Armstrong Doping Case Explained on Australian Television

“The World According to Lance,” 4 Corners/The Australian Broadcasting Corporation

As my colleague Juliet Macur reports, Nike severed ties with the former cyclist Lance Armstrong on Wednesday. The company, which sold millions of yellow rubber bracelets branded “LIVESTRONG” in support of the cyclist's foundation, said in a short statement, “Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him.”

The evidence Nike refers to is a 202-page report - supported by hundreds of pages of documents and witness testimony from Armstrong's former teammates - outlining what the United States Anti-Doping Agency called “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”

All that can be a bit daunting for readers to pour thro ugh, so thankfully the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has produced a comprehensive overview of the Armstrong doping case in a documentary shown this week called “The World According to Lance.” The program, featuring Quentin McDermott, a reporter for the ABC's investigative program “Four Corners,” presents the accounts of several witnesses who spoke to the antidoping agency, and explains in clear terms how cheating was rife on Armstrong's team, sponsored by the United States Postal Service.

Image of the Day: Oct. 17

Stringer/India/ReutersAustralian Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the Gandhi memorial in New Delhi on the last day of her three-day visit to India.

What Happened to Vikram Pandit?

Carlos Osorio/Associated PressOutgoing chief executive of Citigroup Vikram S. Pandit speaking at the National Summit in Detroit, Michigan, in this June 15, 2009 file photo.

In a surprise move, Citigroup announced on Tuesday that Vikram S. Pandit, the bank's chief executive, had resigned, effective immediately.

Mr. Pandit, 55, was born in Nagpur and had been the chief executive of Citigroup since December 2007. He was one of India's shining overseas corporate success stories, part of a growing group of executives of Indian birth or ancestry who have led American i nstitutions in recent years, and his unexpectedly fast departure has raised many questions, but answers, so far, are not forthcoming.

As IBNLive reports, Mr. Pandit left India for the United States when he was 16, earned bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University and went on to get a doctorate in finance from the same institution. In July 2007, Citigroup acquired his hedge fund and private equity firm, Old Lane Partners, and Mr. Pandit took the top job at the company late that year.

In a 2007 interview with The Times of India, Mr. Pandit's father, Shankar Pandit, talked about his son with pride after he was named Citigroup's chief executive. “He was a brilliant boy,” the senior Mr. Pandit said. “In school, he always stood first in his class. He is very astute and focused. I saw him rise. Vikram has stood to my expectations. I am so happy that everyone is sharing my happiness, today.” He said his son was “a very simple person at heart” who “derives pleasures from simple things in life.”

In 2008, Outlook magazine wrote that the financial crisis had damaged the reputations of corporate leaders who had, until then, been the “faces of ‘India shining' abroad.” “Thanks to the ravaging financial turbulence, Pandit could well be described as the most visible India-origin face for receiving bouquets and brickbats in equal measure,” the article said.

Old Lane's history after Citigroup purchased it for $800 million was short and disappointing â€" the fund was shuttered in the summer of 2008 after losing money for investors.

The timing and the abruptness of the announcement Tuesday were surprising, but Mr. Pandit's departure itself was less so.  Questions about his appointment to the top spot were raised soon after he was named chief executive, Eric Dash reported in 2007. Mr. Pandit, he wrote then, is “known more as an analytical t echnocrat than a charismatic leader.”

Weeks before his resignation, “frustrations of the board members had been building,” Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Susanne Craig wrote in Dealbook Tuesday.

In a piece titled “Vikram Pandit Takes a Powder at Citigroup,” James Greiff of Bloomberg reports that many in the financial world had long thought that “Vikram Pandit was never the right man for the top job.” He says Mr. Pandit's hedge fund background left him unsuited to running a commercial and consumer bank, and says his rise to the top was “by default as much as anything.” The Telegraph in Britain makes a similar argument in “Vikram Pandit: The academic ‘hedge fund guy,” noting that some also saw Mr. Pandit as “too timid and academic to run a global bank.”

His abrupt departure has sparked speculation about what lay behind it, in part because his resignation came a day after Citigroup announced stronger-than-expected earnings. The New Yo rker writes of “The Mystery of Vikram Pandit's Resignation,” noting that “it's a bit unusual for the C.E.O. to quit without notice, effective immediately”.

The resignation followed “a clash with the board over strategy and performance,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The Economic Times reports that Citigroup directors replaced Mr. Pandit because they believed he had “mismanaged operations,” which led to “setbacks with regulators and a loss of credibility with investors.”

