Shame Factors: Food Politics, Land Game and Mass Destruction Agenda
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter 360
Palash Biswas
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com
Swine flu toll rises to 102 in India
PTI
As the country battled swine flu, the pandemic took the lives of two men and a woman in Maharashtra and Uttarakhand, raising the nationwide toll to 102 even as 128 more tested positive for the virus in various states.
'Talks with Pakistan meaningless'
PTI
Observing that there has been no progress in action against anti-India terror by Pak, New Delhi ruled out talks, saying it would be meaningless until there is proof of Islamabad taking concrete steps to end the menace.
India Apr-July fiscal deficit at $32.5 bn: Govt
31 Aug 2009, 1808 hrs IST, REUTERS
NEW DELHI: India's fiscal deficit in April-July was at 1.59 trillion rupees ($32.5 billion), or 39.5 percent of the full-year target, the government
said in a statement on Monday.
Tax receipts were 863.1 billion rupees and expenditure was 2.65 trillion rupees for the first four months of 2009/10 fiscal year.
In July, the government forecast a fiscal deficit at 4.01 trillion rupees, or 6.8 percent of gross domestic product, for 2009/10 (April/March).
For WPI read old price index, outdated goods
Comment Mail to friend
Mahendra Kumar Singh, TNN
If you’ve been wondering why prices burn a bigger hole in your pocket each time you go grocery shopping even as the inflation rate stays firmly negative, here’s part of the reason: The official wholesale price index (WPI) tracks stuff you don’t buy, not unless you are caught in a time warp.
Time was when middleclass families across India cooked with Dalda or Rath brands of vanaspati oil. When toasts were raised with Double Horse whisky or Old Port Dix Rum. When scooters outsold motorcycles and teenaged girls ritualistically used Keo Karpin hair oil before stepping out. Consumer preferences have changed but the WPI remains stuck in the early 1990s.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/4950509.cms
31/08/2009
UPA 100 days' scorecard: Hits, misses & the action points
The Manmohan Singh government completed 100 days in office on Aug 30.Here is a bird’s eye view of how the UPA2 government functioned in office:
Hits: 10 good deeds
1. Setting up delivery monitoring unit within the Prime Minister's office to ensure effective delivery of government's flagship programmes. This was set up within 45 days in office and is functioning effectively.
2. Setting up the Unique Identification Authority headed by Nandan Nilekani. A good and ambitious move.
3. A new draft direct tax code to recast the Income Tax Act. Revolutionary in concept and will make IT payments easier and less burdensome. Credit goes to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
4. Security environment has improved. Setting up four NSG hubs in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai which have become operational. Credit should go to Home Minister P Chidambaram.
5. Overhauling of the education system and the Right to Education Act. Good work has begun, but problems lie ahead. Credit goes to HRD minister Kapil Sibal.
6. Overhauling medical education by bringing in a single regulator called the National Council of Human Resources and Health. A good and bold move. Credit should go to Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad.
7. Rajiv Awas Yojana for rural poor under JNNURM that will provide affordable housing through partnership for the rural poor. Credit goes to Ministry of Urban Housing and Poverty Alleviation headed by Kumari Selja.
8. Gender equality at grassroot level by introducing 50 percent reservation in panchayats. Credit goes to Rural Development Ministry headed by C P Joshi.
9. Special trains for women, non stop trains, reduction in tatkal ticket rates. Credit goes to Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee.
10. Sops in new foreign trade policy including tax refunds for exporters, lower transaction costs, better export infrastructure. Credit: Commerce and Industry Ministry Anand Sharma.
http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3198736
Left confused, Right ragged back to the Centre?
Rajeev Deshpande & Shobhan Saxena, TNN 30 August 2009, 01:47am IST
Was it about ideology or a case of old-fashioned ego clashes and power games clothed in high-sounding rhetoric? The question is not easy to answer as the BJP moves from crisis to crisis and the half-jocular question every morning is: Which party leader will do a rebel act today?
Its hierarchy blurred by unceasing infighting, the BJP has seemed in terminal decline for some time.
The problems are manifold:
Simmering conflict between BJP chief Rajnath Singh and party senior L K Advani sapped the party in the run-up to the 2009 elections, perhaps more than was realized. When Rajnath Singh looked to consolidate his hold over the organization, his rivals ran him down as a mofussil man, out of his depth and class. The BJP’s gennext never accepted Singh’s authority.
Successes in several state elections masked the depth of the party’s decline. The success kept alive the thought that Congress might be pulled under by allies and that its weakness in major states such as UP and Bihar would force it to cede power to its national rival. It was not to be.
Party leaders who felt they had been passed over in the generational drama hit back. The now-expelled Jaswant Singh set the ball rolling with his demand that “inam (reward)” be linked to “parinam (results)”, a clear enough indication that he did not think Arun Jaitley, the man seen to be the party’s chief election strategist, ought to have been made leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha. Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie joined issue.
Shourie’s criticism is correct — the party has ducked an honest post-mortem. The farcical chintan baithak in Shimla focused on expelling Jaswant Singh rather than that post-election non-report by the Bal Apte committee.
But despite the claims made by both sides, ideology — Hindutva or the more nebulous “integral humanism” and “cultural nationalism” — is not the issue. Neither is it about whether or not the BJP has “strayed” from its ideological moorings. It’s not about a “right-wing” party bitterly quarreling over dogma. The irony is obvious. Neither the dissidents nor those in the saddle disagree that BJP must be a conventional right-of-centre party, which speaks of middle India and avoids harsh rhetoric and confrontationist politics. Shourie, Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar would not differ much on this.
