Ignorance of this event by Telugu Media is shocking
It is a historic day for India in the history of extradition of economic offenders. Christian Michel is the principal middleman in purchasing 12 AW 101 helicopters from Italy. Out of 30 million Euros kickbacks in the Rs 3600 crore deal, 18 million Euros was directly handled by Michel.
Government of India requested extradition of Christian Michel to interrogate him to bring the truth about the real beneficiaries of this deal in India. The written note of Guido Haschke an Italian and another middleman mentioned the names as “ AP, Family and Politicians”. Many interpreted these names as Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi and many Congress leaders. Initially Christian Michel agreed that Sonia Gandhi was a beneficiary but later retracted at the behest of her sister cum lawyer. It is widely believed that Sonia Gandhi and her coterie were behind this AgustaWestland fame scam but it is not that much easy to produce evidence to that effect. Already some of the accused were able to manage in Italian Courts.
The NDA Government headed by Narendra Modi started chasing Christian Michel in the year 2014 and issued non-bailable arrest warrant in September 2015. Since then serious efforts were made to bring him to India . Ultimately, Modi succeeded in getting him to India yesterday and brought him in special flight.
In fact, people do not have confidence that the efforts will be materialised. It really bring certain confidence on political system and warning to many others like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi. Shivers started in these offenders. Vijay Mallya came out with a twitter offering full payment of his dues. It also brought credibility to Modi’s sincerity in his efforts in nabbing these culprits. It boast his image to certain extent. However, the game is not yet over. It is just started. Extracting information from Michel may not be that much easy. The Court order allowing interaction with his lawyer everyday two times may complicate the matter and he will try not to cooperate with investigations to the extent possible. Moreover, in the present political system and judiciary, one can not come to conclusion that the case reaches logical conclusion at the earliest. It is only beginning and first step. Let us watch the developments keenly.
My focus is on telugu media. Such an important issue is a non-issue to our media. Neither print media nor electronic media almost ignored the event. Why? What made them to undermine the issue unlike national media? Is it because they do not want any credit to Modi or is it because they do not want the image of Sonia Gandhi to be damaged keeping an eye on Telangana elections? When Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Choksi fled the country, they blamed Modi. Fine, nothing wrong and assume that they are performing their watchdog role. But when an offender was extradited to India, their enthusiasm is missing to highlight the event. It is not an exception but wilful suppression. This irresponsible attitude of our telugu media is deplorable. What interest these people are having on nation that too on defence. The reaction on Rafale is understandable but undermining another defence deal is condemnable. Media should be above narrow politics when national issues are concerned. Hope our media will fall in line with rest of the nation.
-Ram
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