July 19, 2009

life in general & financial markets: clintons & india's corrupt

The ultimate sycophancy is being carried out during USA's Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, current ongoing few days visit to India. It is not surprising that much of the Indian media [that is known to shamelessly ignore the corruption of India's politicians, bureaucrats (IAS, ICS & IPS officers) and industrialists/company bigwigs] is going ga-ga over what Clinton is doing and whom she is meeting.

This is still ok but the tone of most of the media stories is adulatory in nature and most media columnists and senior journalists are completely silent on the recent and far past of Clintons' (Hillary now as US Secretary of State), and Bill earlier when he was the US president for 8 years from 1992 to 2000) notorious penchant for wheeling dealing with companies for monetary gains by abusing their official positions in the US government.

Barrack Obama, in his misguided sense to keep the cool in Democratic Party, gave in to the pressure from his party's corrupt elements to give an important position to Hillary Clinton. This was despite the fact that Hillary's campaign to get the Presidential nomination in Democratic Party in 2008 was very ugly and nasty towards Obama's nomination campaign.

In India, Ambanis and Tatas are shamelessly close to this corrupt couple. It started in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was the president of the US. Their sycophancy continues with Hillary because the Clintons are known to operate as one when it comes to their ugly wheeling-dealing activities.

Look at what New York Times reports on Hillary's visit to Bombay. I would laugh if it were not a serious matter:

"..But she began her visit to India, the first by a top official from the Obama administration, by discussing climate change, education and health care with private-sector potentates.

Flanked by Mukesh Ambani (estimated net worth: $19.5 billion) and Ratan Tata (estimated net worth: $1 billion), Mrs. Clinton heard ideas from seven other guests about how Indian companies could provide health care, education and banking services to India’s desperately poor.

“You’re so right, Ratan,” Mrs. Clinton said to Mr. Tata when he explained how his Tata Group was delivering nutrients to children and young mothers through daily staples like milk. “If we could get the nutritional status of children to improve, it would solve so many problems.”

The purpose of her visit, Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference on Saturday, was to “broaden and deepen” dialogue between the United States and India. Given the potential for friction in the issues that face the two countries — climate change, trade and the insurgency in Pakistan — Mrs. Clinton’s visit with business leaders was more than a sidelight.

The United States is clearly hoping that Indian business will help bridge potential gaps between the two countries.

Mr. Ambani, for example, proposed that Indians and Americans work together to develop “clean technologies” that would reduce carbon emissions. The Indian government is resisting the Obama administration’s push for a global treaty that would mandate cuts in carbon emissions, arguing that developing economies deserve to grow without compulsory constraints...."

See what is happening above. Obama administration wants US itself to commit to carbon emissions cuts and not just use its superpower position and join hands with other industrial countries such as Japan, Germany, UK and France to pressurise China and India to also commit to carbon emission cuts.

The way I see it the industrial powerhouses are not doing enough and not doing much right about genuinely reducing their carbon footprints on Earth and their footprints are the highest. Obama wants to genuinely do something. But he is stacked against powerful opposition from the corporate world in US and Europe.

The governments of India and China are taking refuge under a ridiculous argument -- "the West developed and we should also be allowed to develop without constraints to protect the environment". Its like saying "you exploited someone to become wealthy and we also want to exploit that someone to become wealthy" knowing very well that "someone" in this case is our Mother Earth and her previous natural resources.

The carbon footprint of the affluent of China, India and S.Korea are as high the national averages of the industrial nations. Not only will their governments fight against all global efforts to curb carbon emissions but their industrialists will go all out and utter all kinds of lies in front of Western governments' top officials like Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a very easy target to influence for Ambanis and Tatas. In India, right now, during Clinton's visit to India the top Indian industrialists must be carrying forward their thoughts such as "Pamper her and bribe her directly or indirectly to allow us to pollute the air, river, soil and mountains of India".

The Clintons are easy to bribe (do a google on 'clintons corruption'). But at least the proportion of American journalists exposing their corruption is way more than the proportion of Indian journalists exposing corruption in India of politicians such as Sharad Pawar, Kamal Nath, P. Chidambaram, Bal Thackeray, Narendra Modi and many many more across the Indian political spectrum. The Indian media has also been threatened, dierctly and indirectly, by companies such as Ambani's Reliance and Ratan's Tata group whenever there is a story exposing any bit of activity, including environmental violation norms, by these companies.

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