Posco had inked a MoU with the state government of Orissa on June 22, 2005, to set up a huge a steel plant. It is five years now. As reported, the company has been allowed to survey the sight. Normally, any other company would have run away. But Posco remained committed to the project. Is there so much of business advantage or a special love for India? It is unfortunate that for the central government of Man Mohan Singh, the solution to the pernennial problem related to land acquisition is still not in priority list. And there are many projects as Posco still waiting.

Many dream projects of the central or state governments or of private sectors get lost. For example, no one knows the fate of Anil Ambani’s world largest thermal power plant at Dadri (in vicinity of Noida), the picturesque railway lines to Kashmir valley or many AIMS hospital promised.

India is becoming a hub of a new business. I don’t know if Indians should pride or get ashamed. According to Hillary Brenhouse’s article ‘India’s Rent-a-Womb Industry Faces New Restrictions’ in Time magazine dated June 5 “India has become the world capital of outsourced pregnancies, whereby surrogates are implanted with foreign embryos and paid to carry the resultant babies to term. In 2002 the country legalised commercial surrogacy in an effort to promote medical tourism; a sector the Confederation of Indian Industry predicts will generate $2.3 billion annually by 2012. Indian surrogate mothers are readily available and cheap.” It costs around $23,000 — less than one-fifth the expenditure in the US — of which the surrogate mother receives $7,500.

I was shocked to see a report from an ex-CII officer in one of the OP Khanna’s regular mails- ‘Is the nation in a coma?’

In a popular prime-time television discussion in Germany, the panellist, a member of the German Parliament quoting a blog said: “If all the scams of the last five years are added up, they are likely to rival and exceed the British colonial loot of India of about a trillion dollars.”

One German business daily which wrote an editorial on India said: “India is becoming a Banana Republic instead of being an economic superpower. To get the cut motion designated out, assurances are made to political allays. Special treatment is promised at the expense of the people. So, Ms Mayawati who is Chief Minister of the most densely inhabited state, is calmed when an intelligence agency probe is scrapped. The multi-million dollars fodder scam by another former chief minister wielding enormous power is put in cold storage. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chairs over this kind of unparalleled loot.”

And today morning, Mr. JS Arora passed on another mail that was for him:

Swiss Government has officially written to Indian Government that they are willing to inform the details of holders of 70 lakh crore rupees in their Banks, if Indian Government officially asks them.

As Aesop said, “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to high office.”

Can any one doubt about the greatness of this wonderland called INDIA? Can everything be excused under the garb of democracy and the freedom of expression?