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Rahul and Sonia Return, much to the joy of Indian “Neutral” Journalists

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul and Sonia Return, much to the joy of Indian “Neutral” Journalists

Rahul Gandhi’s return to India was marked by a Kisan Rally in Haryana, where he was joined by his mother Sonia Gandhi and other heavyweights of Congress. Everybody was propping up Rahul after his 2 month long disappearance, but Rajdeep Sardesai chose to bat for Sonia Gandhi:


Unfortunately for him, facts landed yet another sucker punch as his former TV channel reported that people were deserting the venue as Sonia was speaking:

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Cut to today, when Rahul Gandhi spoke in Lok Sabha. And the usual suspects were roaring in action expressing their emotions:

Zaka Jacob, who had said General V K Singh should be more sensitive to Yemen victims, had this to say about Rahul Gandhi:


Sagarika seems to agree with him. We wonder what new found powers they saw in Rahul Gandhi to help them change their mind so soon:


Bhupendra Chaubey had fallen head over heels for the new and improved Rahul Gandhi:


Is it a coincidence that all the above Journalists belong to the CNN-IBN stable? And all of them somehow did not notice that Rahul Gandhi version 2.0 is prone to the same faux pas as Rahul Gandhi version 1.0

Journalist Saba Naqvi, (of hitjob sources fame) had this to say:


Shekhar Gupta even went on to say “the picture has changed” after Rahul Gandhi’s return:


These are some of the reactions from our very neutral mediapersons. If these are true, it seems Congress will sweep the upcoming Bihar elections. Let us see the results and then come back to this post.

Views on the Indian Economy MSM will not show on Primetime

Ullas
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Views on the Indian Economy MSM will not show on Primetime

That Indian mainstream media has an inherent bias against the Modi government is known. It has given more space to the views that are critical of the Indian economy and the steps taken by the Modi government. Over the past few months, we have been fed news of how Deepak Parekh said “nothing had changed on ground”, how Harsh Mariwala lamented on “the government’s sheen fading”, Adi Godrej’s concerns about “Hindutva elements”, and so on. Business Standard also ran a piece to tell us how things have not started looking up after nearly one year of Modi government. However, to assume this is the overwhelming view, is stretching things too far.

Apart from the reports from IMF and World Bank, here are examples of important people saying how things have been looking up in and for India:

Ajay Banga, CEO Mastercard: I think the Indian economy is actually and relatively in a good shape. If you look around the world, there are very few economies that are growing…and the way the Indian economy is growing. I think the impetus behind this economy is the strong one. What the Prime minister told us is create jobs to increase the quality of life of the people here and he is doing that by focusing on manufacturing, that is Make in India, tourism and infrastructure plan. We got lots of momentum, foreign investors are coming in, domestic mood has also improved.

Rajeev Malik, Senior Economist CLSA: The Modi government has several meaningful successes under its belt—a visible presence of India on the global platform, a dramatic turnaround in investor sentiment, improving financial inclusion, initiating the transformation of the railways, attracting more FDI (foreign direct investment), some early steps in labour market reforms by some states, jump-starting roads projects, increased reliance on direct benefits transfer to better target subsidies, and pushing ahead with the transformational goods and services tax (GST). The latest sitting of Parliament successfully passed several key legislations.

Jim O’Neill, ex Chairman at Goldman Sachs: This has been a fantastic year for the Modi government. However, it will be difficult for the government to continuously surprise the markets.

Emir of Qatar: What this government has been doing in the last few months has been very encouraging. We trust the Indian economy. So we will invest in India.

Jim Walker, ex Chief Economist at CLSA: India should be your No. 1 priority. We are confident that Indian businesses are on the cusp of another round of growth based on improved profitability and profitable opportunities.

Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, Pepsico: PM is absolutely right in saying ‘Make in India’ because ultimately we are trying to build a base in manufacturing and boost employment and that is very good.

Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley: India is in for a long period of higher sustainable growth and lower prices. We are more constructive on inflation outlook and we expect the retail price index to decelerate to 4.75 per cent by this December against the consensus estimate of 5.8 per cent. We also expect growth momentum to pick up, but do not expect a rise in inflationary pressure.

