VOX POPULI

by

S Kamat

as

Aam Admi

Issue: 198             Date:  24.04.2017

skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1.      No Home Delivery of Petroleum Products

2.      Do Not Make A Mockery of Our Election Process

3.      Sri Sri Ravishankar and the Art of Living Organisation Should Support Rule of Law

No Home Delivery of Petroleum Products

We have another harebrained idea coming out of this BJP government with the Petroleum Minister stating that given the threat of the petrol pump owners to remain shut on Sundays, the authorities would think of home delivery for petrol and diesel. Little does he realise that petroleum products come under the category of flammable products and because of their nature are not allowed to be sold loose except to be filled in vehicles. This being the rule it is a different matter that across India petroleum products are sold loose which is illegal. This however is no reason to consider home delivery for petrol and diesel in these times of terror. We will make it only easier for terrorists to lay their hands on fuel for their incendiary plans. Molotov cocktails - glass bottles filled with petrol lit up and then thrown at the target - will then become the weapon of choice for the terrorists. This BJP government and its Ministers should learn to confront problems directly and not try to work around the situation. Like in this instance if the  petrol pump dealers have a problem with margins deal with it and find a solution rather than go about it obliquely and have a solution that will be a threat to civil society. 

Do Not Make A Mockery of Our Election Process

The recent Srinagar bypoll in which by winning just about 4% of the votes polled of the total of some 7% votes, Farooq Abdullah was declared elected. Not only that the winner preened after the election and when asked about the low turnout, he declared that he could not let down those that came and voted! Is this not a mockery of democracy? When 93% of the electorate failed to turn up and vote for whatever reason should the election not have been declared void? We have quorums for common meetings like that of housing societies, company boards etc. but for elections why is there no stipulation of minimum turnout for the election to be declared valid? We should enact laws that unless there is a turnout of more than 50% an election will be countermanded. This will force not only the candidates to get more and more people to come out and vote and not concentrate just on their vote banks. The Election Commission can also thus work towards more people exercising their franchise. These measures will not only strengthen our democracy but also ensure that it is not reduced to a farce. We already have the EVM's being questioned and there is every likelihood that the Supreme Court will make the paper trail through the VVPAT feature mandatory. Though this is unnecessary, given the present mood of the political parties in objecting to the use of  EVM's, we will have to concede to this request. At this juncture maybe we should question the basic nature of our election process and instead of continuing with the present 'first past the post' principle, meaning whoever gets the majority from the votes polled is declared the winner to 'proportionate representation' where the winner is declared only if he or she gets more than 50% of the votes polled in iterative rounds of polls in the constituency. The multiple polls in each constituency are feasible now with the use of EVM's which drastically reduce the cost of holding elections. This will take care of another farce that we have in our election process like in the recent UP Assembly elections the BJP polled about 40% of the 64% voter turnout which means that they just got 25% of the people in the constituencies to vote for them. Thus the whopping majority of 75% of the people either did not vote for them or did not vote at all. But inspite of that we saw that the BJP had a landslide victory. If you put this up to our politicians they will shrug their shoulders and say that it is the present system and we are playing the game according to that. This is similar to what Farooq Abdullah as stated above, who did not want to 'let down the people' who had voted for him! While in the 'proportionate representation' system at least more than 50% of the people voting would have selected the winning candidate for an election that is valid only if more than 50% of the voters in the constituency have voted. We can make the election system better and truly representative in addition to the above by making voting compulsory and taking a decision on the funding of candidates who stand for elections.

Sri Sri Ravishankar and the Art of Living Organisation Should Support Rule of Law

