Suhel Seth’s article published in the Mumbai Mirror made me realist that Indian politicians are still stuck to communism as it secures their vote banks. Well, what existed 24 years back, still continues to exist in 2016 India. His ‘Open Letter to the Prime Minister’ seems to be an excellent starting point for the government to dig deep on nonpartisan issues.
An instant eye-catcher was the emphasis on how the government should focus more on development and less on topics that tie to communal-ism. Suhel’s commentary on budget brings to light how our economy has finally moved away from populist measures to strategies that bear real fruits visible to the general eye. However, we need more done on the economic front and that includes how we are perceived as an investment destination in India and abroad. This brings me to another issue which is a key talking point these days—where are we going with executive overreach—NSEL is a good case in point. While the government seems to be keen on merging NSEL with its parent company 63 moons technologies limited supposedly in the interest of the general public, I wonder since when did we as a country forget about the drawbacks of forgetting the lines defining the scope of our powers? The merger has the markets and stakeholders on the edge and it seems to be a mystery as to which group of public it is in the larger interest of. For the over 63,000 shareholders connected to 63 moons, this may be an exercise in disillusionment from the government machinery and the investment environment. For the government which at the moment is giving its best for promoting ‘Make in India’, this is a move that only serves to go against its much talked about initiative. This has the potential to deflate our investment climate given most FIIs oppose the merger. It can even dent our perception globally as a nation with limited mechanisms to check executive overreach. I wonder how comfortable we should be with that considering the Vodafone case still gives us jitters. What is crystal clear and a great source of my confusion is why nobody talks about the blatant flouting of section 396 of The Companies Act in the merger of NSEL with its parent. Isn’t it a flaw and a blot on the concept of modern entrepreneurship and a hard blow on limited liability corporations? While the legal battle over the merger is still underway in the Court, I just pray that the judicial system ensures a logical conclusion to this three year old saga. Yet, one can’t help being concerned for the over 63,000 helpless shareholders who hang on by a thread and the fate of the once poster boy of the financial markets - Jignesh Shah, who has turned exchanges into digital markets today.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
Archives
September 2020
|