Right now, the BJP’s situation does not look too different from when Arjun Singh and N D Tiwari “revolted” against P V Narasimha Rao with 10 Janpath’s backing. They spoke of the “wrong” policies of reform initiated by Manmohan Singh and of Rao’s colossal failure over Ayodhya, but it was clear to most people that Arjun Singh wanted to be PM. In the BJP, the issue is about who gets the lion’s share of the spoils once Advani walks into the sunset.
The RSS has finally stepped in. Its leaders met Rajnath Singh and conveyed the firm message that factional fighting must end and a smooth transition to the next presidency effected. They also spoke to Advani, having already made clear that the time may be ripe to hand over the baton. They also received a delegation of four of the party’s leading Gen Next leaders — Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar and Jaitley — who made clear their views on Singh.
The jury is still out the outcome. Will that be enough for the BJP to return to form as a sleek and disciplined, election-winning machine?
The Saffron Brotherhood
Year of birth | 1980
Earlier avatar | The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, founded in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee
Ideology | Right-wing Hindu nationalist; socially conservative; belief in a free-market economy
Key players | L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley
Turning points
1990 | Advani’s rath yatra for a Ram temple at Ayodhya turns the BJP into a national force
1992 | The Babri Masjid is torn down, prompting nation-wide rioting between Hindus and Muslims
1998 | The BJP forms a coalition government under Vajpayee. India conducts nuclear tests
2002 | Between 1,000 and 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, die in riots in Gujarat
May 2004 | BJP-led alliance loses general elections
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/Sunday-TOI/Special-Report/Left-confused-Right-ragged-back-to-the-Centre/articleshow/4949842.cms
This was the Naxalite revolt, and it burst out first in West Bengal, ... In the context of economic crisis, drought, and food shortage in 1965-66, the Agrarian Crisis continues till this date. In Bengal, the Agrarian Crisis is branded as Insurgency subject to Immediate Repression, Military Option and zero tolerance! Just because the Ruling Marxist gestapo Hegemony is UPROOTED from its Agrarian Mass Base and running on the Super Highway Colonised Capitalist MADONALDISATION. While the Ruling Left front COMMEMORATES the Golden Jubilee of FOOD Movement, the Launching Pad for State Power, US Brands wait in the wings to CAPTURE Food retail in West Bengal! The Opposition led by CONG TMC combination also,IRONICALLY enough celebrates the COMMEMORATIONS in Midnapur in Turmoil. It was the CONG Government led by Dr BIDHAN Chandra Roy, directly appointed by Lady Mountbatten,which OPENED fire on the STRVING Masses in Kolkata and it was the first GENOCIDE in Independent India.
Meanwhile, India's government said on Monday 278 districts in 11 states have been affected by drought as monsoon rains were 24 percent deficient between June 1 and August 27.
The world foodgrains production is expected to be lower by 2.5 per cent to 1,748 million tonnes in 2009-10 even as the International
Grains Council (IGC) slightly improves its forecast for the current month.
In 2008-09, the global foodgrains production stood at 1,792 million tonnes (MT).
"An unexpected good yield in the EU and improved prospects for US maize and spring wheat, resulted in a further 15 MT increase in the world grain production forecast to 1,748 MT, only 2.5 per cent short of the 2008 record," IGC said.
Till last month, UK-based IGC had pegged the global foodgrains production at 1,733 million tonnes (MT). However, it revised it slightly upward by 15 MT in its August report after gauging the improved crop prospects in the US and Europe.
According to IGC report, the global wheat output is pegged at 662 MT, an increase of 8 MT from last month, as yields exceeded expectations in the US, Europe, Ukraine and China.
Similarly, the world maize output is forecast to be 787 MT in 2009-10, an increase of 7 MT from July forecast, but short of 2MT from 2008-09 season, it said.
Meanwhile, global consumption is forecast to rise by five million tonnes from last month to a record 1,741 MT, mainly because of increasing use of maize to produce ethanol in the US, the report said.
India July consumer price index up 11.89 pct y/y
India's consumer price index rose 11.89 percent in July from a year earlier, rising sharply from June's annual rise of 9.29 percent as
prices of food items increased, government data showed on Monday.
The consumer price index for industrial workers increased by 7 points to 160 in July from a month ago.
Last week, the wholesale price index fell 0.95 percent in the 12 months to Aug. 15, compared with the previous week's annual decline of 1.53 percent.
The wholesale price index is more closely watched in India because it covers a higher number of products and is released weekly.
But, we must realise that there is nothing like SHAME Factor in Politics! Everything is RIGHT in Politics besides Love and war while it hits the Right Equation to sustain the Manusmriti Rule manipulating People`s mandate! And it is referred as DEMOCRACY which is NEVER better than AUTOCRACY! We have not to prove it as the GOVERNANCE in India is vested in Extraconstitutional Immoral Imposters AntI nation working for United states of America, Zionist Illuminati and India Incs!
Thus, FOOD Politics and flagship progrrames become jsut a TOOL for Monopolistic Corporate Aggression! Economic reforms means Mass Destruction! Public Sector and everything tagged Government have to be Divested or Disinvested! False recessionis over Hyped to FEED the Money Machine! Inflated Economy and Fiscal Deficit continue with crisis in Balance of Payment with Rocketin Defence Expanditure and needless Moon Mission, AUTO and Realty boost and artificial Fuel Crisis! Foreign borrowin Unregualted! FDI Open! Tax Code is glorifed as public Welfare! Big Names involved in land game! LPG Mafia rapes the GOOD Earth! Public utilities Privatised! War Gods invoked to justify defence deals and Swiss Bank Accounts! parliamentary All party Floor Understanding coined to pass all Anti People legisalation without keeping Minutes of debate! Unique Identity Number Project is associated with Mass Exodus and Displacement to boost Realty and MNCs! promoter raj!