The tirade that Sri Sri Ravishankar has launched against the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on the function that his organisation, the Art of Living, held on the banks of the River Yamuna at Delhi and for which they were initially fined Rs 5 crores and then now a Committee of Enquiry has found further damage and increased the fine to which the esteemed Sri Sri Ravishankar is objecting very vociferously with language bordering on the intemperate. First things first, this man claims religious persuasion through which he commands a considerable following. Has he thought about the impact of his tirade on his flock which surely must be more than upset with such an outburst? Secondly, he is a citizen of this country and an esteemed one at that. This breeds an expectation that he should respect the law of the land and in that process accept the judgments of authorised bodies and institutions which he encounters in the process of doing his work or that of his organisation. What example is this man setting for not only his flock but the rest of the country in not accepting the due process of law? Thirdly, he is trying to challenge the NGT by throwing his weight around both directly and indirectly which has been seen from the beginning when the issue of the environmental clearance for the function was sought. The Art of Living organisation needs to explain in the context of Sri Sri Ravishankar's claim now as to why they went ahead with making arrangements for the structures and other needs at the function site even before getting the clearance from the NGT. It was for this reason that the NGT when they gave clearance asked the Art of Living organisation to deposit the Rs. 5 crores as a fund for contingent damage to the site. Now Sri Sri Ravishankar argues that the NGT could have stopped the function if they were so particular to save the river. This is rather surprising since where he should be grateful to the NGT for not coming in the way of holding the function in the context of many of the arrangements having been already made, he is questioning them as to why the clearance was given? The indirect pressure that Sri Sri Ravishankar tried to bring on NGT was to get the Prime Minister to come for the inaugural function and spend a few hours there. It is to NGT's credit that they did not cow down to these pressures and upheld their mandate. Fourthly, the NGT has gone about handling this issue very democratically and in the proper manner by giving the Art of Living organisation due opportunity to contest the decision and upon seeing the intensity of the objections referred the matter to an independent and impartial Committee which has now come to a decision. It is expected therefore that Sri Sri Ravishankar and the Art of Living organisation should be graceful and accept the decisions of the NGT in this matter. This will not only be in the interest of the public good apart from the good of the credibility and image of Sri Sri Ravishankar and the Art of Living organisation while upholding the position of the democratic institutions of this country.

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VOX POPULI

by

S Kamat

as

Aam Admi

Issue: 197                             Date:  17.04.2017

skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. The Issue of Triple Talaq
2. Trump Family Presidency is Back To Old US Tricks
3. The Question of Identity

The Issue of Triple Talaq

In the context of the recent issue being raised to stop triple talaq with the intention to protect Muslim women, one needs to say that the community leaders, elders and the mullahs of that community know best on what is good for them. There should be a sense of respect towards the mores and canons of each religious community and their practices and the government of its agencies be it human rights or those involved in the protection of women should not get involved in these matters under the ostensible plea to save the victims. These are matters related to tradition which have in practice for centuries and if there has to be an adaptation or change in them, then the best thing is for the change to emerge from within the community. There should be no external imposition of any norms since those outside the community may have no idea of the implications involved or full knowledge in the matter. If India is a pluralistic society then we should not try to restrict the diversity through the backdoor  by trying to normalise the customs of communities to suit the sensibilities of all.

Trump Family Presidency is Back To Old US Tricks

 Ivana Trump claimed that she had told her father, Donald to launch an attack on Syria consequent of the gas attack that President Assad had purportedly used in an attack against rebels recently. One is not able to assess whether the father or daughter is more mentally fit to fill the shoes of the US Supreme Commander in Chief or the daughter is catering to her own closet clique by showing off her position. But either way the incident of the retaliatory attack is fraught with danger considering that no assessment was done to assign responsibility though there was no question of the attack happening given the pictures of the victims including children being flashed on international TV channels. Similarly it is believed that the Trump closest advisor on national security Bannon has fallen out of favour with the President and may be on his way out of the White House team for getting on the wrong side of Trump's son-in-law. Thus the current US Presidency seems to be fast becoming a family affair with the exception of Melania who is in the role of the outsider. Another aspect in US intervention policy seems to be continuing as in the past with the use last week of the largest conventional bomb called the 'Mother of All Bombs' for the first time against a suspected stronghold of the IS in a tunnel complex in Afghanistan. Desert Storm I & II had helped the US to test many of its strategic missiles, counter measures to missile attacks and many of the conventional arms technologies deployed with its ground forces. Trying out these arms equipment in Third World countries confirms proof of concept, field trials at no risk to the US and in the event  of human casualties the convenience of calling these as 'collateral damage'. Thus like they say Trump or no Trump the US is back to its old tricks. 

The Question of Identity

As a matter of principle I have never voted in Indian elections for the last seven decades or so that I have been living. The reason being that our process of democracy is flawed and more oriented towards being dominated by the herd rather than subscribing to the true values of freedom in all its facets. Anyway that is not the point at issue here but the fact remains that because of the above I do not have a Voter’s Identity Card. Some decades back the identity of an Indian citizen was established by identity papers issued by the institution in which you were studying or were employed in. If you were working in the government then it was better still for authenticity. We have all at some time or the other in the early part of our life have had to go and get some document or other certified by a Gazetted officer of the government to make it more acceptable.

The Ration Card was the dominant document which assured you access to hard to get provisions or items, like sugar, rice or wheat, kerosene etc. At one point of time, even baby food was issued against a Birth Certificate and the Ration Card. Thus the Ration Card evolved as an identity for your family unit.

