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April 21-May 6, 2022

 
 
Nilgiri herbs

A shrewd government

Several years ago, one of the Tata Group’s jewels — Air India — was "nationalized,” which was a polite word for a takeover without compensation. After several decades of running the airline into a sorry state — both in reputation and financially — the government has sold Air India for many crores to the Tatas. Who says governments don’t know business?                                                FARROKH K. R. MEHTA farrokh_mehta@yahoo.com ...



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Farrokh Mehta's letter (A Shrewd Government) deserves to be widely read. He mentions that Air India was "nationalized", and explains that "nationalized was a polite word for a takeover without compensation". For us common folk, the word for takeover without compensation is "theft". But we must note that it was one government that committed the theft, and a different one that profited from the theft. And the shrewdness (polite word for immorality) mentioned in the heading lies not so much in the profiteering, as in the fundamental mechanics of nationalization, which involves paying an unethically low price for the take over. Therein lies the shrewdness. It allows government to say "This is not theft. We paid compensation". But the compensation which that government paid was not sufficient to buy one engine of one plane.
- and Mrs Jamshed A Modi
- 27-Apr-2022

 

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