No SHAME Factor is RELEVANT for the Ruling manusmriti Hegemony as it is HABITUAL to practice Untouchability and apartheid! It justifies Enslavement of the majority Masses! It glorifies the Mass Destruction! Media and Intelligentsia cover up everything! Literature, Art Forms and genres, languages and nationalities have to be used as PROSTITUTION without any SHAME!
Agrarian Crisis is not addressed. CPIM boasts to lead a Kisan sabha with more than One Corore mamebership. But is is detached from the RURAL Scenerio and has nothing to do with land reforms, food security and harvesting! Stravation and JOBLOSS are ISSUES no more! The left monopolises the Trade Unions but there is no Trade UNION movement and organised sector is the Victim now amidst the breaking news about Peasant Suicides!
Hilsa is being sold at a rate of Rs SIXTEEN Hundred to Rs Twelve Hundred in kolakta. Food, Grocery and vegetable rates ROCKETED. But Ruling as well as Resistance hegemony are ENGAGED in hypocrite FOOD Politics without any concern or commitment! Who is ASHAMED of , tell me!
A month after Railway Minister Mamata Banerjees' show of strength at the Martyr Days rally, Left Front on Monday (August 31) is holding a massive rally as it commemorates the golden jubilee of the food movement. Coincidentally, Left romps home in the heart of EUROPE in Germany and the election defeat of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after 54 years of nearly unbroken rule and the landslide victory of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has met a cautious welcome in newspapers around in the world.white House is PUZZLED enough to update its foreign realtions with Japan and europe. Contrarily, while the rest of the World feels the Come back of the marxist Ideology, the PROGRESIVE Bengali Intelligentsia as well as Civil Society turns SAFFRON AMERICANISED!
Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and other Left front leaders including Biman Bose are expected to address the rally.
Life has come to a screeching halt for commuters as more than 5 lakh people are expected to congregate at the rally.
Stung by the recent electoral debacle, this rally is being touted as an effort to lift the drooping morale of the Left Front cadres and supporters.
Mamata Banerjee celebrated her Lok Sabha victory in Kolkata on July 21. A long awaited celebration, since the Trinamool-Congress alliance routed the CPM in Bengal, is expected to showcase her vision towards the 2011 Assembly polls in the state.
July 21, was also commemorated by the Trinamool Congress as the Martyr’s Day since 1996, to pay tribute to the 13 Youth Congress workers who were killed in police firing on this day in 1993. Banerjee was then a leader of the Youth Congress.
Accusing West Bengal’s principal opposition Trinamool Congress of double standards, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Monday said the party was blaming his government for price rise but keeping mum in Delhi where it was part of the coalition government.
“This opposition party says the state’s Left Front government should answer why prices of food items have gone up. But what about Delhi? Is there only fragrance of flowers there? Why is this party silent?” asked Bhattacharjee at a rally organised by the Left Front here.
The Trinamool is the second largest constituent of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre.
Bhattacharjee, also a politburo member of Left Front major Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M), claimed that prices of essential commodities in West Bengal were less than that in Delhi.
Ridiculing the UPA government, he said: “It calls itself ‘aam admi’s’ (common man’s)government. But 30 crore people in the country are hungry. Why is there a food scarcity? Why is the production of rice and pulses going down? Why are prices escalating? What is the central government doing?”
Tracing the cause of the price rise to forward trading and hoarding of rice and pulses, Bhattacharjee said despite repeated demands from Left parties, the centre had not done anything to arrest it.
“And as a result, prices have soared northwards. If the whole country is on fire, can West Bengal stay unaffected?” he asked.
The chief minister said the Left Front government was trying to provide rice, pulses, potato, edible oil and sugar to the people at reasonable rates.
Meanwhile,
With the internal squabbles in the BJP continuing, the CPI(M) on Monday (August 31) said the rejection of its Hindutva plank in the recent elections was the prime cause for the crisis. Noting that the saffron party had won in 1998 and 1999 by "broad-basing its appeal and getting on board parties who do not share its sectarian ideology", top CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat said the BJP had no identity without Hindutva as its economic and foreign policies were no different from that of the Congress.
In an article in the latest issue of party organ 'People's Democracy', he said the BJP was a party "shepherded by the RSS. It has always settled such leadership questions with the help of the RSS whose writ runs on such key matters."
Observing that the BJP was at the crossroads as it cannot break from RSS and "become an ordinary rightwing party as Jaswant Singh wants it to be", Karat said "it will find it easier to fall back into the comforting grip of the RSS as Arun Shourie wants it to.
"But it will have to pay the price in the long run of remaining an avowedly communal and sectarian party. Given the DNA of BJP, it will inevitably adopt the latter course."
Maintaining that the crisis in BJP had come after its "comprehensive defeat" at the hustings, he said out of 28 states, its vote percentage had declined in 26 compared to the 2004 elections. Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh were the only states where the percentage increased.
In Karnataka, Karat said the victory was accomplished after more than two decades of continuous work by RSS and its outfits "in fomenting communal tensions, riots and creating
communal polarisation.
"Without this groundwork, the BJP could not have succeeded in emerging as such a big force, its first success in a south Indian state. No amount of intellectual sophistry by the Hindutva ideologues and fellow travellers can mask this reality."
The CPI(M) leader said that notwithstanding L K Advani's "efforts to broaden the NDA and strike a posture" to appeal to wider sections of the people, the Leader of Opposition had to "time and again" fall back on the "explicit communal agenda".