At that point in time only the privileged would be travelling abroad and they would have a Passport and the possession of this document was not as widespread as it is today. But it was a document which infallibly established an individual’s identity because it was acceptable by all countries around the world. It continues to hold its pre-eminent status as an Identity Document even to this day though many wannabe’s like first the Voter’s Identity Card and then later the Aadhaar card have been trying to displace it from this position. But considering that the Passport allows you to travel abroad and is acceptable to other countries makes it pre-eminent.

Used to these identity documents one finds oneself lost in the multiplicity of documents that are existing today. The Voter’s Identity Card is now called EPIC and carries your photograph. It is used to establish identity generally apart from being mandatory for voting purposes in any election. As far as the identity function is concerned, there is another wannabe apart from the Aadhaar card and that is the IPR (Indian Population Register) card. These two have their own uses apart from identity. The former though is trending to dominate all other cards and may shortly become the only card to have.  

Apart from this if you drive a vehicle then you have a driving licence which these days comes in the form of a card rather than as a booklet in the past. The driving licence card, if you are caught in a pinch, also doubles as an identity card because it has a photo on it. In addition these days where Medical Insurance or Mediclaim as it is known is a must and quite popular in the urban areas has its own card for the insured person. There are also many cards issued by companies, institutions, community bodies, clubs etc. to verify the identity of the employee or member.

Thus you see that a citizen in modern day India has a plethora of cards at his or her disposal for purposes of proving identity apart from other reasons like Employer’s Identity Card, Passport, EPIC, Aadhaar Card, IPR Card, Ration Card, Driving Licence, Mediclaim Card etc. etc. It is almost like in the early days of the Credit card launches and in fact even today the wealth of a man was known by the number of credit cards he could flash in his wallet little knowing whether the fellow could pay his dues run up against the cards! Thus for identity you can proudly ask the questioner – Which one do you want? Because you could flash any one of the 7 named above.

However many a time over the last few years in trying to get some card or the other all of us may have had to face some difficult situations. Like when we first applied for the Voter’s Card we were asked to produce an Identity card for which we gave the Passport but then the passport showed our Bangalore address while we were applying in Goa. Thus we were told that the passport would do for identity but then we had to submit a proof of address for which the Ration card was asked. No amount of explaining that we had not used a Ration card for the last three decades or more was met by disbelief by the clerk with whom we were interacting. Inspite of telling him that we did not renew our ration card since we thought that there were more needy persons who could avail of the commodities on the ration card, the disbelief was compounded. Finally by that time they had started accepting the bank pass book as proof of address which we gave. But even after doing all this and multiple visits to the government office concerned, we still did not get our Voter’s Card. So I decided that enough is enough and that we would not apply for it again. So we do not have a Voter’s Card.

When you went to renew your Driving Licence, one was told that the Aadhaar card was not acceptable to them because the Motor Vehicles Act did not specify it. So who are we to argue so we gave them the same bank pass book copy certified by a notary! The Aadhaar thus is not a universal id document across India. In fact it has a competitor in the IPR (Indian Population Register) card which has a parallel purpose and was introduced in many of the coastal States and those where terrorism was more incident. This was all done at multiple cost and effort to the Aadhaar card and as information goes the IPR card is on its way out.

Another incident which happened in the same context was the Goa government had introduced a medical insurance cover for its entire population who had proof of residence 5 years and more in the State. The good news was that the Aadhaar card was the acceptable document but since the medical insurance card was to be given for the whole family, they asked us to produce ration card for family identity proof or marriage certificate since it was only me and my wife were applying. We explained to them as earlier that we had discontinued the ration long time back as explained above and at the time we had got married obtaining the marriage certificate was not compulsory for Hindus. Again we were looked at strangely for first not having a ration card and then more strangely for not having a marriage certificate and the glances given to us were as if we were living in sin. In Goa, obtaining the marriage certificate is compulsory for marriages of all religious communities. Though we told them that each of our passports showed the other as the spouse, they initially sternly told us that was not ‘enough’ but finally they accepted the passport endorsement as proof of husband and wife. Like they say alls well that ends well.

But it is important for us to look at the fact that we need to have just three cards the Aadhaar, the Passport and the Government Mediclaim (if available in each State) to universally prove identity across India with all agencies for the convenience of all concerned.

