स्विस बैंको में कालाधन और भारत

The SECRET BLACK MONEY IN SWISS BANKS

1. The occasion was the 60th anniversary of Indo-Swiss Friendship Treaty. Admitting that Indian black money gets hoarded in his country, he added that the new law in Switzerland would, not stop it, but control it “up to a certain limit”.
2. Swiss banks are not the only secret destination. There are 37 such shelters in the world, says US Inland Revenue. The secret owners of the secreted monies operate in secrecy — venal businessmen, corrupt politicians, public servants, drug lords, and criminal gangs like the D-company. The slush monies are the financial RDX for terror, besides weapons of mass destruction of national and global finance. That there is secret money is no more a secret. Only the amounts and persons are secret.

3. the late 1980s, at the behest of The Indian Express, while investigating the Reliance scam, I had attempted to trail the Indian monies secreted abroad. In the course of the probe, I had contacted Fairfax, a US investigative firm, to uncover the Indian wealth stashed abroad. Impressed by their skills, I persuaded the Government of India to engage the firm for the task. Fairfax agreed to work for a slice of the black wealth uncovered by them as fee.
4. It is undisputed that the Nehruvian socialist model forced huge sums out of India. So the amount of Indian black wealth secreted away in the last 60 years — estimated at from $500 billion (Rs 25 lakh crore) to $1400 billion (Rs 70 lakh crore) — does not seem to be wide off the mark. Economists call it flight of capital. This is the people’s money stolen from them.
5. See the consequence even if part of it is brought back. A portion of it would make India free from all external debts which is now over $220 billion; India will transform into an economic superpower; some 10 or 15 Indian rupees could buy a US dollar which today 50 Indian rupees cannot; a litre of petrol on our roadside would cost Rs 15 or even less, against today’s 50 plus; the cost of imports in rupee terms would be down to a third or half; India’s entire infrastructure needs can be funded; India will become so energy efficient and costcompetitive that exporters may need no sops at all; India will lend to — not, as it does now, borrow from — the world; Indian housing can be funded at affordable cost; rural poverty can be wiped out... The list is endless
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7. Advani rounded off asking the prime minister to take up the issue of Indian monies stashed away in secret Swiss banks and in other tax havens at the G20 meet at London slated for April 2, 2009. Yet, at the London meet, Dr Manmohan Singh would not utter a word
8. “Why this now, at the time of the elections?” asked the Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari, not knowing that Advani had written to the prime minister long before, in April 2008 itself, on the LGT bank issue. Then entered Abhishek Singhvi, the more articulate spokesman of the party. He asked what did Advani do when NDA was in power. Obviously he has not even read Advani’s statement. Advani has only questioned why the Manmohan government is not acting now [in March 2008] in tandem with the West which has begun crusading again.
9. More. Singhvi said that “G20 is not the forum for the issue” of Indian black wealth in Swiss banks. Obviously, running between courtrooms and newsrooms, he had no time to follow the media abroad which were full of news about how the main agenda of G20 was about secret banking. He was all at sea
10. Like Sehwag deploying offence for defence, he wrote a harsh letter to L K Advani saying, “to tell bluntly — Mr Advani, you are lying”. Advani, he charged, was lying on his maths about the estimate of the Indian black wealth at between $500 billion and $1400 billion. These numbers, he said, were drawn from questionable Internet sources
11. The Congress campaign manager cites a well-known economist Bibek Debroy who has questioned Advani’s estimate of Indian black wealth at a minimum of $500 billion. Debroy, usually an agile and meticulous analyst, has erred in this case. He has looked at the wrong version of the right report and reached incorrect conclusions. Both Advani and Debroy have relied on the Global Financial Integrity (GFI) study that has estimated the global black wealth stashed away in tax havens including India’s. There are two versions of the GFI study — one a layman’s version and the other, the economists’ version. Debroy, an economist, seems to have relied on the layman’s version. And L K Advani, not an economist, has relied on the economists’ version. The economists’ version of the GFI study (at pages 29 and 30 supported by charts, specifically chart 18) estimates, in specific numbers the amount of black wealth stashed away from India between 2002-06 at $137.5 billion. If, in five years, the amount could be $137.5 billion (Rs 6.88 lakh crore), the Advani
estimate of $500 billion (Rs 25 lakh crore) to $1400 billion (Rs 70 lakh crore) f

12. List of 50 revealed.