Turning from London to Paris: The visits of Cameron and Hollande

What is striking about the back-to-back visits of President Francois Hollande of France and Prime Minister David Cameron of UK is their differing texture. Hollande's visit spoke of the future, a French pivot to South Asia, if you will.
But Cameron seems to be stuck in a groove of the past, which is best encapsulated by an essay in The Economist titled "Ties that no longer bind" with a strap-line "David Cameron returns to Delhi more as a supplicant than a benefactor."
Nothing could sum up the hopelessness of the visit better than news reports, quoting the British Prime Minister's Office, suggesting that one of the British leader's objectives was to press India to purchase the Eurofighter Typhoon as its medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).

Trade

This is somewhat curious because the contest for the MMRCA is over and the French Dassault Rafale has won and is currently negotiating its price and other terms with New Delhi. For the record, the Indo-French joint statement after the Hollande visit noted: "Both sides noted the ongoing progress of negotiations on the MMRCA programme and look forward to their conclusion." This does not leave much room for doubt. Cameron will have his hands full in explaining the AgustaWestland deal, currently mired in charges of corruption.
To go by what has been written up on the visit, Cameron's agenda seems fairly straightforward - promoting trade. But there is little that Britain produces that India may want to import, and, perhaps, vice versa.
This does not mean there are no products that could be traded, but that British companies are not geared to export in the manner of small and middle companies in France and Germany. Since Britain is big in services, there will be a lot of effort on the part of UK to push for opening up of the financial services and retail sector, but these are areas where India wants reciprocity, on issues such as the ease of movement of skilled personnel. Anyway, India is in an election mode and will not take any significant decision here.

Defence goods remains an area of interest. The now troubled AgustaWestland company could have been the source of a great deal of more business - multi-role and utility helicopters for the Indian Navy were on the anvil. The Indian experience with the Hawk trainer has not been particularly good. However, given India's needs, Britain remains an important player here.
Even so, as The Economist essay suggests, ties between UK and India are sliding. The most potent indicator of this is the sharp decline in Indian students wanting to study in UK. According to a report, enrolments fell from 39,090 in 2010-11 to 29,900 in 2011-12.
Changes in UK visa regulations are responsible in some measure for this, as well as the decision to restrict the right of foreign students to work in the UK after getting their degrees. Despite reassuring noises from Cameron, things are not likely to change.

Region

There are other problem areas in the India-UK engagement. Principal among these is Afghanistan and by extension, Pakistan. Britain has been playing a major behind-the-scenes role in promoting tripartite talks between the Western coalition, Afghan government and Pakistan to work out a mutually acceptable arrangement with the Taliban, while Western forces are still in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, Cameron hosted a summit meeting in London with Pakistan President Asif Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. There are worries in New Delhi that such a deal would be Pakistan-centric and freeze out its interests in the region.
This subject is bound to be discussed in the meetings between PM Manmohan Singh and Cameron, but the British are working on lines that leave little comfort for New Delhi.

Contrast

The contrast in New Delhi's growing ties with France could not be more apparent. The Rafale deal offers the potential to create a network of relationships that will have a major influence in the development of India's defence R&D and industrialisation.
Note that India is already manufacturing the Scorpene submarine of French design. If India can overcome the post-Fukushima shock to the nuclear power industry and its perennial land-acquisition problems, it could see much greater cooperation in the civil nuclear field with France, the only country that says it has no real problem with its liability laws.
Equally, the French presence in the Indian Ocean, by virtue of the French territories there, form the basis of closer naval ties in the future.
More important, perhaps is the common world view that undergirds the relationship. Britain remains unsure of its position vis-àvis Europe, leave alone with India.
Despite economic troubles, there is little self-doubt in France, as its recent commitment to Mali indicates. It is the dominant political voice of the continent, and it sees itself as an independent pole in the world order, much as New Delhi views itself.
The Indo-French relationship speaks to the future, whereas in the case of UK, there seems to be longing for the past. Given the bountiful Indo-British past, this could be the basis of a munificent future. But somehow that is not coming across, at least at this juncture.
Actually this is a good opportunity to re-look at India's larger policies towards Europe, which has been in the throes of an economic crisis, and is itself being compelled to restructure and retrench, not just in its economy, but its social and political perspectives.
There are political opportunities for India to shape future relations, as well as economic ones. India could, for example, look for acquisitions in Europe's high technology companies.
While our private sector has been active here, our state-owned sector, especially in defence, remains unreconstructed. They continue to behave like compradores intent on serving the interest of foreign companies, rather than yoking them to Indian needs.

