Word: krishnamachari
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Wait for Autumn. Last month India's able, tough-talking Finance Minister T. T. Krishnamachari slapped a ban on all imports requiring foreign exchange unless the sellers agreed to payment deferments of from seven to nine years. British, Italian and West German suppliers responded coolly, though some West Germans are ready to offer goods on a deferred-payment plan-at 8.5% interest. Russia and Eastern European satellites, on the other hand, have been quick to inform India that they are eager to grant deferred payments-and at only 2.5% interest, a political price which U.S. observers feel is significant...
...strains outside are also visible inside the Congress-controlled Parliament itself. This week when Food Minister A. P. Jain tried to gloss over the nation's acute food shortage with bureaucratic doubletalk, he was hooted down by Congress Party M.P.s. When Finance Minister T. T. Krishnamachari announced sharp increases in taxes on railway fares, gasoline and vegetable oils, the Congress benches moaned, denounced their own new budget as a program designed to "soak the poor." Said one Congressman in Bombay: "It's getting fashionable to be anti-Congress...
...confidence, however, is not shared by many another Indian, including even some of Nehru's ministers. The Second Five-Year Plan is under a heavy barrage of fire. Mahalanobis, critics found, had underestimated the cost of needed new railroad mileage by a whopping $1.4 billion. Industries Minister Krishnamachari, bemoaning the dearth of skills in India's vast untrained manpower pool, despaired of attaining the plan's steel production goals. "Finding personnel for the new steel plants," he said, "looks like a superhuman task...
Nehru's government decided instead to let Russia put up the steel mill. Russia, keen to show the Indians that it can match the Westerners in industrial know-how, offered to put up a $95 million mill in four years. Commerce Minister Krishnamachari objected that the Russian plant would give the Communists a foothold inside central India, permitting them to intrigue among Indians, to make sure that Indian Communists were made foremen, and to channel funds into the Indian Communist Party...
...these arguments. Nehru replied that since India is also going to buy a smaller steel mill from West Germany's Krupp combine, no "politics" could be involved. Last week Private Enterpriser Krishnamachari had enough, and quit Nehru's Cabinet. "Nehru is a dictator." said he. "I see no more usefulness for my services ... I have shaken the great man's hand for the last time...