Tuesday, June 29, 2010

When Singh speaks, people listen: Obama


When Singh speaks, people listen: Obama
By IANS
Monday, 28 June 2010, 15:45 IST

Email Toronto: Obama, particularly, had a lot of praise for Dr. Singh. "I can tell you that here at G20, when the prime minister speaks, people listen," he said, adding it was because of his deep knowledge of economic issues, the nuances of India's rise as a world power and its commitment towards global peace and prosperity.

Indian PM Dr.Manmohan Singh said it was his privilege to enjoy Obama's friendship, and assured that he was waiting to welcome the US president and his family to India so that they could also see for themselves the transformations the nation was undergoing.



The U.S. President also recalled that the State dinner hosted by him for Dr. Singh " the first for his presidency" was "wonderful" and that it had set the tone for India-U.S. ties that they had both termed as a strategic partnership.

"We want to make sure that in addition to government-to-government ties, we were initiating people-to-people ties," he said, adding emphasis also remained on how to get the businesses of the two side to work together.

Dr. Singh, on his part, also praised Obama no length and said it was because of him that the strategic partnership between India and the U.S. was getting a new thrust, meaning and endeavour.

"You are a role model for millions and millions of people all over the world," said the Prime Minister said of Obama, almost 30 years his junior. "Your life history is a history that inspires millions of people everywhere."

Praising the statesmanship of Dr. Manmohan Singh and the rise of India, U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday said he was "looking forward" and "excited" about visiting India with First Lady Michelle later this year.

Personally thanking Dr. Manmohan Singh and wife Gurcharan Kaur for their friendship, Obama also hoped his visit to India ' scheduled for the early part of November' would be extremely productive for the two sides.

"It is a trip that I'm very much looking forward to," said Obama, before holding talks with Dr. Singh after the conclusion of the G20 Summit that also saw the convergence of views expressed by India and the U.S.

"We are also just excited because of the tremendous cultural, as well as political and social and economic examples, that India is providing the world and has in the past," said the U.S. President.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Football Wizard Syed Abdus Samad (1895-1964)

अररिया की धरती से जुड़ा था एक महान फ़ुटबॉलर – सईद अब्दुस ‘समद’ (1895-1964)

Samad-Football wizard आज भारत में फूटबाल की स्थिति दयनीय है. विश्व फुटबॉल जगत में हमारा स्थान निराशाजनक मालूम पड़ता है. मगर हमारे इतिहास में फुटबॉल से जुदा एक स्वर्णिम अध्याय भी है. जी हाँ हम याद दिला रहे हैं एक महान फुटबॉल खिलाडी समद की. सईद अब्दुस समद ने अपने जीवनकाल में जिस प्रकार फुटबॉल खेल के प्रति समर्पण दिखाया और अपने विलक्षण प्रदर्शनों के बल हिन्दुस्तान का नाम रौशन किया. प्रस्तुत है जनाब मोहम्मद तवफिकुल हैदर की एक रिपोर्ट.

समद, सैयद अब्दुस (1895-1964) फुटबॉल खिलाड़ी. सैयद अब्दुस समद को बंगाल में फुटबॉल जादुकर (Football wizard) के रूप में जाना जाता था. वह 1895 में अररिया (तात्कालीन पूर्णिया, बिहार में पैदा हुए. अपनी औपचारिक शिक्षा के दौरान आठवीं कक्षा के बाद उसने स्कूल छोड़ा. समद अपने शुरुआती लड़कपन से फुटबॉल में अपनी प्रतिभा का प्रदर्शन किया. वह dribbling और tackling me आश्चर्यजनक थे विशेष रूप से माप शॉट लेने में उनका कौशल गजब का था. वह जब पूर्णिया जूनियर फुटबॉल क्लब के लिए खेले तब कोलकाता के फुटबॉल क्लब के प्रबंधकों का ध्यान आकर्षित किया. वे 1912 में कोलकाता मेन टाउन क्लब में शामिल हो गए. 1915-1920 के दौरान, उन्होंने सक्रिय रूप से ताजहत फुटबॉल क्लब रंगपुर के साथ जुड़े रहे.