Mail Today February 20, 2013

Corruption, more than anything else, is the hurdle in India's defence buildup

One of the unintended consequences of the VVIP helicopter deal revelations is that defence acquisitions, already clogged up because of lengthy procedures and processes, are likely to get slowed down further.
What the episode shows is the insidious role of shadowy players like Christian Michel and Abhishek Verma in virtually every defence purchase that takes place.
The government of India has tried and failed to root them out, and all we have to show for it is an ever-lengthening list of defence companies who have been banned from doing business in India, an action tantamount to cutting our nose to spite the face.

And the situation only goes from bad to worse. Tehelka's Operation Westend and saw the conviction of Major General P S K Choudhry, Brigadier Iqbal Singh and Colonel Anil Sehgal for taking bribes from journalists posing as arms agents.
Now the VVIP helicopter deal revelations only confirm that corruption has seeped into the very innards of the system.

Among the various nuggets of information in the documents relating to the AgustaWestland deal, is a memo about two Army officers who were in charge of evaluating the Light Surveillance Helicopter competitors.
A deal for 197 such machines has now been suspended for unstated reasons, but AgustaWestland was a competitor at one time.
It details how a Brigadier Saini, who had become the leader of the test team, established contact with them.
"He made contact and offered his services in order to help eliminate the competition".
The memo says that Saini's predecessor, a Colonel Sidhu, had tilted the tests to favour the French helicopter, and now they had an offer from Saini to assist the Italian AW119, in exchange for 0.5 per cent or $ 5 million.
The memo notes, Saini was "excited about this deal" considering that this was "his last major assignment before retirement."

Ever since the Bofors scandal, the political system has chased the red herring of agents or middlemen in the defence business.
The ruling class cynically pandered to the public's distaste for middlemen who seemingly make money without doing anything substantial. But in reality, the middleman or agent actually has a functional role.
Ask anyone who has sold, rented or purchased a house. Acting without a broker would be risky indeed.
They not only bring a buyer and seller together, but they provide knowledge of the market as well as assistance in closing deals.
Indeed, the broker is very much a part of capitalist enterprise. The real villains are not these middlemen, but shadowy fixers who establish a line to the government of the day, usually leading politicians, and fix a deal.
This is not something that can be regulated by anyone. This is where the Guido Haschke and Michels come in, and they are not about servicing a deal in the conventionalsense, but bagging it through means fair or foul. The VVIP helicopter deal documents have only provided a look at the tip of the iceberg. More instructive is the infamous Bofors deal.
The initial CBI charges were against Bofors agent Win Chadha, Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, former defence secretary S K Bhatnagar, Bofors chief Martin Ardbo and the Hindujas. While the Hindujas were acquitted, Bhatnagar, Chadha, and Ardbo passed away.
Now only Quattrocchi remains, and his involvement is the one that has been the most difficult to explain, since he had nothing to do with Bofors and had no known involvement in the defence business.
But he was a self-acknowledged friend of the Gandhi family. So what does India do to get out of this maze?
There are short-term fixes such as going in for foreign military sales (FMS) kind of arrangements that we have with the US, where a US government agency deals with the procurement, logistics and delivery of equipment.
But this is a feature of the American system and even the Russians, whose defence industry is owned by the state, now use private agents and brokers to sell their wares around the world.
Perhaps the more important long range step is to encourage domestic R&D and production. But this is easier said than done as the experience of the DRDO and the defence public sector units (DPSU) indicate.
Over the years the infirmities of the DPSUs have become more than apparent. They have found it convenient to remain in the stage of licence manufacture which comes to them by virtue of being government owned.
Indeed, so convenient is this situation that they have become lobbyists for foreign suppliers, as was evidenced by the role of the Bharat Earth Movers Ltd in the Tatra trucks case.
What India needs is a wide opening up of the defence sector to the private players. There is no reason why the HAL or anyone else should automatically be designated as the licence holder to produce a foreign weapons system by virtue of being a government company.
Simultaneously, the government needs to break the DRDO monopoly in defence R&D. Given a long-term relationship, there is no reason why the big private players in the defence business-Tatas, L&T, Godrej, Mahindra, Reliance-will not develop their R&D as well.
Importantly, such players are already doing business in India and coping with the demands of the politicians and have learnt how to handle them.
The problem, however, is that the political or governing class today sits at the head of a powerful lobby which includes senior armed forces officers, bureaucrats in the ministry of defence, and the DPSU managers, who do not want to change the way things are.
They hold the levers of power that decide just which system is to be acquired and when. There is so much money being made and to be made from the massive defence imports that this lobby is difficult to defeat. In the meantime, the country's defence system is left vulnerable and its exchequer bled of money it cannot afford to lose.

