Related to #158, #162, #163:
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/04/how...on-pioneer.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>how to bring home a trillion: pioneer</b>
apr 14th, 2009
the kkkangress' bigwigs are notably silent about this. so is the ELM.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/168755/How-to-...a-trillion.html
Posted by nizhal yoddha at 4/14/2009 09:43:00 PM 0 comments <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.dailypioneer.com/168755/How-to-...a-trillion.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>How to bring home a trillion?</b>
BR Lall
<b>The BJPâs manifesto promises to bring to India the âEverest of cashâ lying in foreign tax havens while Manmohan Singh fights shy of joining the G-20 campaign to end the evil banking system</b>
Transparency International recently exposed how the Indian government was avoiding asking for information from the German government about the billions of dollars of un-accounted money belonging to the people of India lying in Liechtenstein, a small German county. A number of other countries -- the United States, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Britain and Ireland --whose nationals are also included in the same list, are seriously collecting information from the same source about accounts held by their citizens. <b>The German government had issued an open offer to all governments to seek the truth from the records it had come to possess, free of charge.
Unbelievable but true, India is deaf to the offer. I had visualised such a situation long back while dealing with this issue in my book, Who Owns CBI: The Naked Truth, (Manas, 2007). I wrote: "It will not be easy to take any step in this direction, as the first obstacle will come from Indian elites, who are holding such accounts/ assets abroad. They will oppose any such move tooth and nail".</b>
No meaningful fight against corruption, black money and economic offences can be really successful without radical measures. I had attempted the analysis in the context of Switzerland alone and had assessed Indian wealth in that single country at $5 trillion. There are some other, well known slush parks: St. Kitts, Antigua, Bahamas, Isle of Man, etc. that would multiply such holdings manifold .Of course, Switzerland is the jewel in the crown.Needless to say, if the Indian wealth lying there is brought home, we would turn overnight into one of the richest nations in the world.
The countries of the developing world suffer heavily from the drain of resources. They are driven into debt traps. If the outflow of their resources could be checked, some of these countries, like India, may have enough of foreign exchange resources and may not need to avail international borrowings at all. But, what is happening is that other countries are developing and prospering at our cost. No wonder Switzerland has the second highest per capita income in the world, and they have their criminal banking industry to thank.
This drain from the third world will continue unabated unless certain structural changes are brought about. Banking secrecy laws give the Swiss banks undeserved immunity. However, the slush money accruing from the drug trade is treated differently. If it is suspected that the money in a bank has some linkage with narcotics, the secrecy laws stand automatically suspended. This was done on the insistence of the big western powers, as drug abuse is a major problem for their societies. After the attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 money held by terrorists has been frozen.
For countries like India, all economic offenders, including the corrupt as also the cooperating Swiss-bankers, are financial terrorists or their harbourers. The major problem of the developing world is corruption, and the secrecy laws aid and abet it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the people of countries like Switzerland are more like receivers of stolen property and are leading a parasitic existence.
This hypocrisy does not go well with their famed high stance on morality. They should abandon such laws and throw their banking business open and transparent. India should take up this question with Swiss banks, the western world and with all possible international organisations, including the UN, OECD, etc. The countries of the third world, and India in particular, should agitate for relaxation of banking secrecy laws.
Apart from bank accounts, another dimension is that property or some other assets that could be purchased abroad. Since the agency of one country cannot conduct investigations in another country, some rules need to be framed so that the particulars of deposits or properties held abroad could be known to the mother country, in the name of whose citizens these may stand.
