As Mr.Ram continues his tirade against the Rafale contract, the chinks in his armour are becoming more transparent. He has repeatedly and vigorously argued that Modi's government is paying more for the aircraft than what Manmohan Singh's government wanted to pay but never paid. Comparison between an event and a non-event is ridiculous enough. On top of this, Mr.Ram has used an inappropriate figure to arrive at the conclusion he wanted to reach.
Under Table 2 : Comparison of Costs, the media baron points out that the aligned cost under the UPA's otiose proposal was 7488.58 million Euros including the cost of bank guarantee. In the actual contract under NDA, the comparable cost without bank guarantee is 7168.57 million Euros. So, the savings, the argument goes is only 320.01 million Euros. The learned journalist compares this savings with the cost of bank guarantee in terms of commission payable to guarantee-issuing banks which he reckons at 574 million Euros. This is where the miscalculation has occurred. (The allegation is savings to Dassault arising from avoidance of guarantee is not fully passed on to GOI.)
574 Million Euros is the cost if SBI issues the guarantee. But the guarantee was supposed to be issued by French banks and not by SBI. Commission on guarantees chargeable by the French banks was 143 million Euros which Mr.Ram has mercifully and hesitantly quoted, though with much less prominence. So, in effect, though the French company would have saved only 143 million Euros by avoiding the bank guarantees, GOI could extract cost reduction to the extent of 320.01 million Euros from the French.
It is said that if you torture the data enough, you can arrive at any conclusion. Apart from torturing the data, Mr.Ram uses the wrong data to suit his politically motivated conclusion. In the process he continues to mislead the reading public. As if this deviation from journalistic ethics is not enough, the Attorney General has now said that The Hindu is using 'stolen data'. N.Ram pleads that his exercise is in public interest. Is misleading the public in wily ways really in public interest?
There is another major problem arising from Mr.Ram's 'exclusive reports'. He has named the 'three dissenters' whom he calls the 'domain experts' in his reports. This jeopardises their security given the fact that the reports relate to competing players in arms and ammunition who because of their enormous reach are potentially capable of causing grave injury to person and reputation of bureaucrats. Mr.Ram has violated the right to privacy of these dissenters which includes the right to public anonymity of bureaucrats as far as their file notings are concerned.
This has another deleterious effect. If a newspaper chooses to publish names of officials who took a particular stand in an important issue, bureaucrats in future will opt to play safe by not articulating their views in the file. Any responsible newspaper will not indulge in this scandalous game. There are ways of presenting a report without causing possible hurt to officials. The Hindu chooses to hide 'Secret' from the face of an extract from a confidential Defence file, it chooses to publish deliberately truncated extracts, but feels free to give unnecessary publicity to names of 'dissenting officials'. Is this journalistic ethics?
N.Ram has accused a former Defence Secretary of being 'economical with the truth'. Mr.Ram is using wrong data and thereby distorts truth. I do not know which is a graver offence: an alleged economy with the truth or a deliberate distortion of data.
Under Table 2 : Comparison of Costs, the media baron points out that the aligned cost under the UPA's otiose proposal was 7488.58 million Euros including the cost of bank guarantee. In the actual contract under NDA, the comparable cost without bank guarantee is 7168.57 million Euros. So, the savings, the argument goes is only 320.01 million Euros. The learned journalist compares this savings with the cost of bank guarantee in terms of commission payable to guarantee-issuing banks which he reckons at 574 million Euros. This is where the miscalculation has occurred. (The allegation is savings to Dassault arising from avoidance of guarantee is not fully passed on to GOI.)
574 Million Euros is the cost if SBI issues the guarantee. But the guarantee was supposed to be issued by French banks and not by SBI. Commission on guarantees chargeable by the French banks was 143 million Euros which Mr.Ram has mercifully and hesitantly quoted, though with much less prominence. So, in effect, though the French company would have saved only 143 million Euros by avoiding the bank guarantees, GOI could extract cost reduction to the extent of 320.01 million Euros from the French.
It is said that if you torture the data enough, you can arrive at any conclusion. Apart from torturing the data, Mr.Ram uses the wrong data to suit his politically motivated conclusion. In the process he continues to mislead the reading public. As if this deviation from journalistic ethics is not enough, the Attorney General has now said that The Hindu is using 'stolen data'. N.Ram pleads that his exercise is in public interest. Is misleading the public in wily ways really in public interest?
There is another major problem arising from Mr.Ram's 'exclusive reports'. He has named the 'three dissenters' whom he calls the 'domain experts' in his reports. This jeopardises their security given the fact that the reports relate to competing players in arms and ammunition who because of their enormous reach are potentially capable of causing grave injury to person and reputation of bureaucrats. Mr.Ram has violated the right to privacy of these dissenters which includes the right to public anonymity of bureaucrats as far as their file notings are concerned.
This has another deleterious effect. If a newspaper chooses to publish names of officials who took a particular stand in an important issue, bureaucrats in future will opt to play safe by not articulating their views in the file. Any responsible newspaper will not indulge in this scandalous game. There are ways of presenting a report without causing possible hurt to officials. The Hindu chooses to hide 'Secret' from the face of an extract from a confidential Defence file, it chooses to publish deliberately truncated extracts, but feels free to give unnecessary publicity to names of 'dissenting officials'. Is this journalistic ethics?
N.Ram has accused a former Defence Secretary of being 'economical with the truth'. Mr.Ram is using wrong data and thereby distorts truth. I do not know which is a graver offence: an alleged economy with the truth or a deliberate distortion of data.
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