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Saturday, January 23, 2010
Youth Congress launches membership drive in Patna
Bihar Youth Congress launched its membership drive in Patna on January 17, 2010. Photo: Aftab Alam Siddiqui
The fact of the matter is that it is now that the unique opportunity has arisen to get the loot Germany has succeeded in getting the names; the US has succeeded in getting the names; the G-20 leaders back: have pledged themselves to ensure the end of bank secrecy; countries that had hitherto refused to share the requisite information are pledging to do so - within a week of their names being published by OECD in the list of countries that were dragging their feet on the question, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Philippines and Uruguay pledged to enter into the relevant agreements. There is a real fight ahead: a fight in the national interest, a fight that will have to be waged doggedly to get the names from the tax havens and to get the amounts back to India - as tax havens will not easily part with their route to lucre. And not all countries will be eager to wage the fight - so many rulers in Africa, in Latin America, to say nothing of the princelings of China - will be loath to see the fight succeed. So, determination and leadership will be required of India, and persistence, and forging alliances with civil society in Europe and elsewhere.Nor are bilateral agreements any substitute to multilateral pressure.With close to seventy tax havens, decades will pass before agreements are concluded with each haven, even as money is spirited from the haven that has signed up to the one that is holding out. As has been correctly emphasized, a consensus is already emerging across the country. Leaders outside the political realm, parties such as the CPI(M), SP, BSP, JD(U), AIADMK have all demanded that the Government act energetically to get the names from the tax havens and to get back the amounts. Instead of quibbling, the Congress would be well-advised to endorse the consensus, and act on it. Not joining secular forces on even so secular an issue?!
Getting Indias Money Back from Tax Havens: Congress caught in its own Web Stupefied by the strong endorsement all across the country of the demand that the money looted from India must be brought back, the Congress has tied itself in knots. Its spokesmen - led, as will be clear from the arguments they have advanced, by four lawyers - have given five reactions: Why is taking up this matter now, on the eve of elections? The GE-20 meeting was not the proper forum for taking up the issue. There is doubt about the figures. Why did the BJP government to replace FERA by FEMA, and thereby make the offences compoundable? Is not unwittingly alerting those with illegal money abroad to spirit it away from Switzerland to other tax havens? What was doing when it was in office? In any case there is doubt about the figures. The reactions betray panic as even the littlest reflection would have shown the "arguments" to be indefensible. Let us consider them one by one. Why is taking up this matter now, on the eve of elections? The fact, of course, is that took up the matter with the Prime Minister in April last year. He wrote soon after it became known that the Government of Germany had succeeded in obtaining names of persons who had stashed money in the LGT Bank in Lichtenstein. The reply that the then Finance Minister, sent him showed that the Government intended to do little except keep going through the pretence of taking some steps. Soon thereafter, we were alarmed to learn that a senior official of the Finance Ministry had written to the then Indian Ambassador in Germany not to press the Germans for release of the names of Indians in the list that they had obtained from Lichtenstein -- lest the Germans take offence and conclude that they were being pressurized and their bona fides were being questioned! [This information was later confirmed by report filed by Amitabh Ranjan in The Indian Express of 31 March 2009.] Subsequently, we took up the matter in Parliament also. And yet the evasion, "Why now?" The GE-20 meeting was not the proper forum for taking up the issue. This customarily self-serving rationalization was put out by one of the Congress party's lawyers and spokesmen.
Bihar Youth Congress launched its membership drive in Patna on January 17, 2010.
The fact of the matter is that it is now that the unique opportunity has arisen to get the loot Germany has succeeded in getting the names; the US has succeeded in getting the names; the G-20 leaders back: have pledged themselves to ensure the end of bank secrecy; countries that had hitherto refused to share the requisite information are pledging to do so - within a week of their names being published by OECD in the list of countries that were dragging their feet on the question, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Philippines and Uruguay pledged to enter into the relevant agreements. There is a real fight ahead: a fight in the national interest, a fight that will have to be waged doggedly to get the names from the tax havens and to get the amounts back to India - as tax havens will not easily part with their route to lucre. And not all countries will be eager to wage the fight - so many rulers in Africa, in Latin America, to say nothing of the princelings of China - will be loath to see the fight succeed. So, determination and leadership will be required of India, and persistence, and forging alliances with civil society in Europe and elsewhere.Nor are bilateral agreements any substitute to multilateral pressure.With close to seventy tax havens, decades will pass before agreements are concluded with each haven, even as money is spirited from the haven that has signed up to the one that is holding out. As has been correctly emphasized, a consensus is already emerging across the country. Leaders outside the political realm, parties such as the CPI(M), SP, BSP, JD(U), AIADMK have all demanded that the Government act energetically to get the names from the tax havens and to get back the amounts. Instead of quibbling, the Congress would be well-advised to endorse the consensus, and act on it. Not joining secular forces on even so secular an issue?!
ReplyDeleteGetting Indias Money Back from Tax Havens: Congress caught in its own Web Stupefied by the strong endorsement all across the country of the demand that the money looted from India must be brought back, the Congress has tied itself in knots. Its spokesmen - led, as will be clear from the arguments they have advanced, by four lawyers - have given five reactions: Why is taking up this matter now, on the eve of elections? The GE-20 meeting was not the proper forum for taking up the issue. There is doubt about the figures. Why did the BJP government to replace FERA by FEMA, and thereby make the offences compoundable? Is not unwittingly alerting those with illegal money abroad to spirit it away from Switzerland to other tax havens? What was doing when it was in office? In any case there is doubt about the figures. The reactions betray panic as even the littlest reflection would have shown the "arguments" to be indefensible. Let us consider them one by one. Why is taking up this matter now, on the eve of elections? The fact, of course, is that took up the matter with the Prime Minister in April last year. He wrote soon after it became known that the Government of Germany had succeeded in obtaining names of persons who had stashed money in the LGT Bank in Lichtenstein. The reply that the then Finance Minister, sent him showed that the Government intended to do little except keep going through the pretence of taking some steps. Soon thereafter, we were alarmed to learn that a senior official of the Finance Ministry had written to the then Indian Ambassador in Germany not to press the Germans for release of the names of Indians in the list that they had obtained from Lichtenstein -- lest the Germans take offence and conclude that they were being pressurized and their bona fides were being questioned! [This information was later confirmed by report filed by Amitabh Ranjan in The Indian Express of 31 March 2009.] Subsequently, we took up the matter in Parliament also. And yet the evasion, "Why now?" The GE-20 meeting was not the proper forum for taking up the issue. This customarily self-serving rationalization was put out by one of the Congress party's lawyers and spokesmen.
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