Mail Today Feb 17, 2013

Tolerance from the bottom up

Many commentators have seen the controversy over Ashis Nandy and the Dalits, Salman Rushdie and Kolkata and Vishwaroopam's ban in Tamil Nadu, as attempts to muzzle India's culture of free speech and expression. Others see it as a clash between the freedom of speech and the sense of grievance and, often, outrage, it seems to unleash in certain instances.

But it is also possible to see the issues as a natural process of democratisation, with alternative "truths" vying for the upper hand in an environment of high economic growth, growing literacy and a burgeoning mass media.

Distortions

Anyway, it would be surprising indeed, if in a country of the size and diversity of India, where more and more people live cheek-by-jowl in urban conglomerations, there was no social and cultural tension.
India has been a nation of communities. This is what persuaded Maulana Husain Ahmed Madani, the great Deobandi leader, to oppose partition and support a united India in 1947. But that nation where communities lived relatively autonomously is rapidly breaking down and being amalgamated into the new India, largely in the urban sprawl that characterises our cities.
There is some alarm that, in this India, there is a kind of middle-class, largely Hindu, "fundamentalism."
In the first phase of our modern history, in the era of Nehru and Indira Gandhi, democracy and liberalism were a paternalistic gift. But this was, to be frank, a foreign implant that is now showing signs of rejection.
But this does not mean that the future is illiberal and authoritarian, only that it needs to be constructed on a truly democratic basis, rather than a paternalistic grant. This is visible in the politics of the nation where hitherto marginalised communities are determining their own political future, as well as beginning to comprehend it through the process of education. 

Kashmir's Grand Mufti Mohammed Bashir-ud-din is a self-appointed controversialist, but his statements are jumped on by the media

The rising tide of economic growth has brought with it a sense of achievement and self-confidence and the social and cultural assertion is a corollary of these processes.
There is no doubt that there is a great deal of distortion in the process of self expression. Marginalised communities are quick to take offence at slights, which are sometimes merely perceived.
Communities like the Muslims, who are already influenced by the global trend towards fundamentalism, are quick to anger at what they consider as false depictions of their faith and community.
There are also professional purveyors of grievance, such as can be found in the majority community who argue that the system panders to the minorities and that their faith and expression is getting short shrift.

Media

Another distortion has been caused by the media. The evolution of the media discourse in the country's burgeoning TV news franchise has been disturbing. To start with, as elsewhere, news was flavoured with expert commentary and discussion. But today, the format has been modified so that by design, the discussions become confrontations.
Then there is the issue of news selection. Take the case of the so-called Grand Mufti of Kashmir whose fatwa forced the girl band Pragaash to dissolve itself. He is a non-entity with a self-conferred title who has been on the lookout to generate controversy. But whatever outrages he commits are lapped up by the media, which neglects the basics of journalism - weighing the relative importance of an event or a source - before reporting on it.
The media metric for reportage is not whether something is consequential, but that it generates tension and controversy.
The greatest distortion is brought on by the role of the government. They are quick to act against writers, artists and ordinary persons who allegedly offend through their words and depiction, and ignore the actions of the allegedly aggrieved who threaten, and often undertake, violence.
But politicians who lead the system have never been known for their courage. Their style is to keep half a step behind public opinion, look right and left to see which way the public mood could move and then move in the same direction.
In fact it is the government's infirmities that are preventing the normal process of evolution where everyone could have the right to free expression, within clearly laid out boundaries, which obviously, exclude threats and acts of violence.

