Mother of all junkets.

The mother of all junkets is here again and again more than 100 people are attending from India. It is the annual World Economic Forum meeting at Davos in Switzerland. Davos is a small village high up in the Alps, very picturesque covered in snow at this time of the year. You and I cannot walk in their. Attendance is by invitation only. First you have to be a member. A Strategic Partner membership costs $527,000 for 5 people for 1 year which allows them to attend Davos and 6 other meetings in the year. Plus every person has to have a ticket costing $19,000 which means a total of $622,000 for 5 people. A limousine one way from Zurich airport costs $689 and a return fight in a helicopter costs $9500. A 3-star hotel room costs $530 per night and a chalet for 5 people costs $63,000 for 1 week. CNN estimates that it costs $40,000 or Rs 20 lakhs per person, amounting to Rs 20 crore for 100 people, to attend. Add the membership costs and we come to an eye watering figure of around Rs 1.5 billion or Rs 150 crores. Question is who is paying? If the Ambanis, Mittals and Godrejes are paying from their own fortunes then fine but if taxpayers are footing the bill then it is an enormous loot of public money. Of course, politicians will never be left out of a junket at taxpayer expense. Swiss wines, Swiss chocolates and hot Swiss frauleins make for a mouth-watering few days. What is our Minister for Urban Development doing there? Does he want Gucci to open a shop in Dharawi, the largest slum in the world, or maybe Chanel can sell its perfumes so that we can pretend that people are not defecating out in the open? Is the whole circus worth Rs 150 crores of our money? Out of 260 sessions this year only 1, yes only 1, is on India. Chairman of Punj Lloyd and a regular at Davos, Atul Punj said," The under-representation of India is not just a coincidence. It signals our declining relevance." CEO of another company said," A year ago, international investors were talking about fleeing the country. That talk has now stopped. India as of now is neither an opportunity nor a challenge." ET, 23 January. So the World Famous Economist takes over a booming economy in 2004 and has made it into an irrelevance. But we have certainly become world famous in corruption as scam after scam has made headlines around the world. Commerce Minister, Anand Sharma has made a vigorous rebuttal. He said," With the issue of corruption, we always say that we will not tolerate corruption." Quite. But when will we see some action, sir? And again," I am not seeking certificates from individual opinion makers who do not have adequate comprehension of from where we come from ( sic )." But we do sir, we do. We the citizens understand very well how politicians are sucking the country dry. However, since you are there we wish you " Cheers ". Hic!