Musician wins Indira Gandhi national integration award

NEW DELHI: Carnatic vocalist TM Krishna has won the 30th Indira Gandhi award for national integration for 2015-16. Krishna, who won the Ramon Magsaysay award for “bringing social inclusiveness in culture” in 2016, will be presented with the award by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on October 31, the death anniversary of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The award, instituted by the Congress in its centenary year in 1985, carries a citation and ₹10 lakh cash. RAIPUR: For about a decade, life has been hell for 42-year-old Babulal Yadav.

The differently abled landless labourer in a desperately poor corner of Chhattisgarh has made countless trips to the local police station, answered questions by several investigators and lived in fear of random searches on his small shanty just outside the market in Kharora, around 50km from Raipur.

The irony: Yadav is not accused of any crime or conspiracy. He is one of 446 people, mostly poor carpenters, farmers and vendors, in whose name a senior state bureaucrat is accused of setting up fake bank accounts to allegedly launder crores of rupees.

Yadav has instructed his wife to not talk to inquisitive outsiders and the family of six spends its nights uneasily. His biggest regret is getting a PAN card in the late 90s that was allegedly used by a middleman to set up the bogus account.

“When I go out, people taunt me with shouts of ‘crorepati’ ‘crorepati’ but I am a poor man…many days I don’t even get any work,” he said. HT spoke to 10 other villagers who said they have been called multiple times for interrogation and recording of statements.

The trouble began in 2006 when charges surfaced against IAS officer BL Agrawal of having allegedly colluded with middlemen and bank officials to open accounts in the names of villagers, and laundering money through them.

Agrawal was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation this February and also booked by the Enforcement Directorate.