Raja No 2 in Time magazine’s power abuse list

Former telecom minister A Raja, now in jail for his lead role in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, has made it to Time magazine's shame list.

The humongous 2G scam allegedly scripted by the ex-minister has earned him the dubious distinction of figuring in the magazine's list of "an ignominious club of privileged leaders who stepped too far".

The 2G scam takes the No 2 spot  in the list of scandals and scams in the all time Top 10 'Abuses of Power', only next to ex American president Richard Nixon's 'Plumbers', a secret unit tasked with digging up dirt on Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg.

Raja, who is lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail, left many unsavoury characters far behind including the likes of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, North Korean autocratic leader Kim Jong-II and skirt-chasing Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi.

The report in the magazine on the telecom scandal says, "In recent months, India's ruling coalition government has been rocked by an epic corruption scandal that has challenged its once unbreakable grip on power."

The report, while including the DMK leader in its list, did not spare Indian democracy or the judiciary either. It said that after the 2008 elections, India's telecommunications ministry was awarded to Andimithu Raja, "a relatively green lawmaker from a regional party who won his post as a result of India's usual parliamentary political horse-trading."