Hello All,
Skimming through the news of the last couple of weeks, of the antics of Raj Thackeray, his high voltage arrest-bail-arrest drama, my eyes also caught one more incident.
In my quiet, silent and quite-so-stately hotel room, I was going through the phenomenal emergence of Indian billionaires. Here I refer to the Business World magazine, 30th June 2008. Pretty old and stale news, you might wonder. But I have never claimed to be an updated personality.
Well, this article is not about my forced impoverished lifestyle. One article in this magazine, “Shadowy Wealth”, focuses on the not-so-righteous ways of people investing their ill (?) earned or tax repugnance nature forcing them into benami investments.
Of the salient notes, this article covers how the D Gang could have made it to the billionaire club, if their wealth could be measured and legitimized. One paragraph caught my attention. From the magazine, I quote (page 98), for records sake:-
Going offshore has its own set of difficulties. Take Jet Airways, in which a Maratha strong man is alleged to have a stake. At one time, the airline was also accused of receiving funds from the D-company, which had also led to delays in the US granting it permission to fly in. According to Jet, the equity of the company-other than that sold in a public offering-are held by a company incorporated in the Isle of Man , and owned by the airline’s chairman Naresh Goyal.
But after months of investigation, the NDA government gave Jet Airways a clean chit over the controversy of its ownership and the alleged links to the underworld; its inquiries hit a dead end in the Isle of Man, where the banking secrecy laws are stringent. The US has also cleared the airline, and it now flies to several American cities. Suspicions persist, however, since the Government still does not know all the owners of the airline.
Also, at the around the same time, I read in the news about the high street drama that unfolded when Jet Airways terminated services of some of their employees. How the employees approached Raj Thackeray, a Maratha strong man (to those uninitiated ones only, cerebrally blessed readers please kindly ignore) and how he raised his concern and voice (and his men threatened to raise their hands).
Overnight, Naresh Goyal, the head honcho of Jet Airways, does a vault face and takes back all the sacked employees. That, if his employees were not happy, he was not happy, if they had sleepless nights, he could not sleep, Naresh Goyal cut a very gallant and messianic figure. Raj Thackeray also cut a very positive impression (also got some good sound bytes!!!) for his onerous assistance to help the beleaguered Jet employees.
This story makes a good read for an intelligent reader (which you are, else you would not have spent this much time during office hours). But alas, for some of the unfortunate among you, who are not as cerebrally blessed like others, your stupidity might force you to match the text marked in red with another set of text marked in red. The worse among you would actually start thinking that the article published in a weekly edition of 30th June was much before the Jet employees’ imbroglio.
So just like the Mel Gibson character in The Conspiracy Theory, your unused, lazy brain might start adding two and two making it twenty two. What emerged as a corporate-political one upmanship battle, a real time drama could have been concocted for both parties involved to gain mileage. At the risk of losing readership, may I also add that some of my worst readers (ones whose cerebral capability could be matched to the Dodos), may also try to figure that some stylishly attired; conspicuously well endowed (financially) aviation minister would suddenly step in the ruckus. He would then get an already nose-deep-in-debt Jet Airways another additional life line of credit for ATF.
I am not saying anything. For the refined readers of mine (who I would foolishly like to believe, are a majority), this is just another piece of irrelevant crap of two unrelated events that I have unsuccessfully tried to link. But for that minority of some, well I leave it to their imagination …to imagine the real story behind the scenes….if at all there was any….
Jet employees receiving slips pink,
Says the company, was an attempt to shrink,
But the management never did think,
That it would all change in a matter of a wink,
Employees get a new face of hope,
Raj agrees to throw in a saving rope,
Promises jobs back for all his Jet brothers and sisters,
But advises them to address him as Saheb and not some mister
sriky
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