Survey by E&Y and Delphi (in Germany): 94 per cent of the surveyed CEOs and CFOs from leading German high-tech companies stated that India currently offers a better investment climate than other BRIC countries. Out of 13 high-tech Manufacturing sectors analysed, seven (Automotive, civil aviation and airports, transportation infrastructure, water, renewable energy and heavy engineering are among the seven sectors) offer greatest convergence for Indo-German collaboration.

Robert W Holleyman, Deputy US Trade Representative: What we see is there is positive trend across all proposed rules and across concerned ministries and that trend is to increase transparency and predictability.
This illustrates that there are various opinions on the state of Indian economy today. If one is an avid reader of pink newspapers, it is also a majority view that surge in investments will come after further interest rate easing by the RBI. This explains the reason why Arun Jaitley is egging Raghuram Rajan to reduce rates at every opportunity. From its end, the government has tried to leave more money in people’s hands through lower taxes and accepting seventh pay commission recommendations for government employees. However, with unseasonal rains playing spoilsport – India must hope and pray that proper monsoons can give the push for that next step.

How some in Modi Government are making full use of Social Media

OpIndia Staff
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How some in Modi Government are making full use of Social Media

Narendra Modi is an avid Social Media user. He has been tweeting for a long time, sharing selfies on instagram and giving his comments on many issues of public interest. However, as far as using Social Media for the good of the society is concerned, some of his own colleagues have left Modi far behind.

Take the case of Sushma Swaraj. She doesnt get much primtime TV coverage, but that doesnt mean she isnt doing her job. Sample the following tweets, in which Sushma Swaraj used her twitter account to help a woman and her child stuck in Yemen:



It is no mean feat for the External Affairs Minister, to take time out from her work schedule, check her twitter notifications, which could run into thousands (she has 2.5 million followers), and extend the required help to a person desperately needing it. Not only this, she has been addressing concerns of other people stuck in Yemen too:



It is truly a inspiring feat to see such accessibiltiy and help provided by a senior minister. Last week, Smriti Irani too emulated her senior, and asked a blogger on Twitter, to come and meet her with regards to his suggestions on the Right to Education Act. @realitycheckind has been writing blogs critizing the RTE Act for a long time. He often tweeted these issues, and once tagged Smriti Irani in one such tweet:

As you can see, Mrs Irani the HRD Minister responded and set up a meeting with him, taking engagement with citizens or ideas, to a whole new level. 

And possibly the most powerful minister in Modi’s cabinet Arun Jaitley too has taken heed to sentiments on Social Media. Recently the IT department had added some new rules which made filing tax returns very burdensome. We wrote an open letter to Jaitley criticizing the rules, and supported the general sentiment on Social media that these rules amounted to “Tax Terrorism”

Eventually, in the aftermath of the backlash on Social media, Arun Jaitley paid heed to public sentiments and chose to put the new rules on hold. Although it wasn’t as graceful a move as the earlier two instances of other ministers, Jaitley showed an hitherto unknown feature among ministers to accept a mistake and promise a relook, purely based on public sentiment. 

We hope more Politicians use social media to engage with the common man and use this tool to do things in a better manner. 

Saba Naqvi – a career fading away as she desperately clutches on to the straws?

Gaurav
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Saba Naqvi – a career fading away as she desperately clutches on to the straws?

On May 16 last year, after the grand victory the Narendra Modi led BJP in the general elections, the most beaming face in the TV studios was that of Saba Naqvi. Despite her being anti-BJP, she had always been seen as a charming neutral commentator. With her trademark kaajal around her expressive eyes, the columnist-panelist accepted compliments as if it was her due.

Commentators on Twitter waxed eloquent about how this bright young woman, who had fought her way up in the weekly magazine Outlook, now represented the future of journalism. She epitomised objective journalism, it was said. She smiled and accepted many congratulations before the cameras.

But less than a year after that, the legendary Saba Naqvi is going wrong. She has already been dropped from the magazine’s governing board set up by former editor late Vinod Mehta. And the buzz is she is likely to be “cut to size” further. The possible scenario being discussed is she being asked to retire and continue only as occasional contributor.

Saba Naqvi is on the wrong side of 50, but has painfully little to show for her 30 years long career as a journalist. She bravely trots from studio to studio in the hope of landing some primetime debates, but her domestic help know that she has crumbled from within, that beneath the facade she presents to the harsh world, is a weak soul who has been trampled by the cruel realities of the external world.

