MediaVigil, Journal of Global Communications and Justice

The term of the 14th Lok Sabha will expire in the normal course on 1st June, 2009. The upcoming parliamentary elections for the 15th Lok Sabha in the 543 parliamentary constituencies in five phases from 16th April to 13th May. Counting will take place on the 16th of May, which is expected to be completed on the same day. Most likely the new government would be in place in the first week of June because the new parliament will be constituted before the 2nd June, 2009. Prior to the annoucement, the Election Commission of India held a meeting with the representatives of all recognized National and State parties on 3rd February, 2009. It the election planning with the Chief Secretaries, Directors General of Police and Chief Electoral Officers of all States to review the over all preparedness of the election machinery in the country. The extents of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies in all States (except Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland) ...

Hyderabad, Feb 18 (ANI): A city court in Hyderabad will hear a petition filed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to question Satyam Computers former Chief Financial Officer, Vadlamani Srinivas and sacked Price Waterhouse auditors S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas. On Tuesday, the sixth Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate reserved orders for Wednesday after hearing arguments over SEBI's petition. Earlier, the SEBI had interrogated Ramalinga Raju, former chief of embattled Satyam Computer Services Limited, and his brother, Rama Raju. Meanwhile, Minister of Corporate Affairs Prem Chand Gupta said the government has ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the accounting fraud in IT major Satyam Computer Services Ltd. "While the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) under his ministry had been given three-months to wrap up its probe into the Satyam scam, no time frame has been set for CBI," Gupta said. He refused to launch an i...

Witnessing the legacy of over 6000 years at an unusual national seminar on “Iran during 30 years of Islamic Revolution” on February 11, 2009 at the Ho Chi Minh conference hall in the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in Indo-Iran relationship was a crucial occasion. The presence of Seyed Mahdi Nabizadeh, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to India at the inaugural session underlined its significance who referred to the Indo-Iran Commission', which was established in 1983. This commission signed seven MoUs in November 2008. He added, "Natural gas from Iran to India through Pakistan is a venture which may change the face of regional politics in South Asia. It should not be characterized solely by economic factors." The highpoint of the relationship came when a path-breaking strategic partnership between India and Iran when Tehran Declaration was signed for enhanced bilateral co-operation in 2001. The declaration was signed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and I...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) talks flanked by Israeli President Shimon Peres during a debate called "Gaza: The Case for Middle East Peace" on the second day of the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 29, 2009. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of an impassioned debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres about the Gaza war at the Davos forum. Erdogan said he would not come back to Davos after being cut off by the moderator because of time constraints on the debate. In Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey walked off the stage after an angry exchange with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, during a panel discussion on Gaza at the World Economic Forum on 29 January, 2009, and vowed never to return to the annual gathering. Erdogan apparently became incensed after he was prevented by the moderator from responding to remarks by Peres on the recent Israeli attack. The panel was running late and Peres was to ...

“Earlier industrialists and then defence contracts financed political parties. Nowreal estate does, especially in the states because chief ministers have easier access to it. The kickbacks are huge” – CharlesCorrea (Interview, Times of India,10 September 2008). From "Maytas, Hyderabad Metro and the Politics of Real Estate" in the EPW which notes "In the 10 days since the revelation of the massive fraud at Satyam, there has been much speculation that the holes in the software company’s books were caused by the promoters’ links with Maytas, the infrastructure company that in recent years has become the favourite of the government of Andhra Pradesh. This article puts under the magnifying lens the award in 2008 of the massive Rs 12,000 crore contract to Maytas to build and operate the Hyderabad Metro." Reading the Satyam Scam Will the truth ever come out? What is this sham of corporate governance? In a confession that led to his arrest and turmoil in corporate India, B...

Bernard Lawrence Madoff, an American businessman, and former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange who founded the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960 and was its chairman until December 11, 2008, when he was charged with perpetrating what may be the largest investor fraud ever committed by a single person. He is under house arrest until his indictment with a deadline of February 11, 2009. On December 10, 2008 Madoff allegedly told his sons, Andrew and Mark, that the asset management arm of his firm was a giant Ponzi scheme--as he put it, "one big lie." They then passed this information to authorities. The following day, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Madoff and charged him with one count of securities fraud. Five days after his arrest, Madoff's assets and those of the firm were frozen and a receiver was appointed to handle the case. According to federal charges, Madoff himself admitted that his firm has "liabilities ...

And Then They Came For Me No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last. I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader's 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the ...