| INDIARIGHT.ORG |
Indiaright.org is owned, managed and edited by the Centre for National Renaissance (CNR). The CNR has been founded by the Naveen Hindustan Foundation. [ read ] |
| RIGHTWING IDEOLOGY |
The three strands of any Rightwing ideology in the West are: open society, free economy, and limited government. [ read ] |
 |
 |
 | Maya's perverse move: 1,000 Reliance Fresh workers sacked Our Correspondent The axis of evil comprising political manipulators, mindless Luddites and racketeers of various hues has succeeded in jeopardising the prospects of a most promising sector, retail, in UP. The immediate casualties are about a thousand Reliance Fresh employees who lose job because the Mayawati Government perversely decided to act against big retail. The layoff is the outcome of the forced closure of Reliance outlets selling fresh fruits and vegetables in Lucknow, Ghaziabad and Noida by the respective district administrations on the pretext that they were posing law and order problems. A more brazen attitude by the authorities is inconceivable: a legal business—that too in something as innocuous as selling fruits and vegetables and not, say, making semi-porn movies—is threatened by violent mobs; and the babus and cops call, not the street thugs but, the businessmen as a law and order problem! Sacked Reliance Fresh employees are now protesting against the state Government; they have submitted a memorandum to the Governor, seeking justification of the Government's decision to debar only Reliance Fresh and allow other firms to continue their retail businesses. Apparently, Mayawati and her cronies believe that laid-off employees agitating on streets would improve the law and order situation! Fortunately, industry has decided to voice its concerns in no uncertain terms. Sanjeev Chaturvedi, head of the UP unit of the Confederation of Indian Industry, said that the investment inflow in UP, already a trickle as compared to other states, would be adversely affected if the state Government sticks to its decision to close the Reliance Fresh outlets. "The retail sector is booming across India and UP is the biggest market for retail players. It (closures) is bound to affect the state's predominantly agrarian economy." Similarly, Sudhakar Tiwari, convenor of the PHD Chamber of Commerce (UP Chapter), called the Mayawati Government's anti-Reliance stand as "unfortunate." He rightly said that with such official attitude nobody would like to invest in UP in future. Reliance Fresh claims that it has already invested around Rs 500 crore in UP and had plans to invest up to Rs 10,000 crore in the next few years, generating about five lakh direct and indirect jobs in the next four years. All this is gone, just because the powers that be in Lucknow confused the clamour orchestrated by petty traders and vested interests. The enemies of economic reforms may call Reliance's discomfiture as the victory of David against Goliath. But this is no biblical saga; there are no heroes in this battle; it is a case of petty fixers and misguided idealists successfully opposing progress and development Posted on : 9/29/2007 Mail this article to your friend |