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Tax exemptions back
Golden no more |
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Killings in Delhi
Missing Haryana identity
Hallowed pillar of strength
Grow more from less
PM’s Kashmir visit raises hopes
Bangalore Diary
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Tax exemptions back
The
revised draft of the Direct Taxes Code is bound to please the individual and corporate taxpayers as it has dropped the two contentious proposals contained in the original code – tax on post-retirement benefits and charging companies the minimum alternate tax (MAT) based on their assets. Following the principle of EET (exemption on contribution, exemption on accumulation but tax on withdrawals), the first code had proposed to tax all dues that employees get on retirement. This had naturally angered the retiring employees who, in the absence of a social safety mechanism, have personal savings alone to fall back upon in their sunset years. Even the Prime Minister had put in a word in their support. Hence the tax relief on the PF as well as gratuity, pension and house loans. On MAT, that the government has succumbed to corporate pressure is obvious. The August 2009 Direct Taxes Code had proposed that it should be calculated on the basis of a firm’s assets and not profits. The MAT is levied on firms that make profits but do not pay any taxes due to various tax-saving instruments available under the Income Tax Act. Since companies often scale down their profits for obvious reasons or divert cash from profit-making companies to their loss-making sister concerns, the MAT on the basis of assets made good sense. The proposal was opposed by India Inc on the ground that this would result in a tax on even loss-making companies. The new code has also benefited foreign institutional investors (FIIs) registered in tax havens that gain from double tax avoidance agreements. The new draft of the tax code will partly hurt the aim of the tax reforms to simplify India’s complicated tax structure. It had scrapped cumbersome tax exemptions for being a source of needless litigation. The government will not be able to corner tax evaders who usually take shelter behind exemptions and cut the aggregate tax realisations. It is a pity that only 3 per cent of the billion-plus Indians pay income tax.
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Golden no more
Wherever
an Indian may be settled, his heart always beats for the homeland. He or she constantly pines to come back to the roots, and if that is not possible, do something for the “motherland”. Some decades ago, the trend was to do up gurdwaras and temples, but now the endeavour is to spend on community projects. If it is sewerage in some villages, it is piped-water supply in others. Elsewhere, it is educational institutions. However, it is not unusual to see many of these well-meaning schemes gradually lose steam. That is what is also happening to the “Golden Heart” scheme started six years ago by Punjabi University, Patiala, with the help of Punjab NRIs to provide technical education to rural students who had studied in government schools. Donations have been drying up and even the enthusiasm of the university seems to be waning. So, why is it that the initial pace is rarely maintained in NRI-related schemes? Both sides have different stories to tell. NRIs allege that apathy and bureaucratic approach of government officials are frustrating, forcing most philanthropists to develop cold feet. The government drags its feet on releasing its share of the funds while officials, especially at the lower level, raise too many objections and ask thoughtless questions. Officials on the other hand say that the NRIs try to bypass the “established procedure” and do not want to conform to the level of diligence required. What the latter refuse to acknowledge is that the prevalent method of auditing and verification of work is too tedious and counter-productive. The government ought to fix standard norms for work done by NGOs, considering the fact that it is labour of love. The government must be thankful that they are bringing in money, talent and expertise and doing the work which is essentially the government’s responsibility. Even if it cannot lend a helping hand, it must not become a hindrance. Unfortunately, that has become the standard operating procedure in many of the sarkari departments.
