Mani-waad

After the UPA Government, FICCI was at the receiving end of Union Cabinet Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar8217;s sanctimonious ire recently. The keynote speaker at an FICCI function this week, Aiyar said that while it is the poor masses of the country who decide the ruler every five years, it is the classes exemplified by associations like FICCI who decide the policies in between. As a result, he said, slogans of 8220;inclusive growth8221; remained just slogans. Exhorting the need to empower the rural poor, Aifyar told the audience at the FICCI auditorium that all the slave traders and slave owners would have been FICCI members had there been such a federation at the time. If that was not enough, Aiyar said the industry association was in the philosophical 8216;Berkeleyian position8217;8212;a reference to the famous Irish philosopher George Berkeley 8212; for its 8220;ignorance8221; on the 8220;silent revolution8221; being brought about by his Panchayati Raj Ministry.