Mr. Yashwant Sinha as EML guest

---we had our ex-finance minister Mr.Yashwant Sinha here in IITM a few weeks back. He spoke on fiscal deficit, revenue deficit, infrastructure investments, about corporate/excise taxes and profits, even about ice-creams and umbrellas and ofcourse about himself. An excellent example of a standard politician, he never stopped glorifying his party and its policies and his term as finance minister which was when India had prospered and his team and anything and everything that had ever come in contact with him. Obviously he was curt and crisp in his approach towards demeaning the whole budget presented by Mr. Chidambaram. Ripping off the budget on every point that he could find worth assaulting, Mr. Sinha did what any opposing party member would have done.

Now it is no doubt a great achievement for the EML coordinators to get such a largely sought after personality to give a lecture on the budget, but was it really worth it? All we got was, not an analysis, but a criticism of the work done by Mr. Chidambaram and his party. In the end, we were left as ignorant about the budget as we were before. Mr. Sinha was definitely an imposing person with a baronial personality, a person whom you would definitely look up to with respect, but the very purpose of attending the lecture was defeated. Is it the fault of the coordinators or Mr. Sinha is something left upto you to decide. Or probably it was my own mistake to go there with an expectation which clearly looks like a loong shot now that I look back at it.

There was definitely one positive point in attending the lecture for us. I and Nikhil managed to get a corner in a pic in the next day's newspaper :). Deepak and Neha who were sitting just beside me were unfortunately left out. Not that it matters, but now as I come to think about it, it was Nikhil and Deepak in the first place who saved a place for me. Well thanks Deepak ;) Cant stop grinning about it :) ---

Quotations:

" I should be paying a tax of 3% and not 5% because I am not a potato, I am a sweet potato"

"Mr. Chidambaram is in a difficult situtation with everyone breathing down his neck from left, right and centre"


- Mr. Yashwant Sinha