 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. In a few months, India will see its next general election, which will determine the political future of the far-right Narendra Modi government. Narendra Modi government, which has been in power for the past five years, has been accused of anti-people's financial policies. Trade unions and people's movements across the country have staged a variety of protests on a number of issues. To talk more about this, we have with us Mr. Thomas Franco, the former general secretary of the All India Bank Officers' Confederation. Mr. Franco is also an analyst of the banking sector, and especially for the past two to three years, has been a strong critic and an analyst of demonetization and other disastrous policies pursued by the Narendra Modi government. Hello, Mr. Franco. So, could you first just talk about how you analyze overall the financial and economic policies of Narendra Modi government and what do you see as its impact on the people? In fact, we have done an analysis in this book, which is titled, Rubble's of an Economic Earthquake, Analysis of Banking and Finance Sector under Modi government, where we have analyzed in detail what all has happened over a period of four and a half years. First of all, this government gave a promise to the people that they are going to bring in a new model of development. Everybody is going to be benefited. Employment, every year, two crores of employment, non-performing assets will be weighed off, and there will be a robust growth in the economy. But in fact, if we see what they have done so far, first of all, take the example of employment. There is absolutely no growth. In fact, there is a negative growth. And recently what has happened is that two officials who are part of the statistical organization who were analyzing the data found that in 45 years, this growth is the least employment growth. They were not allowed to publish that data. Two of them had to resign. So on employment, the promise is given has not been kept. Massive unemployment as well as under-employment is there, rural as well as urban. In the rural areas, people are not getting jobs. They are shifting to the urban areas. They are also, they are finding it very difficult and they live in a very pitiable condition. That is one. Secondly, this government had been following always these policies prescribed by IMF and World Bank, which is always favoring the rich and the corporate. There is no difference in this government. And this government, after coming over, they brought this demonetization. They said they will bring back all the black money that did not happen. That is monumental failure. Then they brought in the goods and services tax. It was not properly implemented. They said one nation, one tax. But even now there are so many slaps of tax. And a common man who goes into a small restaurant and has some chafati or idli, he is also paying service tax. Whereas the tax on the rich, the wealth tax has been abolished. That is leading to accumulation of wealth by the rich. That is one side. Then they brought in some innovative schemes called the make in India scheme, skill of India scheme, start-up India. All these three schemes, if we see in the skill of India, they are distributing a lot of money to their cronies in the name of some NGOs who are setting up some training institute where hardly any training is taking place. And the training is not really skilling them. Secondly, you talk about start-up and make in India. Whereas the Prime Minister goes to every country, signs agreement where the multinational companies are allowed to come in and make use of the cheap labor. Even there, the number of laborers required will be very less because they use such kind of technology. And real making in India has gone. Today if you go to the market, China has flooded everything. And even some of these products which are sold in the name of Indian companies, they are manufacturing at China just putting their brand name. I have checked it up with the case of the sanitary wears and tiles. When we did a big project, we went in to see how is the factory and all. Then they frankly said, sir, it is all done in China. We just get it branded. Whatever brand you want, we will bring it then we give. So then how can make in India take place? See once when the international agencies and the US refused us to give crionic technology for our spacecraft, our scientists work and they develop the technology. Today we are a leader in space technology. But today what is happening is just copying. Copying Israel's technology which is not at all relevant to this country. It is a drought affected desert land where they require a type of irrigation. Whereas in our country, we have floods. We require recharging of wells. We require recharging of the ponds for which we require a different kind of a technology. They are not looking at that. So in the making India scheme also has become a great failure. In the start-up again, they are putting every risk on the entrepreneur and the bank. I was in Israel for a training that time when they were having a session on start-up. I asked, we are afraid of financing as start-up because we don't know whether it will succeed or not. If we want our money to come back because it is people's money which we are lending, then they laughed and said that why should we go to the bank? It is the government which is funding these start-ups with a seed capital, then low interest loans. And by the time he succeeds, banks automatically come and they are willing to give loans. So that start-up India scheme is also a big failure. Farmers, they had promised that they will double their income. Now they are saying that another five years they will double. But the farming