Members of the all-girl rock band Pragaash, against whom a fatwa was issued

Liberalism

One problem is that many of the groups who are quick to take offence are genuinely illiberal. They have their pet projects in which they would like to reshape the world according in their own image. Prominent among these are Islamic and Hindu zealots. Muslims may see themselves as a besieged minority, but the Islamist sees himself as a holy warrior whose goal is to see the global triumph of Islam.
The Hindu zealot, on the other hand, has a regret that goes as far back as the advent of Islam in this country. He would like to undo that history of several centuries, and build India along an alternate future. Since that's not possible you are talking of science fiction.
Various countries have different experiences in dealing with the issue of freedom of speech and expression. It took democracies like the UK and US hundreds of years before they arrived at their present position, where they privilege freedom of speech and expression in the manner they do.
Given our very different circumstances and trajectory, it is unlikely that we can reach that end in a linear fashion. Yet it is the very diversity and circumstances of this country that will act as a catalyst and help us to arrive at our own balance.
Having got a good start, thanks to the independence generation and the likes of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Ambedkar, India now has to democratise liberalism. But this time, the impulse must come from below, since the trickle-down process doesn't work.
Indians will have to learn, and the process is not likely to be easy, that if you want space for yourself and your opinions, you also have to ensure that others have the room for theirs.

Mail Today February 6, 2013

Rahul Gandhi: The insider as the outsider

The outsider has a long tradition in American politics. Anyone who can sell himself as being one is assured of making it to the White House, other things being equal.
The most recent in the category is the present incumbent Barack Obama, a one-term Senator who used his soaring "outsider" rhetoric to storm Washington's bastions.
But there have been notables of the past - George W Bush, Bill Clinton and before him, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
India, however, has Rahul Gandhi, a scion of the country's ruling dynasty whose roots go back to Motilal Nehru, who was president of the Congress party in 1919. His great-grandfather was India's first and longest serving prime minister, his grandmother was elected prime minister a record four times, and his father won the election with the biggest majority in the party's history, and his mother, uniquely, publicly declined the opportunity to take up the office.

Rahul Gandhi (pictured with his mother Sonia Gandhi) has an impeccable political lineage, but is presently playing the outsider

Stance

But politics has its own compulsions. So shoddy has been the record of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance with regard to delivery of governance and services, that the only approach the insider has left is to play the outsider.
He is the one who must decry the "closed systems" through which the country is governed or allude to the anger and alienation of those "excluded from political class."
This compulsion does not drive the Congress alone. The contemporary distrust of politicians, their inability to meet the aspirations of the people, or address the challenges that they confront in their everyday life, is also propelling the BJP to project an outsider - Narendra Modi - as its prime ministerial candidate.
It is in part because of his tragic history, which he alluded to in his vice-presidential address in Jaipur, that Rahul Gandhi's entry into mainstream politics has been relatively smooth. The BJP and Shiv Sena criticism can be treated as being for form's sake.

 

After all, they have their own way of selecting their leader, and the Congress has its. So, there had to be a willing suspension of disbelief when we heard Rahul Gandhi inveigh against the lack of rules or conventions in the Congress party and wonder how it worked.
Actually, it's not clear just how Mr Gandhi was appointed Vice-President of the party. The Congress party constitution has an elaborate process for the election of the president which involves voting. Presumably there ought to be a similar provision for the VP, but, the party will say, the post was created anew at Jaipur, so the constitution has some catching up to do.
An intriguing aspect of Mr Gandhi's remarks in Jaipur was his critique of power which he saw as "a poison." In his moral universe, the only use of power was to "empower the voiceless."
But power is a far more insidious phenomenon. It is intrinsic to the way human beings function in groups. There are leaders and there are followers, or those exercising power and those upon whom it is exercised. There has never been a society or system which is free of power relations.
What is desirable is that this power is exercised by the consent of the people, through systems which are democratic and responsive, and where there are sanctions against the illegal exercise of power.
In some ways, Mr Gandhi approached this issue, but he did not quite clinch it, because he conveniently transformed it into a moral issue.

Models

Rahul Gandhi has made much about the need to democratise the Congress party organisation, never mind the status of his own family. But we can take him at his word for this because he may be seeing this as a longer term step in which the democratised party organisation will evolve and the family will step aside.
There is no lack of models on democratic party functioning. Take the US, for example, where a party member must contest an election (primary) and win the vote of the party members to become a candidate of his or her party.
But there is another aspect of the American system that needs to be pointed out. First, the American system is biased in favour of the two principal parties. But the most disturbing aspect of US elections is the amount of money that must be deployed to be a meaningful contestant.
In the recent presidential poll, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent a collective $2 billion. Another $4 billion or so was spent in the Senate, Congressional and state election races. In India, too, a vast sum of money is required to contest elections. While the Election Commission limits expenditure for a Lok Sabha constituency in a large state like UP to Rs 40 lakh, anecdotal evidence would suggest that the actual figure could be ten times that sum.