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Killings in Delhi
The
manner in which Asha Saini and Yogesh Kumar (both 19 years) were bludgeoned and electrocuted to death by Asha’s family in North-West Delhi’s Swaroop Nagar area on Sunday night needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. The fact that the so-called honour killings occurred in the National Capital is all the more shocking. Asha’s parents opposed her marriage with Yogesh, a cabbie. She was not only engaged with another person against her wish but was forced to stay with her uncle in Swaroop Nagar. (Asha and Yogesh belonged to Delhi’s Gokulpuri area). Deplorably, even after their arrest on Monday, Asha’s father, Suresh Kumar Saini, and her uncle, Om Prakash, expressed no regret and defended their brutal action. Surely, the ends of justice will be met only if they are tried on fast track and handed out the death sentence. The horrifying nature of the Delhi killings make one wonder how we can claim to be in a civilised society. Though the National Crimes Record Bureau doesn’t list deaths due to honour killings, their number is on the rise. The problem arises when both the girl and the boy defy antiquated traditions and attitudes and decide to marry rather than let their parents decide. The punishment they get is no less than death. In view of the increasing honour killings, there is need for a tougher legislation, prescribing fast track trial of the culprits and death sentence. Recently, the Sessions Court in Karnal, Haryana, has sentenced to death five persons and given life imprisonment to one for the murder of Manoj (23) and Babli (19) of Karora village in Kaithal district. But this is not enough. We need a special law like the one against Sati to tackle the menace of honour killings and the notorious khap panchayats. These killings are invariably premeditated and the perpetrators deserve stiff punishment. In one case of honour killing (Mayakaur Baldevsingh vs the State of Maharashtra, 2007), the Supreme Court ruled that the convicts deserved to be given death penalty. At the same time, politicians like Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kurukshetra MP Naveen Jindal should condemn such killings unequivocally and advocate death penalty for the culprits to send the right message to society.
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We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. —
Thomas Jefferson on slavery
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Missing Haryana identity Uneven development in different parts of a country and iniquitous distribution of the gains of development among different segments of the population are two important features of the market-oriented strategy. India has achieved the second highest rate of economic growth after China in the world. India has the largest dollar billionaires in Asia. But there is a flip side of the picture too. As per the findings of the Unorganised Enterprises Commission set up by the Central Government under the chairmanship of Dr Arjun Sengupta, 77 per cent of the Indian population lives on less than Rs 20 a day. According to the report of the Expert Group set up by the Planning Commission to review the methodology for the estimation of poverty, 41.8 per cent rural households are below the poverty line. Haryana, a small, compact unit, often presented as a model progressive state, too, is not free from the bane of skewed development. The Planning Commission in 2003 adopted three parameters to identify backward districts — low wages, low productivity and high SC/ST population — to launch a backward development initiative (BDI), and its task force drew a list of 447 districts , ranking them on the Index of Backwardness. As per the criteria laid down by the Planning Commission, none of the Haryana districts can be counted as backward, and least of all Sirsa. Yet Sirsa was rated as the most backward district in the state in 2003 when the NDA government was in power at the Centre and its ally the INLD ruled Haryana. It seems to be a purely political decision to divert more funds to Sirsa under the BDI as it happened to be the home district of the then Chief Minister. Taking Haryana as a unit, districts like Narnaul, Mahendragarh, Bhiwani and Jhajjar and, more so, the Mewat area (now a distict) deserved greater attention in the matter of development than Sirsa. Haryana has yet to have the ruling elite which takes a holistic view of development, considering the state as an organic unit, paying more attention to those parts which are lacking in basic facilities. Every Chief Minister pays utmost attention to his home district to develop it as a rocky