Analysts and investors have reacted with some consternation to the suddenness of the announcement, as NDTV reports. “Our view has always been that he was not really adding much value. So, in that sense we are not sorry to see him leave,” said Gautam Dhingra, chief executive and founder of High Pointe Capital Management in Chicago. “However, the abruptness of the resignation does cause a bit of worry. Why did it have to be an abrupt, rather than a graceful exit?”

Martin Mosby, a stock analyst at Guggenheim Securities, told NDTV, “If it was a natural transition of any sort, the timing would not be now. You would announce it in January and you would set up a transition period that would be completed in probably April.”

The Business Standard reports that investors had expected Mr. Pandit to remain, given the bank's improved outlook. “I would have expected he wanted to stay around and see some of the fruits of his labors there,” said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer of Oakbrook Investments in Illinois.

Mint reports that while senior executives at Citigroup were shocked by Pandit's departure, investors apparently were not sorry to see him leave, as Citigroup shares rose as much as 2 percent. “It's not a shock that (Pandit) is no longer there, but the surprise is this is all happening very quickly. Why is he leaving immediately?” said Mike Holland, chairman of Holland and Co. in New York.

Mr. Pandit's successor is Michael L. Corbat, former head of Citigroup's European and Middle Eastern division.

In the statement announcing his departure, Mr. Pandit did not provide much more explanation: “Given the progress we have made in the last few years, I have concluded that now is the right time for someone else to take the helm at Citigroup,” he said.

Which Open Spaces Should Mumbai Protect?

Rajanish Kakade/Associated PressMakeshift houses in Mumbai, Maharashtra in this Aug. 26, 2009 file photo.

MUMBAIâ€"In Mumbai, a metropolis teeming with more than 13 million people, activists and ordinary citizens alike lament the dearth of places to get a simple breath of fresh air.  A new study demonstrates just how scarce open space is: a mere 6 percent of the city is reserved for it, and of that area, approximately 60 percent is neither developed nor accessible to the public.

That translates to just nine square feet of open space per person, and protecting even that limited amount of turf can sometimes involve lengthy court battles, as I wrote Tuesday in The New York Times.

Traveling the streets of Mumbai, it is readily apparent that the city's denizens embrace the few large open spaces available. On any given evening, shouts from several simultaneous cricket matches can be heard at Oval Maidan, families congregate at Juhu Beach enjoying the sea spray, tourists mill about having their pictures taken at the Gateway of India and Azad Maidan provides a much-needed platform for political gatherings.

Kuni Takahashi for The New York TimesA schoolgirl making her way through narrow lanes between houses in Ambedkar Naga r in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Mumbaikars: Are there spaces in the city that you think the city should do more to develop so the public can enjoy them?

What suggestions would you give the city government as it revises Mumbai's Development Plan, the blueprint for land use for the next 20 years?

Please leave your suggestions in the comments section below.

For Akhilesh Yadav, the Honeymoon is Over

Fresh off the heels of a Mayawati-led administration beleaguered by accusations of corruption and mismanagement, Akhilesh Yadav's ascension to power earlier this year in Uttar Pradesh was accompanied by a wave of optimism.

Mr. Yadav, 39, the youngest chief minister of India's most populous state, was embraced as the face of India's new bench of politicians, intent on transparency and comfortable with technology. Now, just six months later, Mr. Yadav's government is mired in many of the same accusations that plagued both his predecessor and his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who ran the state before Mayawati.

Most recently, the anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal accused the state's law minister of running a fake charity, and the state's minister of medical health and family welfare was accused of kidnapping a chief medical officer for extorti on. Last month, a state lawyer said he was kidnapped to prevent him from running for a state seat in the lower house of Parliament that was won, uncontested, by Mr. Yadav's wife, Dimple.

Mr. Yadav met with India Ink late on a Sunday morning in an office at the chief minister's residence in Lucknow last month, to discuss some of the criticism that had been leveled at his administration and his plans for the state's future.

The chief minister's official residence in Lucknow is a “Scarface”-like mansion guarded by tall walls and security forces, and in September it was still in the process of being redecorated from the inside out, to suit the tastes of its new resident family. The style seemed to be a mix of the most futuristic thing ever seen in this part of India, and a 1970s-era airport lounge.

Perhaps it's an appropriate setting for the most visible family of Uttar Pradesh, a state with grand ambitions for the future, tempe red by frustrating limitations created by the debts of its past.

“What I know about politics today I learned from my family,” Mr. Yadav began, after settling into a red wing-backed chair in his spacious, light-filled office. “It's been an advantage for me.”

