there will be no cover-up. The decision to move Mr. Singh — for now, that is, until the truth or falsity of the allegation against him is ascertained — from

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

External Affairs but retain him in the Cabinet as Minister without portfolio may look like a half-measure. It has naturally drawn fire from the BJP. However, it is a fair and defensible decision considering the serious flaws in the Volcker Committee's politically charged approach to the investigation. In the first place, there is no precise sourcing of the allegations made in Tables 1, 3 and 5 against Mr. Singh and the Congress, other than a covering note that the information on the non-contractual beneficiaries is from the records of the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and the State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO). Secondly, the Committee violated its own investigation guidelines by failing to serve notice on Mr. Singh and the Congress Party, a fact that can be easily verified. It is reassuring that the Manmohan Singh Government, breaking with well-established cover-up methods of the past, has refused to hide behind these investigative failings and has made clear its determination to get to the truth of the matter. The country's interests and the imperatives of clean democratic politics demand that this task should be accomplished quickly — in a few weeks rather than many months. Meanwhile, serious issues suggesting an erosion of the independence of India's foreign policy need to be sorted out.

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Title: Graceless ExitAuthor: Editorial, The TelegraphSource: TelegraphDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051108/asp/opinion/story_5448019.asp

The position of Mr K. Natwar Singh, the minister for external affairs, had become untenable in the Union cabinet. By resigning, Mr Singh has only done what he should have done as soon as the Volcker report became public. The very fact that the government has decided to institute a judicial commission under Mr R.S. Pathak, a former chief justice of India, is evidence of the untenability of Mr Singh’s position. Under the circumstances, his defiance and his protestations were not cutting any ice. In fact, they made him look somewhat ridiculous. It is difficult to comprehend how he thought he could continue to command respect and credibility with the shadow of a judicial enquiry looming large over his reputation and integrity. The judicial probe comes close on the heels of the appointment of a special envoy to collect more details on the oil-for-food scandal, and Mr Singh’s alleged involvement in it. Mr Singh did not seem to recognize the embarrassment that he was causing the prime minister, Mr Manmohan Singh. The prime minister has invested his honesty and rectitude in his political career. These assets were in danger of being sullied by the presence of Mr Singh in the cabinet.

It has been noted in these very columns that the crucial question does not relate to Mr Singh’s innocence or guilt in the face of the charges made in the Volcker report. The more relevant question is an ethical one. How can a person who has been named in a major international racket that was run by a tyrant continue to represent India in any international fora? Mr Singh is no longer above suspicion as he indeed should be as India’s foreign minister and as a senior politician. In fairness to the prime minister and to the Congress, Mr Singh should have stepped down in the immediate aftermath of the Volcker report. He did not do so. On the contrary, he stirred up an unseemly controversy which compromised the prime minister and the Congress. It should also be noted that both the prime minister and the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, by allowing Mr Singh’s ego to get the better of him, have allowed matters to slide for longer than was necessary. By letting him continue as minister without portfolio, they have shown their lack of firmness. It is true that politics has little to do with ethics. But there are occasions when being ethical is also good politics. This point could have been made by the prime minister and Mr Singh with a little more grace.

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Title: Natwar As An ExtraAuthor: Editorial, The TribuneSource: TribuneDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051108/edit.htm#1

PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh’s decision to take away the External Affairs portfolio from Mr Natwar Singh and retain him as a minister without portfolio is the best option he could exercise under the circumstances. Ideally, Mr Natwar Singh should have resigned on his own and waited till he was cleared of the charge of being a beneficiary in the oil-for-food scandal. He did not do so and ignored taking what would have been a proper course of action. He has not been thrown out of the government, but has been simply divested of his portfolio to which he could not have done justice, having landed himself in the thick of the controversy. Clearly acting in concert with the Congress President, the Prime Minister has disarmed those in the Congress party who were backing Mr Natwar Singh.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Besides, taking away foreign affairs from Mr Natwar Singh, the Manmohan Singh government has appointed a former Chief Justice of India, Mr Justice R. S. Pathak, to enquire into the whole gamut of issues raised by the Volcker Committee report. Earlier, it appointed veteran diplomat Virendra Dayal to get all the relevant documents, suggesting that Mr Natwar Singh and the Congress were “non-contractual beneficiaries” in the scam. Whatever information Mr Dayal is able to get from the UN is likely to be available to the Pathak commission. That both of them are well versed in the functioning of the international system—Mr Justice Pathak being a former member of the International Court of Justice and Mr Dayal having worked at a senior level in the UN—will stand them in good stead as they take up their crucial assignments.

The Volcker Committee report has raised many questions. However, it can neither be rubbished as a fictional document nor considered as gospel truth. It is easy for a political party, particularly in the Opposition, to demand the scalp of a minister because his name happens to figure in the report. And when the name of his party also figures in the report, it acquires an additional ammunition for attack. But a government cannot act in haste, more so when there are no answers for several questions the report throws up. Under the circumstances, the UPA government has decided to find out the truth about the scandal. In this regard, it could not have chosen more respected and independent-minded men than Mr Justice Pathak and Mr Dayal.

The Manmohan Singh government’s decision will certainly enhance its credibility and possibly deny the BJP an opportunity to block the proceedings in the winter session of Parliament. It has taken away a few days for evolving a coherent strategy to face the opposition onslaught, but with detailed consultations with the party leadership the Manmohan Singh government has tried to seize the initiative from the Opposition. Mr Natwar Singh now can attend Cabinet meetings, but in the absence of a portfolio has to depend on an occasional piece of work the Prime Minister might pass on to him. It is certainly a messy situation for him and politically uncomfortable.

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Title: Natwar Singh Relieved Of External AffairsAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/08/stories/2005110809670100.htm

Natwar to remain in Council of Ministers without portfolio It took gentle persuasion to make Natwar step down Decisions seen as ``a sensible way of doing things'' Natwar Singh was on Monday relieved of his portfolio of External Affairs Ministry by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Mr. Natwar Singh, however, will continue in the Union Council of Ministers as a Minister without portfolio while the Prime Minister himself will temporarily look after External Affairs.

According to a press release by the Prime Minister's Office, it was Mr. Natwar Singh who had requested the Prime Minister to "relieve" him of his charge. Mr. Natwar Singh's continuation as External Affairs Minister had become untenable after the Government announced on Monday morning the appointment of the former Chief Justice of India, Mr. R.S. Pathak, to hold an inquiry into the allegations in the Volcker Report.

Though the official announcement noted that Mr.Justice Pathak would hold an inquiry into the Volcker Report disclosures, the former Chief Justice himself pointedly told the media that he would look into "the allegations in the report pertaining to the Congress Party and Natwar Singh." The terms of reference are likely to be announced in a day or two.

The Government was keen on making the announcement of Mr.Justice Pathak's appointment before a National Democratic Alliance delegation called on President Abdul Kalam and demanded that action be taken against Mr. Natwar Singh. On Sunday night, the Centre had already named a former diplomat Virendra Dayal as its "special envoy" to "liaise" with the United Nations.

Honouring the promise

The two announcements were by way of honouring the promise the Prime Minister had made to the President that the Government would "get to the root of the matter."

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

After the announcement of the probe, the expectation within the Congress and the Government was that Mr. Natwar Singh would step down. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the Prime Minister and other senior AICC functionaries were of the view that he could not continue as Foreign Minister. However, Mr. Natwar Singh was not receptive to the idea and he continued to carry on his ministerial role with characteristic aplomb. It took considerable backroom manoeuvring and gentle persuasion from the Prime Minister before Mr. Singh saw the point that it would be a definite "embarrassment" for everyone, including himself, to continue as Foreign Minister while he was under investigation.

The assumption is that if and when Mr. Singh gets a clean chit from Mr. Justice Pathak, he will get back his portfolio.

Though the leadership was prepared to show its iron fist if Mr. Natwar Singh kept up in private his public posture of defiance, a senior decision maker involved in the day-long exercise described the final solution as " a sensible way of doing things."

Hectic activity

The announcement that Mr. Natwar Singh stood relieved of his portfolio came at the end of a day of hectic activity. This included the announcement of the Pathak probe, the Congress's letter to the U.N. Secretary-General, the enforcement authorities' interrogation of Andaleep Sehgal, an NDA delegation's call on the President, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s positive response to the decision to get to the truth.

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Title: Natwar Singh Resigns Over Iraq ReportAuthor: Kamil ZaheerSource: ReutersDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://in.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-08T055649Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-222457-6.xml

Foreign Minister Natwar Singh resigned his post on Monday, becoming the first political casualty of an independent report into irregularities in the United Nations' oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take over his duties, a spokesman for the prime minister said. Natwar Singh will remain in the cabinet pending the outcome of inquiries, spokesman Sanjaya Baru said.

Former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker said after a year-long investigation that politicians benefited from the $64 billion oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

Both Natwar Singh and the Congress party were named in an annexe to the report detailing beneficiaries of oil allocations made by the government of former president Saddam Hussein.

While the report did not ascribe any motives for the allocations, witnesses in other similar transactions said politicians had been rewarded for backing the Iraqi government or an end to U.N. sanctions.

Singh has denied any wrongdoing and any involvement in oil deals with Iraq. A government statement said he asked the prime minister to relieve him of his portfolio.

Analysts do not see an immediate threat to the coalition government, led by the Congress party.

"I would think that probably this decision for Natwar Singh to step aside for a while is probably one of the quickest responses for any of the people on the (Volcker) list," Dr. Gareth Price, the head of the Asia Department of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said in London.

"He is not going to threaten to bring down the government or anything like this if he is asked to step down briefly."

Others say the government's image has been marred by Singh staying in the cabinet.

"This is not at all acceptable. He should quit," political commentator Kuldip Nayar said. "He still remains a member of government and this is a wrong message."

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

"The Congress is also in the dock and should face this crisis squarely and with much more transparency," he added.

CONGRESS DEMANDS EVIDENCE

The government has launched two inquiries into the findings of the Volcker report.

Singh, who has been under pressure from the opposition to quit, was not immediately available for comment on Monday.

The 119-year-old Congress, bristling after its naming in the report, has written to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, asking for sources of evidence relating to it.

"The Congress Party wishes to unequivocally and categorically state that it had not authorised any company or firm or individual to represent or act on behalf of the Congress Party in any oil-for-food contract," the letter by the party said.

Asked about India's case last week, Volcker said he could not immediately recall details but the basic records came from Iraq and were generally accurate.

"In some cases we simply listed information we had, some of it from Iraqi records," Volcker told The Conference Board business group. "Very generally when we have had the capability of validating the Iraqi records, they have been accurate."

However, he said his commission was not able to delve into every bribe or kickback or company listed.

Seizing on the Volcker report, the opposition BJP and its allies wrote to President Abdul Kalam on Monday demanding Singh's removal from the federal cabinet.

"He has embarrassed the government. By continuing as minister without portfolio he has earned himself a price for silence," Arun Jaitley, BJP spokesman, said on NDTV television.

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Title: NDA Too Seeks Un Info Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Deccan HeraldDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov82005/national20852005117.asp

Gearing up for a pitched political battle with the government on the controversial Volcker report in the coming winter session of Parliament, the NDA on Monday approached the United Nations and sought documents which had named the Congress and Union Minister Natwar Singh in the Iraqi oil deals.

With the exit of Natwar Singh as foreign Minister, the BJP, the main constituent of the NDA, is now targeting the Congress to keep the heat on the UPA-government.

“The shifting of Singh from the foreign ministry is just an eyewash. The fact that the Prime Minister could not dismiss him shows that there is more to the issue,” BJP Vice-President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said after Singh's shifting from the foreign office was announced here.

Earlier in the day NDA leaders met President A P J Abdul Kalam and urged him to advise Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to drop K Natwar Singh from the Union Cabinet.

Emerging from the 15-minute-long meeting with the President, BJP chief Advani described as a “cover up exercise” the appointments of the Virender Dayal as special envoy and the judicial commission headed by former chief justice of India R S Pathak to probe the findings of the report.

Stepping up its attack on the Congress, an upbeat NDA has sought a detailed response from the Volcker panel at the earliest as the issue was “bound to feature as soon as Parliament reopens” on November 23.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

In a letter to the UN Secretary-General, NDA leaders including former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and alliance convener George Fernandes, also sought to know whether the Volcker committee gave prior intimation and opportunities to persons concerned in India to explain themselves as also the modalities followed in the probe.

‘No politicking’

Emphasising that they had no intention of playing domestic politics in the international arena and were not concerned about specific persons and entities involved, the NDA leaders said, “The issue and the circumstances of the matter impinge on national 0interests and national honour and are therefore of immense concern to our country as a whole. Such actions, if true, bring shame to the entire nation and therefore the facts unearthed must stand the test of proper scrutiny,” they said.

Maintaining that in all such complicated and controversial situations, the only goal to pursue was the truth with “unimpeachable evidence and due process”, the leaders requested Kofi Annan to urge the Volcker committee to urgently provide them with copies of all documents in its possession which assisted it in arriving at the names of Natwar Singh and the Congress as having been part of the oil-for-food programme.

Left welcomes probe

Stating that the Volcker committee was not the ultimate body to level any charges, Left parties on Monday appreciated the appointment of a judicial commission and a special envoy by the UPA government to probe the findings of the controversial report.

Asserting that there should be an Indian probe into the report naming Union Minister K Natwar Singh and the Congress as beneficiaries in Iraqi oil pay-offs, CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said the appointments of former Chief Justice of India R S Pathak and Virendra Dayal as the head of the judicial commission and special envoy respectively was a good move. “The External Affairs Minister has a case and he should be given an opportunity to put his case,” the veteran Marxist leader said on the sidelines of a meeting of Left Front leaders to chalk out an anti-WTO campaign.

Elaborating on the strategy of the Left parties on the eve of the WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong, Bardhan said their campaign would focus on issues like intellectual property rights, FDI in investment and education and would be launched on the basis of the note submitted by the Left parties to the government on October 27.

CPM leader Ramchandra Pillai said the Left parties would cooperate with other parties and organisation who would take similar positions and seek to organise united action in the form of national and state-level conventions, public campaigns, etc. across the country.

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Title: The Right Thing To DoAuthor: Editorial, HindustanTimesSource: Hindustan TimesDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1539848,0012.htm

Natwar Singh’s decision to step aside as External Affairs Minister till an independent inquiry clears his name is both wise and in keeping with the high standards of propriety that he has demonstrated throughout his political career. Mr Singh says that he has no knowledge of how his name came to feature in the Volcker report. In the absence of any corroborative evidence, we are obliged to believe him. And certainly, it now seems clear that Paul Volcker did not follow his own guidelines. He was expected to contact each person he named in his report and obtain their responses. Yet, not only did he make no attempt to contact Mr Singh, but he also now brags that he did not even know who Natwar Singh was. It is hard to believe that he made any genuine attempt to seek clarifications from Mr Singh if he was unaware that Natwar Singh is Foreign Minister of the world’s largest democracy.

