There is a debate on how to get back black money held abroad by Indians. Some want it to be declared a national asset. Some say it is red money acquired through crimes like drug trade. Some say there is more black money in India than abroad. The amount of black money is a conjecture. Some mention 25 lakh crore rupees. BJP blames Congress for not doing enough to get back black money and wants the names of 782 account holders given by France revealed. Congress blames BJP that it did nothing when it was in power. Some say getting money is more important than knowing names.
Tag: money
BJP should expel Ram Jethmalani
Ram Jethmalani has consistently contradicted BJP’s stand. He had quit BJP and contested against Atal Behari Vajpayee. BJP took him back and made him a Rajya Sabha member. He continued in his ways. He took up cases against BJP governments or policies. He appeared for Binayak Sen against Chhattisgarh government. BJP wants death penalty for terrorists. He takes up their cases. BJP accuses UPA of corruption in 2G spectrum allocation. He took up Kanimozhi’s case. Now in cash-for-votes case he has taken the defence of Amar Singh and has argued that the money might have come from BJP. Instead of taking disciplinary action BJP is quiet with the lame excuse that he is expressing his client’s views. BJP’s statements on terror and corruption sound hollow. BJP seems to be consumed with death wish.
Black money in Swiss banks
Wikileaks has made public the names of Indians who have black money in Swiss banks and LGT Bank, Liechtenstein. There are main accounts and sub accounts. Nira Radia has 289990 crore rupees. If she is not an Indian citizen she cannot be prosecuted.
Some account holders are businessmen. Naresh Goyal, Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh are mentioned. Politicians include Rajiv Gandhi (19800 crore rupees), Sharad Pawar, Karunanidhi, Stalin, Chidambaram, A. Raja, Suresh Kalmadi, Laloo Prasad Yadav, H. D. Kumaraswamy and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Rajiv Gandhi died in 1991. Who operated his accounts after that is not mentioned.
Budget 2011
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented India’s budget for 2011 on 28/2/2011. He began reading the budget at 11.00 a.m. Within half an hour many MPs were seen dozing and some yawning. At 12.25 p.m. Speaker Meira Kumar was seen dozing. Veerappa Moily and Veerbhadra Singh were sitting behind Pranab Mukherjee. Veerappa Moily kept himself awake. Veerbhadra Singh dozed sometimes.
Sending man to Moon is waste of money
India has a plan to send man to moon. It is better to scrap that plan.
USA had seven missions to Moon. It did not proceed with missions as there was nothing to gain.
Sending man to moon is an expensive proposition. It will cost at least 10,000 crore rupees. At the end you have two men who will spend some time on the Moon and return with something that is not of much use and can be brought by unmanned vehicle as Chandrayaan did.
Science has to be for benefit of people. Individuals may spend their personal wealth on projects that do not benefit humanity but it is not right for governments to spend money on such projects.