International Law

Uncomfortably Numb

By admin

I’m amazed. Utterly butterly amazed. Actually stupefied. Rendered mentally numb is a more accurate characterization, as Rumsfeld would put it. The National Security Council is out of work, from what can be gathered from this Economic Times report.

The National Security Council (NSC) has called for ?special? scrutiny of the multi-billion-dollar [Hutchison-Essar-Vodafone] deal. Urging the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) not to clear the deal without considering the views of the ministry of home affairs and intelligence agencies, the NSC Secretariat has emphasised that routine vetting of the deal is not adequate.

One would have thought that Al-Qaeda threats, Pakisthani espionage, Central Asian geopolitics, Oil and Energy strategy, the  US-India Nuclear deal and other matters would have kept the old wise men occupied. But no they couldn’t find anything better to pick on than poor old Hutchison and Vodafone. To be fair its only the Secretariat that seems to be out-of-work. Some more gems:

On the controversy over the 12.26% stake held in HEL by the company?s CEO Asim Ghosh and Max India chairman Analjit Singh, the NSC is of the view that their stake should be considered as ?foreign equity? if it is controlled through offshore entities

Perhaps someone should arrange for a short course on corporate law for the learned gentlemen. On a serious note, it’s one thing to put in place a dedicated policy and team that does serious research and analysis and another thing to have armchair 007s, lawyers and bureaucrats all rolled into one bundle. What a joke!

Full post as published by Technology Law India on April 20, 2007 (boomark / email).