These, Karat said, were reflected in his initial reactions to the Malegaon blasts case where Advani wanted the alleged culprits, even if they belonged to Sangh Parivar outfits, to be brought to book. "The same vacillation was seen regarding the virulent speeches of Varun Gandhi."
He said the stepping down of Advani from the post of President and expulsion or desertion of leaders like Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh was witnessed after the 2004 elections.
While the current tussle in the saffron party was bound to result in a temporary setback, "a remoulded BJP made to order on RSS prescriptions does not augur well for the country", Karat said, asking people to combat communalism.
The brewing public anger against rampant corruption in the public distribution system has erupted into widespread violence in several districts of West Bengal. Angry villagers are up in arms against dishonest ration dealers who have not supplied them with sugar, wheat and other food grains from the ration shops. These unscrupulous dealers have allegedly been selling all these things in the black market. In the past few weeks, in Bankura, Burdwan and Birbhum districts, rampaging mobs have attacked and set ablaze houses of ration dealers and looted food grains from their godowns. A couple of protesters have even been killed in police firing. The situation has become so volatile that ration dealers are closing down their shops and surrendering their licences to the authorities. The police and the administration seem completely incapable of checking this fast-spreading unrest which is causing serious concern to chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who is still reeling from the relentless attack against his industrialisation drive. To add to his woe, Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has quickly tried to exploit the growing public discontent and reap political benefits. She kicked off a new khadya andolan or food movement, in Bankura and exhorted the people to rise in revolt against the government which was even unable to provide them with subsidised food grains for their two square meals. Ms Banerjee has already made life miserable for the Left Front government over Nandigram and Singur — both of which are related to sensitive land issues. Food has the potential of becoming an even more powerful political weapon in the hands of the Opposition. Who should know this better than the communists whose political fortunes rose considerably after they launched a successful khadya andolan in the early Sixties? Instead of knee-jerk responses, the state government should take effective measure to address the genuine grievances that people have. It must punish corrupt ration dealers by cancelling their licences and appoint new dealers. It must immediately ensure a smooth supply of essential commodities to the villagers. What it must avoid is use of force to suppress public protests. History shows that the brutalisation of the hungry masses has always boomeranged on the rulers. A few more casualties at the hands of a trigger-happy police, which does not know how to manage crowds, will prove costly for the Left Front which must not forget that the next crucial panchayat elections are only seven months away.
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee launched a 'second food movement' in West Bengal to weed out corruption from the public distribution system, the first being started by the Marxists in 1959.In a reference to the agitation against ration dealers in Bankura, Birbhum and Burdwan districts that turned violent, Banerjee said at a rally here that her party would stand by the people.
Demanding action against CPI (M) leaders and food inspectors allegedly involved in the ration scandal, she announced that the party men would demonstrate before all SDO's offices in the state on October eight and a procession would be taken out in Kolkata on October 11.
She appealed to Left Front partners to join the agitation by opposition parties against corruption in the public distribution system.
Mamta also sought CBI inquiry into the death of Muslim computer graphics artist, Rizwanur Rehman, who was allegedly threatened by senior Kolkata police officers to part with his Hindu wife, Priyanka, after their marriage on August 18 and whose body was found on railway tracks on September 21 near Dum Dum.
The Indigo revolt (Bangla :নীল বিদ্রোহ Neel bidrōhō) was a peasant movement and subsequent uprising of indigo farmers against the indigo planters that arose in Bengal in 1859. The back stage of the revolt goes back half a century[1] when the indigo plantation act was established. After the courageous fight by the Sepoy for independence in 1857 it was it was in February-March 1859 when the farmers refused to sow a single seedling of indigo plant. The strength of the farmers' resolutions were dramatically stronger than anticipated from a community victimized by brutal treatment for about half a century. Most importantly it was a revolt of both the major religious groups of farmers in Bengal, notably a farmer Haji Molla of Nischindipur said that he would "rather beg than sow indigo" [2]. The farmers were in no possession of any types of arms, it was totally a nonviolent resistance [3].
The revolt started from Nadia where Bishnucharan Biswas and Digambar Biswas first took up arms against the planters. It spread like wildfire in Murshidabad, Birbhum, Burdwan, Pabna, Khulna, Narail, etc. Indigo planters were put into public trial and executed. The indigo depots were burned down. Many planters fled to avoid being caught. The zamindars were also targets of the revolting peasants.
However the revolt was brought down by iron hand. Large forces of police and military backed by the British Government and the zamindars mercilessly slaughtered a number of peasants. In spite of this the revolt was fairly popular, involving almost the whole of Bengal. The Biswas brothers of Nadia, Kader Molla of Pabna, Rafique Mondal of Malda were popular leaders. Even some of the zamindars supported the revolt, the most important of whom was Ramratan Mullick of Narail.
Indigo planting in Bengal dated back to 1777. Louis Bonard was probably the first indigo planter. With expansion of British empire in India, indigo planting became more and more popular. It was introduced in large parts of Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Murshidabad, etc. The indigo planters left no stones unturned to make money. They mercilessly pursued the peasants to plant indigo instead of food crops. They provided loans, called dadon at a very high interest. Once a farmer took such loans he remained under debts for whole of his life before passing it to his successors. The price paid by the planters was meagre,only 2.5% of the market price. So the farmers could make no profit by growing indigo. The farmers were totally unprotected from the brutal indigo planters, who resorted to mortgage or destroy their properties if they were unwilling to obey them. Government rules favoured the planters. By an act in 1833, the planters were granted a free hand in oppression. Even the zamindars, money lenders and other influential persons sided with the planters. Out of the severe oppression unleashed on them the farmers resorted to revolt.
