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Don’t Give Mythological Spin to India’s Growth Saga
- Published on 05 May 2018
(Wired electricity supply directly from sun & wind?)
Transforming India initiative has taken wings. Some BJP stalwarts are giving mythological spin to modern science. Recall recent take from a Union Minister that mantras codified Newton’s Laws of Motion before they were framed by Issac Newton.
Other leaders are giving scientific touch to mythology. One BJP Chief Minister has claimed that ancient India had developed technologies such as satellites and internet. Another one claimed that a Vedic sage was like Google.
And some prominent leaders are giving mythological touch to post-Independence history. The first two episodes can be taken as welcome amusement during summer. The third episode, which distorts modern history, should not be taken lightly. It calls for a scrutiny in a scientific manner.
Modi Government’s entire Vikas model is based on 5 elements 1) renaming and repackaging existing schemes, 2) blacking out or marginalizing the good work done in the past, 3) presented facts in distorted manner 4) hogging limelight for all positivity & 5) cursing Congress & Nehru-Gandhi family for India’s problems.
The Government has smartly deactivated a few servers/web links that provided access to treasure trove of archival information. It knows that this is the best way to prevent scribes and analysts from giving historical perspective to India’s achievements. The denial of online access is, however, another cup of tea. It can be set aside for another write-up.
The attempt to recreate history for political aggrandizement can be understood by focusing on rural electrification. It should not be construed as an attempt to undermine well-deserved applaud over India electrifying its last powerless village on 28th April 2018.
Can BJP Return to Power with Secret Caste Data & OBCs Churn?
- Published on 12 April 2018
(Image Courtesy: taxindiaonline.com)
Caste arithmetic and not Vikas would decide 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Available indications suggest Modi Government is holding caste cards up its sleeves that would cruise its return to power.
Before discussing the Government’s trump cards, we need to put the caste politics in perspective by recapitulating four trends.
First trend is Modi Government’s sound and fury over an October 2017 news report, attributed to sources, stating that Congress President Rahul Gandhi would use Cambridge Analytica (CA) as Brahmastra against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The rulers’ theatrics over CA bordered on hysteria as news emerged that this UK-based firm had used stolen Facebook data to influence voters in the US and other countries. News stories stated that it had also worked for Indian political parties in different elections. The most crucial disclosure by CA whistle-blower, Christopher Wylie, was that its parent company’s (SCL’s) Indian subsidiary SCL India conducted a caste census in UP in 2012 for an unnamed national party to identify the “party’s core voters as well as likely swing voters”.
In a tweeted slide, Mr. Wylie explained the significance of caste research and analysis to influence voters. As put in the slide, “caste research includes information on the demographics of the population of each area. From this, the campaign team can clearly understand how caste influences votes and shape messing around the findings. A better understanding of the influence of caste on Indian politics will open up research avenues and allow the campaign team to target the population in the most effective and efficient way”.
Data Analytics Emerges as Unique Glue for Plugging Revenue Leakages
- Published on 05 April 2018
(Edited Image Courtesy: OECD)
Data Analytics (DA) is making headlines for varied reasons. They range from misuse of social media’s big data to influence voters/consumers to catching tax deviants for boosting revenue to fund growth.
Governments including tax administrations across the world are at different stages of unraveling the potential of data analytics in boosting revenue.
As put by McKinsey, “Digitization creates a massive trail of data that can support more-effective revenue and payment programs. There is an emerging consensus globally that governments can and should use this data to reduce revenue leakage, subject to strong privacy constraints prescribed by policy makers”.
In a report titled ‘The trillion-dollar prize: Plugging government revenue leaks with advanced analytics’, McKinsey notes that about 20% of government revenues worldwide, or about $5 trillion goes missing every year.
It believes that Governments can plug 20% of these leakages through application of big data analytics and related efforts over several years. This, thus, constitutes a trillion-dollar opportunity globally to ramp up tax revenue.
India, which is new as compared to the West in the Big Data game, is harvesting preliminary successes in both direct and indirect taxes domain.
India Needs Good Governance & Not New Law to Catch Fugitives
- Published on 23 March 2018
(Edited Image Courtesy: darpg.gov.in)
The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018 (FEOB) is a classical instance of the dog barking up the wrong tree. The only difference between classic and FEOB is that the bark at the wrong tree is intentional.
FEOB is mere political posturing before public that is upset with NDA Government’s propensity to look the other way when economic offenders dart away to alien lands.
Introduced in Lok Sabha on 12th March 2018, FEOB seeks “to provide for measures to deter fugitive economic offenders from evading the process of law in India by staying outside the jurisdiction of Indian courts, to preserve the sanctity of the rule of law in India and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto”.
Says the Government: “The absence of such offenders from Indian courts has several deleterious consequences, such as, it obstructs investigation in criminal cases, it wastes precious time of courts and it undermines the rule of law in India. Further, most of such cases of economic offences involve non-repayment of bank loans thereby worsening the financial health of the banking sector in India. The existing civil and criminal provisions in law are inadequate to deal with the severity of the problem”.