The following measures are suggested in the Indian context and they hold good for all other countries similarly placed:
a) Whenever a bank account is opened by an Indian citizen abroad, the particulars of such account should be communicated to the Indian authorities, through its embassy/high commission in that country. On receipt, the account number and other details should be fed into the National Property Register (NPR) immediately and could also be compiled in the CBI. National property registered is visualised as a master computer that will store all the assets in the names of all the individuals with each being allotted a unique identity as per finger print classification.
b) If the person is found involved in some crime or a criminal case, particularly of corruption or any other white-collar crime registered against him in India, then the particulars of balances in account and the copy of the account, if asked for authentically by the investigating agency, should be supplied. One such nodal agency will be nominated by each country. In this context, the authorised agency for India should be the CBI. If any state agency or any other agency of the government of India needs some information, it could approach the CBI. The foreign bank/government should have no discretion but to supply duly certified copies of accounts/ information whenever demanded by the nodal agency, in this case the CBI.
c) Whenever an Indian purchases a property abroad, its details should be passed on by the registering authority there to the Indian Embassy/High Commission, which would transmit the same to India. This information could also be fed into the National Property Register and also compiled in CBI and used when required.
d) Details of all the properties and the bank deposits held abroad by the Indian citizens at present should be supplied to Indian Embassy/High Commission in the respective countries.
e) Further, on instructions from the CBI, the accounts should automatically be frozen, the lockers, the properties and other assets sealed and ultimately these assets be disposed of as per directions of the Indian courts.
f) For obtaining/supplying such information, the dual criminality may not be insisted upon, as corruption is a crime everywhere, only some technical details may differ. Similarly, the blanket sovereign guarantee of reciprocity may be executed once at the level of the governments and should not be insisted upon for every case separately as that causes tremendous delays.
Once this happens, hiding black incomes abroad would become very difficult and practically impossible. India will start looking up, immediately. But to get such amendments to their rules, India has to take other countries of the developing world along, build up a powerful lobby and initiate very persuasive and aggressive propaganda underscoring the point that we are also readily helping them in their fight against drug and terrorism.
The country expects action from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is revered as an economist, an academician and as an honest person. It's another matter that this image of him has been sculpted by the very people who have amassed huge wealth through fraudulent means. It may be argued that any government that tries to tinker with the status quo would fall as the elite of India, which includes the bureaucrats, are benefiting from Switzerland's famous secrecy laws. The moot point is, does the Prime Minister owe his loyalty to such criminals or to the nation?
<b>-- The writer is a former DG of Police and author, Who owns the CBI? (Manas, 2007)</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/04/how...on-pioneer.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>how to bring home a trillion: pioneer</b>
apr 14th, 2009
the kkkangress' bigwigs are notably silent about this. so is the ELM.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/168755/How-to-...a-trillion.html
Posted by nizhal yoddha at 4/14/2009 09:43:00 PM 0 comments <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.dailypioneer.com/168755/How-to-...a-trillion.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>How to bring home a trillion?</b>
BR Lall
<b>The BJPâs manifesto promises to bring to India the âEverest of cashâ lying in foreign tax havens while Manmohan Singh fights shy of joining the G-20 campaign to end the evil banking system</b>
Transparency International recently exposed how the Indian government was avoiding asking for information from the German government about the billions of dollars of un-accounted money belonging to the people of India lying in Liechtenstein, a small German county. A number of other countries -- the United States, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Britain and Ireland --whose nationals are also included in the same list, are seriously collecting information from the same source about accounts held by their citizens. <b>The German government had issued an open offer to all governments to seek the truth from the records it had come to possess, free of charge.
Unbelievable but true, India is deaf to the offer. I had visualised such a situation long back while dealing with this issue in my book, Who Owns CBI: The Naked Truth, (Manas, 2007). I wrote: "It will not be easy to take any step in this direction, as the first obstacle will come from Indian elites, who are holding such accounts/ assets abroad. They will oppose any such move tooth and nail".</b>
No meaningful fight against corruption, black money and economic offences can be really successful without radical measures. I had attempted the analysis in the context of Switzerland alone and had assessed Indian wealth in that single country at $5 trillion. There are some other, well known slush parks: St. Kitts, Antigua, Bahamas, Isle of Man, etc. that would multiply such holdings manifold .Of course, Switzerland is the jewel in the crown.Needless to say, if the Indian wealth lying there is brought home, we would turn overnight into one of the richest nations in the world.