Beside him was an empty red chair for his wife, who took the oath as a member of Lok Sabha in August. She met him halfway through the interview.

It's unquestionable that Mr. Yadav's family name was an advantage in his political career. He received his master's in environmental engineering from the University of Sydney, but he came into politics by mandate of his Samajwadi Party, since nothing sells in Indian politics like a name brand. His father served three terms as the state's chief minister. Numerous uncles and cousins hold or have held posts in various Uttar Pradesh administrations, including this one. More than anything else, politics is a Yadav family tradition.

But in the first six months of his term, Mr. Yadav's family name seems to have done the young leader as much harm as good. One of the most significant and fundamental criticisms he faces is that his father pulls the strings behind his back.

“People say I work under my father, that I'm working under his shadow,” Mr. Yadav acknowledged.

“It's true I take advice from senior leadership,” he said. “But the decisions I make, in my own mind and my heart.”

His wife's uncontested election to the Lok Sabha became the source of local scandal in September when it was challenged in the Allahabad High Court by a man who said that activists of the Samajwadi Party kidnapped him to prevent him from contesting the seat.

And Shivpal Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav's uncle, and the current head of the state's Public Works Department, was filmed saying that the advice he gives to his subordinates is “if you work hard, then you can steal a little,” a statement that for obvious reasons dr ew sharp rebukes from the press, the public and the chief minister's political opponents.

In defense of his uncle, Mr. Yadav politely asked for permission to speak in Hindi. He then contended that his uncle was misheard. He delineated the difference between the word chori, which means stealing, and kamchori, which means playing truant, a distinction that implies his uncle meant to advocate taking off from work instead of stealing.

“I can assure you of this: In U.P., we want to reduce corruption,” Mr. Yadav said. “I have made my point very clear with ministers - if you indulge in corruption, you'll be punished.”

He went on to make a promise: “In time,” he said, “I will reduce corruption.”

One of the chief complaints against Mr. Yadav's fledgling administration is a spike in the violent crime rate in the state. His predecessor, Mayawati, who goes by one name, and her Bahujan Samaj Party, or B.S.P., rose to power in no small part because of her perceived toughness on crime. The state has been long dogged by problems with gangs and dacoity in its rural villages, issues that have been recently dramatized in popular Hindi films like “Ishaqzaade.”

Only a month after Mr. Yadav took office in April, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Swami Prasad Maurya, said, “People have started remembering the good days of B.S.P.'s rule of law.” Soon after, The Times of India latched on to this critique, pointing out that 699 murders had been committed during Mr. Yadav's first 45 days in office, as well as 263 rapes.

India's National Crime Records Bureau will not publish its annual study for 2012 for many months, and the bureau's statistical officer, R.B. Singh, said he could not verify those numbers. Based upon the total number of murders in Uttar Pradesh in 2011, which was 4,951, or roughly 13.5 per day, Mr. Singh indicated that the figure of 699 in 45 days represented a slight increase to 15.3 per day. The figure is too small of a sample size to determine whether the rate of murders was really on the rise during Mr. Yadav's first year in office, he said.

Mr. Yadav said that those figures represent a lag from his predecessor's administration, and that more is being done to keep law and order. “It took us time to settle,” he said. “The people who were holding those posts were from the previous government. I've removed them. We have to increase good officers; we'll be able to solve these law and order issues.”

When Mrs. Yadav arrived midway through our chat, her presence in the adjoining red chair visibly eased the chief minister. At 35, she looks younger than her age and young for a politician. She was surprisingly soft-spoken for a politician and sat perfectly straight, with an almost deferential sense of poise in our talk.

The couple has three children: An elder daughter, Aditi, nicknamed “Tim,” is 11. Their fraternal twins, Arj un, a boy, and Tina, a girl, are six. Mr. Yadav said he regretted not having more time to spend with his children since taking office. Mrs. Yadav gestured to her chest while formally contradicting her husband.

“I always find time,” she said.

The Yadavs seem keenly aware of the criticism about them, and Mr. Yadav of the pressure to act quickly. How long would be a fair time to judge his administration's progress?

“One year,” he said, definitively.

He is not likely to get that much time. The minister has made an attempt at damage control over the last few days, and publicly denied all charges against his administration. But after calls for an investigation into the doctor's kidnapping accusations were met with what critics say was a slow response, the honeymoon following Mr. Yadav's March election seems to have reached an abrupt end.

Watch the full interview.

 Michael Edison Hayden is an American writer currently living in Mumbai. Y ou can follow him on twitter @MichaelEHayden