**********************************

VOX POPULI

by

S Kamat

as

Aam Admi

Issue: 196                Date:  10.04.2017

skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1.      Nitin Gadkari As A Peddler of Dreams

2.      Rejecting EVM's Will Be A Retrograde Step & Bring Down India's Image In The World

3.      India Continues To Look For Hand-Me-Downs In Nuclear Energy Which By Itself Is An Unnecessary Initiative

4.      Handling The Aussies Better Steven Smith Et Al

Nitin Gadkari As A Peddler of Dreams

Nitin Gadkari should be re-designated as a peddler of dreams with his latest proposal of installing a ropeway from Mormugao to Mopa with the ostensible purpose of connecting Dabolim air passengers to Goa's latest international airport which still remains in the draft stage and one never know whether it will at all see the light of day. Gadkari by his very nature is adept at flying kites to audiences which readily buys into his logic. In the ropeway instance being up in the air, there is very much the possibility of flying kites from the ropeway! One thing that Gadkari does not realise is that Goa has recently seen the return of another 'peddler of dreams' in the form of Manohar Parrikar. Gadkari himself had no little hand in this event and was party in overturning the verdict of the people which had given the larger number of seats to the Congress. Thus we have one too many of the 'peddlers of dreams' for a small State like Goa whose people are content and happy with their simple lives and do not dream much but to have a life where their livelihood, ethos and culture is protected. Coming back to the ropeway proposed by Gadkari, one wishes that some kind of a technical feasibility was made before he went public with his idea. Simply put anything up in the air will be costly than anything created on the ground like an expressway and also by the forces of gravity there is every chance it coming to the ground to face its hard reality or destiny, one can say. We will all remember the celebrated Skybus project which Manohar Parrikar at that time widely touted and the State Govt. went and funded the project mooted by V Rajaram of the Konkan Railway Corporation. It did not take long for the Skybus to come crashing down and for its infrastructure built near Madgaon station to be ordered for demolition burning the Goa Govt. for its investment. The reason for the failure of the Skybus project was that no techno-economic feasibility by independent authorities was done. Similarly the ropeway project from Mormugao to Mopa would fail on economic considerations while another proposed  ropeway project in Panjim to connect Campal to Reis Magos will fail on safety considerations since the high winds particularly during the monsoons will curtail its operations and it will become a fair weather project. Yet another harebrained idea was mooted by Parrikar before he was called up at the Centre was to make a tunnel to connect Verem to Candolim and the beach belt that would run through a hill in the area which also has not been tested for technical feasibility but clearly fails to put Goa on the tourist map since where we should have our tourists seeing from the open nature's bounty that has been bestowed on Goa, we burrow them underground maybe to be buried in soft laterite stone like the many accidents that the Konkan Railway Corporation has encountered in its many years of operation. Thus it is recommended that in this modern day and age peddlers of dreams should at least get past the first pass of technical and economic feasibility before they announce their dreams to remain credible. 

Rejecting EVM's Will Be A Retrograde Step & Bring Down India's Image In The World

When Charan Singh became Prime Minister albeit for a short span of time, a Union Budget was presented which touted the essential nature of the bullock cart to the Indian economy and gave a benefit to those that fitted rubber surrounds to the wooden bullock cart wheels and/or used rubber tyres thus making the burden of the bullock lighter when it pulls the cart. This measure was seen with great amusement in both political and economic circles and it was widely commented that Charan Sigh was leading India backwards to the bullock cart age. The same thing is being done now by the 16 parties that met the Election Commission and demanded that EVM's should not be used in any further elections more so in the upcoming Delhi municipal elections and those in Gujarat shortly. As has been said this demand is being made by the losers in the elections while neglecting that some of their own candidates did win in the recent Assembly elections including those held in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh and in fact technically the BJP lost in both Goa and Manipur. Thus there seems to be no basis for this short-sighted demand to withdraw the EVM's. The Election Commission has clarified that the EVM's are not tamperable and considering that they do not use any wireless technologies and are also not connected to the Internet there is no possibility of the EVM's being hacked. This advice seems to have fallen on deaf ears of those political parties who seem to mistakenly believe that using the good old ballot paper will improve their chances of winning the elections.  These parties have also quoted that Western countries 6 out of 8 have gone back to ballot papers after having tried electronic voting. There is no merit in this claim since we have to assess what we use rather than look for references of what others use and/or discard. The truth of the matter is that electronic voting was tried out by several of the Western countries based on connected computer terminals which was susceptible to hacking and in some countries the law necessitated that you should use ballot paper which legal statute none of the political parties had deemed it necessary to be amended before electronic voting was used. Thus electronic voting resulted in an illegal election. The UN had recommended the use of EVM's in all elections including its own internal elections after evaluating it but the Western nations scuppered the chances of use of EVM's because it was not something designed by them but by a country like India. At this instance the UN took the path of least resistance and recommended its use for elections in the emerging new democracies in Africa. Some of these countries even witnessed demonstrations of the EVM's and tried them out. As late as end of March 2017 the Russian government had evinced interest in EVM's which news was reported in the Indian press. If EVM's are dispensed with in the upcoming elections then we will be showing the limited mindset of our political class. We will also succumb to goonda raj in our future elections and one will see widespread booth capturing. Is this what the Opposition parties want? Do they want to prove that their might is right which one predicts will end up as a bloody war and many loss of lives in these times of explosive sentiments. Discarding the EVM will be a retrograde step which is a proven technology and truly Indian. If accepted this measure will take India back to the Dark Ages a la Charan Singh who at least was not very wrong with bullock carts considering that 70% of India still lives in the rural areas and the bullock cart remains the vehicle of choice of transporting at least goods in our villages. 

