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First, we must note that since 1913, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company had essentially been a subsidiary of the British government. Along with India and Suez, the Company had been one of the crown jewels of the Empire. It provided the British treasury with 24 million pounds in taxes and nearly a hundred million pounds in foreign-exchange, and gave the Royal Navy essentially free fuel to boot. In addition, massive profits from Iran flowed to shareholders in England, and had paid to startup very profitable ventures in Kuwait, Iraq, and Indonesia.So, naturally, they were not inclined to give up a cash machine. But they were not oblivious to changing times, and did not so much refuse to negotiate. They just preferred to bribe, pressure, and punish, the Iranians they were negotiating with . In 1933, they had negotiated an agreement with Reza Shah Pahlavi to increase Iran's revenues, from its own oil. In 1949, before nationalization, they would negotiate the so-called Supplemental Agreement.What the British refused to negotiate, and what became of paramount importance to Dr. Mossadeq and Iranian nationalists was the issue of control. They were willing to give the Iranians increased royalties, even to recognize nationalization in principle, but not to share financial information, or allow increased Iranian participation in management. The Iranians on the other hand were willing to negotiate a longterm agreement favorable to the Company, provided they were allowed to see the books, and to begin the process of placing Iranians in senior positions.(Mosaddegh (R) negotiating with W. Averell Harriman, sent to act as mediator)The other fundamental road block to negotiations was the personalities involved. Winston Churchill had come back to power in 1951, and was deeply invested in the issue. As First Lord of the Admiralty, he had personally made the decision to switch the Navy from coal to oil, and made the aforementioned initial investment in the Company in '13. He was furious with the independence of India, and vowed to draw the proverbial line in the sand with Iran. "I did not become His Majesty's First Minister so that I might oversee the liquidation of the British Empire!" he would vow. Mossadeq, whose own intransigence and ego surpassed even Churchill's, saw his mission as establishing Iran's independence, and was willing to shutter the Company, rather than back down. He would say, Iranians would could go back to eating bread and radishes before giving in.In the end, the refusal to reach agreement would make losers of both sides. After the 1953 coup, the British ended up with a much smaller share of the resulting Consortium agreement than they were initially offered. (The balance would go to American oil companies.) For their part, the Iranians lost billions in revenue that they were entitled to, as legal partners and owners of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

It isn’t always fair to criticize privatization (whether it is disinvestment in PSU’s or Public Private Partnerships done through concession agreements in the infrastructure sector) - privatization, if it is well thought out and well executed would be beneficial in more ways than one. I will talk about that after I give direct answer to the question first.The single biggest criticism that can be levied against the disinvestment process as well as the concession agreements process is that the process appears to favor some groups as opposed to others. An interesting example is in the airport sector. When the Govt undertook the process of privatizing some of the airports, 60% of the airports being privatized were awarded to the Adani group - in fairness, it can be argued that the Adani group won the process fair and square by outbidding the others on the financial criteria and I would accept that. However, questions have arisen particularly in relation to the current ongoing negotiations between GVK and the Adani group for the Mumbai airport. Mumbai airport is a concession that was won by the GVK group in 2006 - post an initial lock in period of 7 years, they have been free to sell their interests to any qualifies party. Last year, they entered into an exclusive agreement to sell their interests in the Mumbai airport as well as their rights to construct a new airport in Navi Mumbai to a consortium of investors which included the National Infrastructure Investment Fund (which is owned 51% by the Government of India) (NIIF), the Abu Dhabi owned sovereign wealth fund (ADIA) and a Canadian pension fund (PSP). The investors had an exclusive right to negotiate till Jan 2021.2 months back, raids were carried out on the GVK group by the CBI and ED in relation to some transactions dating back 10 - 12 years. And within another 45 days came the news that after overruling objections from ADIA and PSP, NIIF had sacrificed its exclusive rights and allowed GVK to negotiate with the Adani group. It appears now that GVK is well advanced in its negotiations with the Adani group and the consortium has been pushed out. