For decades Volkwagon Beetle pulled off the biggest marketing hoax. The car has been in existence since late 1930's when Hitler came up with the concept of People' Car. Remember that those days, the cars were like boxes, crude and no one was even thinking of aerodynamics.
Why do I call it the hoax? Because VW somehow was able to drill into the customer that Beetle was an UGLY CAR. In reality, it was not (I can vouch for it, because it was my first car and still the best. Read my earlier post on the subject here). The Beetle was an aerodynamic marvel and absolutely beautiful. It is one of the reason, it is the largest selling model the world has seen, and why it is STILL being marketed, though only the jelly bean shape is common with the original Beetle these days.
Another big hoax, but in a pure negative sense, is what the media and people say - That Manmohan Singh is honest and his integrity is beyond reproach. If this is not a fraud perpetuated on simple Indians, then I don't know what fraud is.
Look at the sheer number of scams under him. And look at how he has facilitated all the Scams. Not many remember, but the Harshad Mehta scam of 1992 happened when he was the Finance Minister. He was the No.2 in Narasimha Rao's Government which bribed Shibu Soren with suitcases full of money just before the trust vote.
MMS was in helm when the biggest 2 G scam of Rs 1.76 lakh crores happened. For years he kept quiet, till his hands were forced by the Supreme Court. The S-Band Spectrum Scam happened when he was PMO and in a ministry under his watch - Science and Technology. He tried unsuccessfully in 2006 to push the candidature of Thomas as CVC. And pushed it through successfully in 2010, only to have eggs on his face when Supreme Court annulled the appointment. The NREGA leaks and the scamsters have virtually hijacked all the money meant for the poor. That he sold our country's nuclear soveriegnity to US in 2008 for a few silvers is an open secret. That he heads a Government that tried to make thousands of crores through dubious land deals under the SEZ scheme is an open secret. Now, the wikileaks has shown him up for bribing MP's to save his government in 2008!
In any other democratic country, he would have been given the boot and prosecuted for criminal complicity. But this is India. Sab chalta hai!
