Speed Demon Part III

I / II / III

Hot on the heels of our last blog, the response of Sai Baba apologist - Gerald 'Joe' Moreno - came to our attention. It is not the policy of this blog to allow him much publicity but on this occasion we feel that his comments were frankly too good to pass up considering how they display the typical head-in-the-sand mentality of many a Sai devotee:

This is an article by Serguei Badaev. He is wondering why Sathya Sai Baba gave cars to 5 long term devotees and criticizes Baba's actions. What Anti-Sai Activists fail to realize is that the five individuals who were given cars have devoted their entire life to Sai Baba and spend most of their time serving others. I personally met some of these individuals and they are well known for their unremitting acts of selfless service. They are well respected individuals who are people of solid character and abiding integrity (wish the same could be said of Anti-Sai Activists: Reference). These individuals were rewarded for their selfless service and good acts by Sai Baba. Anti-Sai Activists have nothing better to do than to engage in petty criticism about cars that Sathya Sai Baba gave to people who deserved them."

I found this to be highly amusing on so many levels. First of all it is important to note how Gerald avoids and skips around very pertinent questions. Badaev has noted that donations to the Trust are made by devotees in a charitable manner and not for giving gifts to Trust trustees, no matter how many years of "work" they have dedicated to Sai Baba's corrupt organisation.

Bear in mind that this public ceremony - full of pomp and splendour - happened straight after Sai Baba spat out a Lingam earlier that day so all eyes were on him. Gerald Moreno defends Chakravarthi and Venkataraman's receipt of cars because they have done "selfless service" and "good acts". That's about right when you consider what Chakravarthi and Venkataraman get up to when they think no one's looking. To recap, Chakravarthi is the guy who slammed the phone down on Daily Telegraph reporter Mick Brown when he simply enquired about the allegations of sexual abuse. He also seems to be a man of two faces; the Dr. Jekyll is all smiles to the BBC Crew when he thinks a positive television documentary will be made and then Mr. Hyde makes his appearance when they ask questions about the sexual abuse allegations.

Venkataraman is the fellow who blatantly denied the truth of Sai Baba's health reports that were leaking out onto the Internet from devotees at the ashram. He has also been known to mock victims of sexual abuse who have been severely raped and/or molested by his guru, not to mention spinning a completely biased and self-serving take on the UNESCO affair. Read Part I for more information.

Apart from all of that, Gerald clearly has no comments to offer on Serguei Badaev's serious points of concern; whose decision was it to present cars? Where did the money come from to purchase these Honda cars? Donations? Are Sai devotees aware that their money is not being spent on supposed charity projects, but on expensive gifts to longtime Sai devotees? Jeesh, when S. Sampath was forced to retire from his job as Vice-Chancellor of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (University), he only got a teeny bracelet!

And then to top all of that, we have just received information from a reputable source about the background and brief financial affairs of the winners of Sai Baba's Shivarathri Raffle:

A. Ramakrishna (now retired), former Vice-President of ECC (a part of the Larsen & Toubro Group) which received many rich profitable contracts from the Central Trust. This group is accused of having paid kickbacks to members of the Central Trust to obtain good contracts, for which reason Sai Baba dismissed at least one of its members, Col. Joga Rao.

Kondal Rao, Senior Technical Consultant to Govt. of Andhra Pradesh for the Sri Sathya Sai Water Supply Project, and also the Chief Engineer supervising the Chennai Water Supply Project [on a fat salary!]. This project was largely a failure due partly to an unpredicted sharp fall in the water table in the Rayalaseema area which seriously reduced the number of villages actually provided with water. Partly it was also due to contractors who used inferior material (causing supply failures) and some did not complete their contracts. Maintenance of the even the parts which worked proved impossible for the Sai authorities, so the entire project eventually had to be taken over and subsidised heavily by the Andhra Pradesh State government.

K.Chakravarthi, Head of the Prashanthi Nilayam ashram, Sercretary of the Central Trust etc. Was in the Indian Administrative Service (Andhra Pradesh Cadre) from 1960; Commissioner of Relief, and Commissioner of Commercial Taxes. But he had his hand deep in the till! He left the IAS in 1981 in disgrace after a public investigation which found he had embezzled funds! Thus he was qualified to become the first Registrar of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning and ably nurtured the fledgling institute in its initial years! SSB made him the first Registrar of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. He is to be seen on the BBC documentary, 'The Secret Swami' directing helpers of the collapsing Swami off the stage after he threw up water but failed to regurgitate a golden lingam. It appeared from his towel, and (on film) he told the amazed audience that it had caused him some difficulties because it weighed three tons! He was already rich before to buy all the cars he could need he entered into the Sai set-up!

Dr G. Venkataraman, who was the Founder Director of ANURAG, a unit of DRDO - Defence Research and Development Organization. He also served at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai and the Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Centre in Kalpakkam. He is the recipient of the Sir C. V. Raman Centenary Award, Indira Gandhi Award and the Padma Shri Award from the Government of India. A former Vice-Chancellor of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, he currently teaches at the Institute and is Director of the Prashanti Digital Studio and Radio Sai Global Harmony. His role in the cover-up of SSB's alleged crimes is made abundantly clear through his own posting on Radio Sai (since erased by him in an attempt at damage limitation), see: http://www.saiguru.net/english/articles/124does_unesco_really_protect_the_y.htm He was also extremely well-to-do before he entered into the Sai set-up!

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