1916 में समद, समरसेट फुटबॉल टीम इंग्लैंड के खिलाफ एक मैच में खेले. वह कलकत्ता Orients क्लब के लिए 1918 में और ईस्ट बंगाल रेलवे टीम के लिए 1921-1930 में खेले. समद ने अपने कॅरिअर का सबसे यादगार ट्राफी 1927 में भारतीय सेना के मुख्य लेफ्टिनेंट जनरल शेरवुड मॉल द्वारा संरक्षित शेरवुड फोरेस्ट्री टीम के खिलाफ विजयी गोल दागकर प्राप्त किया.

समद 1924 में भारतीय राष्ट्रीय टीम के लिए चुने गए और 1926 में कप्तानी की. उन्होंने बर्मा, सीलोन, हांगकांग, चीन, जावा, सुमात्रा, मलय, बोर्नियो, सिंगापुर और ब्रिटेन का दौरा किया. बीजिंग में खेले गए एक मैच में चीन के खिलाफ उन्होंने दूसरी हाफ में एक स्थानापन्न खिलाड़ी के रूप में खेलते हुए लगातार 4 गोल किया और पहले हाफ में 0-3 से पिछड़ने के बाद 4-3 से जीत दर्ज की. 1933 में 38 साल की उम्र में समद ने कलकत्ता मोहम्मडन स्पोर्टिंग क्लब (स्थापित 1891) ज्वाइन किया और अगले पांच वर्षों के लिए पुरे कौशल, जोश और समर्पण के साथ खेले. मुख्य रूप से उनके योगदान के कारण, उनकी टीम ने लगातार पाँच वर्षों तक प्रथम श्रेणी फुटबॉल लीग चैम्पियनशिप और भारतीय फुटबॉल एसोसिएशन शील्ड (IFA) टूर्नामेंट में जीत हासिल की. समद को ‘टूर्नामेंट के हीरो’ वाली उपलब्धि शीर्षक के साथ सम्मानित किया गया. समद और उनके बेटे गोलाम हुसैन एक साथ रेलवे टीम के लिए 1944 में भी खेले.

1947 के बाद, समद पूर्वी पाकिस्तान में दिनाजपुर जिले के पर्बतिपुर (बांग्लादेश) में जा बसे और पूर्वी पाकिस्तान रेलवे में रोजगार संभाला. 1957 में उनको राष्ट्रीय खेल परिषद बोर्ड का कोच नियुक्त किया गया था. उन्होंने 1962 में राष्ट्रपति द्वारा पुरस्कार प्राप्त किया. 2 फरवरी 1964 को परबतिपुर में उनकी मृत्यु हो गई. बांग्लादेश फुटबॉल फेडरेशन उनके सम्मान में वार्षिक जादुकर समद स्मृति फुटबाल टूर्नामेंट आयोजित करता है.

बांग्लादेश सरकार ने फुटबॉल विजार्ड ‘समद’ के सम्मान में 2 फरवरी 1993 को एक डाक टिकट भी जारी किया है. आज क्रिकेट की चमक के बीच हम इस प्रकार खोये हुए हैं की आने वाली पीढी को शायद ही यकीन होगा की अंतर्राष्ट्रीय स्तर का एक फुटबॉल जादूगर कभी अररिया की धरती से जुड़ा था. वैसे समद की स्मृति में स्थानीय नेताजी सुभाष स्टेडियम के एक गेट का नाम ‘समद द्वार’ रखा गया है.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Indian Black Money in Swiss Bank: Myth and Reality

Following is the exact representation of a mail that was forwarded to me by one of my friends.

On March 16, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued its manifesto, which said that (if it came to power) it would “launch a drive to unearth black money, especially those (sic) stashed in Swiss banks and other tax havens”. The issue was taken up by Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal (United), who said on March 27 that there were 1.47 trillion dollars hidden by Indians in Swiss banks.

If the money was brought back, it could repay the entire foreign debt of India and leave enough to abolish all taxes for many years. The reason the UPA government had not put pressure on Switzerland to send the money back was that many of its politicians had Swiss accounts.