Her illustrious father Saeed Naqvi would have never imagined that his daughter Saba Naqvi would not even be a pale shadow of him. But it seems he has now resigned to his fate. In private meetings with close friends, Naqvi senior has often admitted, after a bit of coaxing by a scotch on the rocks, that his daughter disappoints him on regular basis. He aspired her “to be a Sagarika, but she remains a poor man’s Rana Ayyub.”

Saba, has somehow managed to hold on to her job as Political Editor at Outlook. At Outlook, she is looked at like a female Rahul Gandhi. As a staffer puts it bluntly “She evokes the same sentiments as Rahul Gandhi evokes amongst us, a dynastic scion stuck in a job in which the person is incompetent, but is grinding it out to save face and to try and carry on the humongous legacy that precedes her.”

In her office, whenever there is something indefensible yet must be defended, to preserve the “Idea of India”, her colleagues look to her. She is the talismanic character in this drama, who can put on the costume of a wolf and with her theatrics and falsehoods, convince you that he is danger of being eaten by the vicious sheep.

“She is our Sanjay Jha,” remarks a senior at Outlook jocularly, “She will take body blows day in and day out, yet be ready to get in the firing line on the very next day.”

And this quality of her, is possibly what reserves a place for her at Arnab’s table in most Newshour debates. Be it AAP sting tapes, or Coal scam, or Modi’s 10 lac suit, Saba Naqvi is an omnipresent diva at the Times Now studios, who is again ready to stand for the logically oppressed side. While this virtue does help, Times Now casting directors admit that there are other reasons too.

As he spills the beans, he reveals that Saba also has a place reserved at Arnab’s “post-parties”, and in all probability because of her alarming frequency at gifting Arnab precious playthings and gizmos.

They say, a fading star would do just about anything to stay in the limelight. In case of Saba Naqvi, she isn’t even a star, she is like a Protostar, which could never really progress to the next level. “A still born child” says a fraternity colleague, who had worked with Saba Naqvi in the past, as she shakes her head in disappointment that a person with such a legacy, could squander it with such aplomb.

A source, says there is in fact an incident, a well kept secret, which find mention only at Lutyens cocktail parties, once everyone has had one too many drinks, which sheds light on Saba’s character. As the tale goes, at a late-nighter, Saba and her journalist friends had a bit too much. Saba was asked how she managed to impress Vinod Gupta and Tarun Tejpal to land a plum job at Outlook. “A wink and a pat on her purse” was Saba’s reaction, is what our source told us, on the condition of anonymity. All we can say is “Why aren’t we surprised!”

***

(P.S.: All of the 8 the sources, incidents, quotes in the above piece spring forth from a fertile imagination, but since we aren’t “journalists” such slanderous pieces do not get featured as cover stories like Saba Naqvi’s pieces do, and that’s why this admission and disclosure. Hell, we do not even know if Saba Naqvi is the daughter of Saeed Naqvi, but we follow the Outlook principle of journalism, which claimed Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s daughter is old enough to work with Smriti Irani, when fact is she turned 10 years just last year. We wish the best to Saba in her professional career.)

Twitter hashtag #SayNoToTaxTerrorism leads to review of new IT return rules

OpIndia Staff
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Twitter hashtag #SayNoToTaxTerrorism leads to review of new IT return rules

As soon as reports came in yesterday that the Finance Ministry had added new rules for filing Income Tax returns, which included seeking unnecessarily intrusive information like expenses incurred on foreign trips, many people on Twitter took to express dissatisfaction over the move.

These users used the hashtag #SayNoToTaxTerrorism to protest against the move that also asked every taxpaying citizen of this country to give details of all their bank accounts.

OpIndia.com too wrote an open letter to the Finance Minister explaining why these moves could adversely impact the sentiments. We suggested some simpler alternatives to the Minister earlier today as these steps were taken apparently to check black money in the country.

Towards the evening came the news that the Finance Minister Mr Arun Jaitley had decided to review the earlier decision. This was perhaps one of the quickest responses to concerns raised by citizens online on any policy issue.

We bring to you some selected tweets with the hashtag #SayNoToTaxTerrorism that got the government to review its earlier decision.

