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Monday, June 17, 2013

Breaking: TeliaSonera's Ucell allegedly bribed $320 million; is Ncell different?


If TeliaSonera is indulged in so blatantly unscrupulous act in Uzbekistan, why would it abstain from the same in Nepal? My personal trepidation is that the situation could be even worse in Nepal given the corruptibility of the officials and the plethora of loopholes in the system meant to check the practice. 


According to a recent report by Alexander Kim first published by The Jamestown Foundation and republished by Asia Times Online, Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbek president, is being investigated in Sweden for getting a whopping $320 million from TeliaSonera in exchange for the 3G license and frequency for the tainted company.

Apparently, the controversy of TeliaSonera opting for personal kickbacks rather than abiding by the law of the land is not a new phenomenon. 

Significantly, TeliaSonera happens to have a presence in Nepali market in the name of Ncell and the company has recently gone on a hysteric advertising spree claiming to have reached a 10 million subscriber goal. 

Is there any possibility of Ncell gratifying the officials in Nepal with similar kickbacks? Well, there are no credible reports in Nepali media so far.

But the coziness between the corporations in general and Ncell in particular, and the mainstream media houses  in Nepal is no new phenomenon. After all, Ncell is one of the most liberal advertisers in Nepal and it is natural if the dog does not bite the hand which feeds it.

But the alternative media in Nepal has been occasionally shedding light on the forbidden arena of the corporate wrongdoing. When a reporter from a mainstream media outlet expressed his frustration on the treachery of Ncell on social media, I compiled that into a short report for this blog. Subsequently, when the unique extravaganza in the name of Ncell Nepal Literature Festival was going on in Kathmandu, I followed up with an article that referred to a report from Eurasianet about Ucell's stellar bribing strategy in Uzbekistan.

Ncell has often come into controversy in Nepal for evading tax while unexplicably increasing the subscribers and allegedly 'leading the market' in Nepal particularly in the field of Internet Service Providing. The concerned voices, however, are yet to reach the detectable space in print and other conventional media in Nepal. 

If TeliaSonera is indulged in so blatantly unscrupulous act in Uzbekistan, why would it abstain from the same in Nepal? My personal trepidation is that the situation could be even worse in Nepal given the corruptibility of the officials and the plethora of loopholes in the system meant to check the practice. 

As I have often said, none of the corporations love the un-glamorous things like paying the tax to the government instead of frenzied expenditure in advertising and kickbacks to the officials, neither of which is likely to be as costly as the former. 

So what are the TeliaSonera and Ncell in Nepal upto? A rigorous investigative journalism would surely unravel the mystery but given the absence of the same in Nepal, we are forced to keep our suspicions and grudges with ourselves while the corporations march, bribing or buying everything and everybody that comes their way. 

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Why I write...

I do not know why I often tend to view people rather grimly: they usually are not as benevolent, well-intentioned and capable or strong as they appear to be. This assumption is founded on my own self-assessment, though I don’t have a clue as to whether it is justifiable to generalize an observation made in one individual. This being the fact, my views of writers as ‘capable’ people are not that encouraging: I tend to see them as people who intend to create really great and world-changing writings but most of the times end up producing parochial pieces. Also, given the fact that the society where we grow and learn is full of dishonesty, treachery, deceit and above else, mundanity, it is rather unrealistic to expect an entirely reinvigorating work of writing from every other person who scribbles words in paper.


On life's challenges

Somebody has said: “I was born intelligent but education ruined me”. I was born a mere child, as everyone is, and grew up as an ordinary teenager eventually landing up in youth and then adulthood. The extent to which formal education helped me to learn about the world may be debatable but it definitely did not ruin me. There were, however, things that nearly ruined me. There came moments when I contemplated some difficult choices. And there came and passed periods when I underwent through an apparently everlasting spell of agony. There came bends in life from which it was very tempting to move straight ahead instead of following the zigzag course.


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