Mr Singh says that he is confident that any fair inquiry will exonerate him. His decision to give up the Foreign Ministry is not motivated by any sense of guilt but demonstrates his conviction that, while the inquiry is on, it would be improper for him to continue at South Block. Further, he recognises that the cynical manipulation of a sensation-hungry media by the opposition has led to a situation where his continuance in office has been turned into a source of constant embarrassment for the government and the Congress party.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

While Mr Singh’s motives are laudable, many objective observers will feel a twinge of sadness at the manner of his exit. At 76, Mr Singh had been given that rarest of opportunities: a second act in an already packed life. Despite general scepticism, he proved his detractors wrong and was an effective and successful foreign minister. It is ironic that he should have to give up the portfolio not because of any policy misjudgments but because the opposition has impugned his integrity. Everything in Mr Singh’s record demonstrates that he has never been motivated by money or used his position for personal benefit. To see him go because of such charges defies belief. It is in everyone’s interests to hope that the inquiries are speedily concluded, that Mr Singh’s honour is vindicated as soon as possible, and that he returns to his office at South Block.

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Title: Un Happy To Facilitate Indian Inquiry: UN OfficialAuthor: PTISource: Press Trust of IndiaDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/$All/4790E37441528DA6652570B20058F1BC?OpenDocument

The United Nations would be happy to help and facilitate the process of fact-finding inquiry instituted by India into the controversial references made in the Volcker Committee report, its Under Secretary Shashi Tharoor said today. He told NDTV that there was no presumption of guilt in the adverse references made in the report on oil-for-food programme in Iraq and the report is not tantamount to a legal chargesheet or a finding that some wrong has been committed.

Tharoor said the report, however, make suggestions on which further question could be asked and "that is what is now happening in India, which I think is good for all concerned including those named in the report." He said the UN Secretary General had asked him to convey and he had conveyed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Natwar Singh that the UN had not come to any judgement whatsoever in the matter.

He said the UN fully respected the procedures to be adopted by India in arriving at the truth and that it was fully in consistent with the spirit in which the Secretary General has put the report in public and member states.

"We intend and expect this to continue. We are willing to facilitate, if required, but we don't need to give the telephone numbers and addresses of Volcker or members of the Committee which is a matter of public record," Tharoor said.

"There is nothing that prevents Virendra Dayal or anyone from Indian Press from contacting Volcker. We certainly hope to help in this process," he said

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Title: Vajpayee Asks Un To Provide Details To Preserve India's Respect And Nail Congress Author: Preetam SohaniSource: India DailyDate: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/5397.asp

It is time for them to go and may be for ever. There is no scope of this kind of corrupt behavior! Give us the proof to bring self respect back to india says Vajpayee, the former Prime Minsiter to United Nations.

According to media reports,Preparing to nail the ruling coalition on the Volcker report in the upcoming winter session of Parliament, the Opposition NDA on Monday approached the United Nations and sought documents which had named the Congress party and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh in the Iraqi oil deals.

In a letter to United Nations secretary general, NDA leaders including former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and alliance convenor George Fernandes also sought to know whether the Volcker Committee gave prior intimation and opportunities to persons concerned in India to explain themselves as also the modalities followed in the probe.

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Title: Volcker: Congress Writes To UNAuthor: DH newsSource: Deccan Herald

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Date: November 08, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov82005/national206382005117.asp

Even as K Natwar Singh was virtually forced to let go of his external affairs portfolio on Monday, the Congress sent a “letter” to the United Nations through a prominent legal firm on the Volcker report controversy, saying it had nothing to do with “any” individual or firm that might have claimed to represent it in the Iraqi oil-for-food contracts.

Though sent through prominent legal firm Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co, the communication seeking several clarifications regarding the mention of Congress in the Volcker committee report was described as a “letter” in keeping with the government’s advice after the AICC initially spoke of sending a “legal notice” to the UN-mandated committee.

Very significantly, the Congress, which has steadfastly refused to defend Natwar Singh on the controversy in black and white even once, says in the letter, “The Congress wishes to unequivocally and categorically state that it had not authorised any company or firm or individual to represent or act on behalf of the Congress in any oil-for-food contract or any other oil contract.”

Signed by Pallavi S Shroff, partner in the firm, the letter is addressed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and has been both faxed and e-mailed to UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Shashi Tharoor.

Interestingly, though it is not a legal notice, it does not fail to mention that it has been written by the firm “on behalf of our client, The Indian National Congress (otherwise known as the Congress party) having its office at 24, Akbar Road, New Delhi, India”. Pointing to the references made about the Congress in the Volcker report, the letter says that the report cast serious aspersions on the party and also that it had not received any “notice or letter or information” from the committee on the issue.

“The Congress wishes to unequivocally and categorically state that it had no dealings in respect of any oil-for-food contract or any other oil contract with the government of Iraq or any of its agencies (including SOMO) or any company or any firm or any individual,” it says.

“The Congress is naturally anxious that the record should be set straight, that its fair name and reputation should be vindicated, and that all allegations of any involvement in any oil-for-food contract or illicit payments should be withdrawn. Hence this letter,” it says.

Further, the letter requests the UN to immediately make available to the Congress the sources of evidence that contain any reference to the party, including the records of UN oil-for-food records, the Iraqi government, various financial institutions and also those provided by any entity involved in purchase of oil from Iraq.

‘Who was notified?’

The letter also indirectly challenges the UN that the Volcker committee had not contacted it at all before naming it in the report, seeking to know from the UN if the Volcker committee had sent a notice to the Congress informing it that it would be identified in the report as a beneficiary and if it had asked the party to respond to the allegations.

If replies to both the queries were in the affirmative, the letter asks, “What is the date of the notice, and to what name and address was the notice/notices addressed. And in what manner or mode was the notice/notices delivered to the addressee?” It also asks the UN to furnish the Congress with copies of such notices.

AICC spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan refused to confirm or deny whether the letter was a “legal notice”, saying, “It is a letter seeking clarifications, I am not able to characterise it further.”

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Title: Annan Asked Volcker To Change ReportAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Deccan HeraldDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov72005/index2120462005116.asp

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had asked Paul Volker to change the language about the business dealings of his son as he thought it could force his resignation.

The UN chief and his lawyer asked Mr Volcker to change the words about the business of Kojo Annan just hours before the publication of the draft in September, the Los Angeles Times reported. He agreed as he thought it was merely a part of the due process, the daily quoted him as saying.

On whether he thought the UN chief knew about his son’s attempts to use the elder Annan’s connections for his company’s benefit, Mr Volcker said: “To this day, I still don’t know”. He had no idea how much the 18-month investigation would expose the vulnerabilities of the UN and how close he would come to toppling the Secretary General as its leader, the daily added.

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Title: Country In QuandaryAuthor: B. S. Raghavan Source: Business LineDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/11/07/stories/2005110700750800.htm

EVER since the references in the Volcker report to the Congress Party and the External Affairs Minister, Mr Natwar Singh, became public knowledge, the country has been in a quandary as to whom to believe, and whom to disbelieve. Here is a comprehensive document depicting the tangled web of payoffs and kickbacks in one of the worst managed UN programmes whose humanitarian purpose was cynically exploited for selfish ends. It has been prepared by a Committee comprising personages of impeccable credentials: An American who was the respected head of the Federal Reserve, a Swiss expert who had made extensive investigations into money laundering and financial misdeeds and an eminent South African well-versed in the working of international organisations.

Its appointment had secured the approval of the Security Council (Resolution 1538 of April 21, 2004) which called upon the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and all other Member States, including their national regulatory authorities, "to cooperate fully by all appropriate means with the inquiry", and declared its intention "to remain actively seized of the matter." Its report submitted to the UN on October 27 is based on a scrutiny of nearly a million records maintained by the concerned Ministries of the Government of Iraq pertaining to the period in which all the various shady transactions took place.

Long before they came within the purview of the Volcker Committee, within a few months of the US occupation of Iraq, their contents, were being carried on the Web sites of the West Asian media and put out in the statements of the members of the Coalition Authority. (Ref article "Oil as a weapon of mass corruption", Business Line October 15, 2004)

Thus, they were not a concoction of the Volcker Committee which only compiled them from available official sources. The Committee should be lauded for having done a credible job, while leaving it to national governments to undertake their own probes into the matter from where it had left off.

The right thing to do now is not to cast aspersions on the Committee, or indulge in any histrionics, but to institute a thoroughgoing inquiry, as the Prime Minister has promised, into the "root of the matter to establish the truth or otherwise of the references." That is the only way for the country to clear the air and come out of its quandary.

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Title: Get It RightAuthor: Editorial, Indian ExpressSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEJ20051106211331&Title=Second+Editorial&rLink=#0

This is in the nature of a reality check. The response to the Volcker Committee Report appears to be taking on a life of its own. Part of the problem is that it has become intensely politicised. Now India has a well-established legacy of argumentation, but let us also be mindful of the rules of the game.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The fact is that the issue involves the government of the day, and a serving minister. As this newspaper has argued, it is for the Congress party and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh to set their house in order, and we can only hope that they do this expeditiously and effectively.

Having said that, we would also like to state unequivocally that there is no room whatsoever for fantasies to be peddled as facts and wild conspiracy theories to be given the patina of truth.

Ultimately, there are issues of national interest involved, and flat-footed attempts to embarrass the present government to score political points may well prove to be an exercise at tarnishing India’s reputation and standing on the world stage. Whatever our internal political differences — and there are many in a country as vibrant, even chaotic, as ours — we have always presented a united face to the world.

Let us always be conscious of that foundational principle as a controversy that has both distinct domestic and international ramifications has the nation in its grip. So let us get the debate on this issue right. This is not a mud pie throwing contest. It is about getting at the truth and to do so not for political gains, and certainly not to target individuals within the Congress for the sake of embarrassing them, but for the sake of Indian democracy.

If the system demands correctives because of the Volcker Committee revelations, we need to address them. That, ultimately, should be the reason why we demand to know the truth.

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Title: India Announces Probe Into Volcker's UN ReportAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: ReutersDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://in.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-07T004853Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-222373-1.xml

India announced a probe on Sunday that would look into whether foreign minister Natwar Singh or the ruling Congress party had received favours from Saddam Hussein as stated in an U.N. report released late last month.

Both Natwar Singh and the Congress, which heads the coalition government, have denied any wrongdoing and the Indian foreign minister has termed the U.N. report's findings as "outrageous".

A spokesman for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Office said a former U.N. official from India, Virendra Dayal, would probe into the U.N. report that was led by former U.S. federal reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

"Virendra Dayal would be a special envoy of the government of India to liase with the United Nations organisation and its member states to gather relevant materials including those on the unverified references in the report regarding the involvement of Indian entities and individuals," Sanjaya Baru told reporters.

The Congress-led government had been under pressure to order a probe after the report by the U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee said politicians in several nations were given oil vouchers that could be sold for a commission to help the former Iraqi dictator in his attempts to get sanctions lifted.

Both Natwar Singh and Congress were named in the report.

The 74-year-old foreign minister, has who led India's campaign for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, has been targeted by the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposition party over the Volcker report. It said he must quit.

Media reports have said some of Natwar Singh's ministerial colleagues had also asked him to resign but the veteran diplomat has said he saw no reason to quit.

The oil-for-food programme, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003, aimed to ease the impact on ordinary Iraqis of U.N. sanctions, imposed when Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Under the scheme, Iraq was allowed to sell oil to buy food, medicine and many other goods.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The U.N. report said that some 2,200 companies made illicit payments totalling $1.8 billion to Saddam's government under the programme.

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Title: Natwar Says He Favours Revision Of India's Vote On Iran NukeAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Press Trust of IndiaDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/$All/7A8DA2AEB866EF27652570B10059B5CF?OpenDocument

In significant remarks, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh today said he would favour revision of India's vote on Iran nuclear programme at the upcoming meeting of IAEA if a resolution stronger than the one placed last time was put forward."If a resolution is placed at the IAEA which is more severe than the last one which says that this matter (Iran nuclear issue) must go to the UN Security Council, I can as Foreign Minister of India tell you that my recommendation to the Government will be to revise our vote," he told reporters here after addressing the inauguration of 'India-Africa Project Partnership 2005 Expanding Horizons'.

He emphasised that during the voting at IAEA in Vienna on November 24, "we will take decisions considering what we think is in our vital national interest." The Minister also made a veiled attack on the US for its war in Iraq saying "India and Africa should stand together so that no country or group of countries can take unilateral action to reduce countries to what has been done in Iraq." India had gone along with the US and EU in voting against Iran at the last IAEA meeting in Vienna in September, triggering strong protests by UPA's Left allies. However, the government defended its stand saying it helped avoid referring the issue to UNSC.

Singh's remarks assume significance in the midst of the Volcker committee report, an issue on which the Left parties have supported the External Affairs Minister.

Singh noted that India had "succeeded" in September in preventing the issue from going to the UN Security Council.

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Title: New Fed Chairman From February — Daunting Task Before BernankeAuthor: S. Venkitaramanan Source: Business LineDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/11/07/stories/2005110700770800.htm

To succeed the US Fed Chairman, Mr Alan Greenspan, is a challenge, especially when the successor is a comparatively unknown, albeit brilliant, economist. Mr Ben Bernanke has a daunting task ahead of him considering that the Fed is today less in command of its economic circumstances than before. But, judging by his stand in his speeches and writings, he may well surprise the world by an innovative and unconventional approach to global economic problems, says S. Venkitaramanan.

MR BEN Bernanke, the Chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and a former Professor at Princeton University, is to succeed Mr Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. People have been quite exercised about the successor to Mr Greenspan, who occupied the top slot at the Fed for 18 years with great success and aplomb.

To succeed Mr Greenspan is a challenge, especially when the successor is a comparatively unknown, albeit brilliant, economist. True, Mr Bernanke has had a stint at the Federal Reserve as a colleague of Mr Greenspan's from 2002 to early 2005, where he had a chance to participate in the latter's consensual policy-making. Significantly, his choice has been welcomed by many, including Milton Friedman.

Mr Bernanke has a daunting task ahead of him considering that the Fed is today less in command of its economic circumstances than before. Domestic savers have less to do with US bond prices than foreign central banks, in view of the huge dependence of the US economy on foreign capital flows.

The credibility of the Fed is of extreme importance, especially in this context, with some foreign investors inclined to turn sensitive to the dollar's strength and the health of the US economy.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Further, to succeed such a great central banker as Mr Greenspan is itself a challenge. Be this as it may, the rich legacy of Mr Greenspan, his legendary successes in taming inflation and nurturing growth in the face of the dotcom and the LTCM crashes, have themselves created a difficult precedent for the Chairman-designate to follow. This challenge is also complicated by Mr Bernanke's known position on what he calls "inflation targeting" as the guiding tool-kit of the central bank in preference to the more discretion-based stance of Mr Greenspan and his predecessor, Mr Paul Volcker. Mr Bernanke himself admits that his recommendation is one of constrained discretion.