It started with tweets pointing out why it was necessary to keep the Income Tax return filing simple:


Them some suggestions on what would be a better thing to do:


Some tweets expressing annoyance and anger at the decision:


An odd joke around the rules and on the Finance Minister:


A silver lining was also seen by some in the whole process:


And a hope that was fulfilled when reports came in this evening that the government had decided to review:

Humble suggestions to Mr. Jaitley on tackling black money while keeping IT returns simple

Gaurav
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Humble suggestions to Mr. Jaitley on tackling black money while keeping IT returns simple

Dear Mr Arun Jaitley,

Yesterday I wrote an open letter to you, severely criticizing the new changes brought in which make filing tax returns quite an onerous task. I found this sentiment reflected in many people, online and offline. My clients have been messaging me asking if this is true, and most of them feel these measures are too harsh. That was when I tried to wonder why you have done this, and what could have been better ways to achieve this. Hence, today I humbly submit some ideas, which could achieve your purpose, without troubling the taxpayers.

I understand that tapping into black money or untaxed income in India is the major driver behind making people submit all their bank details and foreign travel details. It is a noble idea, but implementation can be changed. First let us talk about the mandatory furnishing of bank details.

As things stand, your new rules mandate everyone, including those smallest taxpayers filing ITR 1 (Sahaj) to declare all bank details (Ironically the ITR was named “Sahaj” for being easy to comply with). The people covered are the salaried middle class who only have some bank interest as additional income, nothing else. Your target is probably those people who open bank accounts and do not declare the income in those accounts. For this, Let me tell you a practical incident. A businessman I know, tried this very stunt, opened a bank account, deposited black money, and hid the account from his business accounts and the Income Tax. Did it work? No he was caught. How? Banks submit what is called an Annual Information Report (AIR) to IT department for various high value transactions. This business man got caught in this.

There lies the solution. Most banks already have PAN details of their customers. They already report certain transactions to the IT Department. You just need to do two things:

a. Make it mandatory for PAN to be submitted for all accounts. To achieve this tell banks to deduct TDS on Interest at 30% for all accounts with no PAN details. Watch how all these hidden account holders rush to give their PAN details.

b. Once above is done, tinker with the AIR details needed to get the information needed. e.g. You could ask banks to furnish a simple report asking total interest paid to a particular PAN. Match this what is declared in the IT returns. You have your unaccounted income guy there. From there you can proceed to check those hidden accounts.

This mechanism isn’t too difficult since, similar systems (AIR) are already in place. Instead of expecting the detailed data from lakhs of tax payers, you can get consolidated data straight from the banks. Also, as of now, you have made this applicable to everyone including the smallest tax payers too. My advice: Go for the big fish. It will not prove cost benefit effective to go after the small taxpayers.

Where we should be making it easier for taxpayers to file returns, we are making it more difficult. I have a raw idea on this front too. Via Budget 2014, you forced employers to deduct proper tax on salaries in order for them to claim the salary expenses. Via Budget 2015, you have told employers to collect all documentary evidence relating to other income, expenses, compile income under all heads, and then deduct TDS. This is essentially outsourcing a major part of the IT department’s job.

Now since employer is being made do all this, and then file Form 16, why not make a provision which deems Form 16 itself as a Tax Return? At least in case of very small tax payers? This idea of course needs deeper deliberation, but it would simplify a lot of work.

Secondly, you have asked Foreign Travel expense details. The assumption here too is Indians like to spend black money on foreign tours. This might be true for some of us, but it is no reason to hang all of us. Firstly, Financial 2014-15 is over. Any trips made are done. Now you are asking for data of this past year. Did people know you would be asking them? Have they kept travel expense records? Probably not. Then wouldn’t it have been better to make it prospective? You have been vocal against retrospective taxation. While this isn’t taxation as such, it does violate the retrospective principle.

Also, wouldn’t it have been easier to just ask for the passport numbers and then verify the foreign travels from the Government of India’s database. From the duration and the location, one should get a fair idea if any person has gone on a trip beyond his declared reach. Instead, asking all expense details puts the burden on the taxpayer to prove his innocence.

Till now details of only tax deductible expenses were asked. Asking personal expense details is a bit too much. It is also a violation of privacy and reeks of communist strangleholds on freedom. Again, this has been extended to most taxpayers. Do you really expect regular salaried employees to have so much black money?