Then L.K. Advani took up the issue in his press conference on March 29. He said that according to Wikipedia, illicit money lodged in Swiss banks totaled $2.6 trillion (Rs 130 lakh crore in today’s exchange rate) in 2001 and $5.7 trillion (Rs 285 lakh crore) in 2007, and that illicit money deposited by rich Indians in Swiss banks and tax havens elsewhere was between $0.5-1.4 trillion (Rs 25-70 lakh crore). Illicit money comprised political bribes, crime money and venal business.

Even the lower amount was enough to relieve the debt of all farmers and landless workers, build world-class roads all over the country, take electricity to every rural home, provide drinking water in all villages and towns, construct good houses for 10 crore families, provide Rs 4 crore to every village; and to build a school, a health centre, a veterinary clinic, a playground with gymnasium, and more in every village. Advani quoted M.K. Narayanan, National Security Advisor, as saying that money belonging to terrorists might have been invested in the Indian stock market through participatory notes.

Introduced when India needed foreign exchange badly, participatory notes continued to be permitted. Advani referred to Hasan Ali Khan without naming him as a hawala operator whom the income tax department had found having unaccounted wealth worth Rs 35,000 crore including in accounts abroad.

Secret bank accounts can destroy our financial system and support terror networks, which increased their attacks on India under the UPA. If elected, a BJP-led NDA government will join global efforts to put an end to banking secrecy and try its best to get hold of money held abroad. Meanwhile, the BJP will make intense propaganda on the issue.

After hearing Advani’s sensational speech on television, I looked for his figures in Wikipedia. I found the figures of $2.6 and $5.7 trillion for Swiss banks in the article on banking in Switzerland. But they are total deposits; there is nothing illicit about them. Then I looked for figures of Indian deposits in Swiss banks. They are not in Wikipedia. I found many blogs, mostly by Indians, that mentioned Advani’s and other figures. One attributed them to K.V.M. Pai and through him to Swiss banking association. I looked up Pai’s article in the August 2006, issue of Outlook Business as well as the annual reports of the Swiss Banking Association for 2006-07 and 2007-08; none of them contains the figures. Prime facie, it is unlikely that the SBA would on its own disclose such figures. They are someone’s guesses, driven by powerful wishful thinking. Advani himself gives the range of $0.5-1.4 trillion; he is extremely uncertain.

But he is certain that it is illicit: that it is illegal for Indians to deposit money in foreign banks. He is mistaken. It is perfectly legal for
non-resident Indians to have deposits abroad. According to a list produced by the Ministry of Indian Overseas Affairs in 2000, there were about 20 million non-resident Indians (it is too tedious to make a more accurate total of the figures for over 100 countries). If their per capita income were $25,000, they would be earning $500 billion a year. Their bank deposits are anybody’s guess. Very few of the 20 million NRIs have Indian passports. If they are nationals of other countries, there is no way Advani can touch their assets, even if they kept their deposits in Swiss banks.

As for the few non-resident Indian passport-holders, the Income Tax Department claims taxes on them only if they are in India for more than 183 days in a financial year. Advani has this mental picture of Indians who live in India but go occasionally to Zurich and draw money from the accounts they keep there. There is simply nothing to support the supposition that such people have $1.4 trillion in Swiss banks.

Thousands of Indians no doubt visit Switzerland every year, some of them more than occasionally; but there is nothing to connect precisely those travelers with that mythical $1.4 trillion. And that the money came from political bribes and crime is pure fantasy. The government discovered one case where money of an undisclosed criminal was invested in P-notes; but they are not a popular avenue for criminals. It is much simpler for them to park money in real estate.

Hasan Ali Khan, whom Advani refers to as a typical tax evader and holder of Swiss bank accounts, was a bon voyeur who bought race horses and flaunted his money in Pune; the story that he was a hawala operator worth Rs 35,000 crore was manufactured by the enforcement directorate, which is desperately looking for work. There is no independent confirmation of the story – for instance, no documents filed in court.

Advani’s appetite has been fired by the success of the United States of America in getting details of assets of US citizens from Swiss banks. Till now, the US Justice Department has succeeded against only one bank: on February 19, UBS agreed to pay the US $780 million and give details of assets amounting to $20 billion and names of 250 clients.