By now, most observers of the monetary policy scene are familiar with monetary targeting and exchange rate targeting. In contrast to these conventional paradigms, inflation targeting or, rather, inflation forecast targeting, as the IMF's World Economic Outlook calls it, has a clearer focus on inflation. It gets to the core of the concerns that face a central bank, especially in these days of rising inflationary expectations.

Mr Bernanke has himself been pressing for "inflation targeting" as a policy for the Federal Reserve itself, but Chairman Greenspan has, in effect, overruled him because he considers that inflation targeting may be too restrictive and does not provide necessary degrees of freedom.

Bernanke himself admits that inflation targeting amounts to constraints on the central bank as it means the central bank will focus more directly on inflation numbers.

But he has necessarily to make his compromises, especially in his forthcoming hearings before the Congress for his confirmation.

Growth of the economy and increase of jobs are both high on the policy agenda of the political masters in Washington DC. The Fed itself is mandated to ensure adequacy of employment. Mr Bernanke is not unaware of this and he will naturally adjust his focus on fighting inflation to keep in mind the twin goals of growth and job expansion. Does Mr Bernanke's coming in at the Fed spell a change in interest rate tightening? He himself had been a party to many of Mr Greenspan's 25-basis-point increases when he was at the Fed. At the same time, his flexibility is seen from the fact that he is on record as having endorsed in a well-publicised speech the policy of reducing interest rates when the Fed sensed the threat of deflation in the US economy.

He, in fact, joined Mr Greenspan in bringing down the funds rate to the level of 1 per cent, below which there was really no further room to squeeze the interest rate.

In a widely-noticed speech given at the time, Mr Bernanke declared himself not averse to opening the printing press if deflation was the danger and the nation's economic growth was at risk. The "Bernanke effect" on the global economic scenario will depend most critically on how clearly and quickly he adjusts the interest rate in the first few months after he takes over in February 2006. His credibility will then be on test.

The markets have, however, declared that, in their judgment, he would be prone to raising interest rates. Bond prices on Wall Street had fallen on the news of his nomination. But expectations on the Wall Street bond market may be deceptive, as was proved in Mr Greenspan's case.

The markets had "greeted" the announcement of Mr Greenspan's appointment in the 1980s with a similar but less sharp fall in bond prices. In spite of this, Mr Greenspan deservedly became a darling of the markets over time, notwithstanding his tendency to lecture them about irrational exuberance.

Who knows whether the markets and the world may come to like the brilliant Ben Bernanke in spite of, or perhaps because of, a declared failing for Hawaian shirts and an "unsuited" dress code in the Fed?

Maybe he will evolve a more suitable policy code for all central bankers in his own time. The test of a central banker comes when a crisis of confidence hits the markets and the economy. He has then to think out of the box. Textbook solutions are not sufficient. They may even be counter-productive.

In this sense, Mr Greenspan has proved a great manager of crisis. As soon as he was anointed Chairman, he had to face the great market crash in 1987. His response was classic. He flooded the market with liquidity and calmed it. Similarly, he took on the crisis associated with the human collapse and the Asian crisis with aplomb.

He never panicked. He carried the markets and the rest of the world with him. In the 1990s, Fed experts argued that there was a great danger of inflation and that Mr Greenspan had to decide whether he was to tighten the screws or loosen them.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

His instinct told him that the technological revolution, including IT, was really working to increase US productivity.

He gambled in favour of technology-led growth and kept rates benign. This led to the surprising growth of the 1990s. A simple inflation target would not have helped in the crisis.

The question is whether Mr Bernanke will be equally flexible and innovative when confronted with crises. I feel that a challenge of the kind Mr Greenspan faced will bring forth a similar bold response, if not a more flamboyant one from Mr Bernanke, who has spent years of academic research on such issues.

A well-prepared mind such as his is the best guarantee that it can acquit itself brilliantly when a crisis unfolds unexpectedly. There are many candidates for potential economic crises facing Mr Bernanke. One possibility is that of Asian central banks losing their nerve and moving their reserves away from the greenback. A consequential potential risk of a falling dollar is a development that is in the nature of an accident waiting to happen.

If Mr Bernanke is to be judged by the exposition of his stand in his speeches and writings, he will be more than equal to any such challenge that a global decline of the dollar can bring.

True, Mr Bernanke has to win the acceptance of his approach and build confidence with the markets, particularly among his fellow central bankers, especially from Asia. But that should not be difficult considering that the Asian central banks have not much of an alternative avenue for their surpluses.

That, by itself, is Mr Bernanke's best bet. It is, after all, the privilege of the world's richest nations to issue IOUs which carry credibility, however low its own net worth may be. The Bernanke effect on the world's imbalances may well be to find an alternative way of investing these reserves, maybe in a replay of the Brettonwoods twins — a reinvigorated IMF and a rejuvenated World Bank.

Bernanke may be as different from Greenspan, as Greenspan was from Volcker. He may very well surprise the world by an innovative and unconventional approach to global economic problems.

In this, his academic work will definitely give him plenty of precedents and paradigms to build on, although some of his recent speeches on global imbalance do not give much evidence of such innovative thinking.

In the same way, as Greenspan proved innovative for the US domestic economy, may we hope that Bernanke will turn out to be revolutionary on the subject of resolution of global economic imbalances? All this, of course, is subject to a big caveat.

The President, Mr George W. Bush, must be willing to listen to his former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers even though he has changed his place of work to the exalted office of the Federal Reserve Building. Here is wishing Mr Bernanke a successful term as the head of the Fed, one that matches the glorious `reign' of his legendary predecessor.

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Title: No Smoke Without FireAuthor: Joginder SinghSource: TribuneDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051107/edit.htm#6

In 1996 the UN imposed trade sanctions on Iraq, which meant that no country could trade with it. However, it allowed an exemption to the embargo — it permitted Iraq to sell oil for money to buy humanitarian goods, to alleviate the misery and ease the hardship of sanctions on ordinary Iraqi people.

So strict was the control that the UN determined how much oil Iraq could sell and at what price. Money was credited into a UN-controlled account and was to be used only for humanitarian purchases. However, it was left to Iraq to decide whom it would sell oil to and from whom it would buy humanitarian supplies. The money for such purchases was to be paid for and from the UN-controlled account of Iraq.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The need for investigation arose as details of the scam started emerging in months after the US occupation of Iraq. After allegations of bribery against Kofi Annan and Benon Sevon, Administrator of the (Oil-For-Food Programme) FFP, were made, the UN Secretary General Annan appointed an independent committee to probe the accusations.

The committee was headed by Paul Volcker, a former chief of the US federal reserve. Its final report was released on September 28, 2005.

The Independent Inquiry Committee, looked into the indictment that Saddam diverted some $1.8 billion in kickbacks and surcharges.

The report was prepared after one and a half years of investigation on how the Saddam Hussein regime abused the humanitarian “oil-for-food” programme started by the UN in 1996.

The committee has concluded that the Saddam regime awarded lucrative oil contracts to individuals and companies across 66 nations to create a diplomatic and political environment against the sanctions.

Such contracts by the then Iraqi regime helped individuals and companies get Iraqi crude at concessional rates, which they sold at the market rates.

According to the report, from 1999 Iraqi officials maintained a policy requiring 10 per cent kickbacks on humanitarian contracts. The next year they began requiring surcharges of 10 to 30 cents per barrel of the oil sold.

“Many companies freely went along with Iraq’s demands. Others made payments to third parties or agents, while disregarding the likely purpose of these payments” Iraq sold $64.2 billion in oil to 248 companies around the world and then spent $34.5 billion on food and medicine from more than 3,400 companies.

In mid-1999 first kickbacks started — ostensibly fees for inland transport imposed on the suppliers of humanitarian material. By 2000 the regime wanted a flat 10 per cent “after-sales services fee” (ASSF) on all contracts to be paid to Iraqi embassies or Iraqi front companies abroad.

About $1.55 billion of kickbacks were received — $1.2 billion as ASSF and $530 million as inland transport fees. From the late 2000 to the late 2002 the Iraqi regime imposed a 10-30 cent “surcharge” per barrel of oil. The price fixed for Iraqi oil was lower than the market price, hence buyers were willing to pay kickbacks for buying contracts.

This money — estimated at $229 million — didn’t go to the UN-controlled account. “Non-contractual beneficiaries” emerged — people or companies without contracts but buying oil through fronts.

More than 4,500 companies have been involved in the UN oil-for-food programme. The country with the most companies involved in the programme was Russia followed by France.

The report also says that as many as 119 Indian firms, including several pharma majors, figure on the list of suppliers of humanitarian material to Iraq who either knowingly or unwittingly paid kickbacks to the Iraqi regime.

The total amount paid by the Indian firms in the form of “after-sales service fees (ASSF)” and “inland transport fees (ITF)” — the two forms in which the kickback was collected — was $22.2 million.

Among the names that figure on the list are companies like Cipla, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s, Wockhardt, Ajanta Pharma, Alembic, Tata International, Godrej & Boyce, Thermax and even public sector Balmer Lawrie.

However, the biggest amounts were shelled out by a relatively lesser known entity of our country, Priyanka Overseas, which supplied a wide variety of items including tea, sugar and polypropylene bags. The company reportedly paid a total of $2.1 mn as ASSF and ITF. In the same report names of Natwar Singh, the Congress and Bhim Singh also figure as the beneficiaries.

The Volcker Committee’s 500-page report has named India’s External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh in two tables purportedly showing “non-contractual beneficiaries” of Iraqi oil sales.

Under the head “Sources of Evidence” in tables 1 and 3 of the report for this section, there is an assertion that the information in the relevant tables is “broadly based on four sources”, which are (1); “databases and records” maintained by the United Nations; (2) records of the Government of Iraq, primarily from the Ministry of Oil and the State Oil Marketing Organisation

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

(SOMO); (3) records from various financial institutions involved in the oil financing transactions; and (4) records provided by “certain entities involved in the purchase of oil from Iraq.”

The allegations have been denied by the Foreign Minister. Assuming that what he says is true, how has his name figured in the documents of other countries is a question which needs to be answered. After all there can be no smoke without some fire.

It is time that no reports of corruption even against the high and mighty are put on face value. They should be brought to a conclusion either by indicting, or clearing them, through our own independent investigation.

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Title: Probe Into Oil Scam OrderedAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Deccan HeraldDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov72005/index21222005116.asp

The Government on Sunday announced the appointment of Virendra Dayal, former Under Secretary in the United Nations, as Special Envoy to head the inquiry into the payoffs alleged by the Volcker Committee to External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh, the Congress and Indian entities in the oil-for-food scam.

The Special Envoy will be given full powers and authority of the Government of India to execute the responsibility entrusted to him, an announcement by the Prime Minister’s Office said.

A statement read out by Prime Minister’s Media Adviser Sanjaya Baru said Dayal, a former Chef de Cabinet, will liaise with the UN and its members to gather relevant materials including those on the “unverified references” in the Volcker Committee report regarding the involvement of Indian entities and individuals. The statement said Mr Dayal’s appointment will be for an initial term of three months or until the completion of this task, whichever is earlier. The statement said the government was contemplating “other steps” as well which would be announced shortly.

The appointment of Mr Dayal was in continuation of the earlier statements made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Volcker report regarding getting to the root of the matter establishing the truth or otherwise of the unverified references made in that.

The “other steps”, sources indicated, could be a domestic probe which could be judicial in nature. Meanwhile, the BJP said the Virendra Dayal committee lacked jurisdiction and legal authority to collect evidence. “This committee will lack the jurisdiction and legal authority to collect evidence which is substantially outside the county. Evidence can be only obtained under the provisions of Section 166 (A) of the Criminal Procedures Code and this committee lacks the jurisdiction that is needed,” BJP General Secretary and spokesman Arun Jaitley told PTI.

Mr Jaitley reiterated his party’s demand that a criminal case be registered in the matter and the CBI inquire into it.

To add to the beleaguered external affairs minister’s woes, Enforcement Directorate sleuths on Sunday searched business and residential premises of Andaleeb Sehgal who, according to a UN report by former US Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker, played a key role in the Iraqi deal. Sehgal is a friend of Mr Natwar Singh’s son Jagat.

Earlier reports had said Sehgal was interrogated on Sunday. “We did question him during the course of the searches but he stonewalled all our queries. He has agreed to depose tomorrow,” an Enforcement Directorate official said.

Sehgal had been ignoring summons for the past two days in spite of these having been served at his two residences and office here. Security agencies on Saturday issued a “Look Out Circular” against him to ensure he did not slip out of India.

Officials said with the change in India’s tax laws, Sehgal could not be charged but could, at best, be penalised for bringing into the country any money from the Iraqi deal.

Sehgal and his firm Hamdan Exports, the Volcker report said, paid $7,48,540 (Rs 30 million) into a Jordanian Bank as an “illegal surcharge” for Iraqi oil, with the money eventually reaching then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

On slippery ground

Congress sources said the decision to order a probe into the allegations contained in the Volcker report was taken after two senior ministers — both of them eminent lawyers — opined that the document placed Mr Natwar Singh on slippery ground. Dr Manmohan Singh on Saturday asked Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Minister of State for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal to examine the Volcker report.

Mr Natwar Singh on Saturday told NDTV he had the “complete support” of Dr Manmohan Singh and Ms Gandhi and would thus not step down.

The probe will examine four questions: did the Congress receive money, did any others receive money in the name of Natwar Singh or the Congress, the manner in which the Congress and Natwar Singh figure in the report, and whether any notice was sent to the party and the minister.

PM’s fiat UN envoy

The prime minister on Friday asked India’s permanent representative to the UN Nirupam Sen to meet both Volcker and Mr Annan.

Earlier, addressing a press conference, Mr Arun Jaitely said: “The facts stated in the Volcker report constitute sufficient material to merit registration of a criminal case by the CBI. Under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) ACT 1976, no person can accept a foreign contribution or agree to acquire any currency from a foreign source on behalf of any political party”.

OIL STAIN

*The BJP says the panel lacks jurisdiction to collect proof.

*Government contemplates “other steps.”

*ED sleuths search premises of Natwar Singh’s son’s friend.

*PM and Ms Gandhi discuss steps to contain political fallout.

*PM asks India’s UN representative to meet Volcker and Annan.

*Natwar in a TV interview dismisses Volcker report as “outrageous”.

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Title: Special Envoy' To Verify Volcker ChargesAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/07/stories/2005110715370100.htm

The Centre on Sunday night appointed former diplomat Virendra Dayal as "special envoy'' to liaise with the United Nations to "gather relevant materials including those on the unverified references in the [Volcker] Report regarding the involvement of Indian entities and individuals.'' A separate judicial probe will be announced on Monday.

