Tag Archives: national security

100% FDI in Telecom – Risk to National Security

17 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in BSNL - Better Service to the Nation

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The decision of the government to increase the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in telecom is nothing short of inviting serious risks to national security. The Forum of BSNL Unions / Associations  strongly protests against  the move and will meet today to discuss the issue and plan agitational programmes.

Already 74% FDI is allowed in the telecom sector. This has resulted in majority influence of foreign MNCs in some of the private telecom companies. The case of Vodafone is well-known. Neither they agree to the restrictions of the government of India on many occasions, but they are also openly violating the regulatory conditions. They refuse to pay due income-tax levied on them. If 100% FDI is allowed as decided now, many of the Indian private companies will be taken over by the Foreign MNCs with disastrous result for India. The snooping by the US Intelligence Agency through the mobile companies are well exposed and known to all. Under such circumstances any increase in  the FDI and giving a free hand to foreign companies in the telecom sector, which is the second line of defence, will be suicidal.

The increase in FDI will seriously and adversely affect the growth of BSNL. Pumping of huge money to the private telcos and lack of funds for the PSUS, BSNL and MTNL, will lead to the marginalisation of the latter. This in turn will be utilised by the private companies to increase the rates for calls and other telecom services on a large-scale and the customers will have to pay more.

The Forum of BSNL Unions/Associations expresses its strong protest and demands the government to desist from the move to increase the FDI to 100%,  failing which the unions in BSNL will be compelled to resort to agitations programmes.

FDI to 76 % or 100% for Defence units in SEZ

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in General

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Maximum expenditure of the government goes to defending the country. Lakhs of crore rupees are spent on purchasing defence equipment  from US, Israel and other countries. Not much publicity is not given to these deals, since they are connected with defence. Any government in the world will like defence equipment manufactured in their own countries due to the security concern. The position of India can not be otherwise.

But what is happening in India is curious. Defence equipment were being manufactured in the Defence Factories. These are being reduced. MNCs are private companies are allowed to produce them in the Special Economic Zones where many labour and tax conditions are waived or reduced. But now the government is going much more in support of the private capital to maximise their profit. It is proposing to increase the FDI in this sector which at present is 26%. While the Arvind Mayaram Committee which looked in the matter has recommended increase to 49%, the Commerce Minister Anand Sharma is battling for more, at least to 74%. A lobby in the government is trying to make it 100%.

IN the present situation when increasing the FDI in every sector is one of the most important policy of the government to please the imperialist countries headed by US and the MNCs, anything can happen! FDI seems to be more important than defence and security of the country.