India Continues To Look For Hand-Me-Downs In Nuclear Energy Which By Itself Is An Unnecessary Initiative

News coming out of the US is that the nuclear energy industry giant, Westinghouse is the latest to file for bankruptcy proceedings considering that this sector has been seeing massive setbacks with major projects mostly in the American South going into huge overruns running into billions of dollars and negative public sentiment about nuclear projects in the US with the background of accidents at Three Mile Island, Fukushima and Chernobyl. India's nuclear energy plans are linked with all the countries in which the above named places are located. The first being the US with whom the Indo-US Nuclear treaty is in limbo in which uncertain scenario the US government has been trying to push the Westinghouse reactors into India for its nuclear energy program possibly to save the Co. from shutting down completely. Westinghouse being a Toshiba Co., Japan is involved in the deal and their Prime Minister during his last visit to India was making the right noises to push the business through. Even in Japan as a consequence of the Fukushima disaster where leaks have been reported as late as last month and with concerns of resettlement of people in the vicinity still dominating the public dialogue there is widespread public resentment towards the deploying of any more nuclear reactors. In summary what the US and Japan are doing is just as in the colonial days and thereafter also in the name of free trade, they are trying to dump the risky and unsafe reactors in India by Cos. which will be going out of business.  India would then be saddled holding the sack of outdated and faulty equipment. As for Russia, we all know that equipment coming from that country which India has used in the steel industry and also nuclear energy are not technologically of the same class as the West but are sturdy and functional to perform to desired levels of operational efficiency. Even in terms of economic assessment of performance, the Russians are proven at the 800MW capacity reactors while the other vendors have moved up in excess of 1000MW and some to 1600/1700MW. This has a direct relationship to the unit rate for the power tariff, the larger reactors being able to give a lower rate. Thus the Russians are delivering a category of reactor which is somewhat behind that of the West in technology terms but gives no improved guarantee of safe operation. We also need to remember that Chernobyl remains the most grievous nuclear accident in the history of nuclear energy and what is more important is that Russia is not deploying any more new reactors in their own country but is concentrating on export to countries like India. Thus the Russian approach is no different of sending out their reactors for trial to India and others and then maybe consider using them in their own country. Looking at these scenarios of nuclear energy worldwide where there is a definite aversion in terms of use of this form of energy why India should go in for it is something that needs to be explained clearly by our government. We have the third largest reserves of coal in the world which may be having a large ash content but we can still burn this to generate electricity in the modern plants available today which have the ability to use it and also limit environmental pollution. Then we are a sunshine rich country and with the prices of solar power should we not consider using that for our power needs. Again wind power is fast becoming popular with unit costs of generation dropping and with our vast coastline and hilly terrain we have the potential to generate huge amounts of wind power, another safe and clean option for generating electricity. When all this is available our government continues to hanker for nuclear energy where again we have to import a large part of the fuel since domestic production is minimal and we have the added policy constraint of signing up for the NPT (Nuclear Proliferation Treaty) without which the fuel will not be supplied to Indi and neither would India be accepted as a member of the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group). The moral of the story is simple. Use your own and become independent in terms of energy security with a similar or lower carbon footprint rather than beg others for things that you do not  possess making your own energy security uncertain and fragile.