I am afraid, we are missing the forest for the trees here. Undoubtedly, India’s largest home-grown treasure of black money is the Real Estate sector. Yet there are no strong moves to track the black money here. Instead we are asking salaried employees to prove their innocence. This is certainly an example of misplaced priorities. I urge you to adopt the above measures, if you have to ask for these details, and reduce the burden on taxpayers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always talked about creating an atmosphere of trust and removing unnecessary government interference in various walks of life. The latest steps, even though taken with earnest intentions, don’t go well with that objective. Please trust the common man, and keep it simple.

– A Taxpayer and a Chartered Accountant

A daring Open Letter to Narendra Modi from a Journalist

Guest Author
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A daring Open Letter to Narendra Modi from a Journalist

It makes me sad to inform you that I have neither researched or fact-checked this article, so I will make personal shots instead of using facts and figures to make a substantive argument. This is in the hope that I am recognized as a left-leaning, intellectual journalist. But to help disguise that, I’ll try to make a story from pseudo-facts that are totally unrelated or make the title of this article taunting and misleading to help get some visits to this letter.

Ever since Mr. Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in May 2014, our collective minds have stopped thinking and tirelessly working to discredit his government. We did not want a Right Wing party to come to power. All of our efforts over the years in trying to make that school of thought abominable have been in vain. We thought we could segregate the Hindu and Muslim community from ever forming a single votebank, but it did seem like some of them combined to vote in UP and in other parts of India. So, true to our mission, what did we do? We wrote opinions dissecting vote shares and how the entire communal Hindu force voted BJP to power all over India in the hope that the minority community elsewhere would not notice this little aberration. It’s almost like the big bad wolf dressing up as Red Riding Hood’s grandma inside the house. Our commitment to pseudo secularism, no matter how dire the situation is, will remain unequivocal.

But I’ve noticed a little problem with us. We never attack Mr. Modi on his agenda, his policies. Okay, to be fair, we do. But how deep do we ever research and find out about what that particular policy is? All we care about is bringing down the man, not the policy, right? Remember the good old times when we couldn’t use 2002 or “not-so-impressive Gujarat track record”, so we went after Mr. Modi’s marriage? That’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about.

WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO NOW? People are becoming cleverer and thinking for themselves. These unwashed, ugly young males of India aka trolls as we call them (only when they ask us questions we don’t know answers to) have a serious problem with the media. They are not letting us have our freedom of speech on twitter and always have something reasonable and logical to retort when we make up a problem with the PM’s foreign visit.

Just the other day, we all decided we would go ahead with Mr. Modi’s shawl this time, but these Social Media bullies stopped us in our tracks using facts! Luckily that’s just the adult population in this country. There’s a prime audience out there who are still waiting to be brainwashed with this same idea and who will volunteer to this process themselves! You know what I’m talking about! Lets’ follow NDTV’s example by collecting all the young college kids in New Delhi and feeding questions we would never ask ourselves and making them appear smart. Well, if it doesn’t work it doesn’t matter. It’s not like we would have to apologize anyway. We did that once, we can do that any number of times.

Untitled

But anyway, we have to do something about this rising evil out there that is going to stamp us out. My suggestion, in this little open letter, is to make all investigative and fact-checking journalistic activities shift to write-what-I-want-because-this-is-a-free-country kind of opinion articles, like this. Let me tell you why that works. All it requires is to sit in front of a computer and type it out without ever needing to go out there and find the truth. Plus, with all our awards and merits of journalism, some people will still believe whatever we want to say. I just noticed that a lot of people who share these links on social media, none of them even open the page to read about what the article is. They don’t have time or can’t be bothered, so they assume it all from the headline and pass an opinion from ours! Isn’t that great? That’s the true, independent thinking, intelligent young Indian we need as our audience. Let’s get more of them on twitter. In the meanwhile, let’s just make these titles as racy and misleading as possible.

– by @aravindsiva007

Dear Mr Jaitley, we do not want tax terrorism

Gaurav
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Dear Mr Jaitley, we do not want tax terrorism

Dear Mr Arun Jaitley,

India is aggressively pushing itself as a business-friendly location. Make-in-India is being popularized by Prime Minister Narendra Modi all over the world, inviting companies to set up shop in India. We are trying to improve our position in the Ease of doing business rankings as fast as possible. You yourself have made many such statements that India will follow a non-adversarial, stable tax regime. That retrospective taxation will be a thing of the past. But unfortunately your actions do not match your words.

