Saturday, January 05, 2008

"Samvedana Anashan " - Fasting for good governance to fight hunger, disease, poverty...

A friend of mine from India will start his indefinite fasting, "Samvedana Anashan " from 15th January, 2008. I admire his advocacy on good governance to fight hunger, disease and ignorance which to him are rooted on lack of sufficient integrity, creativity and competence, caring and sharing.

I'm posting his letter to the Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singhji as a sign of support for his advocacy. Press conferences will be held starting on Tuesday, 08 January 2008 in Pune, and another in New Delhi on 10 January 2008. I hope he and his colleagues achieve what they are fighting for. As he said, even if they fail doesn't matter, because they have put 110% of their effort into it.

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Center for Holistic Human Development and Research
12 Maithilee, 34 /5 Erandwana, Pune 411004 - India.
Ph : + 91 20 2543 6648. VMRaste@hotmail.com
Sky is not the limit !


Dear and Respected Dr. Manmohan Singhji,

Sub : " Samvedana Anashan " - An indefinite fast from 15th January 2008.

A day has come in my life, to express our solidarity with the avoidable widespread sufferings of kids - out of schools, sick - not getting proper health care, the hungry and the malnourished. It is our considered opinion that hunger, disease and ignorance are only the symptoms and the real problem is, lack of sufficient integrity, creativity and competence, caring and sharing. I have decided to go on an indefinite fast " Samvedana Anashan " from 15th January, 2008. You are the sensitive leader, with highest integrity and competence. We are sure, you will appreciate our small offering to promote integrity.

The government under your able leadership and that of Soniaji, has done a lot to reduce sufferings, but one vital aspect is not yet on the agenda of the top leadership or society. We have been working on the issues of governance, more specifically the corporate governance. What we find today is very disturbing. As you rightly pointed out recently, the crony capitalism is widespread. The most disturbing aspect is, the people who constantly show their lack of integrity, are being promoted as role models in the society. They do not even hesitate to commit crimes - criminalization of business. We consider these behaviors as serious attacks on the very system of market economy, the very system of Joint Stock companies. Our society needs plenty of risk capital. And we need to promote integrity of markets, integrity of market participants, to attract the risk capital. We need to swiftly and sternly deal with any threat to integrity.

I would like to quote Mr. Alan Greenspan : " An area in which more than less government involvement is needed, in my judgment, is the rooting out of fraud. It is the bane of any market system. Fraud is a destroyer of the market process itself because market participants need to rely on the veracity of other market participants ".

The corporates are playing an increasingly important role in our society. One can imagine, in the coming years Railways, Posts, LIC etc. getting corporatized and listed on the stock exchanges. This can make them accountable to the millions of citizen stakeholders. But in the short term, as the greed gets the better of us, we have a strong feeling, of another scam being just around the corner. The grand plan seems to be, to palm off highly inflated assets to the naive entities. We are concerned with the crowding out of PSUs, as indicated by their enormous cash piles and more so, if this cash is invested in the markets. In these days of Ponzi Capitalism, with the current working of regulations/regulators and the judiciary, allowing/encouraging PSU cash piles/provident funds/pension funds, to invest in the financial markets is fraught with grave dangers.

We would like to bring to your kind notice, some of the shocking cases of corporates, we discovered during the last 4 years. Very clearly, each case is a criminal conspiracy to strip the shareholders off their valuable properties, criminal breach of trust, insider trading and so on. Most of the publicly claimed wealth they have, does not belong to these persons.

1. Larsen & Toubro Ltd. case.
2. Mr. Kumar M Birla case.
3. Mr. Anil Ambani case.

We did approach the media. We did approach the elected representatives. We did approach the government authorities. We did approach the Judiciary and now finally, we are approaching you. We sincerely feel these cases deserve immediate attention of the top leadership, for the sake of truth and justice and to stop their recurrence.

We are also sending a note as to why we consider the markets, as if running on "Ram Bharose," and our humble submission to improve the situation. These cases, besides being taken up as a precedent to be followed by all others have also resulted into loss of revenue in taxes and other government dues.

We thank you.

With respectful love.

Sincerely,


Mr V M Raste
Convener, CHHDR.
Dated the 15th December, 2007.

Encl :
1. V M Raste - A Contemplative Activist D7.
2. Larsen & Toubro Ltd case.
3. Mr. Kumar M Birla case.
4. Mr. Anil Ambani case.

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