CIIdiary

Sorry for the interruptionCarrying on from where his boss left off yesterday, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha went out of his way to assu...

Sorry for the interruption
Carrying on from where his boss left off yesterday, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha went out of his way to assure industry that the government would continue to function fully right till the elections, and that all policy and other decisions would be taken to further reforms. Confident that the BJP would come back after the elections and continue with the good job, Sinha apologised for the brief delay caused by the political turmoil. As Doordarshan used to say, Sinha quipped, Rukaavat ke liye khed he Sorry for the interruption.

Trust an MP, trust anyone
The main reason why India has not had balanced development, Sinha said, was that, since independence, there had been no genuine devolution of powers to the panchayats and village bodies all planning was centre-driven. The reason was that we did not trust the small local politician to take the right decision. But ironically, Sinha said, we trust the honourable MPs who, as their recent behaviour has shown, areso irresponsible that it isn8217;t funny. I think, Sinha said, if we can trust MPs, we can trust anyone.

Pawar8217;s query to Hamara Bajaj
Apart from being worried about the fact that the new elections may not throw up a mandate dramatically different from the last one, Congress leader Sharad Pawar told delegates at CII that he was worried about other things as well. Whether his friend Rahul Bajaj, the new CII President, would swing things in the BJP8217;s favour! According to Pawar, around 14 months ago, the WEF hosted its annual conference in Delhi and Bajaj was the moving spirit behind it. Bajaj was, according to Pawar, openly claiming to be a BJP supporter, and the BJP came to power. This time around, co-inciding with the current CII session in which Bajaj took over, the 12th Lok Sabha has been dissolved. So will Bajaj support the BJP and help it win, Pawar asked.

Frogs in the well
The media panel on the subject media in transition8217; was quizzed by one participant at the CII meet as to howthey could have spoken at length about the media in, well, transition, without once mentioning the word Internet. To this, the joint MD of The Hindu newspaper declared that not only was the Internet as yet no threat in India and would never be a mass medium here, it was no threat to the print media globally either! Business Standard editor T.N. Ninan put a participant asking a silly question about how the media was preparing for the new millennium by saying: 8220;We are making no preparations for the next thousand years. We do have many plans for the next ten years. You will see what they are as they unfold.8221; That should give pause to all losing all sense of proportion about what is in the end just one more change on the calendar.

Get off the cocktail circuit
Obviously irritated by the blame being heaped on politicians for landing the country in the current political mess, and the lectures being handed out at CII, Congress leader Sharad Pawar shot back at a businessman who asked him why responsiblepeople didn8217;t come into politics. Why don8217;t you get off the cocktail circuit, Pawar responded, and come into politics? Criticism is easy.