Recently we have seen a $3.3 billion notice slapped on Cairn India for a transaction which took place in 2007. And over a 100 FIIs have been issued tax notices worth $6 billion. While such notices harm India’s image in the eyes of big investors, they do not directly affect India’s common man. What did affect was your sudden and abrupt introduction of a host of changes in the Tax Audit Report just a couple of months before its due date. You did extend the due date, but as a practising Chartered Accountant, I can assure you we faced severe difficulties in complying with such sudden sweeping changes in a short span of time. And you sir lost a lot of goodwill, atleast among the medium size businesses who were affected by the above change.

Let us come to your Budget 2015. There was almost nothing in it for the salaried class, the small tax payers. Nothing. Not any substantive tax benefit. Even a token decrease in tax would have been enough to satisfy the common man, but common sense eluded you. On the other hand, Service Tax was hiked to 14%. I know it was done to get in line with GST next year, but the next step left me stunned. You added 2% to this 14% under Swacch Bharat Cess. As the budget is worded, this makes it 14% + 2% = 16% on all services. Ideally, this 2%  should have been on 14% i.e. total rate should have been 14.28% but since there is no clarification yet, we are still guessing.

Some of the goodwill was earned back by your thrust to GST and the Anti-black money bill, but all this will be undone by your latest salvo fired at the salaried class. In a notification dated 15/04/2015, you have managed to extend Tax Terrorism to the lowest strata of people. You now expect the smallest of smallest tax payers to furnish details of ALL BANK ACCOUNTS held by them. Why? Don’t you already know all this? Most bank accounts are already linked to the PAN, so you already have the information. Why don’t you make Bank update their KYC records and insist on PAN details for all?

And what is the use of all this? Bank already deducts TDS on any Interest above Rs 10000. This directly gets captured in IT records. The amount which may escape TDS and taxation is the Interest below Rs 10000. It is foolish for the Government to go after such small amounts . Instead of reducing hindrances and promoting  higher compliance, you are making it harder for honest Indians to file their Tax returns. Of course, needless to say, laws for India’s largest reservoir of Black Money, Real Estate, are still not being tightened.

The logic given is hilarious: You want to tackle black money. Dear Sir, does anyone having black money put it in banks? Then why ask details of ALL my bank accounts? And you are asking this even from salaried class. Does salaried class have any black money? Even the poor fellow who earns only bank interest and files a tax return only to get a refund, now has to go through an exercise supposedly meant to catch black money?

You also now want us to tell you details of our Foreign Travels. Why? Why does the Government need to know where I went for a holiday and how much I spent on it? As long as my Income is taxed at the proper rates the Government has no business asking for details of my personal expenditure. This is a gross violation of privacy. Again, this rule has been extended to the salaried class too, instead of keeping it only for the high income zone.

As far as all the talk of “friendly tax regime” is going on, there is zero movement on the ground. Tax Officers are still given targets, they still harass tax payers, my own clients keep getting frivolous orders. And I wont even mention the corruption, because it will take much more time to come down. As far as the hilariously idiotic Central Processing Centre at Bangalore is concerned, it keeps churning non-nonsensical notices without the slightest application of mind on a daily basis to the smallest of smallest tax payers. In fact people are getting notices for incomes of over 10 years back:


In college, we were taught the Pareto principle, also called the 80-20 rule which states roughly 80% of effects come from only 20% of causes. Hence we were told to focus on this 20% of causes. In Tax terms, I am pretty sure at-least 80% of tax revenues comes from the 20% High Income sector, whereas just 20% comes from the large salaried middle class. In your case you have foolishly gone after the 80% of the tax payers, who contribute a pittance to tax revenues. This will only lead to lower compliance and shrinking tax base, setting us back even more. I hope you reconsider this absurd decision.

– A Tax Payer and Chartered Accountant

Janata Parivar – Losers and Winners

Ullas
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Janata Parivar – Losers and Winners

This week finally saw the official announcement of the merger of various factions of the erstwhile Janata Dal viz., Janata Dal (United), Rasthriya Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (Socialist), Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP) into a new Parivar, whose identity is not yet known. A Committee was announced which has the onus of finding a new name, flag and a symbol for the new entity. More information about this entity can be read here.

