Celebration of National Day of Italy in Kolkata
ery emotional on the renunciation of prime ministership by Sonia, should bear in mind that she holds the key to Manmohan'schamber. Before renouncing the premiership, she smartly manoeuvred to amend her party'sparliamentary rules so as to facilitate remote control of Manmohan Singh. Even the officers for the Prime Minister'sOffice were appointed by her as per their degree of allegiance to her, with the tacit instructions to convey a day-to-day report on the movements of Manmohanji.
It is not wrong for a party to control its own Prime Minister. It becomes objectionable when a foreign-born Indian political leader controls the activities of an Indian Prime Minister. Unfortunately, what we had conjectured is going to happen. No sooner had Manmohan Singh'scabinet taken charge of the Indian government, the Italian Aritozo Chamber of Commerce and Toscani Promotion Authority rushed to India to grab a share of the Indian market. And in this game-plan, the communist government of West Bengal came forward with all its help. For the last few months, the Left Front government of West Bengal has been conspiring to sell West Bengal in the Italy bazaar. During the last few months at least five teams of delegates have visited West Bengal on different grounds to finalise their game-plan. Even the Italian Consul General for Kolkata, Augustino Pinna was present in almost all the meetings with the government and with different Chambers of Commerce.
After swearing-in of the cabinet members led by an Italian into State power of India, Italian envoy, Antonio Armellini rushed to India at the quickest possible speed. Already the eastern regional office of Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been opened in Kolkata. Armellini announced an instant flow of fund to the tune of 25 million Euro dollars for improvement of the water supply position in 14 municipalities of West Bengal. It is quite natural because the rare opportunity of celebrating the National Day of Italy in the presence of its envoy on the other'sland was made possible by the communist government of West Bengal in Kolkata on June 2, 2004. It may be mentioned here that this type of celebration of any other country'sNational Day in Kolkata was the first of its kind in this city. However, it was quite natural for the communists to indulge in such anti-national activities as they are averse to celebrating our own National Day in our own country. They can do everything for the sake of their own interest.
Quite naturally, Italian commercial houses are highly elated. Already a commercial organisation of Milan'sindustrial houses and called ?Promose?, which works to promote international trade of Italy, has begun to praise the West Bengal government in their oft-quoted statements simply because the West Bengal government is set for hard-selling West Bengal to Italy. On June 1, 2004 an agreement was signed with Italy'sAritozo Chamber of Commerce and Toscani Promotion Authority by India'sJames and Jewellery Export Promotion Council and Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce. As per this agreement, Italian industrial houses will not only invest in our industries, but also will be allowed to get their works done through our jewellery units. This outsourcing is in Italy'sfavour because wages in India are much lower than in Italy.
It has been admitted by Shri Pankaj Parekh, Chairman, Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce (eastern region) that Italy'sshare in international trade of jewellery has been sharply declining for the last few years due to escalation of production costs in that country. During the last three years, Italy'sshare in gross international trade of jewellery declined to 26 per cent from 31 per cent. Actually, the Italian government had been planning on this outsourcing trade policy just to regain its lost international market. This outsourcing trade policy was vehemently opposed by the young unemployeds in USA and fearing defeat in the forthcoming elections, anti-outsourcing bills were passed in all states in America. However, now under the pressure of big industrial houses, these bills are being withdrawn, one by one. Hence, it is a well-known fact that Western countries are again resorting to the outsourcing trade policy just to suit the interests of their industries and industrialists, not for India'ssake.
Western countries never work against the interest of their own industries, industrialists and its workers and this was made clear in WTO'sministerial conference in Cancun. American and European Union countries unitedly faced the challenge of opening their markets to the Third World countries by withdrawing subsidies on their industries and agriculture for the interest of their industries, industiralists, agriculture and farmers. They do not yield to any pressure. Indian representative, Shri Arun Jaitley, whipped up support for India'sviews on WTO and spoke up on behalf of the Third World countries against America and European Union'sstubborn and intransient attitude.
West Bengal'sChief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya praised the role of the Indian representative in WTO by sending a congratulatory message to him. It is quite surprising that the same Shri Bhattacharya, has now invited Italy, the gang-master of that European Union and has thrown open its own market to them. Italy does not throw open its market by withdrawing huge industrial and farm subsidies on industrial and agricultural produce. We cannot defeat Italy but we have certainly defeated ourselves from within and it is hard to understand the group of species to which the communists belong.
