ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends, We are into the last month of financial year 2016-17, supposedly the Budget month. But an executive decision to shift the budget date from 28th Feb. to 1st Feb. has effectively stopped the significance of March. The executive order also scrapped the practice of separate Railway Budget by including the same in the main Union Budget 2017-18. From now on there will be only one single budget for the country. Union Budget of Finance Minister Arun Jeitley did attempt valiantly to undo negative fallout of demonetization by giving sops of all kinds to all people. Of course in an exercise of this nature, it is impossible to address concerns of every section of the society. Those who complained kept complaining. But then those who can afford should pay more, without much of a demur, that’s the principle of public finance. But then it is in the nature of homosepiens to ask for more. In the Month-in-Perspective, we have analyzed the latest Union Budget in better details.  Electio...

New Delhi: Post demonetization, the eagerly awaited Union budget has come. As expected, it has tried to mollify ruffled temper of Indians who suffered due to the abrupt cessation of HD currency notes. It has tried to be politically correct by accommodating give aways to possible vote banks. Every government does it, every year, in one way or the other. But this was pleasantly surprising in many ways. To the middle class, the reduction of 10% to 5% income tax for `2.5 lakh to `5 lakh earners, is a welcome development, although the expectation was it would do away with `2.5 lakh limit to increase it to `5 lakh limit. Budget has also tried to be welfare oriented by allocating funds to spend 24% more for rural India and 35% raise in allocation to Dalits. Reduction of Corporate Income Tax for SME companies was welcomed by industry, although it complained about not being pari passu when it came to companies beyond `50 crores turnover. But then very principle of taxation is based on ‘what tr...

I'm herewith sending a cheque for `10,000/-. You are doing an excellent job. Please keep it up.         - Prof. (Dr.) M. Shantharam Shetty, Pro Chancellor, Nitte University Sir, Thanks for the time taken to write, so also for your supportive views, your contribution of `10,000/-, we will take it as Permanent Membership. Thanks for the participation and the trust reposed in I&C.                                                                                                            -Editor  ‘Irrelevance of State and Civil Society' (Focus- I&C Feb.17)-  There could only have been only a large mound of earth built up by the continuous flow of the Ganges river over millions of ...

Demonetization- A question of Answers J. Shriyan Two things happened on 8th Nov 2016, entirely unrelated, but completely unexpected, and can even be termed shocking game changer. If United States of America elected a political greenhorn as its 45th President, Prime Minister Naredra Modi in India declared that ‘`500/- and `1000/- currency notes will cease to be legal tender’ from the midnight that day. While the election of Mr. Donald Trump, as the 45th President of U.S has its relevance in the global context and the Indo-U.S relations, the relevance of the unprecedented and bold declaration by the Indian Prime Minister Modi, had its immediate relevance for both India and Indians. In all probability, 8th Nov. 2016, will go down in the history of modern India, as red/brown/black letter day, depending upon how does one looks at the momentous decision of the central government of the day. In his broadcast to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had summarily stopped the us...

Health is environmental? Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com “Skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”                 -Thomas Huxley We have been depending too much on reductionist science to believe that health and diseases are basically controlled by our genes. This myth has now been blown apart and our genes, if anything, have very little to do with our evolution and even our existence here. That apart, we now know that we can even change our genetic pattern, if needed, by our environment. Our life style changes for the better can change even our genetic pattern. This has been recently shown in the case of killer diseases of old age.  If one is healthy and well at a given point in time it is just chance; if one, on the other hand one is ill and suffering it is also chance! No science can predict either of those events with any degree of certainty! Doctors have been predicting the unpred...

Agri-income-Error or Cover-up? R.N Bhaskar After almost ten months of silence, the government of India finally came forth with some (rather strange) answers. The answers related to the charge that agriculture was being used as a laundromat – for converting black money into white. The laundering was not related to just a few thousand crore of rupees.  If one takes the figures for just two years – 2011 and 2012 – the agricultural income declared was in excess of (hold your breath)  `874 lakh crore. The figure was at least five times the total GVA (Gross Value Added) for the two years combined. It also represented 66 times total direct taxes collected over those two years. This matter might not have come to light had it not been for a PIL (public interest litigation) filed by a retired income tax officer before the Patna High Court. The petition asked the court to direct the income tax authorities to release the names of the top 1,000 assessees who had declared huge ag...