The Bengali middle class supported the peasants whole-heartedly. Harish Chandra Mukhopadhyay thoroughly described the plight of the poor peasants in his newspaper "The Hindu Patriot". However every such contribution was overshadowed by Dinabandhu Mitra, who gave a perfect account of the situation in his play "Nildarpan".
Tax sops in FTP to cost exchequer extra Rs 2,200 cr
31 Aug 2009, 1324 hrs IST, PTI
NEW DELHI: Tax concessions to exporters announced in the new Foreign Trade Policy will cost the exchequer an extra Rs 2,200 crore.
"Our analysis (of FTP's implications on indirect taxes
) is Rs 2,200 crore for (this fiscal)," Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairman V Sridhar told reporters on the sidelines of a CII function.
The new Foreign Trade Policy announced a slew of tax concessions to boost exports, which have been on the downslide since October 2008.
Among other measures, the five-year FTP continues with the 2 per cent interest subsidy for exporters on pre-shipment credit and income tax exemption to 100 per cent Export Oriented Units (EOUs) till the end of next fiscal.
Further, the government also extended the duty refund scheme till December 2010, and increased assistance for development of markets.
The country's exports grew by a meagre 3.4 per cent in 2008-09 to about $168 billion.
Policing of tax-haven money flows set to get new byte
31 Aug 2009, 0830 hrs IST, Deepshikha Sikarwar, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: Turning the heat on tax havens used to route investments into the country, India is now examining a proposal that seeks to create a
specialised information tracking system on the lines of Austrac—Australia’s anti-money laundering agency.
The information system will collect data on the use of tax havens and abuse of Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs) by overseas investors entering India. It will also keep tabs on Indian investments abroad to ensure tax havens are not being used to bring that money back into the country. This mechanism, called round-tripping , is alleged to be used by some Indian entities to avoid tax on income from their investments in the country.
The Australian Transaction Reports & Analysis Centre (Austrac) is an anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulator and specialist financial intelligence unit. India already has a financial intelligence unit in place that keeps track of certain transactions, such as bank transactions of value exceeding Rs 10 lakh. But the income-tax department wants a dedicated agency to monitor the flow of investments from tax havens.
The proposal figured during discussions at the recent meeting of directors general and chief commissioners of income-tax , a tax department official said. The proposal has been mooted by an internal committee of the Central Board of Direct Taxes that was set up to examine investigation issues in abuse of tax havens and tax treaties.
Creation of such a unit becomes important in the backdrop of India looking to amend its tax treaties to expand their scope to include extensive information exchange or enter into specialised Tax Information and Exchange Agreements with tax haven countries. This special unit would be able to track the flow of investments from tax havens into India and also from treaty countries such as Mauritius, which enjoy special tax benefits. The idea is to closely monitor all cross-border transactions to ensure all taxes legally due to India are paid and action is taken in time, if tax is evaded.
The CBDT has set up a task force to look into information exchange with treaty countries. While India has already begun negotiations with Switzerland to amend its tax treaty, it also plans to amend other DTAAs for information exchange.
People offload equity investments as stockmarkets dip, says RBI stats
31 Aug 2009, 2026 hrs IST, Atmadip Ray, ET Bureau
KOLKATA: When stockmarkets go through a rough patch, people typically offload their equity investments and put the money in banks instead. The
latest RBI stats on financial savings of the household sector clearly comfims the trend. In fact, some people even chose themselves liquid amid the steady rise in food prices and the economic downturn.
The household sector had parked 58.5% of their collective savings with banks and non banking finance companies (NBFC) in 2008-09. This was a solid 6.3% percentage points rise from 2007-08 s share of deposits to total saving, according to RBI s latest data. As on March 31, 2009, banks collectively had an outstanding deposits of Rs 4.1 lakh crore, reflecting a 13.6% year-on-year rise. During 2008-09, people wound up their equity investment significantly to Rs 19,349 crore from Rs 89,134 crore in 2007-08.
On percentage terms, stock market exposure of retail players was merely 2.6% of the total savings pie in 2008-09. It was 12.4% in the preceding fiscal. The banking regulator has come out with the statistics in its recently published annual report. It was apparent that a significant portion of the withdraw exposure found its way to banks. The retail equity investment shrunk by nearly Rs 70,000 crore while banks have seen a rise in their collective retail deposits kitty of about Rs 49,000 crore. Country s top bankers would vouch for the so-called flight of savings from equity market to banks. They have always maintained that their deposit mobilisation during 2008-09 had been high.
And, people mostly put their funds with banks long term deposits, which typically carry higher interest rates than short term deposits or savings deposits. So much so, that banks cost of funds were on the higher side during the period under review. Even NBFCs managed to grow their public deposits by almost Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 13,453 crore. Insurance companies have grown their retail portfolio to Rs 1.5 lakh crore (Rs 1.29 lakh crore).
Total financial savings have expanded too on a gross basis to Rs 7.47 lakh crore (Rs 7.16 crore). Cash in hand increased to Rs 93,000 crore in 2008-09 from Rs 81,300 crore. This was 12.5% of the financial assets. grew from 11.4% as it was a year back
Left parties want Ahamed to quit
31 Aug 2009, 0207 hrs IST, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: The demand of Left parties for resignation of minister of state for railways, Mr E Ahamed, gained momentum after the government ordered
a judicial inquiry into allegations of irregularities in the Haj quota allocations when he was minister in the external affairs ministry of the previous UPA regime.
After CPM, it was CPI which insisted that Mr Ahamed must step down as an inquiry has been ordered into his role in the Haj quota issue. CPI’s Kerala state executive which met in Kochi on Sunday said all details on the Haj quota “irregularities” should be probed.
