Truth Unveiled Part 2.............

suchithkc

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The suspension of Mr C Umashankar, a 1990 batch IAS officer belonging to the Dalit community, on the pretext that he had entered the Civil Services using a bogus community certificate, smacks of victimization by the minority DMK government.

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All civil service appointments for the whole of India are done by the Union Public Service Commission. It is the responsibility of the UPSC to vet the antecedents of every recruit and verify all their certificates. When this is so, the Karunanidhi government suddenly claiming that Mr Umashankar had entered the service using a forged community certificate gives room for speculation on the reasons behind this.


It is a well known fact that in May, 2007, there was a rift in the Karunanidhi family. Karunanidhi’s son Azhagiri was pitted against his grand nephews, Kalanithi and Dayanithi Maran. On May 9, 2007, the office of the Dinakaran newspaper office in Madurai, belonging to the Maran brothers was attacked by hoodlums close to Azhagiri. In the attack, the building was set on fire and three innocent employees were killed. That this attack had the blessings of Karunanidhi became apparent when Dayanithi Maran, who was then Union Minister for telecommunications, was removed from the post on Karunanidhi’s request. Further, in a bid to curb the growing financial and political clout of the Maran brothers, on August 11, 2007, Karunanidhi announced the launch of Arasu Cable Corporation, ostensibly to provide cable TV connections to the people at reasonable rates, but in reality to pose
a challenge to the Maran brothers’ Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV).
Mr Umashankar was appointed Managing Director of Arasu Cable Corporation with a specific mandate from Karunanidhi to eliminate SCV.


More than Rs 400 crores were invested in Arasu Cable Corporation, for sophisticated electronic receivers and fibre-optic cable networking. According to complaints filed with the police, SCV disrupted Arasu Cable Corporation’s operations by cutting its cable networking in several places. Mr Umashankar,in his capacity as MD of Arasu Cable Corporation, recommended invoking the National Security Act against those involved in destroying state property, including the Maran brothers. But then, an agreement was suddenly reached between the warring cousins of the Karunanidhi family. The IAS officer, who had been entrusted by Karunanidhi with the task of taking on the Maran brothers, was made the scapegoat and shunted out of Arasu Cable Corporation. Arasu Cable Corporation itself became dysfunctional. The crores of public money invested in the venture went down the drain. This was the price the people of Tamil Nadu had to shoulder as a fallout of the split and
re-union in the Karunanidhi family!


The Maran brothers were not the only enemies whose enimty Mr Uma Shankar had earned. Earlier, in 2006, he had been appointed Managing Director of the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT). ELCOT had floated a joint venture company with New Era Technologies Ltd called ELNET. ELNET, in turn, launched a subsidiary company called ETL Infrastructure Ltd. This company was credited with assets worth Rs 700 crores. It purchased 25 acres of land at Pallikaranai near Chennai and constructed an IT park of 17 lakh square feet. It also got IT Special Economic Zone status from the Government of India by projecting itself as a subsidiary of the State owned ELCOT. But later, ETL became a wholly privately owned company with one Thiagaraja Chettiar as Chairman and his wife Unnamalai Thiagarajan as its MD, who have also garnered the Rs 700 Crores assets of ETL.


Mr Umashankar had raised questions about the disappearance of a subsidiary of ELCOT from its records altogether along with Rs 700 Crore assets and hinted that because of the closeness of the beneficiaries to one of the scions of the Karunanidhi family, he had been shunted out from ELCOT.


Mr. Karunanidhi has a lot of explaining to do.


What happened to ETL? What happened to the Rs 700 Crore assets of ETL? Who is Thiagaraja Chettiar and what are his links with the Karunanidhi family? What is the status of Arasu Cable Corporation? How many people are serviced by this dysfunctional cable TV network? What is the fate of the
Rs 400 crores invested in this venture? What has happened to all the equipment purchased? Who will shoulder these losses – the Karunanidhi family or the hapless people of Tamil Nadu? Why is a Dalit officer in government service being victimized for exposing or questioning the atrocities of the Karunanidhi family? How much longer will the people of Tamil Nadu have to put up with this carnage of democracy?