Let us try to understand the dynamics behind this merger. That the new entity will be filled with differences and big egos is a given. However, politically, who are the winners in this merger? How will the internal politics play out?

Janata Dal (Secular): Deve Gowda’s JDS is a waning force in Karnataka. With the old man in his last term as an MP, the responsibility in the Southern state will eventually move to his son H D Kumaraswamy. JDS itself is in a survival mode in the state. With influence only in the southern part of Karnataka, it will be a success if the party holds on in its bastion. None of the parivar’s North Indian leaders have any political sway in the minds of Kannadigas. So, as part of this merger, the number of incremental votes JDS will get due to the merger is: ZERO. In the same breath, number of incremental excited voters who would vote for Mulayam or Nitish, because Deve Gowda is part of the new entity: ZERO. In effect, this merger is a matter of no-gain, no-loss for JDS, in the medium term.

Indian National Lok Dal (INLD): With the Haryana assembly elections just over, where the party won only 19 of the 90 seats, there are no big stakes right now. The party cannot make a huge hue and cry on the national level too, as their 2 seats in Lok Sabha does not give them any leverage. With no immediate challenges or risks involved, what better way to be in news? INLD seems to have decided to play along for now and see how the experiment pans out. INLD don’t seem to have much sway over Jats in Western UP too, who recently deserted their all time favourite Ajit Singh.

Samajwadi Party (SP): With the anointment of Mulayam Singh Yadav as the Head of the new party, SP has wielded its influence within the group. This is also a tacit acceptance that UP is the critical state and SP will call the shots in the state. There were also reports that SP was skeptical about this merger, as they did not see the benefits from it. I share their skepticism and am wondering how this helps SP in 2017. SP already has influence in Muslim-Yadav communities. None of the other partners have any influence in UP – with the exception of, may be, Lalu in Eastern UP.

In the meantime, SP has also launched “Mission 2017” with the aim to winning UP assembly again. How the merger will impact the mission remains to be seen.

Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD): The new parivar will face its first big test in the Bihar assembly elections and the key players there will be Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav. Whats in the new party for Lalu and Nitish? Lalu, for one, has already announced that his son will take over the reigns from him. Reigns of what – RJD? or Bihar unit of the new parivar?  With the merger, RJD will cease to exist and Nitish will be the boss of Bihar unit. The only calculation of Lalu seems to be to get to power in Bihar and the dynamics can be worked out later. However, with the merger, Lalu had to swallow his ego and accept that Nitish is the bigger fish in Bihar.

Nitish seems to be winner of this merger. He has formed a coalition that can counter BJP’s might and if Congress joins them in some sort of pre-poll alliance, NDA will have a tough fight in its hands. If the parivar wins, Nitish will be “King of Parivar” and the SP government in UP will also get a shot in its arm. Lalu’s future will then depend on number of candidates from his camp who manage to win. But, if BJP gains wins big or gains absolute majority, its curtains to Nitish Kumar’s political career and Lalu’s camp may live to fight another day. It is also certain that UP will face the repercussions, more than in the pre-merger scenario. Mulayam will have to bear the blame of the defeat, despite his limited influence in Bihar. Why did he put himself in this situation? Is the group confident of doing well in Bihar?

All one can say is that, Bihar is where most action will be later this year. Nitish has won the first round amongst his partners and now needs to win the war against Amit Shah. With PM Modi changing the grammar of elections with “development” as the prime agenda, is the parivar ready to counter him on this turf. Or will they go back to the Mandal politics of 90s. Or will we see a new grammar written in the coming days?

Is the Right Wing on Social Media becoming paranoid?

Gaurav
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Is the Right Wing on Social Media becoming paranoid?

What ideally should have been a funny gif, sparked of quite a few battles on Social Media. I’ll elaborate how it happened. After their joint address as Angela Merkel was walking towards Modi for a photo-op, Modi thrust his hand forward, in a bid to shake hands with Merkel. Merkel did not shake hands, but passed him, touching him and showing him the way to a spot next to him. This much action is captured in the following gif:

Apart from being an entire story on Buzzfeed, this was used with hilarious captions by many Twitter users. Good fun some would say. I would too. But there was more to it. Apparently, Pakistani media was using this bit to spread propaganda that “Merkel snubs Modi”.