Handling The Aussies Better Steven Smith Et Al

The war of words between Virat Kohli and the Australian cricket establishment including the sports scribes from there seems just after the India – Australia series seemed to show no signs of ending. We had the Aussie ex-cricketers and coaches joining in with Mark Taylor, Dean Jones and David Lloyd pitching in with their two bits of advice to Kohli which was quite unnecessary. The problem with all 'ex's' is the need to remain in the news and that is possibly why this trio had weighed in on the issue.  We in India never learn how to tackle the Western community in terms of a public relations exercise. We should have handled the Steven Smith incident of looking at the pavilion for advice prior to a DRS referral purely on factual evidence and not fallen for the 'brain fade' claim by Smith. Further BCCI after having filed a complaint with the ICC, there was no need to withdraw the same after a meeting with the CA CEO Sutherland and that too without the presence of both the captains involved in the incident. We need to understand that the West in the first instance tries to defuse a situation more so when they are in the wrong and makes sure that there no legal loose ends remaining. That is why the charm offensive against the BCCI to withdraw the complaint which trap our one-legged BCCI, these days, fell for. Hardly had this meeting got over and on the very next day Sutherland started picking on Kohli once again. Additionally we again fell for Smith's ploy in apologising for his conduct in the series at the last press conference and an unconditional pardon was given to him by all including by even the redoubtable and plain-speaking Sunil Gavaskar who is no great fan of the Aussies having once threatened to walk out of a Test match Down Under. It must have been the euphoria of winning the Test series and India having regained the No. 1 spot in Test cricket. And what do the Aussies do, instead of being gracious have their ex-cricketers and their press call our captain Kohli names! It is time we understood how to handle these countries like Australia and England on any matter and also on the playing field is that to stick to the letter and spirit of the law and the rules of the game and ask for a fair judgment. Otherwise they will continue to slander and make our players like Kohli the 'bad guy' while actually the offender was Steven Smith who has got off on the 'brain fade' ploy and a faceless apology which conduct is a shame for a 26-27 year old adult.

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VOX POPULI

by

S Kamat

as

Aam Admi

Issue: 195                     Date:  03.04.2017

skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1.      Time to Revisit the 15% Interest Rates on Senior Citizen FD's

2.      GST in India

3.      Jagdish Bhagwati Should Say - Looking Back at Demonetisation With Regret

4.      Sense of Siege in Indian Society

Time to Revisit the 15% Interest Rates on Senior Citizen FD's

With longevity rising in India we have seen certain opinions being expressed in the media and otherwise of the need to firstly, respect the elderly and secondly, to take care of them. However, these seem to be just crocodile tears being shed since where it matters most and that is  in providing the elderly financial security the government itself has been looking the other way. Considering that first the Supreme Court judges and now the RBI Governor are being given a raise and that too three fold. None among the elderly is grudging the salary hikes to these functionaries since the 7th Pay Commission has given substantial increases in pay to all in government and quasi-government sectors but why the government is hesitant when it comes to revising interest rates on FD's for senior citizens is not understood. The government has to understand that a large number of senior citizens  exist who are not covered by pension schemes  and these are the category that are required to be paid more attention in terms of financial protection. Unfortunately the government has this tendency to think that once pensioners are covered , all the elderly are covered. This is not so and happens to be a blinkered approach. The senior citizens community particularly the above mentioned category bears the brunt of price rise and more so those who live on FD interest alone but no one seems to care.  Against a review of interest rates to 15% up to a maximum deposit of Rs. 20 Lakhs for senior citizens who are below the Rs. 3 Lakhs income bracket and consequently do not have to file IT returns per the last policy since revised maybe in the last Budget, the PM announced just before the New Year 2017 a measly 8% interest for a period of 10 years. Even that scheme  has not been  implemented though 3 months have passed with the buck being passed between the scheduled banks and the LIC with the last named being asked to bell the cat now. Thus having served the country in different fields of business and professional activity and contributing to the nation's development the senior citizens finds themselves as a forgotten community and pushed into a corner. It is time therefore that the PM did something about it and announced the interest rates as mentioned above for the senior citizens since the overall cost of this scheme would be nothing compared to some of the other welfare schemes that the government is pushing vigorously.

GST in India

We seem to be the only country in the world who are experts at complicating any matter. Take the case of GST where while claiming to simplify India’s complex tax regime we have finalized 5 levels of tax ranging from 5% to 40%!! In any of the developed countries of the world at the cusp of the 21^st century at least, there would be just one rate of GST across all product categories and the quantum would be mostly in single digit levels. The idea of GST is to give a clear and definable rate of tax for all items which implies that the government intends to sacrifice some revenue as a quid pro quo for the savings of administrative costs that GST brings. However, in India we have this unique tendency to grab the best of both worlds. Each tax collecting authority will protect its turf and thus try to maximize the revenue which has ended us being saddled with 5 levels of GST. And then to justify this we have our Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley pompously say that obviously chappals and cars cannot have the same level of tax. Little does he realize that tariff rationalisation and simplification of the tax regime are the objectives of GST and in any case the government in absolute terms will collect more tax for the cars than on the chappals since the tax is applied on ad valorem basis. During the process of moving to the GST regime, some of the unions of revenue employees of the government had objected to GST since it would make them redundant. Thus maybe to protect jobs for this segment of employees the government is deciding to remain as close to the earlier tax structure but still calling it GST!

