Right side up

Old habits die hard. Industrialists and businessmen may have become more vocal about the lack of economic reform but they are still ultra-wary of making statements that could rub politicians the wrong way. At a press meet, the chairman of an industry chamber and the head of one its committees declined to answer a politically-sensitive question on the private sector’s demands to open up the defence sector to private and foreign players in view of the corruption allegations in the BEML-Tatra deal. Instead he batted it back to the secretary general. The latter was caught off guard and declined to help out, saying he did not understand why he was being asked to answer the question. It was left to the committee chairman, who happens to be a senior official of a major heavy industries company, to mumble out a politically-correct answer.