is such a deep crisis. The farmers are not getting credit to one. They are not being given adequate price for their commodities when they produce. It is more of small farmers, marginal farmers who are in this country. They do not get any support from the government. That's why there has been huge agitations, rallies and some people, quite a number of them have committed suicide. Farming is one of the main sectors in our country still now. And that is what we provide rural employment. That is totally in a crisis. So on this situation what government is trying to do is once again trying to privatize everything. Corporates are agriculture loan. For example, highest amount of loans given in Maharashtra is in Mumbai city. I don't know where they are doing that farming, whether they are doing terrace farming. What happens is it all goes to the corporates. Corporates they take large lands, they buy and they get all these subsidies. But the poor farmer does not get. Then look at the micro small and medium enterprises. Demonetization affected them very badly. GST further affected. In demonetization alone there is a statistics which says that only like 50,000 industries disappear. Now with the GST, large corporates have an advantage they can get an input tax. Small units cannot get that. So they are getting close to. So there also we are seeing a huge crisis. Recently there was rally by women. The social security systems are being taken away. They brought in this direct benefit transfer and said that we are giving gas to the people. There are studies which says that more than 50% of the people have stopped using those gas connections. Similarly bank accounts, crores of accounts were opened. But when the bank started charging, people closed. Automatically some accounts got closed, some people themselves closed. That statistics nobody is sharing. Now on this situation what as people's movements or trade unions we have reacted to this situation is something very important. The central trade unions have formed a platform with all major trade unions in the country and there has been periodic agitations including strike. The latest strike of last month, two days strike, 20 crore people in this country have participated in this strike. They are demanding a minimum wage. They are demanding social security. They are demanding employment. They are demanding education. Our country is one of the countries where even today education is not free. Health care is not free. There is no unemployment allowance in most of the places. Housing is not free. Energy is so costly. Water is so costly. So all these strikes what they collect that is going towards the corporates and the common man is being affected. So in the banking sector what we did is that we had been questioning, we had been bringing out documents on what is happening and what is the alternative. But government does not have time to listen. Then we formed a confederation of all public sector and central government organization called the All India Public Sector and Central Government Officers Confederation of which I was Secretary General. There we have brought in more number of people. For example, the Bank Officers Confederation, the membership is 3,20,000. When we bring all together under IFCOC it is 20,00,000 officers. We had been periodically agitating, lobbying, bringing out material, telling the people what exactly is happening, why public sector was started, why it is important, how public sector banks are important. That kind of a campaign on one hand is continuing. Farmers again, for the first time in history, more than 100 farmers organizations came together. They had a huge march in front of the parliament at Delhi which was supported by all sections of the society. We had the Nation for Farmers which were people who were working in other sectors trying to help out the farmers. Dr. Sainath led that campaign. So they are demanding that there should be an exclusive session in the Parliament to discuss the farm crisis and farmers crisis. But the government is just not bothering, not caring for this kind of vegetations. If this is the way it is going to continue, I am afraid something like the lowest movement happening in France can happen here also. People will not tolerate for too long. Right. And how do the unions and the people's movements also counter the campaign of Communalism, religious identity based Communalism that the government has been indulging? There I should accept that as trade unions we have not done adequate. Though we do stand with the people's platforms for secularism, we support, we had a people's parliament for unity and development. But we should have come up a little more stronger. Because this country is a unique country. Swami Vivehananda had stated in Chicago that I am proud to say that I belong to a country which does not have hatred towards others. It has accepted people from all over the world. I am proud to belong to a religion which does not have hatred towards the other religions. But today what is happening is very, very sad. There are attacks on minorities. There are attacks to protect cows. I don't know to what extent they can protect cows which are increasing in number and that is going to have an economic crisis also in this country. And people I think especially trade unions, people's movements should come forward little more strongly criticizing, questioning because there is a kind of intolerance getting built up. And the government keeps anybody protesting. They are damned as anti-nationals. Who are the anti-nationals? They themselves should know by now. But this is required that there should be a stronger movement towards unity. Thank you, Mr. Vivehananda. Thank you. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.