citadel which can give him shelter even in the worst of times. Now the boot is on the other foot. What was true of Sirsa during the INLD regime is alleged to apply to Rohtak district, the home turf of the incumbent Chief Minister. During the last assembly poll, there was a virulent propaganda by the Opposition that old Rohtak district — now comprising Rohtak, Jhajjar and Sonepat districts — was privileged over the other parts of the state in the matter of development and providing employment. Rohtak and Jhajjar were decaying towns and badly needed a facelift. Secondly, as argued by the ruing dispensation, old Rohtak district, being a part of the National Capital Region, received more attention. However, all this did not offset the voters’ perception and harmed the ruling party. Secondly, the notion of Rohtak’s “chaudhar” (hegemony), fostered by a section of the ruling party supporters, proved quite crucial in alienating the electorate elsewhere. Old Rohtak distict stood solidly behind the Chief Minister but the performance of his party in other parts of the state was quite dismal and the government had to be formed by using methods Haryana is traditionally credited with. Old Rohtak district has been more advanced in the matter of education, political consciousness, solidarity and assertiveness of its people and thus has always acted as the epicentre to galvanize the periphery in socio-political movements in the state. However, this time the construct of “chaudhar” coupled with the grouse of the electorate in a large chunk of Haryana on grounds of being marginalised in the matter of development and employment created tension between the centre and the periphery which eventually developed into antagonism. This has led to the emergence of miniature sub-regionalism in the state — the Deswali belt comprising old Rohtak district; “Baagar” comprising Fatehabad and Sirsa districts; “Baangar” comprising Jind and Kaithal districts; “Khaadar” comprising parts of Karnal, Kurukshetra and Panipat districts adjoining Western U.P.; and Ahirwal consisting of Mahendragarh and Narnaul districts. Then the areas in the state bordering Punjab have the influence of Punjabi culture while Palwal district and its adjoining areas have the influence of Braj culture. Residents of Mewat distict have a close affinity with the Meos of the adjoining areas in Rajasthan. People of Sirsa, parts of Fatehabad and Bhiwani districts have strong influence of Rajasthani culture. Though Haryana is a comparatively small state, it is a curious melange of multiculturalism. So far sub-regional identities were kept under wraps when the centre acted as a unifying force, but during the last assembly elections the tension between the centre and the periphery triggered the emergence of miniature sub-regionalism. This is a pernicious development in the state when the larger Haryana identity has yet to take a concrete shape. One comes across Jats, Brahmins, Ahirs, et al, with the odd formation of “locals” versus “Punjabis” in the state, but it is difficult to meet a Haryanvi in Haryana. The Tamils, the Telugus, the Malayalis and people having many other such identities have a sense of belonging to their respective states and feel proud of it. It was the hurt feeling of the Telugus which led to the emergence of the Telugu Desam Party under the charismatic leadership of the late N.T. Rama Rao. An individual in society has multiple identities — one’s family, caste, community and religion, occupational pursuits and deep attachment to one’s country characterised as nationalism. Haryana, already stuck at the lower rung of the trajectory of identity formation, has suffered regression, which is an ominous development. The people could acquire a larger identity at the state level through mass mobilisation around larger issues, taking the state as an organic unit. This strategic thrust, already dormant in the Haryana polity, was virtually knocked out in the last assembly poll, making the periphery fall from the centre. The INLD was seen as the only viable tool available to the electorate in a large part of Haryana to checkmate the ruling party. The emergence of miniature sub-regionalism is a dangerous portent in the Haryana polity today. The process, if not checked in time, would leave the field free for political predators, slick demagogues and hot-headed rabble-rousers to make the state a playground to serve their partisan ends by whipping up mass frenzy on localised issues. This would push the process of formation of Haryana identitiy, already in limbo, into deep freeze. This poses a challenge for the democratic forces in the state who stand for an egalitarian and equitable
set-up.