CPM leaders in the state and in Delhi had already demanded that Mr Ahamed resign in the light of the expose by a television channel alleging favouritism by Mr Ahamed when he was a minister of state in the external affairs ministry.
It quoted MEA documents presented to Parliament in March, 2008, showing that the ministry’s Haj section had issued approximately one-fourth of all quotas to tour operators in Kerala, and in particular one tour operator, Alhind Tours and Travels. The average quota allotted to travel agencies was 150 passengers, but Al-Hind Tours bagged the quota for ferrying 1,700 passengers. Also the number of Haj travellers from Kerala rose after Mr Ahamed became minister of state for external affairs.
CPM’s youth wing, DYFI, alleged that the minister had misused his position and connections to influence the Saudi royal family into providing favours to the Al Hind Tours, a private agency based in Kozhikode.
Congress was not averse to an inquiry saying it will clear misgivings in the minds of pilgrims. Mr Ahamed has denied the allegations saying the quota was increased during his tenure and that the issue was being raised to settle political scores.
The Muslim League, which has also refuted the allegations, is unhappy with the decision of the ministry of external affairs to order a judicial probe. external affairs minister S M Krishna has even said that lessons from the past years would be taken into account while allotting quota to private Haj operators.
Saudi Arabia had reportedly sanctioned a quota of 1,57,000 seats for Haj pilgrims from India last year. Only 1,04,000 were allotted for Haj committees in various states and 6,000 went to the external affairs ministry.
The rest 47,000 were given to private travel groups
. While the state Haj committees select pilgrims through ballots, private agencies are reported to sell the seats for higher payments.
Food for thought
A STAFF REPORTER
As the Left Front commemorates the golden jubilee of the food movement by paralysing the city on Monday, the Calcuttan will be lamenting the upward movement of food prices as much as the curbs on his freedom of movement.
“An event to commemorate the food movement does not help me in any way. I would be happy if they could do something about food prices instead,” complained Paikpara homemaker Anasua Datta.
Anasua has started rationing every food item to make ends meet. “I used to buy 2.5kg of sugar a month; now I buy 500gm less,” she said.
Traders attributed the price rise to the Aila effect on agriculture in parts of Bengal and lower production across the country because of a rain-deficient monsoon.
According to a wholesaler, Monday’s rally to commemorate the 1959 uprising that was also triggered by rising prices — 80 protesters died in police firing during a march in the city on August 31 that year — could aggravate the current crisis. “So many trucks will be on rally duty that the supply chain is sure to be affected. Even a day’s break in the food-supply chain can affect price movement,” he said.
Several items have become dearer by up to Rs 10 since Ramazan began. The price of sugar has gone up from Rs 30 to Rs 33 per kg, masur dal from Rs 60 to Rs 70 a kg, eggs from Rs 3 to Rs 3.50 per piece, milk from Rs 20 to Rs 22 per litre and apples from Rs 60-70 to Rs 90-120 per kg.
“My four-member family spends Rs 150 on food to break our fast every evening. Our expenses were much less last Ramazan,” said Zeenat Salauddin of Park Circus.
Finance minister Asim Dasgupta said after a meeting with food minister Paresh Adhikari on Sunday that sugar would be sold at Rs 27.50 a kg, mustard oil at Rs 58 a litre, and pulses at subsidised rates through the public distribution system from the first week of September.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090831/jsp/calcutta/story_11429464.jsp
US reaches out as Japan shifts left
By Shaun Tandon (AFP) – 6 hours ago
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's administration is calling for a "strong alliance" with Japan's incoming center-left government, which has vowed a more independent path for the long steadfast US ally.
The Democratic Party of Japan scored a landslide victory on Sunday, riding a wave of voter discontent with the conservative Liberal Democratic Party which ruled the economic giant virtually interrupted for more than half a century.
While the campaign focused on the bumbling economy, the Liberal Democrats were the architects of one of Japan's post-World War II credos -- leave security, and often foreign policy in general, in US hands.
Hours after the polls closed, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Obama "looks forward to working closely with the new Japanese prime minister" -- most likely Yukio Hatoyama, a professorial Stanford-educated engineer.
"We are confident that the strong US-Japan alliance and the close partnership between our two countries will continue to flourish under the leadership of the next government in Tokyo," Gibbs said in a statement.
The State Department said it hoped for early talks with the new Japanese government on a range of issues including ending North Korea's nuclear drive and -- a common concern for both Obama and Hatoyama -- fighting global warming.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believes "the US-Japan alliance is strong and remains a cornerstone of peace and security in East Asia," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.
But Hatoyama, while saying that the US alliance would remain "the cornerstone" for Japan, has pledged to resist the US economic model and to devote more attention to Asia, where many remain bitter toward Tokyo over war memories.
In an essay on The New York Times website, Hatoyama said that "as a result of the failure of the Iraq war and the financial crisis, the era of US-led globalism is coming to an end and that we are moving toward an era of multi-polarity."
Hatoyama's Democrats have sought a review of the 47,000-strong US troop presence in Japan -- including a painstakingly negotiated but controversial deal on shifting some 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to the US territory of Guam.
Yet the Democrats -- borne of a 1998 mixed-marriage between disgruntled former Liberal Democrats and socialists -- have deep divisions. Some members, notably former party chief Seiji Maehara, are strong advocates of a more assertive Japanese defense role overseas.
"It is still very schizophrenic as a whole on the direction of Japan's foreign policy," said Weston Konishi, a Japan expert at the Mansfield Foundation think-tank.
The party will face crunch-time in January when it has to decide whether to extend a naval mission in the Indian Ocean that provides fuel to US-led forces in Afghanistan -- a country that is among Obama's top priorities.