The truth however, is visible once you see the entire video. Merkel merely asks Modi to come near the 2 countries’ flags, so that they can shake hands there and have an even better photo-op. When this part is omitted for comedic reasons, it seems innocuous, but when it is omitted for propaganda, it can hurt people.

This is where many Social Media users rallied and pointed out the whole video, to people who were using just the edited portion. They even forced Buzzfeed to update their article with the full details. This behaviour, was disturbing to many, including me till I was made aware that this video was being used for false propaganda. And this reaction, has forced many people including me to wonder: Is the Right Wing on Social Media paranoid?

Answer is both Yes and No. I have explained the Yes, a harmless video of a seemingly awkward moment of a PM is always a funny video, which can be used in multiple ways for good clean humour.

Now I will come to the No part. Unfortunately, in past few months, many damaging news reports have begun from tomfoolery or “flippant” tweets on Social media. The best example of this the “Rs 10 lac Modi suit” story. We had traced the entire story here. It started with Social Media realising the monogram print, trying to estimate the cost based on other examples, Print Media picking this up as a “story”, Main stream media holding TV debates, and it even reached the speeches of Rahul Gandhi. Much much later, the person who gifted the suit revealed that the cost could not be Rs 10 lacs because he couldn’t afford it. Till then, the damage had been done, and some people guessed, that the actual cost of the suit was the Delhi Election defeat. This story, if it was nipped in the bud, by “paranoid” Right Wingers on day one itself, would not have spiralled out of control into a device to malign Modi.

And this worked so well, that Adarsh Liberal journalists tried it again. We showed you how Rana Ayyub tried to claim Modi’s Shawl was from Louis Vuitton. That was the first step, second would be the cost, third would be juxtaposing “humble chaiwala” with “luxuries”, fourth would be to question the source, fifth would be to allege it is a gift from an Industrialist to do his bidding, and so on. Luckily this story was stopped at stage one. Thanks to “paranoid” Right Wingers.

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Yesterday again, there was another potential propaganda tool. Times Now managed to confuse the Government of India’s Dadasaheb Phalke Award, with a similarly named award from some private body, which was conferred on Vivek Oberoi. Within minutes various people posted multiple links which proved that Times Now has got it horribly wrong. The GoI Phalke award for 2015 was already declared in March 2015 to Shashi Kapoor. This had to be a fake news. And it was. Within 30 minutes, Times Now deleted their tweet without an apology or clarification. They had even managed to get a quote for Vivek Oberoi!

Again, on the face of it, the story is about a seemingly less deserving Bollywood actor, getting a very prestigious award. Most outrage on social media was only on this. But again, there could have been undertones. Vivek Oberoi is a vocal supporter of Narendra Modi. On his recent visit to Germany, Prime Minister Modi, met Vivek Oberoi.

Given these facts, it is extremely easy for someone to allege that Vivek’s closeness to Modi allowed him to jump the queue and get this award from the Government. Once again sullying Modi’s name as being partial to his friends etc. In this context, Times Now’s highly misleading tweet can very well be considered to be mischievous, to say the least.

And just today morning we had the “2AB” “controversy” where some people who did not understand the metaphor, began ridiculing the PM. ANI tweeted this abridged version, probably because of space constraints:


Which actually should sound like this, to make perfect sense (Below image is a transcript of an earlier speech where Modi used the same metaphor). And if one sees the actual video, this is exactly what Modi said.

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Again it was up to “Paranoid” Right Wingers to clear the air, over something as trivial as a metaphor, but which was being misused to spread propaganda.

So is this paranoia? To my mind, it will be called “paranoia” when this fact-checking doesnt yield any result. Egs if Modi had indeed used a stupid illogical Math metaphor. Till then, it will be on the other side of the thin line which separates paranoia from prudence. And most of this, is because of the ever depleting standards of Indian media. MSM has plummeted to depths never seen before. From asking General V K Singh to be more sensitive to people he is personally rescuing to blatant Lies peddled day in and day out. In such times, Author Sidin Vadukut’s advice sounds perfect:


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