MONTH THAT WAS

Indian Roads unsafe!

New Delhi: Three out of five people feel unsafe on Indian roads, says a survey conducted in 12 cities of the country including the four metros.

During the survey, the general public expressed strong support for the Road Transport and Safety Bill, 2014 and expressed hope that roads will become safer.

“81 per cent of all respondents “strongly favor” passing of the proposed Road Safety Bill and 90 per cent believe that passing the Bill will be an important accomplishment for the Indian Parliament,” said the survey report which was released by Former Union Home Secretary GK Pillai in the presence of several families affected by road accidents, reports PTI.

In the past decade, more than 12 lakh people have been killed in road crashes in India. This translates to over 380 deaths a day, equivalent to a jumbo jet crash. Survey findings also revealed that 3 out of 5 respondents feel unsafe while traveling on Indian roads as drivers, pedestrians or passengers, the report said. The survey was jointly commissioned by Save LIFE Foundation and the Global Road Safety Partnership (a hosted project of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies).

The report further revealed that 91 per cent respondents believe that increased penalties for traffic violations will improve road safety while 97 per cent respondents favour the various statutes for protection of children during commute. 90 per cent respondents favoured mandating helmets for everyone on a two wheeler and 96 per cent favoured reforming RTO’s. Talking about the lack of focus the society and politicians have on road accidents, Pillai pointed out that 2,500 people lost their lives due to terrorism during the last one year.

“But you see the kind of attention terrorism gets. Yesterday, 214 people died, you saw the Union Home Minister going all the way to Chattisgarh and the whole publicity and so on…328 people died yeaterday in road accidents in the country. People don’t identify it as it gets scattered across the society,” Pillai said. Pillai called upon the society to press the elected representatives to get the bill passed. He also said that just by preventing road accidents, we can increase the GDP by three %.

The survey was conducted across twelve Indian cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkatta, Chennai, Varanasi, Nagpur, Rohtak, Chengalpattu, Burdwan, Palghar and Mandya in which more than 1300 people were interviewed. The meeting was also attended by families of various victims including Jyoti Gupta who had started an online petition to Prime Minister Modi to introduce a strong Road Safety law.

Jyoti along with the families later reached the Prime Minister’s Office and delivered the petition signed by over 2,00,000 people.      

When ICICI Bank did not see reason

In an interesting case, a local consumer court has slapped a fine of Rs 11,000 on a private bank for not issuing No Objection Certificate (NOC) to a customer due to his outstanding loan amount of 43 paisa, DHNS reports from Jaipur. The bank later added late fees and other charges asked the customer to deposit Rs 1037.55

According to details one Rajnikant borrowed Rs 1.75 lakh from the ICICI Bank as personal loan. A few months later Rajnikant expressed his wish to deposit the entire loan amount which was around Rs 1,66,6677.43. The borrower deposited the entire amount but bank refused to give him no objection certificate and informed that 43 paisa are still outstanding. Later the borrower deposited a cheque of Rs 1 in the bank. The cheque was rejected as outstanding amount shot up to 1037.55 after the bank added late fee, debit fee, pick up fee and other penalties on the customers. Reacting on such practices consumer court said that these are unfair practices by bank as such a small amount must have been waived off by the bank. 

Christian held for blasphemy in Pakistan

Lahore: A Christian man has been arrested here for allegedly posting blasphemous comments in a blog he wrote in 2011, just days after a Pakistani couple, belonging to the same faith, was charred to death for alleged blasphemy. “We have arrested Quasar Ayub, 40, from Lahore on the charges of committing blasphemy on his blog. We have also obtained a two-day physical remand of the accused from the district and sessions court (Talagang),” senior police officer Jabbar Husain told PTI.

Ayub, who holds a Masters degree in Computer Sciences, is currently held in Chakwal district in Punjab province, where a case was registered against him in 2011 under blasphemy law (Section 295C of Pakistan Penal Code) for posting blasphemous comments on a Christian websitehe was moderating. The arrest comes just days after the killing of a Christian couple for alleged blasphemy in Kot radha Kishan area near here on Noember 4. 

‘I am not Malala’ day in Pakistan

Islamabad: A network of private schools in Pakistan today observed ‘I am not Malala’ day to condemn Nobel laureate and teenage girls rights activist for her alleged support for controversial British novelist Salman Rushdie. Malala Yousufzai, 17, shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 in Pakistan’s northwestern town of Mingora, won Nobel Peace Prize 2014 with 60-year-old Indian anti-child labour activist Kailash Satyarthi. In a statement, the federation president Mirza Kashif Ali alleged that “Malala has nexus with Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin”. He said Malala’s book, written with British journalist Christina Lamb, was too sympathetic to Rushdie. Ali said Rushdie’s book was clearly “anti-Islam” and by supporting him, Malala has joined his club. 