Silence

It is the terrible thirst for money to fight and win elections that distorts our system of politics, governance and administration. But this is something that is rarely discoursed on in the media. True, various numbers are often tossed around, but there are virtually no authentic reports on election spending.
What is known is that the central party organisation provides some of the funding for an individual candidate, but he or she has to raise the rest of the amount required through their own resources. It is in raising this money that power relationships are developed, because as everyone knows, in life there is no free lunch.
Yet this is one issue on which there has been complete silence from Rahul Gandhi, and this is his true mark as an insider.

Mail Today January 31, 2013

Rajnath Singh's election as president is merely papering over the faultlines

As the dust clears from the crash that brought down Nitin Gadkari from his perch as the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, it is likely that the big unhappy Sangh parivar could become a little unhappier.
True, on the day after Gadkari's surprise exit as a candidate for a second term as president, the party closed ranks behind his successor Rajnath Singh.
But the faultlines in the Sangh parivar run deep. A closer look at the outcome of the political earthquake that hit on Tuesday evening reveals that except Rajnath Singh, no one has got what they wanted.
Gadkari, of course, didn't get his second term, Mohan Bhagwat, the supremo of the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh had to face the humiliation of being foiled in his effort to give his chosen nominee a second term in office, L K Advani may have managed to block Gadkari, but he had to make do with another RSS choice-Rajnath Singh.
Other wannabes, too remain unfulfilled - Yashwant Sinha, Venkaiah Naidu and the eternal Murli Manohar Joshi-who dreamt the impossible dream of becoming president. In a lighter vein, perhaps, the Congress party, too is unhappy- Gadkari as party president and his Purti baggage would have been a dream come true.
The displacement of Gadkari is the outcome of a war between the RSS and its creation, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
At another level, it was a more personal accounting between RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and former party president L K Advani.
The former played a key role in ensuring that Advani was forced to step down as the president of the party in December 2005 and make way for Rajnath Singh. 

Key role: Mohan Bhagwat 

In this clash, they have come out even-Advani has foiled Bhagwat's chosen nominee, perhaps the first time a Sarsanghchalak has been so publicly rebuffed by the BJP, but in turn has had to accept a Sangh loyalist.
The RSS insistence on pushing Gadkari's name in the face of the controversy over his companies' activities, as well as vehement opposition within the BJP is instructive.
At one level it suggests that the RSS is so detached from the affairs of the state that they have been unable to see Gadkari for the liability that he was.
On the other, it shows an arrogance of power through which the RSS actually convinced the BJP to first amend its constitution to give Gadkari an unprecedented second consecutive term, and then pushed his candidacy despite serious charges of wrongdoing by companies promoted by him.
Whatever may have been Advani's motives, it is difficult to fault him and other BJP leaders for insisting that a second term for Gadkari was simply not acceptable to them and that the Nagpur businessman, with a somewhat gauche take on politics, lacked the gravitas and, perhaps, the reputation for probity, to lead the party.
Recall that the period in which the party held the government at the Centre- 1998-2004 was also the nadir of the relationship between the RSS and the BJP.
This was to a great extent a matter of personalities-Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the consummate politician, simply outmanoeuvred the somewhat eccentric sarsanghchalak, K S Sudarshan.
At another level it reflected Vajpayee's enormous prestige in the party and, indeed, the Sangh Parivar. Advani may have inherited Vajpayee's mantle as the leader of the party in 2004, but he lacked the latter's Teflon style. Whatever be the case, this is Advani's last stand.
At 85 there are only so many political battles you can fight. And it is a tragedy if at the end of his political life he is locked in a bitter struggle with the very organisation which mentored him.
Bhagwat, a sprightly 63 has many more years to go and can take the setback in his stride, with the consolation that Rajnath is a known loyalist of the RSS.
And while he may not be the kind of leader who will set the Ganga afire-his record as minister and president of the party is questionable- he is clean and can be expected to play his role in the choreography through which the Sangh hopes to have the BJP forming the government in 2014.
Rajnath Singh's presidency is not likely to still the civil war that rages within the party. The reason for this is that with Rajnath's ascendency to the presidency the first time around in November 2006 began a phase in which the RSS has sought to micro-manage the affairs of the party.
Foisting Gadkari as the president in 2009 was a manifestation of this tendency. This generated a countervailing force which is grouped around Advani, and comprises of the top leadership of the party-people like Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Yashwant Sinha and Venkaiah Naidu.
State level leaders like Raman Singh or Shivraj Singh Chouhan, too, are not enamoured of the RSS, though they take care not to cross certain red lines. Narendra Modi is in a class of his own, he is distrusted by the RSS, even though he is its pracharak (ordinary member), but the RSS knows that they have no other leader with his capacity to galvanise the party faithful.
The going is not going to be easy for Rajnath Singh. He also has to unite a factious leadership whose lack of cohesion has given the ruling UPA a free ride in the recent past.
Then, he has to push the party to move away from its current negativist approach of opposing whatever the UPA proposes, and come up with its own credible policy programme. And he has to do all this with the RSS looking over his shoulders.
Advani has already set a high benchmark for him- victory in the coming state assembly elections and the revival of the party in his home state, Uttar Pradesh and then, of course, the 2014 elections.

