THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary-December 12, 2016- Topic 1
The arrest of Indian Air Force former chief
Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi on Friday
by the Central Bureau of Investigation is a sobering moment. This is the first
instance of a serving or retired military chief being arrested on charges of
corruption. The CBI arrested ACM Tyagi, his cousin Sanjeev Tyagi and lawyer
Gautam Khaitan in connection with the purchase order for VVIP helicopters in 2010 for the IAF. In an official statement, the CBI said they were arrested for
alleged irregularities in the procurement of a dozen AW101 VVIP helicopters
from U.K.-based AgustaWestland, part of the Italian consortium Finmeccanica.
The CBI claims that ACM Tyagi “entered into criminal conspiracy with other
accused persons and in 2005” to change the service ceiling of VVIP helicopters
from 6,000 m to 4,500 m, to make AgustaWestland eligible to participate in the
tender. Twelve per cent of the total deal of Rs.3,767 crore is alleged to have
been the commission involved. After the allegations first emerged in Italy, an
embattled UPA government had moved swiftly to order an investigation in February
2013. The case was handed over to the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate,
which have relied substantially on evidence from Italian courts. The case in
Italy has witnessed several twists and turns, with a lower court in October
2014 acquitting ACM Tyagi, Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi and others of
corruption charges. On April 8, 2016, the Milan Court of Appeal overturned the
order, and sentenced Mr. Orsi to about four years in jail.
This is not the first time that the name of a retired military chief has come
up in a defence scandal. In 1987 the central investigation agencies had raided
Admiral S.M. Nanda, accusing him of being a middleman in the sale of
German-made HDW submarines to India in the early 1980s. Two decades later the
case was formally closed by the CBI, saying no concrete evidence was available.
In 2006 the CBI filed an FIR alleging kickbacks in the purchase of the Barak
missile system from Israel, naming among others Admiral Sushil Kumar. With
extensive use of RTI, he contested the charge, and seven years later the CBI
told a Delhi court it couldn’t find any evidence. This is not to suggest that
defence deals are all clean. In this case, the Indian hand in the deal has been
corroborated by an Italian court. But a case is only as good as its conclusion.
And defence deal investigations have a habit of getting complicated by the
difficulties in securing the kind of evidence that is required to secure firm
convictions. How this case, which has significant political ramifications,
plays out, remains to be seen.
Vocabulary
Sobering: make or become sober after drinking alcohol.
Example: That coffee sobered him up
Synonyms: quit drinking, dry out, become sober
Irregularities: the state or quality of being
irregular.
Example: There is evidence that fraud and irregularity continue on a large scale
Synonyms: asymmetry, nonuniformity, unevenness, crookedness, lopsidedness
Procurement: the action of obtaining or
procuring something.
Example: Financial assistance for the procurement of legal advice
Consortium: the right of association and
companionship with one's husband or wife.
Example: I read that the cause of action was for some form of loss of consortium -
of the husband, that is.
Synonyms: association, alliance, coalition, union, league, guild, syndicate, federation
Conspiracy: a secret plan by a group to do
something unlawful or harmful.
Example: A conspiracy to destroy the government
Synonyms: plot, scheme, plan, machination, ploy, trick, ruse, subterfuge
Embattled: a place or people involved in or prepared for war,
especially because surrounded by enemy forces.
Example: The embattled Yugoslavian republics
Relied: depend on with full trust or confidence.
Example: I know I can rely on your discretion
Synonyms: depend on, count on, bank on, place reliance on, reckon
on
Corroborated: confirm or give support to a
statement, theory, or finding.
Example: The witness had corroborated the boy's account of the attack
Synonyms: confirm, verify, endorse, ratify, authenticate, validate, certify, support
Ramification: a consequence of an action or
event, especially when complex or unwelcome.
Example: Any change is bound to have legal ramifications
Synonyms: consequence, result, aftermath, outcome, effect, upshot