Imagine - the ministers of Indian government sit inside a private room and discuss ways to further loot the Indian public. One of them floats the idea that the disinvestment [or divestment] route can be an excellent way to "legally" transfer hard-earned money from the common man's pockets to the government's coffers, from where it will of course be looted by the ministers and their cronies. Another one extends this idea further - overprice the IPOs of these public sector undertakings [PSUs], and since the public themselves won't buy these expensive IPOs, just instruct LIC to bail out the IPO, thus forcibly making the general public "invest" into these IPOs. Further, the government pretends as if LIC itself made these purchases, and that there wasn't any coercion.
This is what Narendra Modi's government is doing in India.
Update: That bailing out deeply debt-ridden national carrier Air India via LIC is even being considered shows the extent to which the current Indian government is corrupt.
