UNITED
NATIONS, April
17 -- On his
way to the
International
Monetary Fund
-
World Bank
meetings in
Washington,
India's
Finance
Minister P.
Chidambaram
stopped in New
York City on
Wednesday, and
Inner City
Press asked
him about IMF
reform. Video
here.
Inner
City Press
asked
specifically
about quota
and governance
reform.
Chidambaram
replied that
the “review is
incomplete
because the US
has not
voted.”
The
US has a 17%
vote, which
can block the
required 85%
majority.
Chidambaram
continued
that “they
promised to
vote after
Obama's
swearing in,
but it's
gotten
delayed.” He
said he
believe “it
will happen,
but
later than we
would have
liked it to
happen.”
In
Washington,
Chidambaram
will meet with
new US
Treasury
Secreary Jack
Lew, formerly
of Citigroup.
Will he raise
India tech
visa issues?
Apparently not
-- he noted
that the new
bill that has
been
introduced
is 1,500 pages
long, adding,
“we don't have
1,500 page
bills back
home.”
He
was asked
about
corruption,
and his answer
was that of
the twenty
questions he
has gotten in
the past two
days, only two
were about
corruption. He
said that up
in Boston --
just after the
Boston
Marathon
bombings -- he
spoke to MIT,
an investor.
Some
were surprised
he continued
with the
Boston leg of
his trip.
Ironically,
many
international
journalists
based in New
York have
been sent up
to Boston, to
sit writing speculative
stories they
could
have written
in New York,
or in their
own basement,
like “tax day
is hated by
right
wingers.”
Great insight.
At
Chidambaram's
press
availability,
in the
Waldorff
Towers, a coffee
service was
waved off;
a media based
on high
frequency
stock traders
asked a
question about
its own
proprietary
data. Was this
a sales
pitch? In more
than one way?
Watch this
site.
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