Mail Today January 24, 2012

Analysis on the eve of Headley's sentencing

More than four years after the horrific Lashkar-e- Tayyeba (LeT) attack on Mumbai, American-Pakistani Daood Gilani, better known as David Coleman Headley, is set to be sentenced by a US court on Thursday.
Prosecutors are demanding a 30-35 year jail term for him.
This is considerably less than the life imprisonment or even death sentence they could have sought, considering that Headley's detailed reconnaissance was critical for the horrific Mumbai terror attack of November 2008.
The first count of his indictment, to which he pleaded guilty in 2010, related to "conspiracy to bomb places of public use in India" and this, according to a document detailing his plea agreement, "carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or death penalty".

The Taj Mahal Hotel burns during the gun battle between Indian military and militants inside the hotel in Mumbai

But, according to US attorney Gary S. Shapiro: "His decision to cooperate (with the government), and the uniquely significant value that cooperation has provided to the government's efforts to combat terrorism, support the government's recommendation."
Shapiro said in a 20-page position paper that the US had ruled out any extradition for Headley, because he had provided critical information to the US agencies about various other terror outfits.
But, the plea agreement between Headley and the US government is clear that "the sentencing judge is neither a party to nor bound by" the plea agreement and was free to "impose a sentence up to the maximum penalties".
Headley's sentencing comes in the wake of the 14-year sentence awarded to his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was acquitted of his role in the Mumbai attack, but convicted of conspiring to bomb the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and of aiding the LeT.
According to his indictment documents, Headley started working with the LeT in late 2005 when he received instructions to travel to India to conduct surveillance of various locations.
Prior to this he had attended training camps organised by the outfit on five occasions between 2002 and 2005. Headley's great value was that he looked like a white American and to facilitate his operation, he had his name legally changed from Daood Gilani to David Coleman Headley.
 

Scene of the shooting at Chattrapati Shivaji Railway terminus in November 2008 in Mumbai, where more than 60 people were killed in a series of attacks.

Detailed reconnaissance: David Coleman Headley

Using Rana's immigration business as a cover, he conducted extensive video surveillance of places which were subsequently targeted by the LeT hit squad in November 2008.
In December 2008, he also got involved in the conspiracy to attack the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Copenhagen. In January 2009, he conducted surveillance of the facility and repeated this in late July and early August 2009.
Indeed, in March 2009, Headley was back in India and conducted additional surveillance of various locations including the National Defence College, in New Delhi as well as the Jewish Chabad houses in various cities.
The National Investigation Agency was given access to Headley in June 2010.
The interrogation was carried out in the presence of his counsels, FBI officials and prosecutors.
He acted as the star witness in the trial of Rana.
The interrogation revealed, in the words of the NIA, "that every major action of the LeT" is done only after the approval of Hafiz Saeed, its leader and founder and that he had full knowledge of the Mumbai attacks which were launched only after his approval.
The NIA also obtained information about the role of the ISI in the Mumbai attacks and details of the involvement of Pakistani military officers such as Sajid Mir and one Major Iqbal.
According to Headley, Major Iqbal not only trained Headley in counter-surveillance techniques, but also acted as his handler. As of now, neither Mir, nor Major Iqbal's whereabouts are known.
However, the LeT's part in the conspiracy has been revealed with the arrest of LeT operations commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi who is currently under trial with five other top LeT leaders in Pakistan.
An aspect of the Headley case that has been intriguing the Indian authorities is his role as an informant of the US Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA).
In 1988, he had been arrested in Frankfurt for possessing drugs and it is believed that he was subsequently enrolled as an informer by the DEA.
What is not clear is the period through which he remained an informant of the DEA and whether or not the US authorities had any prior indication from him of the Mumbai attack.

Mail Today January 24, 2013