Jagdish Bhagwati Should Say - Looking Back at Demonetisation With Regret

(For those interested in reading Bhagwati’s article that appeared in Times of India, Mumbai on 30^th March 2017, click on the link - http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=Looking-Back-At-Demonetisation-30032017016047)

Jagdish Bhagwati and his associates have been carrying out propaganda in favour of demonetisation done by Narendra Modi and his government. The following rebuts each of Bhagwati's arguments. 

One is aware that the cash component of black money is hardly 10% or less. Thus the argument  that demonetisation of high value notes being an effective measure to curb black money is more than suspect. So we are talking of one ant biting an elephant's back. More than that the RBI is yet to assess how much currency did not come back to the banking system of the demonetised notes and the way things are going it will take an inordinately long time in this exercise since the figures are not what the government presumed and are also not in their favour. The government had thought that the amount of demonetised notes not coming back to the bank can be assumed to be black money which the holders do not want to declare for fear of penal action. But lo and behold almost 90% or more of the demonetised notes had arrived at the banks by 15 Dec 2016 throwing a spanner in the government's argument. That some part of this money is black money there is no doubt but at most it will be some thousands of crores compared to the scale of total black money which by conservative estimates is around 25% of India's GDP and therefore runs into lakhs of crores. That there will be penal levy of tax on this declared black money there is also no doubt but the revenue out of that will still be less than the thousands of crores of the principal amount.  Thus this is the second ant biting on the back of the black money elephant. The glaring publicity being given of currency seizures, tax to be paid on the undeclared money if declared now, etc. etc. are all to sway the public mind that the demonetisation measure to combat black money has been effective. The public position of Modi and the BJP is to project a fight against black money and corruption while the internal strategy is to woo them so that financial resources are cornered and other political parties are starved of funding by these elements. This is the common enough position in Indian politics where duplicity is the order of the day. 

As far as corruption and the generation of black money being impacted by the demonetisation measure nothing has changed post 8th Nov 2016 since those involved in these activities both givers and receivers as also generators are back in business as usual but for the sharp V that they faced for just two months, Nov - Dec 2016. Narendra Modi and his Finance Ministry officials are to blame for this fiasco since they left the window of opportunity to the black money holders to exchange their notes which they exploited to the hilt by deploying paid 'mules' to exchange the demonetised notes. One can also interpret this as a deliberate political ploy by Modi to draw the black money holders closer to the BJP with all its concomitant benefits towards funding the party as mentioned earlier. The black money holders were happy to play ball hoping that they would get advance notice when the Rs. 2000 is up for demonetisation.  Jagdish Bhagwati has elsewhere argued that the black money holders passing the money to  'mules' and to Jan Dhan account holders is like redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. How stupid can you get? This is India and the money would have been transferred on the basis of pre-agreed terms and conditions which are non-negotiable and irrevocably redeemable if required by the lives of those involved. 

The assumption that GDP is going to be marginally affected is fallacious since almost all agencies including the RBI have positioned a drop in GDP from the earlier estimate of 7.1% to 6.5% and attributed this fall to demonetisation. The Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) responsible for putting out India's official economic figures has its credibility in serious doubt with confusion of base years being different for different indices and with allegations that there has been deliberate massaging of figures to show the incumbent government in a good light.  Even its head, T C A Anant as late as the 3rd week of March 2017 has been very ambiguous about their estimates for GDP positioned at 7.1% for 2016-17 and confirmed that they were up in the air and subject to revision when more data becomes available. In this kind of a fluid situation how Bhagwati and his team sitting in the US can be so definitive about the impact of demonetisation being marginal on  India's GDP defies reasonable logic. This more so with sector after sector of industry showing a dip in growth for the Oct - Dec 2016 quarter. Not only that but State after State including those run by the BJP like Maharashtra have shown a dip in tax revenues for this quarter particularly for stamp duty and registration fees for real estate running into thousands of crores. This will surely impact developmental spending which a person like Bhagwati will well appreciate. The assumption that the demonetisation measure and the lesser cash in the economy will spur the growth of the legitimate economy is still a claim and one has to see as we go into the future how this pans out. 