Rs.1.19 lakh cr black money in India

New Delhi: While the nation awaits the results of government efforts to bring back black money stashed away, the money is very much here and within the reach of the arm of law. In the last three years, between 2011 to September 2014, authorities have traced over Rs. 1.19 lakh crore, as undisclosed income in surveys conducted on 14,169 entities.

What does revenue department say?

Department of Revenue figures show during the same period, 1,955 entities admitted to having undisclosed income of Rs 40,458.13 crore. Action against them were initiated under section 132 (4) of the Income-Tax Act. Authorities have seized assets worth only Rs 2,786.21 crore so far from them. The highest undisclosed income of Rs 90,390.71 crore was detected 2013-14 through 506 surveys. This was the time when a political campaign against black money and the institution of Lok Pal had taken centre stage.

How much money has the govt lost?

The government has lost Rs 91,747.54 crore on account of service tax, central excise and customs duty evasion of Rs 59,315 crore has been detected. The amount is Rs 18,017.42 crore for central excise and Rs 14415.12 crore for customs duty, respectively.

What’s the govt’s tax revenue? 

Experts say only 0.5% taxpayers in the country are assessed. Prof. Arun Kumar, author of The Black Economy in India, estimates that India loses Rs 14 trillion from tax evasion annually. The government’s tax revenue, at an estimated 18 per cent of India’s $1.5 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP), is the lowest among the four BRIC nations.

Where does all this money go?

Kumar, who is Chair Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, in a recent study, said that illicit funds taken out of India are all not left in banks but consumed, round-tripped back to India and invested in various projects. So, he makes a case to find this wealth in India, as he also argues that the amount of illicit funds left in offshore banks would be a fraction of the total funds that would have left Indian shores. Biju Janata Dal leader Bhartruhari Mahtab, who participated in the debate on black money in Lok Sabha, told that one needs to keep in mind that money we always claim or say that it has flowed out is getting re-routed and being invested in different forms in different fronts in this country itself. “So, the money that is stashed away abroad is something that is actually  a fraction of the black money generated within the country,” he said.

Officer suspended for laxity !

Mumbai: After the mysterious disappearance of as many as 57 investigation files from one of the departments of state’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters, the state FDA commissioner suspended the assistant commissioner against the officer at Kherwadi police station in Bandra.

Assistant commissioner SS Kale was posted at the state headquarters in the city till May 2014 and held the charge of assistant commissioner, intelligence, joint commissioner, vigilance, and assistant commissioner, drug zone VII. According to the suspension order issued by the commissioner’s office, Kale had withheld254 cases from zone VII of which he was in-charge pending.The cases were show-cause notices to chemists and druggists for defaulting on various sections under the Drug and Magic Remedies Act that range from sale of drugs without prescriptions to discrepancy in sale and purchase bills. But Kale served in the office till September, despite his transfer orders, which were issued in May. “Kale was asked for a clarification for withholding so many files. But his explanation was not satisfactory, after which the commissioner ordered a surprised check,” said an official from FDA.

The check revealed 57 files of the 254 were missing. On December 1, the commissioner then filed FIR. “The files were not his private property. They should have been in office. The suspension is the preliminary action. The inquiry is underway, once it is over we will know the extent of offence,” said FDA commissioner, Purushottam Bhapkar.

“Many times, suspension happens without any ground. The suspension is not a punishment. It is merely an inquiry procedure,” said a former joint commissioner, FDA.

Self-reliance in electricity possible

Bangalore: For a little over a lakh rupees, a portion of your terrace can make you absolutely self-reliant in electricity.

Meet Ratnadeep Bhattacharjee in Bangalore who did not take an electricity connection from public power suppliers for his newly built four-storied office building. Lights, fans, computers, air conditioners and three water pumps in this 5,000 square  foot building run without any botheration of a power failure, thanks to 36 solar panels installed on a small portion of the terrace and parepet wall.

Bhattacharjee, a former senior executive in Tata Power Solar, is currently running Array Tech, which supplies Japanese Solar Frontier panels and installs solar rooftop systems and plants. “We wanted to show that complete self-reliance in electricity is possible with solar power,” he said.

All that it cost him was about Rs.5 lakh, which included the price of a battery bank to store the power. His rooftop solar system generates 5.5 kilo watt (KW), which is more than sufficient for his office’s energy needs. In less than eight years, Bhattacharjee will recover this from his saving on power bills.

A number of others in metros such as Delhi, Kolkota, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune also have installed rooftop systems to meet the energy needs of their houses and offices substantially, if not fully independently.

According to experts, rooftop systems for households would cost only Rs.1.3 lakh per KW, which is enough to meet the requirements of most households.

The Centre and various state governments are pushing for rooftop solar systems with subsidies as overburdened power grid remain vulnerable to frequent failures. The Narendra Modi-led government has set an ambitious target of 100,000 MW of solar power in India at a cost of Rs.8 lakh crore by 2019.

“The rooftop solar systems will see manifold rise within a year with the Centre’s thrust on renewable energy,” said Ravikumar Gurumurti, consultant at Quantum Sun.