This was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's media adviser Sanjaya Baru, who said the "special envoy'' would be granted full power and authority of the Government to "execute the responsibilities entrusted to him.'' Mr. Dayal's appointment will be for an initial term of three months or till completion of his task "whichever is earlier.''

For the greater part of the day, the senior leadership of the Government and the Congress was busy giving final touches to the "probe" to be instituted in the matter of the Volcker Report, which had named External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and the Congress as "non-contractual" beneficiaries in the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

By evening it appeared that the Government's desire to have a former Chief Justice of India (CJI) head the probe had run into a minor hitch, with not many retired CJIs available. One former CJI, when approached, cited "health reasons" to decline the assignment.

On Sunday morning the "core group" — the Prime Minister, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, and Political Secretary to the Congress president Ahmed Patel — met at Dr. Manmohan Singh's residence. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Union Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj were special invitees.

The group finalised, what one participant described as, the "polite letter" that the Congress would be sending to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan.

The letter would stress that the Congress had to be treated differently than individuals named in the Volcker Report and that it would be grateful to know on what basis or evidence its name got mentioned among the "non-contractual beneficiaries." The party leadership wants its name to be cleared of any charge.

The second item before the group was firming up the "probe" into the allegations contained in the report against the External Affairs Minister. After a detailed and minute reading of the voluminous report the assessment is that there were too many `matching' details for anybody's comfort.

Organisations and individuals' names were `misused' and it was imperative that the matter be probed thoroughly and credibly. It was decided that the probe team should be empowered to travel abroad or question any official, past or present.

Natwar meets Manmohan

Soon after the group finished its work, Mr. Natwar Singh had a meeting with the Prime Minister and the National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan. After his interaction at the Prime Minister's residence, the Foreign Minister came out with a written statement which he read out to the media. According to Mr. Singh, the Volcker Report and the "unsubstantiated references" were discussed, besides "pressing foreign policy matters."

Jogi defends Natwar

Congress MP and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi came out in defence of Mr. Natwar Singh, questioning the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) moral authority in demanding his resignation. Drawing attention to the track record of the NDA and BJP on such issues, he said the Volcker Report should be seen in the backdrop of India's friendly relations with Iraq, particularly the Baath Party.

Mr. Jogi said he was most concerned about the allegations made against the Congress. He said it was preposterous for anyone to suggest that the Congress purchased and sold oil, and took commission. "We challenge Mr. Volcker to produce even an iota of evidence.''

Also, he questioned the BJP's claim to `swadeshi' and wondered how a party which talks of "national pride'' could depend on a "so-called foreign enquiry conducted by a foreigner."

"If the BJP has any national pride, they should not take the support of an enquiry trashed by most self-respecting nations," Mr. Jogi said.

Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar, in an interview to NDTV, cautioned the Congress against sending a legal notice to the United Nations. Of the view that there was nothing wrong in pursuing such a line if the Congress was sure of itself, the Agriculture Minister said such a strategy could well boomerang.

Earlier in the day, NCP spokesman D.N. Tripathi had dismissed the Opposition demand for Mr. Natwar Singh's resignation on the premise that mere mention of name was no evidence of his involvement.

Will not resign

PTI reports:

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Mr. Singh ruled out his resignation from the Cabinet, saying he was not guilty and he had the backing of a whole lot of people in the Congress.

"The question does not arise [of resignation]. I am doing a good job. I told the Prime Minister what am I accused of," he told reporters after the official announcement about the appointment of Virendra Dayal.

"I am not guilty of anything. Vindication does not arise," he said.

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Title: Volcker Report Author: Editorial, The Deccan HeraldSource: Deccan HeraldDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov72005/editpage158352005116.asp

The government is said to be considering setting up a panel to investigate the findings of the Volcker Committee Report. The setting up of a probe panel is welcome as it could clear the names of the innocent and pin blame on those who are guilty of the charges levelled by the Volcker Committee. The committee was set up by the United Nations to investigate illicit payments that were made to the Iraqi government under former President Saddam Hussein in exchange for contracts under the Oil-For-Food programme. The Volcker Report has named some 2,200 companies worldwide as having made these illicit payments. Around 129 Indian entities, including the Congress party and External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh, have been named as beneficiaries of the kickbacks. Mr Singh has angrily dismissed the report as baseless and has strenuously denied that he was a beneficiary of kickbacks. However, Mr Singh has failed to answer adequately the questions that the report throws up, choosing instead to defend himself by claiming the support of the Congress party, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. The proposed panel should prove beyond doubt that he and the Congress were not involved in the racket. Notably, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax officials have already swung into action, questioning some of the people named in the report.

The Congress’ response to the report so far has been immature. It pushed itself and the country into an embarrassing situation by threatening to serve legal notice on the UN — a ridiculous step considering that individual entities cannot take legal action against the world body. It can save the country more embarrassment by probing the report’s findings.

Mr Singh’s continuation as external affairs minister has become untenable. The Volcker Report has cast a cloud over Mr Singh and so long as its shadow remains, the external affairs minister’s credibility will stand weakened and India’s voice on the international stage diminished. Mr Singh has rejected demands for his resignation but he should step down pending the investigation. It is in his own interests as well as that of the party and the country that he does so.

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Title: Volcker Reveals The Kojo Annan ConnectionAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 07, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/07/stories/2005110705981200.htm

It had the potential to topple Kofi Annan: Volcker Annan failed to keep a tab on his son's business dealings, he says With his report on Iraqi oil deals creating a political storm in India, Paul Volcker, in a startling revelation, has said he agreed to change the language that referred to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo's business dealings.

Mr. Volcker, who investigated allegations of corruption in the U.N.'s $64-billion Iraqi oil-for food programme, said he had no idea how much the 18-month probe would expose the vulnerabilities of the world body and how close he would come to toppling the Secretary-General as its leader.

``It had that potential from the start,'' Mr. Volcker said in an interview to Los Angeles Times. But when it came to the moment when he realised that Mr. Annan's job hung on his words, ``I felt uncomfortable,'' he said. The daily said that the U.N. chief and his lawyer asked Mr. Volcker to change the language about business dealings by Mr. Kojo Annan that they thought could force his father's resignation, hours before the publication of the draft forward of the report in September.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Harsh conclusion

Before releasing the September report on Mr. Kojo Annan, Mr. Volcker met the U.N. chief and his lawyer to discuss the harsh conclusion. ``The wording we had was that Annan's performance did not meet the standards of the United Nations,'' Mr. Volcker said.

Asked on Thursday, the day the controversial report in which External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh and Congress had been named as non-contractual ``beneficiaries'' of the programme, whether he thought the U.N. chief knew about his son's attempts to use his father's connections for his company's benefit, Mr. Volcker said, ``To this day, I still don't know.''

Annan's reaction

Mr. Kofi Annan's reaction, according to another person with knowledge of the meeting, was that the way the conclusions were phrased implied that he favoured Cotecna's (the Swiss firm for which Kojo worked) bid, and made him look so bad that it might force his resignation. Mr. Kofi Annan's lawyer, Gregory Craig, asked that the findings be dealt with separately, because Mr. Annan took responsibility for the management issues, but not for his son's behaviour, of which he says he had no knowledge. ``We presented the facts, and they spoke for themselves,'' Mr. Annan told The Times about the meeting. Mr. Volcker agreed.

Even if he had doubts that Mr. Kofi Annan was unaware of Cotecna's bid, he was convinced that Mr. Annan had not influenced the contract. It was not worth toppling a secretary-general. ``No one ever said he had influenced the process, and that was an important consideration,'' Mr. Volcker said. ``That he did not do a proper investigation [of his son's possible conflict of interest] was the key point. It would have saved him a lot of trouble.''

``The U.N. is an important institution, and it had a problem,'' Mr. Volcker said. Mr. Volcker understood that clarifying what Mr. Annan knew about his son's dealings was central to the investigation, and he devoted months to following leads, the daily said.

He concluded that Mr. Kojo Annan dealt in a shady world of many bank accounts, false contracts and friends of convenience. But there was no evidence, he said, that Mr. Annan influenced the award of the contract, or even definitively knew that his son's company was bidding for it. ``Nobody disagrees that there were four or five times when you raise your eyebrows and say, `Didn't it dawn on Kofi that Cotecna was involved?' But then you say, `Then again, maybe not,''' Mr. Volcker said.

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Title: BJP Holds Protest To Seek Natwar's ResignationAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 06, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/06/stories/2005110604680800.htm

The Bharatiya Janata Party's State unit on Saturday held a protest demonstration in the capital demanding the resignation of Union External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh. They burnt an effigy of Congress president Sonia Gandhi in front of the BJP headquarters here.

Demanding the resignation of Mr. Singh in the light of his indictment by the Volcker report on the oil-for-food programme during the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, the BJP leaders accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre of behaving in an arbitrary manner "hurting the pride of the nation."

Nationwide stir

Calling the scandal as "corruption at the highest level" the protest march — slated to proceed towards Ms. Gandhi's residence but was stopped at Ashoka Road itself — is part of the first phase of a nationwide agitation launched by the BJP to put pressure on Mr. Singh to resign.

Addressing the protestors at the rally, Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan said: "The Congress party has for long cheated the people and this accusation by an international agency of repute has brought shame to the entire country. The nation's pride has been hurt and we demand that Mr. Singh be asked to resign immediately. We also understand that it isn't just Mr. Singh who is part of this scam but even Ms. Gandhi is involved in the entire deal.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Demanding that the Congress take responsibility for the action of its senior leaders instead of "trying to buy time and dilute the issue," BJP's national vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said it was time the Congress paid attention to the "international humiliation" that the report had brought upon India.

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Title: Independent Inquiry LikelyAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 06, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/06/stories/2005110611530100.htm

After two rounds of consultations between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the United Progressive Alliance Government is on the verge of instituting an independent inquiry into the Volcker Committee disclosures, according to informed sources.

Dr. Singh had a second round of discussions with Ms. Gandhi here on Saturday on the Volcker fallout. He also met senior aides on how to proceed in the matter. The Committee named External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and the Congress "non-contractual beneficiaries" of Iraqi oil sales. Government sources suggest that both the political and administrative leaderships are convinced that the Volcker allegations need to be probed independently and in a manner that would satisfy public opinion. An in-house preliminary scrutiny of the report has already been made and its assessment is that the allegation against the Congress is "untrue."

Either a retired Chief Justice of India or an eminent "public man" could be asked to examine the report, travel to New York, seek the help of the Volcker Committee staff and call for other records and documents, or even examine the indicted individuals. A formal announcement is expected within a few days.

"Baseless report"

The Prime Minister is reported to be concerned that ideological arguments are being injected into a matter, which concerns only individuals. The Congress, on its part, dismissed as "baseless" a report quoting a non-resident Indian that Mr. Natwar Singh was carrying a letter from Ms. Gandhi to the then Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein.

Congress general secretary Ambika Soni said such reports were baseless and aimed at sensationalising the issue.

It was normal for the leader of the party to send messages of goodwill to heads of state Congress delegations were visiting. "This cannot be linked [to such contracts issue] ... it is wrong."

Ms. Soni said she had heard the NRI's comments aired by a television news network and that the individual did not link the allegations to the letter. In any case, "nobody can dare ask the Congress president to write such a letter. Neither the party nor the Congress president has any role and the party will take all steps necessary to defend its name and protect its prestige."

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Title: India's UN Envoy Told To Meet Annan, VolckerAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 06, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20051105081126&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=-42#8

India's permanent representative to the UN Nirupam Sen has been asked to meet UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Paul Volcker, who headed the UN probe into alleged payoffs in Iraqi oil deals, to find out the truth, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh said on Saturday.

“As Foreign Minister, I have spoken to our PR to UN half a dozen times (since the Volcker Committee report was made public). I have asked him ...Please get an appointment with the Secretary General, to have an appointment with Paul Volcker and find out the truth and let us know,” he said in an interview to NDTV.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Singh said, "if there is anything wrong that we have done, we would like to correct it. If we have not done, then we should convey our displeasure".

The minister said the Volcker report has been dismissed by the Foreign Minister of Russia, by the former Interior Minister of France, the Mayor of Milan and the South African government.

“I am dismissing it here on behalf of the Congress party and as Foreign Minister of India. We consider this outrageous.”

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Title: Natwar Singh And The Oil Slick Author: Vir SanghviSource: Hindustan TimesDate: November 06, 2005URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1538331,00300001.htm

There comes a time in the life of every government when the media decide that they are very bored. Generally, this phase occurs at a time when things are going well. Governments regard such a situation as being ideal. But for journos, this represents Page One hell.

If everything is fine then what are we going to write about? How do the countless 24-hour news channels fill up their air-time? Surely, there must be some excitement that we can create!

My guess is that the Manmohan Singh government has now entered this phase. There are simply no long-running or exciting stories to focus on. The rise and fall of the Sensex has become a bore. There’s only so much you can write about the Congress’s problems with the Left. And while a bomb blast or an earthquake might provide a temporary respite from the drought of good stories, the media need something juicy, something they can get their teeth into.

Unless you understand this phenomenon — and very few people outside the media realise how subjective and skewed our priorities can be — you will not make any sense out of the press’s obsession with the Natwar Singh/Iraq oil story.

Last Saturday, when The Hindu first ran the news, the media were temporarily distracted by a train accident and serial bomb blasts in Delhi. For two days, Natwar and the Iraq oil allegations were relegated to the bottom of Page One and the second half of every news bulletin.

But once it was clear that the Delhi Police were no nearer catching the bombers and that the only stories emanating from that tragic attack were human interest pieces, the channels began looking at the Natwar story again.

Of the two major political parties in the country, only one has any understanding of how journalism really works. The Congress still hasn’t realised that Doordarshan has lost its monopoly and that we now exist in a 24-hour news cycle. The BJP, on the other hand, recognises that news television is a hungry monster, constantly looking for new stories to feed on.

So, as interest in the blast stories subsided, Arun Jaitley — still the most media-savvy and the brightest of the new BJP generation — decided to revive the Natwar Singh issue. As BJP leaders demanded Natwar’s resignation, the media scented blood.

Jaitley has some experience of long-running international political scandals — remember

Bofors? — and so, he played it just right, calibrating his statements so that the press kept coming back for more. In contrast, the Congress blundered badly. Even though the party itself was the subject of one of the allegations, it did not recognise the importance of sending young and articulate spokespeople to the television studios. Instead, we got blanket denials read out solemnly at 24, Akbar Road — the kind of media strategy that would only have worked in the early days of All-India Radio.

