From: Ashok T. Jaisinghani <ashokjai@sancharnet.in>
Date: Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 12:47 PM
Subject: Fw: Bandhs won't help . . . mobilize masses to save Nation
The corrupt UPA regime's decision to allow FDI in various sectors is meant to selectively help vested interest and to enable it to carry on with its 'loot raj' in cahoots with crony capitalists and the media. There will be no real and worthwhile foreign direct investment in any of the sectors opened up by the government.
It will merely provide an opportunity to a few to white-wash their black deeds by hiving off stakes in loss-making private sector companies for hefty premiums. They will then pass on the control of the market to a handful of MNCs who will ultimately use OUR hard-earned money lying in OUR banks to run THEIR operations and make easy money and control our lives by destroying native entrepreneurship. These moves will also open up opportunities for black-money hoarders to launder their money through the FDI route. It's a gigantic fraud being played on the nation and on us.
The Congress party and Manmohan Singh have been doing it for quite some time in the name of liberalization, selling away cash-rich public sector companies, and allowing MNCs to take over their erstwhile subsidiaries without bringing in fresh investments. Manmohan Singh is such a third-rate economist and finance officer that he always looks for the easiest ways to manage the fiscal deficit of the government, largely created because of gross mismanagement of resources and public funds by his corrupt government.
It's like a drunkard living off his family's precious jewelry. Here are some examples of the misdeeds of Manmohan Singh.
The FMCG major Hindustan Lever, became Hindustan Uniliver in the liberalization regime overnight and instead of bringing in money, took money out. Manmohan Singh was the Finance Minister then.
Manmohan Singh sold a public sector company like Modern Foods to Hindustan Unilever for peanuts, for 100 crores, without inviting any bid. That was the first sale of a PSU in the name of liberalization. The landed property of the PSU would have been worth 100 times more than that. The idiot sold it for a price based on the PSU's share price in the stock market.
Though the NDA actually liberalized the economy and tried to reduce the role of the government in various sectors, some nincompoops like Pramod Mahajan and Arun Shourie sold cash-rich public sector undertakings and even the real estate for almost nothing to well-known industrial houses like the Tatas following foolishly into the footsteps of Manmohan Singh. Had they followed Narendra Modi's approach, they would have turned around the loss-making government enterprises into profitably run business entities.
Manmohan Singh talks about the need for institutional investment to boost the economy. It's a fact that the so-called institutional investment flowing in India is a mirage and it boosts up the Stock Market indices temporarily. The money that comes in the market is for pure gambling/speculation purposes. It comes and goes and helps none but a few brokers and banks that earn their tiny commissions and manipulate their mutual fund portfolios to give a sense of 'all is well'. However, it jeopardizes the investment of genuine Indian investors and irreparably damages and vitiates the capital market environment.
FDI is also a mirage. The little money that comes in initially goes out within a short time as local investors and banks are lured into investing in these entities. Contrary to the government and the media propaganda, supported by a whole lot of armchair theorists and bastardised paid columnists, more dollars and jobs will flow out of India than vice versa.
We should not forget Enron. It came to India in the name of bringing millions of dollars to create energy infrastructure. What finally happened? The money for their Dhabol power project came largely from low-interest borrowings from Indian banks and thankfully they were stopped in their tracks before they came out with their public issue. You can imagine what would have been the fate of Indian investors had that happened. However, they paid the bribes in dollars, deposited in some numbered Swiss bank accounts and even gave an account of the same.
Look at who is hailing FDI in retail. Kishore Biyani, a debt ridden big-time Indian retail-chain owner. He should in fact be opposing it logically. He just wants to sell out his Big Bazaar. He wants to transfer his debt-ridden company to an MNC retail chain. Why are the MNCs coming to India? They are relying on the consumption data of average Indians. They think it is too low and thus they have the scope to make money. However, they will be using their brand name to raise more money from Indian markets and banks. They will play the game with OUR money.
And what kind of investment are we talking about? Ten thousand crores! Twenty thousand crores? What is the total FDI inflow since the so called liberalisation regime was put in place? How much did the Government get for selling off the PSUs in the past?
