Hunt the hiding big-cats behind Chitra and the miserable Himalayan Yogi
The funny Himalayan Yogi talks linked with the NSE collocation scam in the media are apparent attempts to cover up one of the looting macabre in India after 2009. The media is still far away from the core of the scam that happened in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) since the launch of the collocation scheme in August 2009, barely three months after the election victory of the UPA II.
The multi-crore NSE scam blessed by the watchdog’s astonishing soft corner approach seems to seek a new dimension. Deliberately or not? Certainly, it is deliberate, because someone needs to hijack the public attention away from the web of frauds that made some clumsy forces keep building their wealth. Or, someone in the media wanted to protect their Godfathers of good times, overlooking the Godfathers’ gluttony for money.
In the undercurrent of Chitra Ramakrishna’s Yogi story in the wider NSE scam, many cats are trying to escape from the sack, thanks to the successful hijack carried out by some media faces. They have targets. First, they are trying to let the real culprits escape the public attention; second is the “Yogi worship” by an elite class that has become predominant and unchallengeable. Some spiritual figures and philosophers make people think of self-respect and do impressive philanthropic works. They are powerful enough to beat all negative propaganda. They are the targets of Chitra’s Yogi story narrator. The instance of Chitra’s superstitious following of the Himalayan Yogi is too fragile to rock the boat of other spiritual figures, who have a global network of followers with a stable foundation.
It was not the influence of one enigmatic Yogi’s influence on Chitra Ramakrishna that constitutes the overall scam. Yogi and Godmen have always been active in the social, political and individual life of people. It is one’s choice when it comes to personal life. In the 80s and 90s, they had an underworld to live and control. They used to appear and disappear, some even mysteriously. Even Jawaharlal Nehru, a known atheist, couldn’t resist.
It has become almost clear about the identity of the Himalayan Yogi who controlled the office of the NSE’s Managing Director. Let the unfolding story cast light on the once-powerful lobbies in the Finance Ministry, SEBI and NSE. Answers to too many questions come from circumstances and other pieces of evidence which the public can gauge from the timelines of every incident that took place after 2007.
The issue was laid to rest for a long time in the name of investigation and exchange of clarifications between NSE and SEBI. Both NSE and the regulators have already dragged their feet too far to keep the crime-ridden mantle of the story unsaid. Now the Press and the digital media are decimating the funny side of the story that cannot be a crime but a deterioration of professionalism.
What is the motive behind the masqueraded Yogi’s rule over NSE’s Managing Director? How did all the farces that happened in NSE and SEBI escape the attention of the respective institution’s Board? Under whose pressure the watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) swallowed all the rotten eggs? Who was ruling the roost at SEBI before and after Chitra’s elevation to the post of MD at NSE? Should we overlook the head rolling in SEBI and NSE that happened after 2008. M Damodaran, who provoked the market with a curb on participatory note exited SEBI in February 2008, perhaps with dislodgement of a severe headache, if what he quoted at the end of an imaginary letter, “Please release me, let me go,” was a recollection. Perhaps SEBI’s P note curb in 2007 and the quick market response to it for some days since 17th October 2007 seemed to have made some crooks learn about nanosecond benefits in price quotes. Curbs on the participatory notes in 2007 by SEBI didn’t send a good message to the finance ministry in 2007. Until November 2014, there was no KYC system for FIIs, who dealt in the equity market through the P notes.
Now the case is in the hands of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). It has in its hand a challenge of digging into the empirical account of the collocation scheme, an astonishingly brilliant plan to make money without leaving any chance for others to smell the rat. No one would have taken it seriously, because the scheme involved an issue of nanoseconds and paisa.
What was the background of that double agent named Anand Subramanian? Who disposed of Chitra’s laptop? There are many questions other than the questions about Anand Subramanian’s appointment, his background, a mysterious Yogi’s intervention, donation from a liberally inflated salary portion to the so-called Yogi, Chitra’s elevation to the coveted post, the dead silence maintained by the boards of NSE and SEBI. The whistleblower waited until the change of the government to blow the whistle.
Which are the two foreign portfolio investors (FPI) and 16 brokerage firms that benefited from the scheme on which the regulator shut its eyes? Media must chase the collocation beneficiaries and SEBI’s cold-shouldering over the serious lapses, or the de facto approval instead of wasting time and space on the Yogi, who is already in the net with solid shreds of evidence. The false shooting of the fake Chitra Yogi will not hit other spiritual gurus and philosophers. That could only be a miserable miscalculation of some of the ageing media tigers and tigresses.
The collocation scam may throw out many stories of portfolio investors who entered the market with stolen wealth through participatory notes. The appointment of C.B Bhave in whose tenure the collocation scheme was launched, was suspicious. Bhave’s hands were stained in an IPO scam when he was heading NSDL. The Finance Ministry of P Chidambaram superseded Search Committee’s recommendation, which the Finance Ministry itself had admitted in an affidavit in the Supreme Court. The likes of Bhave, Ravi Narain and many others who served SEBI, NSE and the Finance Ministry of P Chidambaram may spell many dirty stories of frauds.
Let not the eclipse of media narration about the witty Himalayan Yogi submerge the dirty heap of rackets built with the blessings of stooges planted in the Ministry of Finance, SEBI and NSE. May the media spin doctors be able to correct their methods of diagnosis!