The US is asking for details of 52,000 clients; Swiss banks are resisting, and have the support of the Swiss government. Compare that $20 billion with the $1,400 billion Advani hopes to bring back. The US Internal Revenue Service is not seeking to expropriate Americans’ deposits in Switzerland. It is asking for 20 per cent of the highest balance held abroad, plus six years’ back taxes plus interest.

The US makes those demands because it taxes the world income of Americans wherever they are (they get rebates for other countries’ income taxes they pay); India makes such demands only from residents of India. And there are simply not so many Indian idiots who reside in India and leave their money in Switzerland. Those who wanted to keep their assets abroad long ago went to live abroad and are beyond the Indian tax net.

And the US can succeed in pressuring Swiss banks because business in the US is indispensable for them.
Their business in India is not even 5 per cent of their total business; rather than give up client confidentiality, they would close down their branches in India - and ask their clients to come to Dubai or Bangkok instead. So even if Advani becomes an iron Prime Minister, he will not bring a single illicit penny home. He was only diverting attention from the Varun affair.

Total black money in India?

Swiss bank revealed India has more money than rest of the world


This is so shocking.....If black money deposits was an Olympics event..
India would have won a gold medal hands down. The second best Russia has
4 times lesser deposit. U.S. is not even there in the counting in top
five! India has more money in Swiss banks
than all the other countries combined!

Recently, due to international pressure, the Swiss government agreed to
disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective
governments formally asked for it.. Indian government is not asking for
the details... ..no marks for guessing why?



We need to start a movement to pressurize the government to do so! This
is perhaps the only way, and a golden opportunity, to expose the high
and mighty and weed out corruption!
.
Please read on..And forward to all the honest Indians to..
Like somebody is forwarding to you...
and build a ground-swell of support! for action !
.
Is India poor, who says? Ask the Swiss banks. With personal account
deposit bank of $1,500 billion in foreign reserve which have been
misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country's foreign
debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country?

DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS,
IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal
accounts a sum of about $1500 billion, which have been misappropriated
by them. This amount is about 13 times larger
than the country's foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor
people can get Rs 1,00,000 each.

This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by
exploiting and betraying them. Once this huge amount of black money and
property comes back to India , the entire foreign debt can be repaid in
24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt,
we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign
debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount
of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central
government. So even if all the taxes are abolished,
then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country
very comfortably.

Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of which 25,000
travel very frequently. 'Obviously, these people won't be tourists..
They must be travelling there for some other reason,' believes an
official involved in tracking illegal money.. And, clearly,
he isn't referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who've
been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade
Organization (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin!

Just read the following details and note how these dishonest
industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers,
film actors, illegal trade and protected wildlife operators, to name
just a few, sucked this country's wealth and prosperity.
This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about
other international banks?

Black money in Swiss banks - Swiss Banking Association report, 2006
details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of
following countries:



TOP FIVE

INDIA $1,456 BILLION

RUSSIA $470 BILLION

U.K. $390 BILLION

UKRAINE $100 BILLION

CHINA $96 BILLION

Now do the math's - India with $1,456 billion or $1.4 trillion has
more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. Public loot
since 1947:

Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed
by mankind - the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his
brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by
politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen.

The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots
with impunity and without any fear. What is even more depressing in that
this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret
bank accounts located in some of the world's
best known tax havens? And to that extent the Indian economy has been
stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how
such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that
go on to govern such tax havens. However,
one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for
murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing
countries into rich developed ones.

In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a
conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing
the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western
world explicitly encourages the movement of
scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich. In March
2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding
demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore
by rich individuals across the globe.

The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was
managed from some 70 tax havens. Further, augmenting these studies of
TJN, Raymond Baker - in his widely celebrated book titled
'Capitalism' s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the
Free Market System' - estimates that at least $5 trillion have
been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970.

It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world's
population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing
it invariably through these tax havens.

How much of this is from India is anybody's guess...????
If India is doing like this the annual turnover will be less and our market will have to close down (BSE\NSE)



we have to trace out the black money when the polities have kept ? where there they use ? but they don't have correct tax details . all are illegal only