What are we giving away?

The British looted India for over 200 years and 7 million died in the engineered famine in Bengal so what are we going to give David Cameron this time? Cameron has come with an entourage of over 100 people consisting of businessmen, university vice chancellors and health service providers. Apparently India needs billions of dollars worth of defence equipment, upgrading of infrastructure and quality education so that the millions of children growing up today can get productive, paying jobs. Trouble is that there are too many ministries, a total of 53, with too many politicians and too many civil servants busily filling too many pockets to get anything done. While other countries are setting up 4G we are still to find a way of awarding 2G licenses to real telecom companies, we are still having to buy expensive coal from Indonesia and Australia because coal mines were presented to friends and relatives, highway construction is coming to a halt because companies are unable to realise their costs from toll because petrol is so highly taxed that no one wants to drive and every defence deal yields suitcases filled with cash because of the secrecy surrounding defence. That leaves foreign investment in retail. The government has passed a bill allowing 100% foreign ownership in single brand retail and 51% in multi- brand retail provided they buy 30% of products locally but already IKEA has been allowed an exemption to that rule and also allowed to set up cafeterias, which makes it multi-brand, with 100% license. Seems that Walmart is still unhappy about something because they are lobbying lawmakers in Washington because open lobbying is forbidden in India. Our lot likes to have black bags full of cash so that they do not have to pay tax. But will the likes of Walmart and Tesco be such a good thing even if they invest $100 million of which $50 million is in back end infrastructure, such as cold storage? In Britain 1 in 3 high street shop is lying empty because supermarkets have sucked away all business. Daily Mail, 19 February. For every pound spent in a British shop 60 pence goes to a supermarket giant such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons. Supermarkets used to sell only food but now they sell everything from washing machines to garden furniture, from clothes to sauce pans. Well known chains such as Jessops, HMV, Comet, Blockbuster, Clintons, JJB, Peacocks and Game have collapsed. Last December dairy farmers in Britain were protesting outside dairy plants producing milk for these giants because they were paying 26-27 pence for each liter of milk which cost farmers 32 pence to produce. " The FDI in retail can promote instability by way of the exploitative and corrupt ways of the MNCs to hold sway over retail markets," said Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz. So what are we promising to give Cameron?