As far as I can tell — and I have to be honest, my eyes glaze over when I get into the details of this very complicated scandal — the allegation is as follows: some people claiming to represent

Natwar Singh got the Iraqis to sell them oil, in 2001, at well below the international price. This oil was then re-sold via a Swiss firm called Masefield AG and the lucky beneficiaries of the cheap oil made a tidy profit. Somebody also claimed to represent

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

the Congress party and got some more cheap oil out of the Iraqis. As this oil was also re-sold via Masefield, it seems reasonable to assume that the same people claimed to represent both Natwar and the Congress party.

You can treat this as a minor matter. In those days, the Congress was not in power and Natwar was out of office. If the allegation that his son Jagat was the man who claimed to represent his father (and perhaps the Congress) is valid — and so far there is no proof of this — then the worst that can be said is that the son of an Opposition politician used his father’s contacts to make a quick buck. There is no question of corruption because not only was Natwar out of office but nobody thought it at all likely that the Congress would win the next election or that Natwar would ever become a minister again.

Nor was there any obvious quid pro quo. To say, as the BJP does, that Natwar opposed the Iraq invasion because his son had dealt in oil is silly. Most of India — and much of the BJP — also opposed George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. But none of us had any access to cheap Iraqi oil.

The Congress seems to have decided that even if the charges are valid they don’t amountto a big deal. Hence, the party’s relatively low-key response to the scandal.

While this attitude may well have worked in the early days of the Manmohan Singh government, when the honeymoon was on, I think that it is a serious mistake for the Congress to continue acting as though the scandal is going to go away. The media’s mood has changed. Everyone is hungry for a juicy story. Nobody is going to let go of the Natwar-Iraq controversy so easily.

Worse still, the BJP knows how to manipulate television’s hunger. Each day, its spokespeople step up the aggression and launch new attacks. They remember Bofors only too well. And they know that if they can suggest that the Congress party and the foreign minister were willing to sell out India’s interests for barrels of oil, they will touch a patriotic chord.

In the circumstances, it is foolish for the Congress to repeat the mistakes it made during Bofors. When Swedish Radio first announced, in 1987, that Bofors had paid kickbacks to secure the Indian contract, the Congress’s response should have been: We will investigate the allegations and get to the bottom of the issue. Instead, it rubbished the report without any investigation and, within a few weeks, its spokesmen were talking about a CIA plot to destabilise India.

For Congressmen to repeat the I-blame-the-CIA defence is nothing short of suicidal. Nobody is willing to believe — without any proof — that either the United Nations or Paul Volcker has it in for Natwar Singh or that Volcker is a CIA stooge.

Far better to do what Sonia Gandhi says she is planning.

We may laugh at the notion of somebody sending a legal notice to the UN. But at least it represents an attempt to find out who it was who approached the Iraqis and claimed to represent the Congress.

I don’t think Sonia will stop there. Nor do I think that Natwar Singh will be content to keep repeating the denials of the past week. He is, essentially, an honourable man who has no interest in making money illegally.

My guess is that sooner rather than later, Natwar will go to the Prime Minister, will offer to step down, and ask Manmohan Singh to appoint an independent investigator to get to the bottom of this scandal. Somebody needs to go to America to meet Volcker and to look at the evidence he’s collected. Similarly, we should send investigators to Iraq to discover which Indians benefited from Saddam Hussein’s largesse.

Sonia Gandhi has said she has nothing to hide. I believe her.

I don’t think that the party authorised anybody to collect money on its behalf. But somebody did collect the money. Sonia must act on her determination to find out who it was.

The Congress has already wasted a week. If it waits any longer, this scandal will spiral out of control. Far better for the government to appoint a credible, independent investigator right away. If the report exonerates Natwar — and he seems sure it will — then he can always return to the Cabinet.

But with the media on a feeding frenzy, the Prime Minister must act now.

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Title: No Sonia Hand In Oil Scam: Cong

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Deccan HeraldDate: November 06, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov62005/index2057262005115.asp

Congress denied that Sonia Gandhi was linked to Iraq’s oil-for-food scandal in which the party and its foreign minister have been named as beneficiaries. Congress on Saturday termed as “false and baseless”, the allegations that External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh had carried a letter by party president Sonia Gandhi to the then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein on the oil-for-food programme even as the ruling party backed off from its plans to send a legal notice to the Volcker Committee for naming it.

Strongly denying that Ms Gandhi had written a letter on the oil-for-food programme to Mr Hussein through Mr Singh when the latter visited Iraq in 2001, as is being alleged on a private TV channel by a businessman who has an office in Baghdad, AICC general secretary Ambika Soni said: “The reports that Sonia Gandhi was involved in the scandal are absolutely false and baseless”.

She, however, did not deny that Ms Gandhi had written a letter to the then Iraqi president, but explained that it was a routine letter of courtesy. “It is quite natural for the Congress president to give a letter to the head of a government as Congress maintains ties with many countries,” she said. The development came in the backdrop of Ms Gandhi holding her second meeting in as many days with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh even as Natwar Singh said he would not resign and would “fight back”, especially as he had the backing off both the Congress president and the Prime Minister. Though details of the meeting, also attended by National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, were not available, political circles were agog with speculation that the two leaders had discussed issues relating to the embarrassment from the scandal and the cabinet reshuffle. Dr Singh discussed the mode of the planned probe into the issue with Finance Minister P Chidambaram. The Congress top brass was also into damage control with regard to Natwar Singh’s reported comments before Left leaders that senior party colleagues Ms Soni, Pranab Mukherjee,

Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh were conspiring to oust him.Ms Soni said Congress was totally united on the issue. Meanwhile, the External Affairs Minister, who is reportedly miffed that none of the three AICC statements on the scandal had not even mentioned him, let alone defend him, said he would fight back.

His stance came even as Congress indicated it was giving a rethink to its plans to send a legal notice.

While Ms Sonia said the party had said so on the basis of legal advice “available at that time”, party spokesman and lawyer Abhishek Singhvi denied that Congress had wanted to sue the UN.

“We may sue Volcker, we may sue an individual. Or, we may not sue,” he said taking an ambivalent stand. He said: “Congress and the government want the UN to send all material, documents and evidence they have”, he said.

“If they fail to produce them, we will ask them to apologise, and if they produce them, on their basis we will decide what action to take,” he said.

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Title: Plainly UntenableAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 06, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEF20051104201038&Title=First+Editorial&rLink=#0

The Congress party plans to take the United Nations and the Paul Volcker committee to court, demanding full disclosure of the material on the basis of which it was concluded that the party and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh were beneficiaries of the Iraqi oil deal scam. This may prove a great career move for the party’s legal stalwarts, like Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, to showcase their indisputable talent on the world stage, but bodes ill for India.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The Congress understandably is desperate about clearing its name and reputation, but does it have to drag the rest of us with it in this bid? Here we are arguing for our right to a seat in the UN Security Council and now petulantly refusing to recognise the credibility of a process that bears the UN’s stamp of authority. And how exactly does the party plan to go about it? File a suit at the Tis Hazari? The US Supreme Court? The International Court of Justice? The UN statutes give it sovereign immunity against civil or criminal legal action — and although Paul Volcker has stated that the party is welcome to send a legal notice, the Congress’s intention to do so has been the cause for more than a few smirks all around. After all, as Volcker pointed out on Friday, these revelations emerged in Iraqi records and his Committee did not indicate whether they were right or wrong.

Legal notices — even if it is only to salvage a modicum of self-respect, or what passes for it — therefore cannot work. In any case, even ordinary mortals, before they consider legal action, first exhaust the various potential remedies available to them. It makes sense for the Congress party to review its stance in a more considered and deliberate manner. It may then realise that the onus is on the party, and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, to prove their innocence. Jumping on to a flight for New York, with the documents of a legal suit in the pocket, is plainly not the answer.

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Title: Volcker Committee Ignored Its Own GuidelinesAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 06, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/06/stories/2005110611520100.htm

If Volcker didn't know who I was, to whom did he send a notice, asks Natwar Singh Volcker is a distinguished American who is well regarded but his observation that all of us had been written to does not do him any credit The United Nations committee headed by Paul A. Volcker appears to have flouted its own investigative guidelines in making an adverse finding against the Congress party, External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and Jammu politician Bhim Singh — without affording them a chance to defend themselves against the charge that they had benefited from oil allocations under the erstwhile Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

Under the "Investigations Guidelines" adopted by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the oil-for-food programme, it was incumbent upon the IIC's investigators to inform any "person or entity" of the information upon which an "adverse finding" against them was being made in a "written report." The Congress, Mr. Natwar Singh and Mr. Bhim Singh — all of whom were named as "non-contractual beneficiaries" of Iraqi oil sales in Table 3 of the Volcker Committee's final report last month — have denied receiving any prior communication from the IIC.

Responding to Mr. Volcker's statement made in New York on Thursday night, that all those named in the report had been given a chance to respond to the charges being levelled, Mr. Natwar Singh told The Hindu on Saturday that this was manifestly false. "Neither the Congress nor I ever received any communication," he asserted. "Mr. Volcker said everyone had been contacted but he also said he only just found out that I was the Foreign Minister of India," said Mr. Singh. "Well, if he didn't know who I was, to whom did he send a notice? How did he send it and where did he send it? Was it sent to the Indian Antarctic Expedition?"

Section C of the IIC's "Investigations Guidelines" deals with the Conduct of Investigations. Within it, Section 2 (g) clearly states: "Before the Committee makes an adverse finding against any person or entity in a written report, such person or entity shall be informed of the proposed finding(s) and the information upon which it is based, and may make representations thereon personally, or with a legal representative to place before the Committee relevant additional information or written submissions with regard to such finding(s)."

The Minister said he was trying to be as gentle in his response to the Volcker Committee's charge as was possible under the circumstances. "Mr. Volcker is a distinguished American who is well regarded but his observation that all of us had been written to does not do him any credit," Mr. Singh said.

(In separate statements on Saturday, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi and Panthers Party leader Bhim Singh denied receiving any communication from the IIC prior to the publication of its final report.)

Asked about the reported presence in New Delhi of a representative of the Volcker Committee in the run-up to the report's completion, Mr. Natwar Singh said, "Well, nobody ever came to see us, nobody ever contacted us."

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The IIC report notes that the investigative guidelines are "intended to provide a common set of procedural principles for IIC staff in their conduct of the inquiry. Except as specifically authorised by the Executive Director of the IIC [i.e., Paul A. Volcker], the Guidelines and its principles are to be adhered to by IIC staff."

However, it adds the caveat that this commitment to contact an accused person or entity prior to publishing an adverse finding does not constitute a legal obligation. "The Guidelines... do not and are not intended to confer, impose or imply any duties, obligations or rights that are enforceable in any court of law or administrative proceedings," it notes.

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Title: Why Natwar Must GoAuthor: Editorial StatesmanSource: StatesmanDate: November 06, 2005URL: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=9531#4

BJP politicians do India’s parliamentary traditions no good by rushing to see the President or talking about nationwide agitations or grandstanding in front of the cameras. There is a place for them to be the Opposition and that is Parliament. All major parties have been abusive of Parliament’s role in recent years, and it was during the NDA Government that the practice of bypassing Parliament became the norm — Mr Vajpayee instead holding comfortable conclaves of all-party leaders around a table somewhere, where everyone knew everyone and smiled or scowled for cameras like members of the same New Delhi club. That being said, the BJP is right that Natwar Singh cannot continue as India’s Foreign Minister. Doubtless there may be skeletons in the BJP’s own closet due to come tumbling out, but the speed and efficiency of Paul Volcker’s unimpeachable committee has brought Natwar Singh’s name, along with that of the Congress, out into the open in connection with the Saddam oil kickbacks scandal. Natwar Singh can complain all he wants that he is innocent but the damage to India’s diplomatic reputation in the world is done, and he must go. His experience as a diplomat should have told him that already, indeed it should have told him not to get mixed up with Saddam in the first place. But greed and ambition are the commonest political vices. The most charitable interpretation of events would be that his name was used by some crony or his son without his knowledge. Too bad. It’s time for him to clean out his desk and walk away.

In fact if the Sonia-Manmohan duumvirate really wish to be seen to be leading the country properly here is an opportunity. Reshuffle the Cabinet seriously. In political terms, Pranab Mukherjee and Sharad Pawar are almost the only grown-ups around. Pranab is already Leader of the House and must if he cannot be Deputy PM at least have Home. Pawar could take Defence. Chidambaram, a Supreme Court lawyer, must move to do what he knows something about, namely, bring much-needed reforms to the judiciary. His speciality may have been companies and tax law, but that is a minor aspect of the fiscal crisis the Finance Ministry has been presiding over. He was Rajiv Gandhi’s acolyte and knows well that Rajiv in 1990-1991 (when the reform plans were written), had demanded the judiciary be made to function better, costing whatever resources it took. C Rangarajan is the obvious and most credible choice for Finance Minister. For 20 years he has spoken about making the Reserve Bank independent, and that should be his first task. He may also have to preside over a fiscal emergency. As for the Foreign Ministry, the other foreign service officer around should stay with Petroleum; instead there are competent senior diplomats such as G Parthasarathy, who, in this age of rule by former bureaucrats, may be brought in. This could bring much-needed professionalism to the Ministry. Once he has a serious Cabinet in place, Dr Singh needs to ask Parliament for a fresh vote of confidence since the Supreme Court has found him to have breached the Constitution.

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Title: All Were Notified: Volcker Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Deccan HeraldDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov52005/index2026502005114.asp

Dismissing External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh’s claim that he was not asked for his comments, author of the report into the UN’s scandal-ridden oil-for-food programme Paul Volcker has said those mentioned in the report were notified and given a chance to clarify on the contents about them.

“I came to know on Thursday that Natwar Singh is the foreign minister,” he said at a function here on Friday on the issue of reforms of the UN in the context of his report alleging large-scale corruption in the programme.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Mr Volcker said everyone who has been named in the report was given a chance to clarify. “We have indicated carefully everybody was notified that they are going to be listed and we also indicated what their response was if any. “If the response was that of denial we listed it and if the response in a few cases was yes we did it and that was listed. Many got no response, many were in between. If we did it we didn’t realise we were doing it. It was a rather common response.”

The report mentioned Mr Singh as a “non-contractual” beneficiary in the tainted Iraqi oil-for-food programme.

Iraqi records

The document by the former Federal Reserve chairman had alleged $ 1.8 billion in bribes and illegal surcharges were paid to the regime of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Mr Volcker said 2,500 companies and individuals were listed in the report. “According to Iraqi records or other cooperating records... we may not have them in particular cases”, they were involved in favoured allocation of oil or goods purchases and paid surcharges or kickbacks. “The only evidence in some cases, I don’t know about this particular case, is Iraqi records.”

Reacting “mirthfully” to the Congress decision to send Mr Volcker and the UN a legal notice, he said it is “welcome to send a legal notice”.

He said the UN is protected by numerous immunity clauses. “And we also in some cases have the analysis but in some cases we certainly listed the information indicated from Iraqi records.”