‘Lost continent’ under Indian Ocean! Johannesburg: Scientists have confirmed the existence of a “lost continent” under the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius that was left-over by the break-up of the supercontinent, Gondwana, which started about 200 million years ago. The piece of crust, which was subsequently covered by young lava during volcanic eruptions on the island, seems to be a tiny piece of ancient continent, which broke off from the island of Madagascar, when Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica split up and formed the Indian Ocean. “We are studying the break-up process of the continents, in order to understand the geological history of the planet,” said Professor Lewis Ashwal from University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. By studying the mineral, zircon, found in rocks spewed up by lava during volcanic eruptions, Ashwal and his colleagues have found that remnants of this mineral were far too old to belong on the island of Mauritius. “Earth is made up of ...

Solar-power to provide safe drinking water in rural parts of India London: Scientists are developing a low-cost, solar-powered water purification system that may help over 77 million people in remote parts of India get access to safe drinking water. According to researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, there is no systematic treatment of sewage in rural India. The government has focused on purifying contaminated water in rivers and streams, but the situation could be greatly improved by tackling the problem at source, researchers said. To make contaminated water safe to drink, visible traces of waste are first removed using filters. Then any remaining organic matter and bacteria is broken down. The team, including researchers from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Pune, is adapting its existing technologies to power this second stage in the decontamination process. The system uses sunlight to generate high-energy particles inside solar-powered ...

THE PERSISTENCE OF CASTE A HISTORICAL OUTLINE Anand Teltumbde These developments have healed four decades of sagging national morale and boosted the middle classes’ confidence in their oft-invoked 'culture, custom and tradition', which are ultimately nothing but euphemisms for the caste system. The new syndromes of 'India Shining', an ill-advised election slogan coined by the rightwing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in 2003-04, and the excitement over a prospective 'India as superpower' daydream reflect this newfound confidence. The new generation middle and upper classes, whether in India or abroad, are devoid of a sense of shame about India's past and appear, rather, to vehemently justify it in all aspects, including the caste system. In relation to the lower classes, an almost opposite set of globalization processes has worked to strengthen caste. These classes, irrespective of location, are rooted in a rural background and are predom...

Proposed hospital remains wasted for 7 years due to apathetic govt. Mumbai: Amidst the residential area of Khar (west), lies a five storey maternity home which is not functional since the time it was constructed. The maternity home, which is just opposite to the Khar Gymkhana, is a property of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and has been lying vacant since the past seven years. The maternity home was constructed by Diwan builders and was then handed over to the BMC on the basis of accommodation reservation policy. But since the time of its construction, the hospital has never started. The property is locked at present without any caretaker. Residents have complained that the maternity home was constructed for the people but after constructing it the BMC realised that there was no need for a maternity home. The whole building is dark during the night as there is no activity happening over there. A resident said, “I have never seen anyone entering the maternity home...

Dutch rent out prison cells Dan Bilefsky: The Netherlands has a problem many countries can only dream of: A shortage of prison inmates. While countries like Belgium, Britain, Haiti, Italy, the United States and Venezuela have grappled with prison overcrowding, the Netherlands has such a surplus of unused cells that it has rented some of its prisons to Belgium and Norway. It has also turned about a dozen former prisons into centers for asylum seekers. About a third of Dutch prison cells sit empty, according to the Ministry of Justice. Criminologists attribute the situation to a spectacular fall in crime over the past two decades and an approach to law enforcement that prefers rehabilitation to incarceration. The relative lack of prisoners has spurred the Dutch to be creative. At jails transformed into housing for asylum seekers, former cells for prisoners have been converted into apartments for families, albeit some with the original cell doors. At De Koepel, a former prison ...