Whatever be the figure, it will be nothing compared with the money involved in 2G and Coalgate scams and many more that have been flourishing under this rank corrupt regime. It also shows that we always had money to invest in our retail chains and infra-structure without the need for FDI in any sector. What we needed was technology and skills. What did the UPA do to develop that? Nothing.
The people like Biyani got the money. What did they do with it? They mismanaged and squandered it, as if it was 'muft ka maal'. It actually was. It was 'aam aadami ka maal'. Sarkar to tax ke naam par lootatl thi, Biyani ne hamein seedhe loota, sasta maal bechnae ke naam par loota. And who paid for this mismanagement and bungling? WE, THE PEOPLE. Now, Walmart will come. Who will fund its follies and profits? Again, WE, THE PEOPLE. Who pays for the follies of a local grocer and a roadside vendor? They pay for it. We, the people, pay for every folly of this government and corporate looters apart from paying for our own follies.
And the biggest folly we have committed is to bring back the Congress government led by a power-hungry political family and its long-serving minion. It's time to correct the mistake.
FDI in retail still has a rider that the state governments must OK it. The FDI in TV and Broadcast sector has no such rider. Indian consumers should get ready now to pay through their nose for their cable subscriptions. Surprisingly, we don't hear anyone talking about it. The Government stealthily got the bill for total digitization of the cable TV industry passed in the Parliament with no discussions thus eliminating hundreds of jobs of local cable operators in one stroke.
Now, they are handing over the entire Broadcast and TV industry to transnational media conglomerates and fulfilling the long held wish of a wily media moghul and wheeling dealing manipulator like Rupert Murdoch. The Indian broadcasters are also looking at it as an opportunity to make quick bucks by selling away their stakes to foreign networks. Now, make a note, most of the general entertainment TV channels today are owned by kith and kin of politicians, and are funded by dirty money brought in through various legitimate channels. They are just waiting to turn all their black money into white.
Allowing FDI in aviation is also intended to bail out profligate and corrupt high profile businessmen like Vijay Mallya who have been having a ball at the cost of our hard earned savings lying in banks like the SBI. Opening up the aviation sector to FDI will help him get away with his crimes of omission, commission, and creative accounting committed with the active connivance of the Congress regime and bank managers. Look at the way this third-rated businessman and a perpetual loan defaulter has been exulting over the announcement. He would have been behind bars in any other country.
What is the opposition doing? This is the time to go for a gigantic mass mobilization against this government. Time for symbolic protests like Bharat Bandh is gone; it's time for revolution. Put aside your flags, and get the people on the streets now. Stop tokenism; get ready for some real action. Let millions march to Delhi to 'Save India' from an insensitive and corrupt government that works as a stooge of American interests. Now is the time to lay siege to Delhi until this government quits and the Congress party is confined to the dustbin of history. Force this government to resort to violent and oppressive means to suppress dissent and thus hit the last nail in its own coffin.
What have Sonia and Manmohan Singh done in the name of reform? Nothing. The economic reforms every English news channel anchor keeps harping on are not meant to open up our economy for loot by an oligopoly of exploitative MNCs. It was not meant for creating a high-cost consumerist economy, and then offer our markets on a platter to American brands and retailers to milk it. They are meant to reduce the role of the government in our lives, and end the quota permit system to free the entrepreneurial spirit of Indians. They aim at ending the rule of inefficient and venal 'naukarshahi' and initiate an era of transparent rule by the people and for the people. Hazare calls it Lokshahi.
That is how you create an efficient economy, by bringing down the cost of governance, and thus reducing the fiscal deficit. It is also meant to encourage competition and fair business practices.
What happened instead immediately after the departure of the NDA regime? The UPA government, instead of further dismantling the permit quota system regime, brought it back with a bang and in its wake came the 'crony-capitalists' and 'massive and unprecedented corruption'. That is the nature of the Congress Party and the Nehru-Gandhi family. They are control freaks and self-serving bastardized politicians. They cannot live without power. They think they can be in power through a network of crony capitalists, corrupt bureaucrats, a pliant judiciary, a captive media, and an intelligentsia that has sold out its conscience to the establishment for a cozy life. The permit-quota raj helps them create and sustain this corrupt network.
There cannot be true liberalization of our economy and liberation of our people without the end to the Congress, Sonia, and Manmohan Raj.
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