RTI reveals Manmohan spent Rs 642 crore on air travel

A sum of over Rs. 642 crore has been incurred on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s air travels abroad in the last nine years. This information has been made public by the PMO as part of obligations under the mandatory proactive disclosure clause of the Right to Information Act. The information reveals that Dr. Singh undertook 67 travels since 2004 when he took over as PM, of which bills of five have not been received. The bills received from the rest 62 visits show that Rs. 642.45 crore was spent on air travel.

The Central Information Commission, in a recent order, had directed the Cabinet Secretariat to make public expenses incurred on the travel of ministers and VVIPs because of large public interest in the matter.

Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra had said that CIC have been noticing a lot of public interest in the visit of such high dignitaries as the President, the Vice-President and the Prime Minister of India. Quite often, one comes across RTI applications seeking similar information about these visits.

The list of Dr. Singh’s visits shows maximum expenditure of Rs. 26.94 crore was incurred on his seven-day long visit to Mexico and Brazil in 2012 to attend G20 Summit and Rio+20 Summit respectively. This was followed by Rs. 22.70 crore spent on air travel to Washington DC, and Brazil in 2010, where he had gone to attend the Nuclear Security Summit, BRIC Summit and IBSA Summit.

Meet on internal security

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh will again try to hard sell the controversial National Counter Terrorism Centre or NCTC to the states at the meeting of Chief Ministers in New Delhi. Here are the highlights of his speech on the Chief Ministers meet on internal-security:

v     The meeting has been called in the aftermath of brutal attack on Congress workers in Chhattisgarh. Such violence has no place in democracy

v     Centre and states need to join hands to tackle this problem

v     I must point out that challenge of Naxalism has received our serious attention

v     A number of measure have been taken as our two-pronged approach

v     We have worked on the development of the Naxal affected areas. He have been successful to quite an extent

v     There has been a decrease in number of people who died due to Naxal violence and increase in Naxals who have surrendered

v     I hope state government will work effectively with the Centre to tackle this problem

v     2012 saw a significant improvement in security situation in J&K. Our attempt to stop infiltration has resulted in decrease in terrorist violence by 1/3 in comparison to 2011

v     The implementation of various infrastructure schemes is working well

v     The development of north-east region remains difficult due to insurgency. There has been progress in dialogue with insurgents and separatists groups

v     There has been an increase in communal and sectarian violence in 2012. Maintaining communal harmony is imperative

v     We have recently enacted several laws providing stringent punishment for crimes against women and children

v     The time has come now to see the challenges of terrorism, communal violence, insurgency in a holistic manner

v     I urge everyone to work together to effectively tackle these situations.

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About NCTC

Amid protests, Manmohan Singh files nomination for RS

 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh submitted his nomination papers in Guwahati, Assam for election to the Rajya Sabha from Assam for a fifth consecutive term. Elections to two Rajya Sabha seats from the State are scheduled for May 30.

Angry mediapersons shouted slogans and squatted at the main entrance to the Assembly as they were denied entry inside when Dr. Singh was submitting his papers. They wanted to know if there was a specific directive from the Election Commission or the Returning Officer banning their entry. Ministers accompanying Dr. Singh assured them that the Prime Minister would brief them on the Assembly premises. But the mediapersons refused to go inside and insisted that the Prime Minister come out and address them.

As the protest grew, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi came out and said the Prime Minister would come to them to make a statement. Dr. Singh, in his brief statement, said he was thankful to the people of Assam for his 22-year stint in the Rajya Sabha.

Activists of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) staged a protest in the city, accusing the Prime Minister of not taking the initiative to solve Assam’s problems despite being repeatedly elected to the Rajya Sabha from the State. They paraded 15 activists wearing masks with Dr. Singh’s image, sporting his trademark white attire and holding placards. They said that, the Assam Accord remained unimplemented, the India-Bangladesh border was not sealed, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was not updated and the twin problems of flood and erosion had not been addressed.

The BJP, the Aam Admi Party and the CPI(ML) also staged separate protests, accusing the Prime Minister of ignoring the interests of the State.

Its disheartening to see that the real head of State for the world's largest functional democracy is not elected directly by people. Its time that a constitutional amendment be made making it mandatory for the PM to be a member of a Lok Sabha (as in Britain)

PM's wealth status:-

PM Manmohan Singh might be known throughout the world as the man who unleashed India Inc’s ‘animal spirits’ and gave the private sector a prominent role in the economy, but when it comes to his own investments, he seems to prefer to stick to pre-liberalization middle-class favourites — fixed deposits in a public sector bank and post office savings.

In the affidavit filed along with his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha election, Singh declared that he had no cash in hand but had as many as eight fixed deposits (FDs) in the SBI amounting to Rs 3,35,16,150 (Rs 3.35 crore). Seen together with his affidavit in 2010, it reveals a simple investment strategy — put the money in fixed deposits and reinvest the returns on maturity. The Rs 2.7 crore he had in FDs in 2010 has grown by more than Rs 65 lakh in the last three years.

Singh’s post office savings at the New Delhi GPO, which stood at Rs 6,65,640 in his declaration in 2010, have also grown to Rs 8,26,922. However, Singh’s immovable assets have not grown. He still has two flats — one in New Delhi and another in Chandigarh, and continues to keep his Maruti 800 car purchased in 1996.