 Salams, you're watching Dispatches from India, the show on which we talk about the news stories that are making the most amount of conversation from an economic, social and political perspective. The Life Insurance Corporation of India first up, I peered on the 4th of May after the Narendra Modi led BJP government at the centre, decided to divest from the one of a kind public sector insurance company. V. Sridhar, who is a member of the People's Commission on Public Sector and Public Services, has written extensively on the subject. He spoke to People's Dispatch about what makes LIC a unique company and how the government's decision to divest a part of its stake, as well as the terms of the IPO itself, will lead to losses for both policy holders and the government, making it one of, if not the biggest privatisation scams in the country's history. LIC is a unique institution. It's unlike any other life insurance company anywhere in the world. And that's why I call this sui generis in the world of finance. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world for the simple reason that when it was started in 1956, it was started, it functioned more like a cooperative institution in the sense that it was the policy holders who drove this organisation, who built, who provided the risk capital for its expansion into the giant that it is now. Among the, I think it's ranked fifth in terms, it's the fifth largest insurer in the world. So, I mean, that stature was achieved purely because of policy holders' contributions. So, the government invested just five crores in 1956 until 2011. That is for 55 years of its 66 year life. The government invested just this five crores in 1956. That's it. So, the entire capital, the whole expansion, we have something like 24 crore, that is 240 million policy holders. So, that's a very significant proportion of India's population. So, in a country where there was very little social security, life insurance was a very important aspect of this in the sense that it offered some kind of a social security benefit, especially for people with low levels of income. So, that is the importance of the life insurance corporation, LIC as it is known. Now, this is being converted into a private corporation. This IPO, this initial public offer that happened and the share was listed on the 17th, is basically a move. It's only about 3.5% of the government's stake has been diluted in this first round. But this is by no means, it is just the beginning of the dismantling of one of the biggest insurance, publicly owned insurance in the world. And so, what it means is that it basically takes away the rights of the policy holders, and transfers them to the shareholders. The shareholder now being the government, but when it eventually moves to private hands, those will be the beneficiaries. So, the losses on account, the losses that the policy holders suffer are the basis on which the private shareholders will benefit. So, it is nothing but an expropriation of a large number of, I mean, we're talking about 240 million people's policy holders. So, this is purely expropriatory. And that's really my fundamental objection to this whole process of this privatization through an IPO or by any other means. This is a classic case of expropriation of a large number of people and favoring those who are going to be the new shareholders. And this has been done. I mean, I have termed it as the biggest privatization scam in India because it has been grossly undervalued. And that is the basis for this thing. It's a huge scandal. Oxfam recently released a report entitled Profiting from Pain. The report tells us that a new billionaire was created approximately every 30 minutes since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report was published just before the global elite descended on Davos in Switzerland to celebrate record profits during a period when people around the world, particularly in the global south, suffered immeasurably from both the virus as well as the failure of governments to respond to the crisis effectively and humanely. In India, the scale of the tragedy is both massive and, as we now know, avoidable. A subsequent WHO report on excess deaths during the pandemic states that almost four times as many Indians died in this period than any other country in the world. Journalist Aninder Chakravarty examines the report in an Indian context concentrating on the biggest growth areas for billionaires, food, pharma and tech. The latest report from Oxfam, which has been aptly named Profiting from Pain, basically points out three industries where COVID has resulted in new billionaires emerging. The number of billionaires, even though the world economy slowed down, first actually nose died and then slowed down, the number of billionaires has actually increased during COVID. And the Oxfam report points out that there were three industries which have seen a disproportionate number of billionaires emerging. The first is food. The second is health, which is pharmaceuticals. And the third is tech. And of course, there's oil as much, which has many, but most of them would have probably risen in the last year or so when oil prices shot up. But look at what has happened. Food prices, food inflation is at an all time high right now. And it is being said that this is because of scarcity caused by the Russia-Ukraine war. But food prices have been going up for more than a year now, right? Along with that, what has happened is that the big food companies, which the four of them, which together control 75 to 80% of the food trade in the world, they have made record profits. So it is their increased profits, which