“We didn't say what is right or wrong. We only said what was there in the Iraqi records, whether there was denial, acceptance, if there was something in between or no answers,” Mr Volcker said.

Cong leaders meet

Meanwhile in New Delhi, the core group of the Congress led by party chief Sonia Gandhi met at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s residence on Friday to find an honourable way out of the controversy.

As the Opposition BJP continued its attacks on Mr Natwar Singh and the Congress for their alleged involvement in the scam, the core group meeting, also attended by senior party leader and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, discussed the whole gamut of the issue, including the legal implications of a likely probe and its modalities.

The meeting was attended by several senior Congress leaders including Mr Natwar Singh, and discussed the options available before the government, sources said.

Mr Mukherjee, emerging from the meeting, however, refused to divulge what was discussed, and denied that the Natwar issue was even raised there.

The meeting came a day after the government indicated a probe and the Congress said it would send a legal notice to the Volcker committee for dragging its name into the controversy.

Interestingly, the AICC, in its Thursday statement demanding an apology from the Volcker committee and threatening a legal notice, did not mention the external affairs minister’s name at all.

The AICC decision not to defend Mr Natwar Singh directly comes even as party sources

indicated that the party was deliberately keeping away from the issue as far as possible because of its damaging potential, especially with reports now saying that Mr Aniel Mathrani , former secretary of the AICC foreign affairs cell when Mr Singh was its chairman, was also a “beneficiary” from the scam. The party sources were quick on Friday to point out that Mr Mathrani was a confidante of Mr Singh and was never a Congress leader of prominence.

The sources claimed that he was appointed ambassador to Croatia only because he was close to the external affairs minister.

“Today’s meeting discussed what kind of probe could be ordered,” the sources said.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Meanwhile, Mr Singh received support from CPI after a similar gesture by CPM on Thursday.

CPI leader A B Bardhan met him on Friday and said he had a “strong case” and, therefore, it was not necessary for him to quit from the Union Cabinet.

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Title: As Volcker Storm Gathers In Delhi, Natwar & Son Head Towards Home BaseAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20051104103511&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=-42#8

Accompanied by his son Jagat, External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh will make a whirlwind tour of Rajasthan's Mewat region, considered to be the family's political base, on Saturday.

On the face of it, Natwar's programmes in Alwar and Bharatpur, two neighbouring districts that comprise Mewat, are routine functions but the embattled minister is hoping to turn it into a show of strength and solidarity.

Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee chief Bulaki Das Kalla and his predecessor Narayan Singh (a protege of Natwar Singh) are also scheduled to be present with the foreign minister and his son at these functions.

Though there were apprehensions that Natwar may skip the tour, planned a few days ago, to stay put in Delhi where the political scene is changing rapidly, sources in the Bharatpur district administration said Jagat had made several calls on Friday evening to confirm the programme and take stock of the preparations.

Natwar Singh will kick off his tour by inaugurating a school in Nithari village of Laxmangarh, his son's constituency. This would be followed by a function in Bhandoti village, where he would unveil the statue of a martyr, before inaugurating another school in Maujpur village.

Natwar would, however, get the opportunity to flex his political muscle only in his own constituency Bharatpur, where he is slotted as the star speaker at a protest rally organised by the PCC in Kaman. The protest rally was announced by the PCC a few days ago in Kaman against the policies of the state government.

“Speakers at the rally will talk only about the anti-people policies of the (Vasundhara) Raje Government,” a spokesperson for the Congress said, indicating that Natwar and Jagat are unlikely to talk about the Volcker report.

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Title: BJP To Hold Countrywide Protests To Press For Natwar's RemovalAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Press Trust of IndiaDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/$All/50ADB0D7462854DF652570AF005A6E79?OpenDocument

Mounting further pressure, BJP today decided NDA leaders would meet President A P J Abdul Kalam next week to urge him to advise Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to drop External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, named in Volcker committee report on Iraqi oil pay-offs, from cabinet and announced countrywide protests to press the demand.A meeting of senior BJP leaders chaired by party President L K Advani took the decision to seek an appointment with the President for Monday, BJP spokesman Sushma Swaraj told reporters here.

The BJP will also organise protest demonstrations, sit-ins and rallies in all state capitals from November eight to November 15, demanding Natwar Singh's resignation for being alleged non-contractual beneficiary in the United Nation's Oil-for-food programme for Iraq, she said.

At their hour-long meeting, the BJP leaders expressed surprise that the Prime Minister sought to give a clean chit to Singh despite being indicted in a report of the United Nations on which the entire world has faith.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

"Following pressure, the PMO hinted at a probe but nothing can be achieved so long as he (Natwar Singh) continues to remain in office," Swaraj said.

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Title: BJP To Push For Natwar Singh's DismissalAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/05/stories/2005110504951200.htm

A meeting of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders chaired by party president L.K. Advani here on Friday gave the go-ahead to the party's strategy to push ahead aggressively with its demand for the immediate dismissal of External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh.

It was decided that the party leadership would meet President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam — possibly on November 7 — to press its demand. And for a week from November 8 it would organise demonstrations throughout the country focussing public attention on the oil-for-food scandal in which the United Nations-appointed Volcker Committee has named Mr. Singh in its report.

Earlier in the day, party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi noted that Paul Volcker had now categorically stated that all who were named in the report were indeed sent notices and given the opportunity to respond to the allegations. This, Mr. Naqvi said, showed up the claim made by Mr. Singh and the Congress that they did not receive any notices from the Volcker Committee.

He reiterated the party's demand made on Thursday in a letter to the Prime Minister that criminal proceedings should be initiated against all those named in the report; their passports confiscated; Mr. Singh should be dismissed; and the Government should take steps to collect evidence from the appropriate authorities in the Volcker Committee.

Mr. Naqvi termed "ridiculous" the Congress party's decision to send a legal notice to the United Nations Committee and added that this was "Indian diplomacy at its lowest." He also pointed out that in several countries internal probes had already been ordered into the allegations made by the Committee.

Party general secretary Arun Jaitley issued a statement from Patna saying that disclosures had been made in a section of the press that an "exact amount" equivalent to the surcharge charged by the firm Masefield AG (mentioned in the Volcker report) had been deposited by Hamadan Inc. and Andleeb Sehgal in the Bank of Jordan. He said it was clear that "Segal, Hamadan Inc., Jagat Singh [Natwar Singh's son], Masefield along with Natwar Singh and Anil Mathrani were the epicentres of the scam."

Mr. Jaitley demanded that to restore the credibility of the Prime Minister's Office, Mr. Natwar Singh must be immediately dropped from the Union Cabinet and a domestic probe ordered into kickbacks from the oil-for-food scandal.

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Title: BJP To Take Natwar Cloud To Kalam Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Express IndiaDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=5779#7

Drawing a line between Congress and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley, citing The Indian Express report on the oil-for-food scandal, said Natwar Singh was clearly one of the ‘‘epicentres of the scam’’. The Congress, he said, should target Singh and send him a legal notice if it had not received financial benefits, instead of planning to sue the United Nations on the Volcker report. In the evening, Party President LK Advani stepped up the attack on the Natwar and the Congress and decided at a party meeting that the BJP would meet the President to ask for Singh’s dismissal. There will also be countrywide protests till November 15 on the issue.

‘‘We want the President to advise the Prime Minister to drop Natwar Singh (from the Cabinet). We are surprised that the Prime Minister has given a clean chit to Natwar Singh without studying the Volcker report,’’ party leader Sushma Swaraj said.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Jaitley, meanwhile, scoffed at plans for threatening legal action against the United Nations. ‘‘This is Indian diplomacy at its lowest,’’ he said, pointing out that the United Nations was ‘‘incapable of being sued in India’s municipal courts’’.

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Title: Congress Deliberates On ReportAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/05/stories/2005110512760100.htm

The Congress on Friday continued its discussions on the political controversy it has been drawn into following the Volcker report. This even as the Manmohan Singh Government deliberated on the nature and scope of the probe it plans to conduct into the report.

The Congress and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh have been named "non-contractual beneficiaries" in the oil-for-food contracts finalised during the Saddam Hussein regime in 2001.

Having announced the government's decision to "go to the root" of the matter, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other senior Ministers met here. A senior Minister has been entrusted with working out the legal issues and determining what kind of inquiry is required.

The Congress has conducted a through check of its accounts to see if funds were received.

The party is also checking whether any of its frontal organisations, such as the Youth Congress, sent official delegations abroad, as mentioned in news reports.

A senior leader has been asked to prepare the legal notice that the party plans to serve on the U.N. and the Volcker Committee, according to sources. In a related development, the former Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar, and Communist Party of India general secretary A.B. Bardhan have come out in support of Mr. Natwar Singh.

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Title: Indian Communist Party Backs Foreign Minister Over Un Volcker Report Author: Correspondent or ReporterSource: India DailyDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/5342.asp

The Communist Party of India [CPI] came out in support of India's External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh, named as a beneficiary in a UN report on Iraqi oil deals, saying he has a "strong case" and there is no need for him to quit office.

"He (Natwar Singh) has a strong case. All these (findings of the Volcker committee report) are funny exercises... [ellipsis as received] Even the Russians have said it is a forged document," CPI General Secretary A.B. Bardhan told reporters after meeting Singh at his residence here.

Asked whether Singh should resign in the wake of the report, which has said that he and the Congress party were non-contractual beneficiaries in the food-for-oil programme in 2001 under Saddam Husayn regime, the CPI veteran said: "Why should he."

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Title: On RecordsAuthor: Editorial StatesmanSource: StatesmanDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=9521#3

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

I have no objection to any probe ... the report has as much validity as that prepared by the CIA director on the alleged existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. We have it from no less an authority than Colin Powell who stated that he was given false information on WMDs. — Mr Natwar Singh, on the Volcker report that alleges that he was one of the beneficiaries of the oil-for-food programme.

We want our workers to go to Kashmir to provide relief. It will include tents, blankets, medicine, winter clothes and a team of doctors. The opening of the LoC is a welcome piece of news and no one should play politics at a time when hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris on both sides of the border have been affected by the earthquake. — Mr Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, who founded the banned Lashkar-e-Taiyaba.

Some promoters are really creating trouble in Kolkata and its surrounding areas by destroying greenery and water bodies to fulfil their greed. I am not saying that all promoters are of the same kind but there are promoters who have really become a headache for the state at times. Though these are stray incidents, we have to be careful in this regard. We have geared up to enforce a law against the felling of trees. — Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

On the question of foreign policy and a few other important issues the UPA government has come closer to the views of the Left Front. — Mr Jyoti Basu.

There is zero per cent corruption in the Supreme Court. High Court Judges are by and large not corrupt, barring a few instances. — Mr Justice RC Lahoti, on the last day of his office as Chief Justice of India.

Our government seems to be soft on subversive activities. The Kashmir issue is a telling example. Previously discussions were about Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Now, the point of discussion is Jammu and Kashmir, which is an undisputed part of India. — Mr KS Sudarshan, RSS chief.

What happened in Gujarat can be called a riot. But what happened in the capital in 1984 was an organised carnage, whose mystery is still to be cracked. — Mr LK Advani, BJP Chief.

Is there any FIR against me? I can’t be labelled with Narayan Biswas or Manabesh Choudhury. — Mr Adhir Chowdhury, Congress MP.

Henceforth, I will not like any custodial killing to take place. — Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, J&K Chief Minister, at a meeting at the Unified Command of security agencies and security forces in Srinagar.

We told the Centre repeatedly that our party did not want any joint exercise with US forces on Indian soil but in vain. We intend to protest against similar exercises in future, especially if they take place in West Bengal. — Mr Anil Biswas, CPI-M State Secretary.

By targetting innocent civilians making final preparations for holiday celebrations, terrorists have demonstrated yet again that they are enemies of humanity and contemptuous of the values all in the civilised world share. — President George W Bush, after the blasts in Delhi.

I will cut my throat, my children’s throat, my family’s throat if I am involved. — H D Deve Gowda, former Prime Minister, replying to the charge that his family owns land on the path of an expressway.

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Title: Plainly UntenableAuthor: Editorial, Indian ExpressSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEF20051104201038&Title=First+Editorial&rLink=#0

The Congress party plans to take the United Nations and the Paul Volcker committee to court, demanding full disclosure of the material on the basis of which it was concluded that the party and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh were beneficiaries of the Iraqi oil deal scam. This may prove a great career move for the party’s legal stalwarts, like Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, to showcase their indisputable talent on the world stage, but bodes ill for India.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The Congress understandably is desperate about clearing its name and reputation, but does it have to drag the rest of us with it in this bid? Here we are arguing for our right to a seat in the UN Security Council and now petulantly refusing to recognise the credibility of a process that bears the UN’s stamp of authority. And how exactly does the party plan to go about it? File a suit at the Tis Hazari? The US Supreme Court? The International Court of Justice? The UN statutes give it sovereign immunity against civil or criminal legal action — and although Paul Volcker has stated that the party is welcome to send a legal notice, the Congress’s intention to do so has been the cause for more than a few smirks all around. After all, as Volcker pointed out on Friday, these revelations emerged in Iraqi records and his Committee did not indicate whether they were right or wrong.

Legal notices — even if it is only to salvage a modicum of self-respect, or what passes for it — therefore cannot work. In any case, even ordinary mortals, before they consider legal action, first exhaust the various potential remedies available to them. It makes sense for the Congress party to review its stance in a more considered and deliberate manner. It may then realise that the onus is on the party, and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, to prove their innocence. Jumping on to a flight for New York, with the documents of a legal suit in the pocket, is plainly not the answer.

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Title: Slipping On OilAuthor: Editorial, Indian ExpressSource: Indian ExpressDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEJ20051103214534&Title=Second+Editorial&rLink=#0

Minister of external affairs, K. Natwar Singh, is discovering the properties of petroleum. Not only is this bituminous liquid notoriously slippery, it has the additional property of being extremely flammable. The minister is therefore advised to face up to the revelations made in United Nations’ Oil-For-Food Programme Report, anchored by Paul A. Volcker, and clear his name. He has to do this not just to uphold the credibility of the UPA government, but his own.

Every passing day seems to make his position as a senior minister in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet more untenable. This newspaper has just investigated into the scandal and has established a remarkable coincidence: Natwar Singh’s son Jagat Singh and his personal friend — whose firm was the direct beneficiary of an illicit deal struck with the Saddam Hussein government — seemed to have had remarkably similar travel plans in 2001 on two occasions. Both men were in the Jordanian capital of Amman, or in the region, around the same time. More intriguingly, they were there when the transactions involving the “illegal surcharge payments” the Volcker report talks about, were being deposited in the Jordan National Bank. Now all this — although it does appear highly unlikely — may be just a coincidence. But the fact remains that Natwar Singh has been listed as a beneficiary of Iraqi oil sales by the Volcker report after a credible process of inquiry and he needs to disprove this beyond reasonable doubt.

