May 5, 2009
The Times of India in today's edition, as has been the all round concern during the declaration of assets by our leaders during filing of nomination papers for the Lok Sabha elections, highlighted the growth in our netas' wealth since the last declaration. The ordinary person who struggles to keep afloat wonders about this. The growth in wealth means that they are earning more than they spend. Maybe they are investing their money well. Are there other sources of income? Then you think, if they declare so much, are there any bags of currency notes hidden under the bed undeclared?
This brings one to the recent demands for unearthing money stashed away in Swiss banks. Why the sudden hallabaloo. Is this aimed at a few people to gain political mileage? What about the millions of people minting money within the country? The Income Tax department once stated on the blackmoney issue that IT dept was only concerned with its `pound of flesh'. It was the job of the economic offences department to deal with the sources of income if any laws had been broken.
I remember in an article in the Illustrated Weekly of India in the 1970s, Nirad C Chaudhuri said that a lot of the country's problems were owing to the `character fabric' being weak. But then the late Nirad had said a lot of things that found plenty of opponents.
No comments:
Post a Comment