On the heels of the revival of the Bofors scam comes an excellent piece by Prof. Vaidyanathan. On his part, he has revived the issue of retrieval of the Indian black money stashed abroad. In one of our posts, we had mentioned the report by the Global Financial Integrity which shows astounding amount of money going out of India. The good Professor raises and answers the important question as to why there is no political will to pursue the recovery of this money. As Tiger Joginder Singh said in regards to the Bofors scam that if the patient and the doctor are the same person what can one expect as far as results are concerned, I would like to paraphrase it and say that if the thief and the cop are the same people, how can we expect any honest in dealing with such crimes.
The Gandhi family gets implicated again and again and yet we keep electing them. As per Prof. Albert Einstein who famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Why do we place so much faith in the dynastic rule? Are we expecting that somehow the spirits of Subhash Chandra Bose and Vallabh Bhai Patel and other Congressmen of that caliber are going to enter the the bodies of Digvijay Singh and Rahul Gandhi and instill the intellect, statesmanship, passion and the patriotism that has not been seen since?
It is pointless to expect this group of politicians to do the right thing. All they are doing is making their immediate and extended families rich while the Indian voter / aam aadmi is struggling to buy daal and onions and other such essentials. The aam aadmi needs to send the same message as the Bihar voters sent - perform honestly or get the hell out!
Why is government reluctant to retrieve funds stashed abroad?
R Vaidyanathan, January 3, 2011 22:54 IST
One possible reason could be the culpability of our leaders. There was a report in the Swiss journal Schweitzer Illustrierte, which did an expose on politicians of the third world and developing nations who had stashed their wealth in Swiss banks. In its issue dated November 11, 1991, the magazine, citing the newly opened KGB records, reported ‘that Sonia Gandhi, the widow of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was controlling secret account with 2.5 billion Swiss Francs (equal to $2.2 billion) in her minor son’s name’. Interestingly there has not been any defamation suit against the magazine nor any denial of that report, either by the government or by the oldest political party.
The prime minister has announced to “redouble efforts” to “cleanse the system” in 2011. For a start, can he inform the nation about the total number of foreign trips —including personal trips — undertaken by his cabinet colleagues to various tax havens after UPA-2 came to power?
The article can be read at: http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/main-article_why-is-government-reluctant-to-retrieve-funds-stashed-abroad_1489965
The Gandhi family gets implicated again and again and yet we keep electing them. As per Prof. Albert Einstein who famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Why do we place so much faith in the dynastic rule? Are we expecting that somehow the spirits of Subhash Chandra Bose and Vallabh Bhai Patel and other Congressmen of that caliber are going to enter the the bodies of Digvijay Singh and Rahul Gandhi and instill the intellect, statesmanship, passion and the patriotism that has not been seen since?
It is pointless to expect this group of politicians to do the right thing. All they are doing is making their immediate and extended families rich while the Indian voter / aam aadmi is struggling to buy daal and onions and other such essentials. The aam aadmi needs to send the same message as the Bihar voters sent - perform honestly or get the hell out!
Why is government reluctant to retrieve funds stashed abroad?
R Vaidyanathan, January 3, 2011 22:54 IST
One possible reason could be the culpability of our leaders. There was a report in the Swiss journal Schweitzer Illustrierte, which did an expose on politicians of the third world and developing nations who had stashed their wealth in Swiss banks. In its issue dated November 11, 1991, the magazine, citing the newly opened KGB records, reported ‘that Sonia Gandhi, the widow of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was controlling secret account with 2.5 billion Swiss Francs (equal to $2.2 billion) in her minor son’s name’. Interestingly there has not been any defamation suit against the magazine nor any denial of that report, either by the government or by the oldest political party.
The prime minister has announced to “redouble efforts” to “cleanse the system” in 2011. For a start, can he inform the nation about the total number of foreign trips —including personal trips — undertaken by his cabinet colleagues to various tax havens after UPA-2 came to power?
The article can be read at: http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/main-article_why-is-government-reluctant-to-retrieve-funds-stashed-abroad_1489965
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