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Hallowed pillar of strength I
used to marvel at her ability. She almost always sensed it when I was stressed, as if she could scan my mind. But that was when she was intuitive enough before cancer ravaged her colon and gradually destroyed her liver and other vital parts. My mother was a homemaker at heart, for whom home and the family took precedence over all other things. But there was an activist side to her as well, when she took a stand on issues, whether concerning the area we were living in, herself or her children. Our home was a perfect example of a mini-democratic setup and mom always used to discuss every minute point. She was expressive and well informed and for us in the family, she was the pillar of strength. But cancer changed all that in the last three years of her life. Though she tried every bit to be as lively as she could be in those years, she had wandered to a far-off space and time we could not fathom, to another world, where we did not belong. As the disease progressed, every day brought in changes in her personality, some alarming, others agonising to watch, but all those took away the charm and the bubbly smile from her face. The doctors had prepared us for a time when her movements would be restricted because she would not have much stamina left in her body. But when that did happen and she was just lying on her bed staring at me with emptiness in her eyes, it crushed me, to say the least. It was a moment of complete helplessness. I have yet to come to terms with the loss of that beautiful relationship, which I have realised could never be matched. I miss the ardent chats that we had, our stirred up arguments and the countless times I would turn to her for her view on topics. I tried desperately to read her mind. As I sat by her bed and watched her gaze vacantly at me, I searched for that tender smile that flashed across her face and was gone in a split second. It spoke a thousand words to me. What was unbearable, however, was to see the woman once always in charge, who could outstrip anybody with her wisecracks, bound to her bed and not comfortable to give voice to her needs. Her basic functions were taken care of by us in the last months of her life. When I fed her, bathed her, dressed her up and tucked her into bed, I grieved over the role reversal - of acting as mother to her. Memories rush past my mind like snapshots. I could recall her rock-solid presence in my life, fostering and empathising and sometimes warning me of the troubles, as I slipped into adulthood. And then came her distress and despair as her life was perturbed due to cancer. There was an air of dignity about her. Though she was restricted to her bed, she battled the disease with fortitude and no resentment. It was a life-changing experience for me. I learnt calmness and drew inspiration from her trust in God as she withered away. My mother lost her battle against colon cancer that ranks fourth worldwide in occurrence and deaths. Last year, we tearfully bade adieu to
her.
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Grow more from less
There
are two ways to produce more food for the burgeoning population — either by increasing the area under cultivation or by enhancing the yield per unit area. Globally, about 95 per cent of the production gains since 1961 have come from increasing yields, except in Africa, where nearly 40 per cent of the gains have come from expanding the cultivated area. Yields of major cereals have more than doubled in the past five decades. In fact, the area under cultivation has begun to decline in some regions because of urbanisation, road construction, mining and industrialisation and agricultural mismanagement such as water erosion, wind erosion and soil salinisation.
The wonder of the past five decades is that today the farmers are feeding almost twice as many people far better from virtually the same cropland area. In case of India, while the area under cultivation increased 30 per cent between 1960-61 and 1998-99, the production of grains and oilseeds was more than 180 per cent. This has been possible due to the introduction of high-yielding varieties, use of fertilizers and pesticides along with the application of water. Though having 1.4 per cent area of the country, Punjab contributes more than 50 per cent of wheat and rice to the central pool, mainly because the state’s 94 per cent area is under some kind of irrigation. A cut in irrigation by 10 per cent can make a substantial difference as it happened in the recent harvest of the wheat crop when the yields dropped by 10-20 per cent. Also since the Green Revolution, the area under irrigation has doubled and the amount of water drawn for farming, which approximates 90 per cent of the total abstraction, has tripled since 1965. Besides growing food, water is required for the production of hydroelectricity, cooling thermal power generation, extracting oil, making microchips and steel girdles too. In the domestic sector 50 litres of water is required per capita per day for bathing, cooking and drinking. Though, the total industrial and domestic demand of water in India is about 