UPA allows greater role for MNCs in the banking sector
P.Chidambaram tabled the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill and the Reserve Bank of India (Amendment) Bills in the Parliament and they were referred to the parliamentary standing committee on finance on May 14. The government’s intention is to remove the 10 per cent cap on voting rights for foreign investors in private banks. The Reserve Bank of India (Amendment) Bill seeks to vest more powers with the RBI to allow greater leeway for private banks on shareholding and mergers etc.
Once t he Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill is passed by the Parliament then foreign MNCs would be allowed to hold as much as 74 per cent stake in private banks and their voting rights would also go to the corresponding level. This means that the MNCs can takeover private banks in India and bring them under their absolute control.
Foreign banks have cited the 10 percent cap as a disincentive to investment in local banks and have demanded voting rights commensurate with ownership. Manmohan Singh Government has now acceded to their demand.
The Reserve Bank of India (Amendment) Bill also favours big players in the private banking sector. At present there are restrictions on banks lending to directors of the bank and to companies in which the directors have an interest. This bill proposes more teeth to the central bank to grant exemption. This would enable foreign MNCs to effectively concentrate and centralize a huge amount of financial capital under their control. Public money would be diverted to their own companies.
Interestingly, both the bills say nothing about the crucial issue of non-performing assets (NPAs) of the banks.
Recently, a letter by a police officer in Jharkhand, the IG (Operation) R C Kaithal, has revealed that Maoists worked to help JD(U) candidate Ramesh Singh Munda (now Welfare Minister in the Arjun Munda cabinet) win the Assembly polls. Munda had promised to pay 25 lakhs in return, but since he did not pay up the full amount, he had now incurred the wrath of the Maoists. Kaithal’s letter was seeking increased security for the Minister. The Maoists also admitted working for a candidate who contested from a Forward Block ticket – Bhanu Pratap Shahi – who, after the polls had threatened to support the NDA in the Assembly.
In Bihar , the PWG-MCC always had a history of supporting RJD candidates in elections; now, evidence has surfaced indicating their role in supporting an NDA candidate. This is a mark of their ideological degeneration and political bankruptcy.
It is a shock to all those who protested against the shocking murder of Mahendra Prasad Singh, CPI(ML) MLA from Jharkhand, to learn that the SP accused in his murder, Deepak Varma, has recently been posted as SP of Garhwa district in Jharkhand.
All evidence points to the fact that Comrade Mahendra Singh was assassinated by hired killers, during the campaign for the last Assembly polls in Jharkhand, at the behest of the notorious Deepak Varma, then SP of Giridih. Under popular pressure for action against Varma, the Election Commission removed Deepak Varma from duty during the polls. Subsequently a CBI enquiry was ordered which is ongoing.
Now, while the CBI enquiry is underway, Deepak Varma has been posted in Garhwa. Garhwa is known for starvation deaths and extreme feudal and State repression of tribals and rural poor. It is also another rising centre of determined resistance of rural poor. Deepak Varma’s transfer seems a calculated move by the BJP-led Government of Jharkhand to unleash fresh repression on yet another centre of anti-feudal struggles.
Recall that Deepak Varma was posted as SP in Hazaribagh where he orchestrated the murder of the young advocate Prashant Sahai, who had been raising issues of Varma’s involvement in cases of corruption and false encounters. Having silenced Sahai, Varma was then transferred to Giridih, where he then eliminated Comrade Mahendra Singh, who had systematically exposed Varma on the floor of the Jharkhand Assembly and had got a vigilance inquiry conducted into Varma’s unlawful activities by the Additional Director General of Police, Mr. BD Ram. The report recommended a CBI enquiry into Varma’s role in the false encounters and corruption cases that Sahai had been exposing at the time of his murder.
On 4 May, the whole of Garhwa observed a bandh protesting against the posting of Deepak Varma in the district, pointing out that as it is, Garhwa has been a centre where CPI(ML) activists and leaders of rural poor have been jailed en masse, tortured and even killed by feudal forces patronised by the police. Varma’s posting is a dangerous signal that this repression is to be intensified. The CPI-ML Giridih unit also observed a black day and staged a dharna on the same day.