Originally Posted by
desi
Sorry GUWonder. First of all, you have no proof of the above. Secondly. common sense dictate that such details are formulated by career admin staff in almost ALL democracies not just India. (even UK and US).
There is no need to assume. RBI had posted its circular on its website, That page was linked on this thread and it was well discussed here. There is a VERY SPECIFIC FAQ about OCI eligibility and extremely clear answer about it. So person HAD ALL THE INFORMATION. It was his choice to still engage in futile exercise. No point in calling that decision as pickpocketing.
Agree with you that not honoring OCI-NRI parity pledge (which BTW still exist on Home Ministry website even today), is a leadership fault because even if original decision was made by babus at RBI, Modi Govt has let it stand.
Agree. Learned my bitter lessons hard way in early 90s. Easier to gain investment exposure through US or UK based ETF.
Coming back to the topic, OCI may still get opportunity given there are 5 more months for NRI. But uncertainity makes it difficult to plan anything.
The visa restriction was decided by the netas. The then Finance-moved-to-Home Minister decided it should be done. And the then PM was in on it too. Do you really think any of them will deny it? I knew about that restriction coming up even before it got formally decided and then announced publicly. The then top of the IAS at Home wouldn't stick his neck out to do this without the netas saying that restriction is what they wanted. The revised approach to even already issued visas also was a sign of the government's ability to engage in unfair dealing, but that didn't hit as many people as this demonetization scam.
About the false OCI advertising. Many an OCI has behaved as if they are an NRI for just about most purposes in India, especially most economic participation purposes. And many an OCI has been an NRI for longer than there has been an OCI. NRI treatment for former NRIs had been so common in India that when the government came up with PIO and then OCI it was done to continue the NRI approach for former NRIs who had taken up citizenship outside India and their descendants (and done for economic/financial purposes); in essence it was designed to formalize what was already commonplace for former NRIs. Part of that design was to advertise an extensive parity in economic/financial dealings. So much for fair dealing when selling the scheme. When the government decided to do this OCI thing, the first thing that came to my mind is that the scheme is a bit of a scam as it's really not "citizenship"; and when they started showing an OCI "passport" style book, that was even more amusing as India didn't want people being able to travel internationally with those documents.
While I know the power of IAS (babu) types in many a situation in India, the Indian demonetization and visa stuff was a display of the power of netas with the babus falling in line. There is plenty of evidence of that, including first hand accounts.