10-12 per cent, it is growing twice as fast as that of farming. In future, therefore, intense competition is foreseen in the farming, domestic and industrial sectors. The amount of water on earth has, however, not changed. Water used by our ancestors millions of years ago is the same that we use today. About 97.5 per cent of the water on earth is salty and cannot be used for irrigation at the present technological level. Only 2.5 per cent of the earth’s water is fresh, about two-third of that is frozen in glaciers, at the poles or in permafrost. Thus about 0.75 per cent mostly as groundwater in aquifers or surface water falling in rain, sitting in lakes and flowing in rivers is available to cater to all human needs. Though this amount of fresh water is sufficient for a country’s requirements, its uneven distribution and seasonal variation adds to the woes. The average rainfall in the North-east is more than hundred times than the western Rajasthan. There is plenty of water at some places at sometimes, but not enough at others. There may be floods and droughts simultaneously at different places. It is therefore the local availability that makes its proper use possible. India has tried to manage water through building multipurpose projects, dams and reservoirs to divert water to the plains mainly for agriculture but in the past 15 years from 1991-92 to 2006-07, though the government has spent Rs 1.3 lakh crore on major and medium irrigation projects, the total canal-irrigated area has remained more or less the same. In fact, we are pushing new irrigation projects without taping the full potential of the existing ones and respecting the hydrological cycle. According to a 2005 World Bank report, the annual maintenance bill for India’s canal network comes to a whopping Rs. 17,000 crore. As the canals become old, the wastage through seepage rises as high as 20 per cent, sometimes water rarely reaching the tail-ends. In the process, some areas have become over-irrigated, causing water-logging, salinisation and degradation of soil, knocking off field productivity. In other areas, farmers, to compensate the shortage of water, resort to pumping groundwater. The latest official figures show that more than 60 per cent of India’s 62 million hectare irrigated land is fed by groundwater. We have about 21 million tubewells drawing 230 cubic kilometres of water each year which is the highest amount of water drawn by any other country. There is no harm in extracting more water as long as it is replenished as fast as it is withdrawn. In the 75 per cent of blocks into of which Punjab is divided groundwater is reported to be overdrawn. Pumping has its own perils. One tubewell exhausts the water of a dozen other tubewells around. As the water level goes further down, the farmers hooked on irrigation bore deeper and deeper. The falling yields, higher electricity costs, greater debts are the socio-economic consequences of overdrawing groundwater. In many districts of Punjab, water being pumped is salty and high in concentration of naturally occurring poisons like arsenic, fluorides etc. which are proving great health hazards like arthritic and bone deformities or even cancer. But the government does not know who is extracting for what purpose and how much, as water pumps are not metered, let alone paid for. Time has come “to monitor, demystify and thus manage” groundwater. Farmers must be educated about matching their withdrawals with recharging of aquifers, sowing crops that do not guzzle water, adopting irrigation techniques that use water efficiently, budgeting water bearing in mind that over half will go in evapotranspiration. Experts, therefore, advise that if true savings are to be made either evaporation must be cut (by storing water underground or by delivering water to plants’ roots) or food must be produced with less transpiration. Efficient irrigation that cuts evaporation losses rather than lining irrigation canals is more important as water that seeps into the soil ultimately recharges the aquifers and that is not an actual loss. The yields can be increased a little by giving plants only as much water as they need and no more. Israel, Jordan and the U.S. have already shown the increase of crop yields by 20 to 90 per cent and saving water by 30 to 70 per cent by drip irrigation compared to flooding methods of irrigation. China is looking beyond this where a high-tech project that involves not just drip irrigation and condensation-trapping green houses, but that also provides evapotranspiration readings to farmers through satellites has been launched, so that farmers can plan irrigation without affecting the ground water. In America and Australia, farmers get information straight on their mobile phones to enable them to take decisions about how, when and where to grow their crops using less and less water. In Andhra Pradesh farmers of 41 villages have started monitoring groundwater after recording rainfall, water table and estimating the availability of water to decide after eventual agreement which crops to grow and how much water they will use. The future growth of agriculture lies in to grow more food with less water.
