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expressed by the then-national security advisor, MK Narayanan, about possibility of terror funds coming in through financial markets. A recent report suggests that on instructions from finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Intelligence Bureau has taken up the task of identifying the sudden quantum jump in the foreign money flowing in the country through withdrawals by foreigners on credit and debit cards issued by the foreign banks. In the last few years many countries in Europe as well as the US have taken several steps to get back their illegal funds from abroad. For instance, the US got names of more than 4000 clients of UBS bank from Switzerland after persuasion, threats and related legal actions. It has been successfully demonstrated by countries which attempted to recover the assets stashed abroad by their corrupt leaders and businessmen that this can be accomplished. There was a report in India Today (February 18, 2008) regarding foreign travels of Central ministers. It stated that a large number had visited Switzerland, including on personal trips and certainly not for skiing in the Alps. Given all these aspects why is the government not initiating any action? One possible reason could be the culpability of our leaders. There was a report in the Swiss journal Schweitzer Illustrierte, which did an expose on politicians of the third world and developing nations who had stashed their wealth in Swiss banks. In its issue dated November 11, 1991, the magazine, citing the newly opened KGB records, reported that Sonia Gandhi, the widow of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was controlling secret account with 2.5 billion Swiss Francs (equal to $2.2 billion) in her minor sons name. Interestingly there has not been any defamation suit against the magazine nor any denial of that report, either by the government or by the oldest political party. The prime minister has announced to redouble efforts to cleanse the system in 2011. For a start, can he inform the nation about the total number of foreign trips including personal trips undertaken by his cabinet colleagues to various tax havens after UPA-2 came to power?