The countries of the developing world suffer heavily from the drain of resources. They are driven into debt traps. If the outflow of their resources could be checked, some of these countries, like India, may have enough of foreign exchange resources and may not need to avail international borrowings at all. But, what is happening is that other countries are developing and prospering at our cost. No wonder Switzerland has the second highest per capita income in the world, and they have their criminal banking industry to thank.
This drain from the third world will continue unabated unless certain structural changes are brought about. Banking secrecy laws give the Swiss banks undeserved immunity. However, the slush money accruing from the drug trade is treated differently. If it is suspected that the money in a bank has some linkage with narcotics, the secrecy laws stand automatically suspended. This was done on the insistence of the big western powers, as drug abuse is a major problem for their societies. After the attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 money held by terrorists has been frozen.
For countries like India, all economic offenders, including the corrupt as also the cooperating Swiss-bankers, are financial terrorists or their harbourers. The major problem of the developing world is corruption, and the secrecy laws aid and abet it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the people of countries like Switzerland are more like receivers of stolen property and are leading a parasitic existence.
This hypocrisy does not go well with their famed high stance on morality. They should abandon such laws and throw their banking business open and transparent. India should take up this question with Swiss banks, the western world and with all possible international organisations, including the UN, OECD, etc. The countries of the third world, and India in particular, should agitate for relaxation of banking secrecy laws.
Apart from bank accounts, another dimension is that property or some other assets that could be purchased abroad. Since the agency of one country cannot conduct investigations in another country, some rules need to be framed so that the particulars of deposits or properties held abroad could be known to the mother country, in the name of whose citizens these may stand.
The following measures are suggested in the Indian context and they hold good for all other countries similarly placed:
a) Whenever a bank account is opened by an Indian citizen abroad, the particulars of such account should be communicated to the Indian authorities, through its embassy/high commission in that country. On receipt, the account number and other details should be fed into the National Property Register (NPR) immediately and could also be compiled in the CBI. National property registered is visualised as a master computer that will store all the assets in the names of all the individuals with each being allotted a unique identity as per finger print classification.
b) If the person is found involved in some crime or a criminal case, particularly of corruption or any other white-collar crime registered against him in India, then the particulars of balances in account and the copy of the account, if asked for authentically by the investigating agency, should be supplied. One such nodal agency will be nominated by each country. In this context, the authorised agency for India should be the CBI. If any state agency or any other agency of the government of India needs some information, it could approach the CBI. The foreign bank/government should have no discretion but to supply duly certified copies of accounts/ information whenever demanded by the nodal agency, in this case the CBI.
c) Whenever an Indian purchases a property abroad, its details should be passed on by the registering authority there to the Indian Embassy/High Commission, which would transmit the same to India. This information could also be fed into the National Property Register and also compiled in CBI and used when required.
d) Details of all the properties and the bank deposits held abroad by the Indian citizens at present should be supplied to Indian Embassy/High Commission in the respective countries.
e) Further, on instructions from the CBI, the accounts should automatically be frozen, the lockers, the properties and other assets sealed and ultimately these assets be disposed of as per directions of the Indian courts.
f) For obtaining/supplying such information, the dual criminality may not be insisted upon, as corruption is a crime everywhere, only some technical details may differ. Similarly, the blanket sovereign guarantee of reciprocity may be executed once at the level of the governments and should not be insisted upon for every case separately as that causes tremendous delays.
Once this happens, hiding black incomes abroad would become very difficult and practically impossible. India will start looking up, immediately. But to get such amendments to their rules, India has to take other countries of the developing world along, build up a powerful lobby and initiate very persuasive and aggressive propaganda underscoring the point that we are also readily helping them in their fight against drug and terrorism.
The country expects action from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is revered as an economist, an academician and as an honest person. It's another matter that this image of him has been sculpted by the very people who have amassed huge wealth through fraudulent means. It may be argued that any government that tries to tinker with the status quo would fall as the elite of India, which includes the bureaucrats, are benefiting from Switzerland's famous secrecy laws. The moot point is, does the Prime Minister owe his loyalty to such criminals or to the nation?
<b>-- The writer is a former DG of Police and author, Who owns the CBI? (Manas, 2007)</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->