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PM’s Kashmir visit raises hopes Whenever the Prime Ministers visit Jammu and Kashmir in the backdrop of armed militancy, hopes rise in both the government as well as the political arena of mainstream and separatist organisations. It goes back to the historic visit of Atal Behari Vajpayee, who at the very first public meeting of any Prime Minister since the eruption of militancy, offered a hand of friendship to Pakistan. In his public address at the Sher-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium on April 18, 2003, Vajpayee also offered dialogue with the separatists to settle the Kashmir issue, however, on the condition that they should shun violence. The subsequent visits of the Prime Ministers, particularly Dr Manmohan Singh, have focussed on not only the dialogue process but also on development of the State. During the early years of the armed militancy the State had witnessed a heavy damage to the basic infrastructure, derailing economic institutions, education and healthcare. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit is significant in the backdrop of “quiet dialogue” and “quiet diplomacy” envisaged by Home Minister P Chidambaram late last year. These channels had suffered a setback with the attack on senior APHC leader Fazal-ul-Haq Qureshi on December 4, 2009. In his speech the Prime Minister indicated that the government was keen on addressing both the issues of development and political process. Even as his address at the fifth convocation of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology did not offer much in terms of dialogue for the separatist organisations, it has provided a refreshing link. “We feel that the people of the State are not only interested in financial assistance and development projects but also desire a political process that meets their aspirations, the Prime Minister said. The government wanted to carry forward the political process saying it was ready to carry forward the dialogue process (with separatists), while the Indo-Pak dialogue process is already on the path of resumption. On the development front, the Prime Minister, during his convocation address and review meeting with the state government, touched almost all major issues. With the focus on strengthening people-to-people relations and trade between the two sides of the line of control (LoC), the Prime Minister hoped that the neighbouring country would help in “creating an environment in which people from both the sides can live in peace and harmony and work together”. At the same time he had made it clear that the government was ready for talks with those against violence, thereby asking the militants to shun the gun. The separatist Hurriyat Conference, which had had a few rounds of talks with the central government earlier, is now of the view that a “composite political package” is needed. However, the nature of this political package is not defined though the APHC has been in favour of talks both with the central government and Pakistan. While the coalition parties, the Congress and the National Conference, have asked the separatists and militant organisations to respond to the offer of talks, the separatists have cold-shouldered the move. Senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad remarkably said that the PM’s offer was only for the militants, while a senior National Conference leader and State minister Ali Mohammad Sagar asked the Hurriyat to come forward for talks. But in view of the prevailing security scenario, APHC Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, describing the Prime Minister’s views on human rights violations as “disappointing”, has sought to clear the ground for a meaningful dialogue with strong Indo-Pak relations.
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Bangalore Diary The
Punjabi and Kannada languages are like chalk and cheese but Pandit Rao, a person of Karnataka origin who teaches sociology in a Chandigarh college, has taken it upon himself to bridge the gap. He was in Bangalore recently where he performed one-act street plays in Punjabi. Rao told this reporter that back in Chandigarh he spent his time familiarising people there with Kannada literature.
Rao was honoured in the Ulsoor gurdwara in Bangalore. He then headed for his hometown Bijapur in North Karnataka where he again talked to schoolchildren about Punjabi literature. “I am trying to bring Punjab and South India closer in terms of literature and religious feelings. I have published a book in Punjabi and have also written several poems in Punjabi. I am working now on the translation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib in Kannada”, Rao said. Rich wives Among the seven candidates (two were later rejected) who filed nominations for the four Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka, liquor baron Vijai Mallya is, indeed, the richest. However, the same cannot be said about Mallya’s wife, Rekha. The wives of at least three other candidates – Venkaiah Naidu of the BJP and Oscar Fernandes and T V Maruti of the Congress – comprehensively dwarf Rekha Mallya in terms of personal wealth. While Rekha Mallya has jewellery worth over Rs 1 crore, besides Rs 64,242 in cash, Usha Naidu, Blossom Fernandes and Sunanda Maruti are each worth Rs 5 crore or more. A novel protest Shigli Bassya, a hardened criminal, recently took his protest to a new height, literally. Bassya, an inmate of the prison at Dharwad, climbed on a tree on the prison premises and refused to get down unless the cases against him were re-investigated. More than 250 cases are said to be pending against him. After remaining at the treetop for about four hours, Bassya, who did not pay any heed to the implorations of jail officials, got down only after extracting a promise from the Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) that his demand would be conveyed to the higher authorities. CM’s favourite Shobha Karandlaje, a favourite of Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, is poised to make a comeback as a minister. The Reddy brothers of Bellary, Karunakara and Janardhana, both ministers in the Yeddyurappa Cabinet, had forced the Chief Minister to drop her from the Cabinet as they were furious with her for trying to wield too much power by taking advantage of her proximity to the CM. Of late Yeddyurappa has been noticed warming up to the two Bellary mining barons and the brothers, too, are responding well. Political observers are interpreting this development as a prelude to Shobha’s return to the Cabinet.
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