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Govt, while seemingly not being a part of the process, appears to be directing the GVK group to sell to the Adani group.This kind of backseat driving is what is likely to be harmful to the health of the Indian economy - because all it can lead to is the creation of monopolies. Bloomberg carried an editorial in this regard 2 days back - India’s New Economy Can’t Be a Monopoly Board. Worse however is the kind of impression that it leaves with serious foreign investors - ADIA and PSP are exactly the kind of investors that one would want the country to attract - particularly in its infrastructure sector. It would not be out of place to point out that for PSP, this would be the second time it is suffering this kind of fate - in 2015, it had entered into an agreement with Reliance Electricity to buy 49% in its electricity distribution business in India - only to find that the regulators kept delaying approvals and post the exclusivity period, Adani swooped in to buy the electricity business. It is possible that a serious large investor like PSP could well end up thinking that their money is not as welcome as say a local Indian business house - and this would be highly detrimental to the goals that the Government wants to achieve through privatization.So to summarize I would suggest that criticism should not be directed against privatization itself but the process being followed - it appears to be creating monopolies and that there is at least an impression being created that some Indian business houses can manage the process to attain their objectives and this can lead to a situation where large investors lose faith in the process and reduce their efforts in IndiaI would suggest that privatization is not just good to do - but in the current circumstances, it has become a necessity. India’s fiscal position is really strained - we just do not have sufficient resources to do the kind of spending that is necessary to build our infrastructure or to generate employment. We have seen a situation in the last 8 years, where in the absence of private sector spending, job creation has been negative and economic growth has declined. The health of our PSU’s has continuously declined over the last 6 - 7 years - and we are having to continuously infuse moneys into these entities just to keep them going (PSU banks and Air India being good examples of this) - we have to stop this bleed and generate cash against these assets. Else we will be in real danger of creating more sick assets - examples of what not to do are MTNL and BSNL - companies that were healthy a decade back and could have generated a lot of value if we had sold them some years back. Instead, we have ended up substantially eroding the value of these companies and almost transferring their values to private enterprises like Reliance Jio.However the process of privatization has to be fair - and the Govt must be like Caesar’s wife in the process. Not only do they need to be fair but they need to be seen as being fair. Currently the Govt is clearly failing the test

Singapore did try to buy water from Indonesia in the 90’s but the initiative was quietly abandoned later. Today hardly anyone talks about Indonesian water supply anymore.“In June 1991, Singapore and Indonesia signed a 50-year water agreement. Under the agreement water resources in Riau will be developed to supply Singapore as well as Riau. Two joint venture companies were formed to further cooperation. One is majority Singapore-owned and has responsibility for infrastructure development, collecting and distributing water to Singapore and to the second joint venture company. The second company, majority Indonesian-owned, is to distribute water on Bintan. In 1993 a further agreement was signed for cooperation in the development of water resources from the Kampar River basin in the Riau mainland.In August 1991, Karimun was brought into the development picture through a Memorandum of Understanding between Bangun Cipta IndoKarimun (an Indonesian consortium) and the Sembawang Group that committed the parties to plan the joint development of a shipyard and a petroleum processing centre in Karimun. A 4,000ha site was allocated to the joint venture to develop the infrastructure for a marine and petroleum-related industrial sector.”Source:Page 15, Boundary & Territory Briefing, Volume 2 Number 3, The Riau Islands and Economic Cooperation in the Singapore–Indonesian Border Zone[1]“Adding to Singapore’s sense of water insecurity is that, in 2000, the Indonesian President stated that Singapore’s water supplies could easily be cut off by a “Malaysian-Indonesian alliance”.This worried Singaporeans as they had looked to Indonesia as an alternative source and signed a water agreement with them in 1991. Progress on building the necessary supply and distribution network was slow due to Indonesia’s political climate, but Indonesia did at one point become a more viable alternative. Discussions to buy water from Indonesia resurfaced again in 1999 and Indonesia appeared more amenable to the idea. However, no concrete progress has so far been made. Given its history with Indonesia and experience with Malaysia, Singapore remains concerned that Indonesia is as willing as Malaysia to use water as a political tool.”Source:Page 35, Liquid Assets V: The Water Tales of Hong Kong and Singapore: Divergent Approaches to Water Dependency[2]From above experience, buying water from Indonesia clearly does not help Singapore to enhance its water security.How about importing water from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and the like?John Chin's answer to If Malaysia stops selling water to Singapore, where would it buy it from?It also begs the question of how did Malaysia-Singapore water dispute start. Why did Malaysia sign a deal which they have been unhappy for half a century? You may find my view here:John Chin's answer to How did Malaysia end up with the unfavourable water deal (1962 agreement) with Singapore?Footnotes[1] https://www.dur.ac.uk/ibru/publications/download/?id=210[2] https://civic-exchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Liquid-Asset-5-the-water-tales-of-Hong-Kong-and-Singapore_REPORT.pdf