For general public financial year starts with a new hope of appraisal, balanced finances and an estimated expenditure of the whole year. A middle-class man works so hard for 10 to 15% appraisal at the beginning of the new financial year and that too depends on so many things like the recorded sweat throughout the year at your job. Survey says that 1% of Indians own 53% of the wealth, and this itself is a surprising figure raising questions on the growing inequality as India’s biggest challenge. The voters got swayed by the big promises of combating the menace of black money and bring black money from abroad.
Well, the new financial year has started with Panama paper leaks featuring links of over 500 Indians to firms and accounts in offshore tax havens. Offshore haven is a jargon, not so commonly used and understood by the general public and it has been added to the vocabulary of many only after this Panama leaks.
How it came to us?
Over 11 million leaked documents revealed that a Panama law firm, Mossack Fonseca, helped more than 500 Indians to set up offshore companies in tax havens around the world. More than a year ago, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), a German media house got in touch with an anonymous source, which contacted it and submitted these internal documents from Panamanian company Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth-biggest offshore law firm. The leak contains 11.5 million documents worth 2.6 terabytes of data, making it the biggest leak in history. The data consists of details on companies registered from 1977 to 2015.
In cooperation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), SZ, along with more than 100 media organisations across 80 countries, led a year-long joint investigation and analysed these documents in depth.
How would it affect the Indian Subcontinent?.
Iceland has seen a tremendous outrage among people and the day after the PM quits.How would it affect the Indian subcontinent? It would be too early to answer this question but believe it or not, it is not going to affect the ongoing trend much.
Other notable people of this infamous list cull from The Panama Papers includes Vinod Adani, elder bro of Gautam Adani. Yes, Narendra Modi's one of the chief financiers and plane lenders, if you remember the election campaign jet. Is it possible to even think of Mr. Modi like Putin who is accused of tax avoidance and money laundering as his closest friend in the list? Mr. Bachchan said, “"I do not know any of the companies referred to by Indian Express - Sea Bulk Shipping Company Ltd, Lady Shipping Ltd, Treasure Shipping Ltd, and Tramp Shipping Ltd. I have never been a director of any of the above-stated companies. It is possible that my name has been misused”. C’mon Sir, it is not a time for glib talk. Your name in the list is murky like others.
Our political system is tainted by so many scams that the general public has become resistant to it for reaction. This Panama paper leak like any other news would be dead air soon and people would happily go and watch Shehanshah of Bollywood’s upcoming films and it would be not surprising if he becomes the next head of state .