The Democrats fought to bring the ships home while in opposition, saying Japan should not take part in "American wars."
In the meantime, Hatoyama is likely to head to the United States in September for the Group of 20 summit of major economies in Pittsburgh and the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.
When he meets Obama, "if he comes out articulating the kinds of things that he wrote, if he's quite critical of US global leadership, that could get the relationship off on the wrong foot," Konishi said.
"But if he tries to reassure President Obama on the strength of the US-Japan alliance and if he looks to ways to coooperate with the United States, that would obviously be well-received," he said.
Hatoyama spoke favorably about Obama on the campaign trail, often trying to link his party's struggle against the Liberal Democrats to Obama's own "change" message in his historic victory last year.
Obama, in turn, has been sensitive to Japan's fears of being ignored in the face of a rising China. He invited Taro Aso, the defeated prime minister, as his first foreign guest at the White House.
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090830_election_revolution_swings_japan_to_the_left/
From The Times
August 31, 2009
Merkel victory in doubt after left-wing surge in regional elections
Germany’s lacklustre national election campaign was thrown open last night when left-wing parties made a surprise surge in two key regional states.
Early results from elections in Thuringia and Saarland showed that Chancellor Angela Merkel will face a much stronger opposition than expected in the general election. Political pundits had assumed that Ms Merkel would be a shoo-in on September 27 and that she was poised to rule Germany with a coalition of Christian Democrats and the small, pro-business Free Democrats.
But her Christian Democrat Party was hit hard by voters in what seemed to be a general protest against the conservative party identified with a tarnished financial and banking elite. Suddenly, the terms of this national election campaign have changed.
Ms Merkel remains the most popular politician in the country but it is now unclear with what coalition she intends to rule and how she will realise her dream of introducing a “progressive conservatism” to Germany.
Fifty Years Ago: Food Movement of 1959
In post-independence and post-partition Congress-ruled West Bengal, the echoes of famine continued to be heard in the 1950s. The collusion between rice mill-owners, jotdars and food hoarders created an artificial food crisis. These proprietor segments, who controlled rice distribution, also exercised a strangle-hold over the villages and formed the rural backbone of the Bengal Congress. So the government refused to take any measure which went against their interests. As hunger assumed famine like proportions, the people organised themselves into a ‘Committee to Combat Famine’ under the leadership of the undivided Communist Party of India. Other left parties also endorsed this initiative. From the second half of the 1950s, between 1956 and 1958, food movements became an annual occurrence. The Food Movement of 1959 however was a turning-point in the history of class struggle in West Bengal. Food insecurity by this time had reached frightening proportions in rural and urban areas and distress was acute among the marginal and landless peasantry, the workers and lower middle-classes.
On 31 August, a huge mass demonstration was organised in Kolkata where hundreds and thousands arrived from the villages under the leadership of the Kisan Sabha. Though primarily a mass protest by peasants, rural women with babies walked alongside high school students; office workers merged with the columns of manual workers. The whole of Kolkata’s colonial city centre turned into a sea of 300,000 people demanding an end to destitution and hunger. The centre of the rally was the Shahid Minar, the foot of the monument and the adjoining open space of the ‘Maidan’ having historically served as the convergence point of anti-colonial and anti-establishment protests. That afternoon rain repeatedly lashed at the demonstrators. But their determination to force the Congress government to provide immediate relief or quit remained resolute. At the end of the meeting, a procession began and started making its way towards Writers’ Building. By then evening had descended. First, the demonstrators were cordoned off by the police. Then unexpectedly, without any warning, violent ‘action’ began. Contemporary observers have noted the way the police attacked directionless, panic-stricken people blinded by teargas.
80 people died in the carnage that day; they were mostly starving peasants who had survived the devastating and man-made Bengal Famine of 1943 and were no longer willing to die of hunger without a protest. Not a single bullet was fired. The police used sticks to beat people to death. 1000 people went missing and 3000 were injured. Ordinary bystanders, petty shopkeepers, cinema-hall ushers and sex-workers offered solidarity and assistance to those fleeing the police from the main thoroughfares in a bloodied state and spilling into the side streets and narrow alleys of north Kolkata. The police arrested thousands. According to one eye-witness who is now 74 years old: ‘In the semi-darkness, I saw mothers, sisters, brothers lying motionless in the streets.’ The police later cremated many of the anonymous victims. Bodies could be seen floating in the Ganges. The next day, on 1 September, the police fired on students who were protesting against the atrocities and a wave of repression followed. Entire neighbourhoods of north Kolkata became anti-police bastions of resistance and the government deployed troops in several districts. Jyoti Basu compared the events of 31 August with Jallianwallabagh in the Bengal Legislative Assembly and the combined opposition managed to corner the Congress. In 1966, a second Food Movement was launched by the left parties and its impact could be felt in the victory of the First United Front government of 1967. 1959 demonstrated that despite utmost and merciless ferocity, the Congress and the social forces it represented in West Bengal, were in a process of retreat. This retreat, however, claimed the lives of 80 people on 31 August 1959. At a time of rising hunger in the country, Pragoti remembers and salutes them.
http://www.pragoti.org/node/3575
THE SHAME FACTOR
Ashok Mitra
The country’s Constitution cannot be faulted. The set of directive principles of state policy it starts with is most uplifting. Consider the catch-all entry, Article 41, “The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement and in other cases of undeserved ones.” Close on its heels comes Article 45: “The State shall endeavour to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of the Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen.”