As for the claim being made by Bhagwati and his team that the UP elections results indicate that the people have accepted the principle of demonetisation, an erudite person like Bhagwati should not fall for this trap. First, about demonetisation the people had no choice and they were compelled to accept it. The decision to implement it was unilateral. Second, there is no taking away any credit from Modi for winning the UP elections and obtaining the massive mandate. He fully deserves it but that is no endorsement for demonetisation. A simple math will prove this. The BJP's vote share in the UP elections was around 40% while the voter turnout was around 60%. Thus around 25% of UP voted for the BJP which is being presumed as a vote for demonetisation. By the same logic 75% of people of UP either did not vote for the BJP or did not vote at all. Can we not therefore assume that they were against demonetisation? 

The cost of demonetisation has been the human cost. To assess that you need to count the number of deaths in the queues in front of banks post-demonetisation, the number of jobs that people lost because of cash shortage, the number of industries that closed down because of lack of supplies of raw material since suppliers could not be paid, the amount of perishable goods that rotted because there was no cash to buy this produce from farmers. The claim to demonetisation success is thus strewn with pain, misery and death akin to Emperor Ashoka's victory in the Kalinga war. Ashoka upon visiting the battlefield was so shocked with the number of deaths caused that he took an oath to eschew bloodshed. In the same manner Narendra Modi, Jagdish Bhagwati and others in the seats of power should promise that they should never undertake any measures be it economic or otherwise without thinking through the process of implementing the measure so that avoidable confusion, unwanted pain and misery is not needlessly inflicted on its people who for the large part remain poor and illiterate. 

Sense of Siege in Indian Society

There is a general sense of siege in Indian society these days. This is generated by the excessive zeal and misplaced enthusiasm of our government and its related authorities in supposedly performing their normal work functions. Take the instance of the need to verify the antecedents of mobile phone subscribers all over again. The Supreme Court in its wisdom has made this mandatory  it is understood because of a number of fake identities which could be linked terrorism. The objective of the court  is laudable but sometimes the aspect of practicality is lost on the esteemed judges. This has also been seen in the case of closing down all liquor vends near about 500 meters of all our national highways on the plea that drunk drivers cause loss of life in road accidents. In the mobile KYC case, the matter could have been left to the telecom Cos. to handle the weeding out of suspicious records and report back to the court or the government how many such subscriber connections they have suspended over a quarterly or 6 monthly basis as appropriate. Where may be less than 0.1% of the population is linked to terrorism putting 99.9% of the people to difficulty is clearly not sensible. The courts and government should try and understand that creating huge amounts of work is impractical and it is more important to do work that is effective and result-oriented. We have since Nov 2016 seen an example of this with the demonetisation exercise where at least maybe some 40% of the population was involved in handling black money and the whole country was held to ransom for close to 5 months on the plea of wiping out black money on which the jury is still out if any of the black money was at all impacted. Additionally the RBI, the Indian banking system and the Income Tax authorities were dumped with a huge amount of work which at least the first and third are still struggling to cope with and come to the surface with any concrete results. Just like the mobile KYC, the banks have lately sent out messages to their account holders stating that it is time that their KYC norms to be refreshed and to submit fresh details including photos etc. Here again the banks could have been selective and chased only the suspicious account holders. In the above KYC exercises it is also suggested that senior citizens be exempted since their details like appearances for photos etc. rarely change and it is not correct to burden them with the bother of going through the KYC process all over again. It is understood with the banks that they have withdrawn the need for fresh KYC which the telecom Cos. may also be advised to do particularly for senior citizens. The government should also show greater maturity and not allow the agenda of fringe elements, deviants and terrorists to disrupt the life of mainstream India. We have also the Hindutva brigade generating tensions be it on eating habits, moral policing and/or religious fundamentalism which needs to be controlled. The latest in this instance is Ramachandra Guha being threatened for being critical of the present political establishment. The fear of people when faced with such situations is the lack of will of the present government to tackle the attackers and the tendency to paper over such events by claiming that it is a one-off incident while the reality of physical attack and harm is experienced by the victims. For those highlighting problems with the BJP or the government there is also this tendency to unleash agencies like the Income Tax or DRI or FEMA agencies to silence these critics. It is not that such tactics were not used by incumbent governments in the past but presently there seems to be a more pervasive atmosphere towards such action. Thus the whole country seems to be being put on edge for reasons that are not very apparent to the people at large which is surely no way to run a government.

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