The UPA government has just reiterated its solemn determination to get to the root of the “unverified references” made against the Congress party and its external affairs minister. We would urge it to do so with the utmost urgency and have already suggested that it institute an independent probe. But on Natwar Singh falls the urgent obligation to face up to the serious charges levelled against him. Dodging the issue by insinuating that the Volcker report is biased cannot get him out of the spreading oil slick.

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Title: Volcker: All Those Named Were Given A Chance To ClarifyAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 05, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/05/stories/2005110512750100.htm

Paul Volcker, who authored the controversial United Nations report on the oil-for-food programme during the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, has indicated that External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh was asked for his comments when he was listed.

At a function here in which he spoke on the issue of U.N. reforms in the context of his report alleging largescale corruption in the oil-for-food programme, Mr. Volcker said, "I came to know yesterday that Natwar Singh is India's Foreign Minister." All those named in the report were given a chance to clarify. "Everybody was notified that they are going to be listed, and we also indicated what their response was, if any."

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

"If the response was that of denial, we listed it and if the response, in a few cases, was `yes, we did it' that was listed. Many got no response, many were in between," he said.

The report mentioned Mr. Singh as a "non-contractual" beneficiary of the programme.

Mr. Volcker was unfazed by the Congress threat of legal action. "The party is welcome to send a legal notice," he said with a laugh. The Indian Government's surprise and the questions over the credibility of the report were unfounded.

Mr. Volcker said:

"The U.N. has certain privileges and immunities. And, we also in some cases have the analysis but in some cases we certainly listed the information indicated from Iraqi records.

"...We didn't say what is right or wrong. We only said what was there in the Iraqi records, whether there was denial, acceptance, if there was something in between or no answers."

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Title: BJP Demands Natwar's Departure Over Iraqi Oil Scandal Author: Balaji ReddySource: India DailyDate: November 04, 2005URL: http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/5324.asp

Stepping up its offensive, India's main opposition party BJP shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to drop External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh from the federal cabinet for allegedly being a non-contractual beneficiary in the United Nations'' Oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

In the letter, the party has said that the continuation of a person indicted as a "lobbyist" by a United Nations body as the country's external affairs minister was untenable, party sources said.

Earlier the party had attacked the prime minister for giving a clean chit to "tainted" ministers including Lalu Prasad Yadav and Natwar Singh.

The Volcker Committee, appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last year to investigate the administration and management of the 64bn dollar programme, had listed Singh and Congress party as "non-contractual beneficiaries."

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Title: BJP Writes To Manmohan On Volcker ReportAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: HinduDate: November 04, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/04/stories/2005110405241400.htm

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party demanded the immediate dismissal of Natwar Singh as External Affairs Minister, saying his continuation would be a "national embarrassment."

The two-and-a-half page letter, signed by general secretary Arun Jaitley, assailed the government for rubbishing the findings of the United Nations-appointed Volcker Committee on the oil-for-food scandal that erupted when Iraq was under economic sanctions. "A person indicted by a U.N. report for financial impropriety cannot uphold India on the world stage. His credentials will always be suspect."

"Confiscate passports"

Releasing copies of the letter to the press here, vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the party demanded criminal proceedings against those indicted in the report, confiscation of their passports and dismissal of Mr. Singh.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The government should make every attempt to get to the truth by asking for detailed evidence from the authorities concerned.

The letter pointed out the "coincidence" of the exact sum of $7,48,540 collected by Masefield AG (the firm which bought the oil contract) as "illegal surcharge" being deposited by Andleeb Sehgal and his company, Hamdan Exports, into accounts in the Jordanian National Bank. There was the further coincidence of Hamdan Exports and Mr. Sehgal doing the job when the specified "non-contractual beneficiary" was Mr. Natwar Singh and the Congress. Then there was the "coincidence" of the families of Jagat Singh (Mr. Natwar Singh's son) and Mr. Sehgal being on "intimate terms" as well as the "coincidence" of Mr. Jagat Singh and Mr. Sehgal travelling to Jordan around the time the payments were made into the bank accounts.

Mr. Jaitley said there was "compelling evidence" that Mr. Natwar Singh "allowed himself to be used as a lobbyist for Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq."

Mr. Naqvi said the BJP would raise the issue both in and out of Parliament.

On Friday, the general secretaries would meet president L.K. Advani to draw up a strategy on how best to keep the focus on the scandal.

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Title: Govt Hints At Probe Into Volcker Report AllegationsAuthor: Correspondent or ReporterSource: Press Trust of IndiaDate: November 04, 2005URL: http://www.ptinews.com/pti/ptisite.nsf/$All/D208DB39517889FE652570AE00486872?OpenDocument

As a political controversy raged over the Volcker Committee report implicating Congress and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh as beneficiaries in Iraqi oil deals, Government today hinted at a probe into the allegations on which a decision will be announced shortly."Government is determined to go to the root of the matter and establish the truth or otherwise of these (unverified) references. The matter is under the serious consideration of the Government and a decision will be announced shortly," said a press release issued by Prime Minister's Media Adviser Sanjaya Baru.

The statement came shortly after Natwar Singh was called by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to his residence and on a day when BJP stepped up its offensive seeking the minister's dismissal, registration of a criminal case against him and a thorough investigation.

The release said "the government is deeply concerned about the unverified references made in the Volcker Committee report to the Congress Party and the External Affairs Minister.

"The Volcker Committee report, as it stands today, is insufficient to arrive at any adverse or definitive conclusion," it said.

Asked whether an inquiry could be ordered, Baru told reporters, "can be there".

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Title: On A Common PlaneAuthor: Swapan DasguptaSource: TelegraphDate: November 04, 2005URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051104/asp/opinion/story_5432698.asp

Yet, today, thanks to very strange circumstances, Singh and Galloway find themselves in the same boat. Both have been accused by the UN-sponsored independent committee headed by former Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, of benefiting financially from the regime of the ousted Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Singh has been called a “compromised” politician and a lobbyist and the opposition BJP has demanded his resignation. Galloway has been compared to Lord Haw Haw — the English renegade who became a publicist for Hitler —and described by a US senator as “not an honourable man or a good man”. His conduct is being investigated by the British parliamentary commissioner for standards. Both have vehemently denied the accusations, both have threatened legal action and both are fighting for their political survival.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

The alleged misdemeanours of Singh and Galloway centre on Saddam’s successful subterfuge of the UN-monitored Oil for Food programme in Iraq. Having decided that its oil wealth could be transformed into a powerful foreign policy weapon and an instrument of Baathist self-aggrandizement, the Saddam regime honed in on individuals who could gauge the lucrative potential of anti-imperialism. What Saddam did was nothing novel. He merely emulated the patronage disbursement methods of the erstwhile Soviet Union. More to the point, these complicated financial dealings would have remained undiscovered had President George W. Bush not forced a regime change in Iraq in 2003.

For George Galloway, if the senate’s governmental affairs committee inquiry and the Volcker Report are to be believed, the Iraqi gift of oil sale rights meant entering into an understanding with Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman friend. It was Zureikat who sold these rights to Switzerland-based oil traders, received the money, collected the illegal surcharges and funnelled the proceeds into the accounts of a charity run by Galloway and his estranged Palestinian wife, Amineh Abu Zayyad. The linkages between money paid by Swiss oil traders into Zureikat’s account and their disbursement into bank accounts in Jordan held by Zayyad have been established by both committees. Galloway’s former wife benefited to the tune of $700,000, a not inconsiderable sum.

Although Singh’s alleged dealings with the Iraqi regime have not been scrutinized in as much detail, the Volcker Report has divulged enough to put a question mark on his political future. Singh and the Congress were allegedly granted similar oil sale rights. The allotments were passed on to a Swiss company, Masefield AG, for handling. The Volcker Report, however, has provided no details of payments made to either Singh or his nominees, but there is a presumption that payments were made which yielded the beneficiaries a profit which, many believe, were as high as 30 per cent of the contract value.

There is, however, another set of transactions which are more damaging. The Iraqis, it would seem, also gave oil rights directly to Masefield. The Volcker Report says that Singh was to be the “non-contractual beneficiary” of these deals. In concrete terms, this meant that the illegal surcharge amounting to $749,197 would be handled by Singh or his nominee. Consequently, $748,540 was paid to Hamdan Export and its owner, Andleeb Sehgal, a close family friend of Singh, in Jordan at various times in 2001, presumably by Masefield. The money was then further diverted into the accounts of Iraqi officials, as kickbacks.

The Volcker Report refers to “layers of individuals and companies between the allocation and end-use of Iraq’s crude oil (which) resulted in transactions where the UN could not determine from the face of the contract who actually was benefiting from or controlled the purchase of oil”. In the transactions with which Singh is linked, there are two routes. The first involved the contracted beneficiary selling his rights to an oil trader and making a profit from the commission. The second involved the oil trader securing the allotment directly but channelling the surcharge into the accounts of the specified “non-contractual beneficiary”. This money was then routed back into Iraq. At this point, the “non-contractual beneficiary” became the handling agent of Iraqi kickbacks.

The Volcker committee says that its claims are backed by the records of the Iraqi State Oil Ministry Organisation, bank records in Jordan and other records found in Baghdad. If true, it would suggest that both Singh and Galloway have some explaining to do. Certainly, Manmohan Singh’s stated belief that the facts are “insufficient” to warrant “any adverse conclusion” against Singh seems a trifle hasty. It does not behove a prime minister to dismiss an international inquiry so peremptorily.

What is interesting is that, in protesting their innocence, both Singh and Galloway are speaking the same language. Galloway has suggested that the documents implicating him are “fabricated” and Singh told The Hindu that the Volcker Report was based on “forgeries”. Testifying under oath to the US senate committee on May 17, Galloway stated that “I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on my behalf”. He added that the businessman Zureikat “never gave me a penny from an oil deal, from a cake deal, from a bread deal, or from any deal”. On his part, Singh hit back with a series of questions: “Is there any evidence that I or my son ever had contact with this company (Masefield AG) or any other company involved in this? Is there any evidence that I had ever heard of this company?”

Finally, Galloway has consistently seen the attacks on him as part of an orchestrated political campaign. He has stuck to his position with great theatrical aplomb, prompting the senator, N. Coleman, to observe that “It’s a constant pattern of deny, deny, deny… It’s something he does all the time — shifting the focus to something that is not in front of you”. Being India’s external affairs minister, Singh should have been more inhibited. But he too has charged Volcker of targeting those who opposed US intervention in Iraq. “I opposed sanctions, I opposed the war and I opposed sending Indian troops to Iraq.”

Both Singh and Galloway are blessed with political certitudes. Of course, they are not alone. Throughout India and Britain there are countless well-meaning individuals who believed Bush’s Iraq war was a misadventure. Fortunately, few of them find

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

their names listed as “non-contractual beneficiaries” of illegal deals cut by a tyrannical regime. The issue is not politics but ethics. It is this issue that has to be addressed by both the anti-imperialist patrician and the radical plebeian.

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Title: Volcker Goes On AttackAuthor: HARISH DUGHSource: The Financial ExpressDate: November 04, 2005URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=10761#9

The former Chairman of US Federal Reserve Paul Volcker and the man who opened a Pandora’s box in the Iraq Oil-for-Food scam, indicting many world companies and government officials, including India’s Congress Party and Natwar Singh specifically, for receiving kickbacks has broken his silence. The author of the controversial UN report said that he was unaware that Natwar Singh was the Indian Foreign Minister until yesterday, according to NDTV. Nevertheless, he said that all those that he has reported as paying bribes were sent notices and asked to respond to his accusations. He stated that Natwar Singh was treated no differently.

Volcker said that the evidence lay in the Iraqi records that were meticulously kept by the the former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein's regime and which came into the hands of the US and UN after Saddam was deposed.

However, he said that the majority of the responses were in the nature of, “They said that they did not do it, and if they did do it, then they were unaware of having done so.”

But there were many companies which admitted to paying bribes.

But, Natwar Singh is not the only Indian who has been so charged. Several India Inc biggies have been cited but information is gradually filtering in as to the extent of their involvement in the scam that was specifically directed at enriching Saddam.

The Oil-for-Food programme was carried out as a humanitarian gesture for the suffering Iraqi people who had been denied daily staples like food and medicine due to the global boycott post-the first Gulf War.

Since sale of oil was banned, the world body was empowered to allow the selling of a small amount of Iraqi oil that would give the common people some respite in getting their daily needs - most of it was imported.

But the programme was turned into a get-rich programme that involved more than 2,500 world business conglomerates.

$1.8 billion in bribes and illegal surcharges were paid.

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Title: Volcker ReportAuthor: Editorial, The TribuneSource: TribuneDate: November 04, 2005URL: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051104/edit.htm#1

Three weeks ahead of the winter session of Parliament, political temperature is rising in the Capital and those whose job is to make things easy for the government seem to be finding their task difficult. More than the Supreme Court’s verdict holding the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly unconstitutional, the UN’s Volcker committee report is causing serious worry to the UPA government. There is no indication yet as to how it intends to tackle the situation when Cabinet Minister K. Natwar Singh and his son, Mr Jagat Singh, have become the centre of a controversy arising out of the Volcker report. Mr Natwar Singh has denied that he is a beneficiary of any Oil-for-Food deal, but the details appearing in a section of the Press about his son’s connection might make it difficult for a highly embarrassed government to defend the Minister of External Affairs in Parliament, or outside.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

It may, perhaps, be true that the Volcker report has not made a cast-iron case against Mr Natwar Singh or others mentioned in it. But then, a Union Minister has to be, like Caesar’s wife, always above suspicion. No reason has so far been adduced as to why the minister’s name should at all figure in the report if he or his family had nothing to do with the programme that brought huge sums of money into the coffers of Saddam Hussein, middlemen and scores of other beneficiaries.

Mr Natwar Singh has announced that he would make a statement in Parliament. It would, perhaps, be better for him to clear the air earlier as the accusations can only cripple his ability as Minister of External Affairs to deal with foreign governments. It may be difficult for the Prime Minister – although he is not given to believing vague allegations – to resist the demand for a detailed inquiry into the Volcker findings concerning Indian companies and prominent individuals and certainly a minister of his government. But it is for Mr Natwar Singh to decide whether he should stay in the government or request the Prime Minister to relieve him from his charge to facilitate the probe he himself has offered to face. His opting out of the government will be politically and morally correct and will also help the government face the pressures that are building on it. The report cannot be brushed aside lightly.