has pushed up food prices across the world. They've taken this as an opportunity to increase their prices and people are going hungry. People are going hungry and have gone hungry in the middle of a pandemic. Look at pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals, especially those who made vaccines, have all come into the billionaire list this time. And there is vaccine apartheid in this world, right? About 11.7 billion doses have already been given and the world adult population is about 5.65.7 billion. So every adult in the world could have actually got two doses. Instead, what have we got? In the advanced world, children who are not that vulnerable have got vaccines. Many people have got three doses, booster doses in some countries, four doses. Whereas in poorer countries, only 13% of adults have got vaccinated. Why? Because companies, pharmaceutical majors have held on to their profits and refused to allow poor countries to produce these vaccines, mass produce them without that intellectual property, right? That it has to be transferred to them and that is the reason why in poor countries, people are going without vaccines. And now look at tech. Even everywhere in a country like India, even the poorest people have had to give gadgets to their children, put them on the internet to educate them. And a large number of poor people have failed. They've not been able to do that. And in some cases, what has happened is that civil society, somewhere governments have come in and helped them. But who has gained from their big tech? As everything has gone online, including everything we buy, social media, work from home, big tech has gained majorly. And these are the three which have produced billionaires and billionaires have had the profits that the billionaires of the world or their wealth, increase in their wealth in the last 24 months is more than what they had in 23 years, 23 years, 24 months. Look at that comparison. Every 30 hours during the pandemic, one billionaire was created. And this year in 2022 alone, every 33 hours, one million people will slide into extreme poverty. That is what is happening. That is the level of inequality. And this can only be resolved if governments bring in progressive taxes, tax the rich more, put one time when fall gain taxes. And by the way, this is not some socialist conspiracy against the rich. This is what IMF, OACD and EU is already recommending. And finally, originating from the Michael Hills of Amarkandtak in Madhya Pradesh, the Narmada is the fifth largest river in India. And unlike the other major river systems in the country, flows from east to west, where it eventually meets the Arabian Sea. It's also considered one of India's holiest water bodies. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims annually navigate the river's 1,312-kilometer length. Over the years, pollution, illegal mining and other factors have led to massive changes in the river system. Our colleagues at NewsClick spoke to pilgrims on the river side to understand how these changes are impacting lives. This is how it's happening, this is how it's happening everywhere. So, how is this happening? People have stopped the flow of the river, and the flow of the water is not going to stop. When the water didn't get dammed, and the water was very soft, the water was completely soft from here to here. From where? This is the water from here. The water was completely soft. And now this is the river. This is where the Narmada is. There are 18 thermal power points at the Narmada. Among them, there are 6. So, the power plants are almost 6,000 megawatts. So, this is the time to make the Narmada a rock. NGT Delhi gave an order in the middle of November 2013 that there can't be blind, blind, blind, blind, blind, blind, blind, blind, blind, blind, blind Still, the blind who are doing all the work is just a hypocrite who has a mafia and a blessing from the government and by the end of the day, the water level of the river ends That's how it ended The Narmada river is one of the very few rivers in India which is the freshwater river What is the difference between the freshwater river and the freshwater river? The river keeps flowing What is the impact of that? The Narmada river is one of the very few rivers where because of the freshwater river there is a huge amount of fish This is not available in Ganga or Munawani There are no rivers in Munawani But the Narmada river used to have a huge amount of fish Now because of the Narmada river What is the reason for this? The government has given it the status of a state fish Today, the situation is that the fish and the fish have come into endangered species and this is less than 3% Do you know why? Because the reason is the dam Because the water stops when the dam is made When the water stops, the fresh water is not saved because the water is not flowing and the dissolved oxygen is reduced and the water in it will reduce and the freshness will reduce The dependent fish like the fish will reduce What is the larger impact? The quality of the water will keep flowing and this activity will continue and the anthropogenic activity of human and water will keep on flowing The impact will be that these water bodies and water resources will keep on flowing and this will keep on flowing and this water will not be used for washing clothes or for bathing That's all we have on this episode of Dispatches from India For more details and all of these stories you can head on over to our website peoplesdispatch.org and also check out our sister company newsclick.in You can also follow us on all the regular social media platforms Thanks for watching. Goodbye