Monday 14 September 2009

A Few Thoughts on Black Money and The Commonwealth Games

The amount of money that Indians has allegedly stashed away in secret Swiss bank accounts was an important issue during the general elections. Advani had talked about this. Manmohan Singh has promised to bring back this money within hundred days if he was given a chance to form a government again.

For good or bad, the people of this country have brought back the UPA to power. Apart from occasional noises on this issue there does not seem to have been any concrete action on this issue. Does the Prime Minister accept the fact that he has been unable to deliver upon his promise? Was that simply a poll gimmick?

Now the Swiss banks have said that no data exists on Indian black money in Switzerland. In fact the country does not provide country level breakup of holdings in its banks. It has said that the article on which the entire debate was based was actually a fabrication and never was released officially. Is this the danger of trusting today's media blindly? So is there or is there not Indian black money stashed away in Switzerland? Will we ever know?

On a sidenote, probably based on media reports of unpreparedness the Chief of the Commonwealth Games Federation has written a letter asking for an audience with the PM. Mr Suresh Kalmadi is supposed to facilitate this meeting. I myself have seen a few sites for the games where no activity seems to be taking place. An added complication could be the occasional hiccups being faced by the Delhi Metro. This Mr Kalmadi has been in charge of our Olympics Association (and now the Commonwealth Games) for quite some time now. What has this guy been doing? I think it would be nice if we had a kind of performance appraisal for this chap!

Mr Manmohan Singh, get back all the black money immediately and spend it on the Commonwealth Games. We shall see how they will not start on time :P

By the way, the italicization of the word 'allegedly' in the first line is a take on the ToI's habit. This glorified tabloid which calls itself a newspaper has this habit of inserting this word in its articles. Very frankly I find this practice very irritating. This is a tribute to the paper and its editors.

2 comments:

faguni jain said...

last part - not funny :( not for a die hard TOI reader :) :)

VC said...

some subjectivity will creep in, apologies if any offence is taken, but would you not agree wid wat i said? :)