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Title: 'FDI In Politics' Author: Editorial, Business StandardSource: Business StandardDate: November 03, 2005URL: http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu5&leftindx=5&lselect=1&chklogin=N&autono=20441#2

The external affairs minister, Kunwar Natwar Singh, can be forgiven for feeling like the Wodehousian character, Roderick Spode, who while out for a walk in the garden stepped on the sharp end of a hoe whereupon the handle leapt up and conked him on the nose. The shriek of surprised outrage that Mr Spode let out is well-matched by Mr Natwar Singh. Unlike Mr Spode, however, who had no one to sympathise with him, Mr Natwar Singh has found an ally in no less a person than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The latter has informed the nation that there is “insufficient evidence” to do anything just yet. This was in response to the Opposition’s demand that Mr Natwar Singh be sacked forthwith for being mentioned as one of the illegal beneficiaries of Iraq’s oil-for-food programme. Mr Natwar Singh has claimed that there is some kind of a conspiracy against him and the Congress Party (which has also been named). However, given that this was a UN investigation, carried out by a person of impeccable credentials, Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Mr Natwar Singh merely sounds stupid. Readers will recall that, even at the time of the first revelation by Swedish radio about Bofors pay-offs, the Cabinet met with Rajiv Gandhi in the chair and declared some kind of conspiracy against India. So Mr Natwar Singh is not being very original. It is highly unlikely that Mr Volcker would have ever heard of him or that the UN has it in for him and his party. It was an impartial investigation based on bank records, and the names of Natwar Singh and the Congress Party presumably popped up in the documents. It is not for the UN or Mr Volcker to explain anything; it is up to the Congress Party and Mr Natwar Singh to do so. Interestingly, the Congress Party has defended itself but not Mr Natwar Singh. That task was left to the Prime Minister, who would probably have preferred to have kept his counsel on the matter but was, perhaps, left with no choice. In the event, both Singhs are looking worse for the wear while the Congress brazens it out since no other course of action is feasible. The Volcker report has named several Indian companies also. Most of them have chosen not to comment, or to issue bland denials. In view of the fact that there are hundreds of companies from all over the world whose names have been listed, it would seem that Saddam Hussein’s government was systematically exploiting the oil-for-food programme. While in the case of these companies, it could be an extenuating circumstance that they either did not know that such payments were being made by their agents, or that this was the only way of getting a slice of the Iraqi business, there seems to be no reason why either Mr Natwar Singh or the Congress party should have become involved as “non-contracting parties”. Coming as it does, hard on the heels of the Mitrokhin revelations, there is a certain credibility to the Volcker report. It is hard to see how Mr Natwar Singh can function credibly any longer as India’s foreign minister. It is one thing for Manmohan Singh to soldier on with the many crooks in his Cabinet. But it is quite another to have someone who has been indicted by the UN represent India at the very same UN! It would be best therefore if Mr Natwar Singh were persuaded to step down. If not, he should at the least be shifted to the panchayati raj or the steel ministry.

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

Title: Oil Stains On A MinisterAuthor: T V R ShenoySource: Indian ExpressDate: November 03, 2005URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEM20051102195018&Title=Main+Article&rLink=#0

Mani Shankar Aiyar must be a very worried man. He may be in charge of the petroleum ministry but even fellow Congressmen joke, behind closed doors of course, that Natwar Singh is the ‘oil minister’!

To be honest, I did not take much note of the Volcker Committee Report on the scandalous Oil-for-Food Programme. The corruption and venality of the United Nations is one of the worst kept secrets on this planet. Nor would I have prescribed taking the allegations against Natwar Singh and the Congress without several spoons of salt. But the alarm bells began to go off in my head when I heard the vehement denials by our external affairs minister and his party. I write ‘denials’ because there are actually three sets. Word, spread discreetly, from the Prime Minister’s Office is that Dr Manmohan Singh has concluded that there is not enough evidence to prove his colleague’s guilt. The Congress, through its spokesmen, denies that it had its snout in the trough; in fact it rubbishes even the clamour for an independent inquiry. Finally, the man in the hot seat does not just deny the allegations, he even questions the integrity of the Volcker Committee. Natwar Singh says he would like to know why it was an American at the helm rather than someone from the developing world.

Actually, that question has a simple answer. The members of the panel were appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. This was endorsed by the Security Council Resolution 1538 of April 21, 2004, calling on all member states to cooperate. Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, became the chairman. His colleagues were Professor Mark Pieth of Switzerland, an expert on money laundering, and Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals. The last time I checked, South Africa was still counted as part of the “developing world”, but that is a minor issue.

The Volcker Committee and its aides sifted through over 12 million pages of documents before making its report. Whatever Natwar Singh might say, this was not a political conspiracy aimed against him, but a searing indictment of several organisations, including such icons of the western world as Daimler-Chrysler, a French bank, and several American oil companies.

Speaking as an Indian, I am happy to note that the Report states that Indian Oil Corporation rejected the Saddam Hussein regime’s demand for a surcharge, and that the Indian mission joined European, Japanese, and Canadian colleagues in complaining about illegal payments to the Iraqi dictator’s government. India was also the lead auditor from 1996 to 1998, when the Oil-for-Food Programme began; the Volcker Committee Report points out that in its early years, through 1999, the scope of the audit was broad, and that it was only subsequently — well after India left — that the audits began to get lose focus. It is silly to imply that the Volcker Committee was biased against the “developing world”.

Natwar Singh might have had a point had he argued that the entire system of sanctions was bogus and should never have been erected in the first place. (This would put the external affairs minister in a position of arguing against Security Council Resolution 986, but never mind!) He has, however, chosen the tack that the prime minister has given him a clean chit. It was this that led various people to spread the clarification that it was a case of ‘cannot be proven’ rather than ‘innocent’.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cannot get away with this even so. He has put himself in the peculiar position of acting as the judge who decides a case without hearing the prosecution. Consider the time involved. The Volcker Committee Report was released on October 27, which means, given the difference in time zones, that the prime minister would not have gone through it before October 28. He was in Kolkata on that day. The Deepavali Blasts shook Delhi on October 29, and have presumably occupied him ever since. So where did he get the leisure to peruse the documents, ask for clarifications if necessary, and consult his own agencies before deciding there was “insufficient evidence”?

In any case, even Secretary-General Annan has not gone so far as to question the authority of the Volcker Committee Report though it condemns his own son, Kojo. This last gives Natwar Singh something in common with Annan, since it is his son who was the alleged go-between. It seems to be a complicated web, linking Natwar Singh’s son, Jagat, the Singapore-based Hamdan Export, Masefield AG in Switzerland, and the Jordanian National Bank. There is also talk of someone called A. Sehgal, who was apparently linked to Hamdan Export. None of this may be true, but surely it calls for a full and free inquiry?

The external affairs minister may not admit it but his utility in office is compromised until his name is cleared by an independent agency. From now on, every decision he makes will attract charges of acting under duress. If, let us say, India

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

votes against Iran in Vienna, the Leftists will murmur that his advice was tainted by fear of more disclosures from the United States.

Happily, Natwar Singh now says he is willing to face any independent investigation. He also says that nothing is dearer to him than his reputation. If so, he should quit his post and demand an inquiry as his right. His Cabinet chair cannot be of more value than his name, can it? Oil stains, Mr Minister, cannot be wiped off in a day.

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Title: Oily DealsAuthor: Editorial, Business LineSource: Business LineDate: November 03, 2005URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/11/03/stories/2005110300671000.htm

THE CONCLUSION OF the Volcker Committee — which went into the administration of the UN-sponsored Oil for Food programme (OFP) in Iraq — that there have been illicit payments for securing contracts for supply of humanitarian goods will not surprise anyone. Nor will the assertion that oil contract entitlements were awarded to people who, in turn, sold them at a premium in the market place or that oil importers quite willingly diverted a part of the total consideration for such supplies into a separate account controlled by Iraq's rulers through the device of special surcharge. For one, long before the constitution of a special independent committee it had been widely speculated that the entire process was riddled with corruption. Two, the general public is by now quite inured to the notion that corruption is a `global' phenomenon, as Indira Gandhi famously proclaimed.

That, of course, raises a more fundamental question: Was the UN so naïve that it did not realise what was so obvious to even the lay public? Or, is it merely that it was indifferent to their fiduciary responsibility of being custodians of Iraqi public wealth as to not put in place effective safeguards? The truth perhaps is a bit more complex. The UN's predicament lay in the very mandate that it assumed. It undertook to oversee a massive public procurement-cum-oil sales operation, which would have required it to duplicate the entire civil bureaucracy of the Iraqi Government. That, it simply could not do. Quite apart from the cost of such a venture, which would ironically, have had to be paid for by the Iraqi people, the logistics of keeping a massive neutral workforce inside Iraq under the hostile glare of the then ruling establishment would have been next to impossible. This was, after all, the mid-1990s. The world hadn't quite woken up to the wondrous possibilities of business process outsourcing. So the UN ended up depending on the very same bureaucracy that was completely under the control of Saddam Hussein. Since the Iraqi ruling establishment could not be expected to share the vision of the international community, such as it is, insofar as what is in the long-term interests of the Iraqi people, it was a classic case of the problem of `agency costs' — the phenomenon of an agent working at cross purposes to that of the interests of the principal — that management literature is replete with.

A close reading of the events leading up to the controversial programme would clearly reveal that the seeds of the UN's predicament lay in its policy of imposing an economic sanctions regime on the Iraqi people without fully factoring in the `agency cost' consequences, measured in human welfare. The regime would rather see its public suffer than give in to the international community's demand that it vacate the seat of power. When the UN could no longer wish away the tragedy of hunger- and malnutrition-related deaths that its policy had triggered as mere partisan propaganda, it chose to put in place a framework for a public welfare programme that showed that it had not learnt any lessons from its earlier experiment. The results are there for all to see.

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Title: The Volcker Report And Troubling IssuesAuthor: Special Correspondent, The HinduSource: HinduDate: November 03, 2005URL: http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/03/stories/2005110302371000.htm

The fifth and final report of the "Independent Inquiry Committee" on the "manipulation" by Iraq of the United Nations' Oil-For-Food Programme (OFFP) between 1996 and 2003 is an informative, but complex and deeply problematical document. The Committee was appointed in April 2004 — a year after United States-led forces invaded Iraq, bypassing the U.N. and international law — by Secretary General Kofi Annan amidst allegations of fraud and corruption on the part of U.N. officials, personnel, agents, and contracting companies. It was asked to investigate the administration and management of the OFFP,

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Paul Volcker Vs. Natwar Singh

including the allegations. These terms of reference constituted the first serious problem. Following the Gulf War triggered by the Saddam regime's calamitous invasion of Kuwait, Iraq was under a deadly regime of U.N. sanctions between 1991 and 2003. According to Iraq Under Siege, a book of well-documented indictments and analyses edited by Anthony Arnove, the sanctions regime took a direct toll of a million Iraqi lives. Any objective and fair investigation into the working of the OFFP should have looked at the larger picture. It was a context of enormous suffering and loss of sovereignty inflicted on Iraq and its people by the sanctions regime, which allowed the country with the world's second largest proven reserves of crude oil to resume exports only in December 1996. The second major problem with the investigative exercise was the composition of the "Independent Inquiry Committee." It was headed by Paul A.Volcker, former chairman of the chief occupying power's Federal Reserve Board. The two other members were Justice Richard J. Goldstone, a former judge of the South African Supreme Court and Constitutional Court who had made his mark in the law during the days of apartheid; and Mark Pieth, a Swiss law professor specialising in the tracking of transnational corruption, money laundering, and organised crime.

This composition explains the part Spanish inquisitional, part modern investigative, and, in consequence, biased and insufficiently transparent approach of the Committee. It explains the snap judgments and the loaded vocabulary of the report, starting with "manipulation" of the OFFP, "illicit income," and "humanitarian kickbacks." Functioning in the shadow of the U.S.-led military occupation of Iraq, the exercise fails to come clean on all its data sources, above all on the evidentiary basis of its listing of non-contractual political and other beneficiaries of Iraqi oil sales. It bears reiteration that under the OFFP, Iraq sold $64.2 billion worth of crude oil to 248 companies, and 3416 companies sold $34.5 billion worth of humanitarian goods to Iraq. Three types of "illicit" transactions are spotlighted by the Volcker Committee report: 139 of the oil-buying companies paid a total of $229 million in "oil surcharges"; 2253 of the companies selling humanitarian goods forked out $1.55 billion of "humanitarian kickbacks" under the heads of "After Sales Service Charges" and "Inland Transportation Charges"; and "non-contractual beneficiaries" of different kinds received undetermined amounts in connection with the oil sales. The Government of Iraq's estimated "total illicit income" under the OFFP constituted 1.82 per cent of the $98.70 billion worth of oil-and-humanitarian goods transactions. Imagine a country under unjust siege, trying to beat an unprecedented regime of sanctions and peacetime bombings by the U.S. and the U.K. Would it not be natural for it to try and "manipulate" the OFFP and use the two-way transactions as "a tool of foreign policy and a sizeable source of illicit revenue," to use the language of the Volcker Committee report? Well might Saddam Hussein, in his incarceration, exclaim, recalling the 1773 response of Robert Clive to a parliamentary inquiry, "I stand astonished at my own moderation."

All this is not to take away from the plenitude of information provided by the Volcker Committee — or the seriousness of the issues its information and allegations raise for political and business India. For this country, the explosive part of the report lies in the accusation that K. Natwar Singh, now External Affairs Minister and at the relevant time the head of the Congress Party's foreign affairs department, and separately the party itself were hidden beneficiaries of Iraqi oil sales, who together were associated with oil sale contracts valued at $63 million and surcharge payments amounting to $748,540 (of which their alleged share has not been computed). These allegations have not been substantiated in any way other than through a claim that the information on non-contractual beneficiaries and surcharge payments is "broadly based on four sources," especially records of Iraq's Ministry of Oil and the State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO). What has given the allegations some plausibility is the detail provided in the relevant tables on the surcharge payments made to the accounts of Andaleeb Sehgal and Hamdan Export in the Jordan National Bank. The tables also allege that Reliance Petroleum Limited was a non-contractual beneficiary, but with the contract values and surcharge payments being much higher. The second category of India-specific allegations made in the report relates to the payment of "humanitarian kickbacks": close to 130 Indian companies, drawn from the private and public sectors and making up a who's who of business India, figure in the tables. While the Volcker Committee got in touch with the alleged non-contractual beneficiaries in a few cases and got responses, it failed to send notice to others who figure in the list, including Mr. Singh and the Congress Party, thus violating an elementary rule of fairness. This contrasts with its procedure of sending notice to thousands of companies accused of contributing to Iraq's "illicit income" of $1.8 billion under the OFFP. Political implications aside, was any law broken by these Indian companies? The answer seems to be `no', or at least `not likely'. But the cases of Mr. Singh and the Congress Party are quite different. The Volcker Committee showed gross irresponsibility, if not political bias, in listing them as beneficiaries without any explanation and without being transparent about the source of the allegations. While the Manmohan Singh Government would do well to inquire into these allegations to determine their truth or falsity speedily, it need not feel politically defensive at all — given the character and fatal weaknesses of the Volcker Committee exercise.

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