What do you know about Trickster side of Sai Baba and 1.76 L 2G spectrum scam...

I know it has been a long time since I wrote any of my thinking about the day to day happenings. In face, I had to search for my blog address to start working on this article once again. I hope I would be more regular to blogging.

As the subject of this topic would have attracted you more than my earlier topics as it talked about two important happening of the last week. This attraction is what lead to the theme of today’s blogging: Sensational Journalism or Yellow Journalism as per Wikipedia.

The definition of Yellow journalism goes as this: “Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism” – source Wikipedia

Well, currently 1.76 Lakh or 1,76,379 Crores (Not sure how many zeroes on them but a whopping 39.16 million dollars) 2G spectrum scam in India is definitely being exaggerated numbers as it is just the notional loss to the government(i.e., Loss to Exchequer) assuming the number of incremental subscribers in India. 

Mobile story in India just a hot buzzing story of the present but considering the same mass subscribers for the year of 5 years , in a simple layman terms, must be an exaggerated figures.

Here are the methods that are being used to calculate the notional loss:

The first method was based on the fact that S Tel, one of the licensees, explicitly offered to pay significantly higher license fees for the spectrum. Based on the fees offered by S Tel, the CAG estimated the loss to the exchequer at 67,364 crore (US$14.95 billion)

The second method was based on the price discovered by the 3G auction in 2010. The CAG reasoned that since 2G is really 2.75G (EDGE), its price should be comparable to that of 3G licenses. Based on this method, the CAG estimated the loss to the exchequer to be 176,000 crore (US$39.07 billion)

The third method was based on the fact that some of the licensees received FDI in the form of equity, shortly after the spectrum allocation. The CAG reasoned that this equity infusion was entirely due to the value of the allocated spectrum; this can be construed as re-sale of the spectrum by the licensee, and hence was a valid basis for assessing loss to the exchequer. Based on this method, the CAG estimated the loss to the exchequer to be anywhere between 57,666 crore (US$12.8 billion) (based on Etisalat's investment in Swan Telecom) and 69,626 crore (US$15.46 billion) (based on Telenor's investment in Unitech).

For its part, the Congress-party led government has publicly defended itself on this count and Kapil Sibal, who replaced A. Raja as the communication minister, has refuted the CAG reasoning.[15] He has also justified his government's decision not to auction 2G spectrum as being in line with the policy guidelines laid down by the 10th Five-Year Plan.

-source: wikipedia

Why this would be an yellow journalism: because the recent investigations revealed the loss could be anywhere between 30,000+ crores to 50,000+ crores based on the method of NOTIONAL calculations.

Infact, On April 2, 2011, the CBI filed its first 80,000 page chargesheet in the 2G spectrum scam before a Special Court in Delhi naming nine individuals and three companies. It said the wrongful acts of the accused deprived the government exchequer of possible revenues amounting to INR Rs 30,985 crore (USD $ 6,983,322,233).

-source: wikipedia

So the sensation about the 1.76 Lakh or 1,76,379 Crores loss is definitely looks to be an exaggerated.

BUT don’t get me wrong, still were talking about thousands of crores!! J

By the way, my title about the Sai baba was NOT of Yellow Journalism, as it has some legitimate research news on it which I would follow up this article tomorrow..


snapshot of this posting is as given below:

I am sure this is NOT a sensational journalism, atleast by definition!!