Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government planned Smart Cities Mission to create 100 technology-wired cities in India, wrote Sagarika Ghosh. "Panjim, Goa is a designated smart city that has seen a jaw-dropping administrative collapse." "In the midst of a health emergency public squabbles have broken out between health minister and chief minister," and "At Goa Medical College hospital (GMCH) on city outskirts, over consecutive days, patients kept losing their lives because, bizarrely, a tractor trolley bearing oxygen cylinders could not be properly maneuvered into position," The Indian Express (TIE). "Between May 11 and May 16, dropping oxygen levels at Goa's largest hospital killed 75 COVID-19 patients," Al Jazeera. "A doctor working at GMCH, on the condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera the pipelines carrying oxygen from the main tank were corroded, leading to the leakage." "Of late, we have been hearing this refrain from various quarters that 'the system has failed', 'the system has collapsed', and that 'the system' is to be blamed for the unprecedented pain and misery and loss of thousands of Indian lives," wrote RJD party member Manoj Kumar Jha. "The blatant arrogance of the most important people behind the fiction of the 'system' during the Covid pandemic, particularly the second wave, shows that institutions of accountable and representative government have turned into objects in a museum." It is this arrogance that prevents the government from accepting the judgement of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague which "cited statements by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP ministers, saying they pledged not to use 'retrospective taxation' to overturn Rs 10,247 crore (Rs 102.47 billion) tax demand from Cairn Energy Plc," Business Today (BT). In further evidence of its breathtaking arrogance the government offered to drop interest and penalties if Cairn agreed to pay Rs 5,100 crore (Rs 510 billion) under the Vivaad se Vishwas (from conflict to trust) scheme. Cairn filed a suit in a US District Court seeking to attach Air India planes as it is a government owned airline. The government has been attempting to sell Air India but its exorbitant demand meant that there was not a single offer in 2018, TIE. It has since offered complete transfer of ownership and reduced the debt of the airline by Rs 100 billion but there are still questions about how this debt is being calculated, BT. Had it not been so clever, Cairn could not have targeted Air India planes. Perhaps to reduce legal costs and waste of time, "UK's Cairn Energy Plc has offered to forego $500 million and invest that amount in any oil or gas or renewable energy project identified by the Indian government if new Delhi agrees to honour and international arbitration award and returns the value of loss it incurred because of being taxed retrospectively, sources said," Times of India (TOI). Arrogance cannot bear a defeat. Instead, "Indian authorities asked state-run banks to protect their dollar deposits on concern they could be frozen if Cairn Energy Plc moves to seize India's offshore assets as part of a tax dispute, according to people with knowledge of the matter," Business Standard. "While India has the right to challenge the award, this challenge is likely to fail. As the Cairn tribunal has explained, the dispute between Cairn and India is not a tax dispute but a tax-related investment dispute," Hindustan Times (HT). "UK's Cairn Energy has identified USD 70 billion of Indian assets overseas for potential seizure to collect USD 1.72 billion from the government -- a move if successful will put India in league with Pakistan and Venezuela which faced similar enforcement action over failure to pay arbitration awards," Business Insider. In January, the government "authorized Antrix Corp to ask National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for the winding up of Devas, a private firm to which the commercial arm of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) owes $1.2 billion, awarded by an international arbitration court in 2015 for a broken contract and confirmed by a US federal court last October," Mint. Arrogance brooks no opposition.
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