For full six decades, these articles have lain dormant. Along with other assumed obligations on the part of the State, imparting education, including induction of children into primary and secondary schools, has remained an unfulfilled pledge. In both the articles just quoted, there is, of course, an escape clause. Article 41 indicates a rider: the State will perform such and such tasks, “within the limits of its economic capacity”. Article 45 is even more generous: the State should only “endeavour” to send children to school. Whether the State has actually put in the endeavour, or merely gone through the motions, was going to be difficult to determine in all seasons.
The ground reality is daunting though. Close to one-half of the nation continue to be functionally illiterate. Some who are enumerated in the census as literate are barely able to inscribe their signature, but, among them, the proportion of those who lapse into illiteracy is frighteningly high. While the proportion of literate children in the age group of six to fourteen has gone up over the decades, the rate of drop-outs hardly shows any sign of decline. The gender divide is equally daunting; female literacy as well as school attendance among girls lag way behind. It is a sorry picture, and it is so despite grandiose schemes such as mid-day meal schemes and the Total Literacy Campaign.
A directive principle, a few wise ones thought, was not strong enough; to transform the landscape, education must be declared as a fundamental right. The outcome was the 86th amendment to the Constitution and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act. Doubt nonetheless refuses to be a fugitive. Despite the punctilious — even finicky — details in the new legislation, will statutory elevation of education as a fundamental right make much of a difference? If the prerogative of receiving education free of cost is denied to a child, a complaint might be posted on its behalf to the nation’s highest judiciary. The Supreme Court could issue a directive to the authorities concerned, to look into the matter. It is a big country, the source of the complaint might be a remote village thousands of miles away from New Delhi. The authorities could submit the plea that they were doing their best in the matter. If their best were judged as not enough, the Supreme Court might, at most, hold the authorities guilty of contempt of court. That, as such, would not advance the cause of primary education. In addition to the existing National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, a special National Educational Rights Commission too could be set up along with similar commissions for the states. These commissions might work round the clock and receive unending representations. But the impact of their findings is unlikely to be any more impressive than that of the assorted human rights commissions.
No mystery actually lies behind the failure to live up to the promises of the Constitution with regard to literacy and elementary education. Those in charge of shaping the nation’s destiny have not ever considered the issue as one of life and death. Passion can move mountains. If there were enough national passion for the cause, illiteracy could have been wiped out from the country within the space of a few years by launching a massively big push. China could do it within a decade of the establishment of the People’s Republic; the embers of the fervour which drove the revolution were still burning — that did the magic. Or take the instance of a small country in Central America, Nicaragua, which had as high a rate of illiteracy as 92 per cent when the Sandinistas assumed power for the first time in the 1970s. In the course of a bare quinquennium, they brought that rate down to less than 10 per cent.
We did not go through a revolution. Still, we have the commitments in the Constitution reflecting national aspirations during the freedom movement. But, at a certain stage, the passion that ignited those pledges was spent. Whether the poor are taught letters or remain dumb, or whether children from impoverished families attended school, ceased to bother the power brokers. Even where passion was dysfunctional, fear that the deprived millions could turn against them in the polling booths might have propelled ruling politicians to positive action. Notwithstanding their state of ignorance — or conceivably because of it — the poor have, however, continued to exercise their franchise in the manner that the governing oligarchs wanted them to. A little learning, who knows, could in fact be a dangerous thing; if a morsel of literacy imbues the poor with a quantum of social awareness, they might begin to vote errantly; better play safe.
Cynicism, or myopia, or whatever, if only it could be snuffed out, objectives such as 100 per cent literacy and school attendance of all children in the age group of 5-14 should not be beyond the nation’s reach. But it presupposes a return to what is now derisively described as idealism. Conventional modalities per se are unlikely to make much headway. Why not, instead, raise an education army of one million dedicated young graduates who will spread -eagle themselves across the states and Union Territories, and act as a vanguard, under appropriate guidance, of a national literacy-cum-schooling campaign? There were, at the last count, 350 universities and 60,000 colleges in the country, with a total student population exceeding one crore. It should not be difficult to recruit one million earnest ‘literacy scouts’ to take up the challenge. These scouts will be the constituents of a network of state, district, taluk, village and muhalla squads, and reach out to the humblest household in the remotest towns and villages. Each scout may be assigned the responsibility for ten households that have lagged behind or been left out of the literacy race. He will be charged with the mission of ensuring that each child attends school and each adult is literate. The authorities may consider offering the scouts a monthly stipend of say, Rs 15,000. There will be need for further outlays, including some on account of construction of new schools and for essential educational equipment, such as textbooks and other accessories. To reduce drop-outs and persuade economically hard-up parents to agree to send their children to school, monetary compensation may also be called for. Subsidies to raise the nutritional standards of school-going — and even pre-school-going — children should not be ruled out either. All told, the total annual outlay could be of the order of Rs 50,000 crore, supplemental to spending under official auspices pursuant to the recently enacted legislation.
This nation lays aside close to Rs 150,000 crore in the name of defence. A further amount of around Rs 30,000 crore is put aside, it is a fair guess, to ensure internal security, which includes the provision of regalia for a battalion of mostly useless politicians. A system that makes this much of outlay in order to feel safe should not be under any strain to spare another Rs 50,000 crore for universal education. But no: a suggestion of this nature is bound to meet with instant disapproval. For there is no lobby for either universal literacy or primary education. In the absence of pressure groups, the authorities will not deviate from the beaten track. It is an aspect of felt emotions. We are ashamed at the prospect of being given a bloody nose by Pakistan or China. We, however, experience no sense of shame if the majority of our compatriots are horrendously poor or their chil
causes 4,00,000 deaths in India annually. In fact, it is the leading cause of death in the economically productive 15 to 45 age group. However, TB can be easily diagnosed and cured with proper medication.