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Blame-Game Over PNB Scam Tramples Truth
- Published on 05 March 2018
(image courtesy: https://www.narendramodi.in/examwarriors)
Facts become the martyrs when politicians play blame games. Obscure facts are getting buried under the impact of fierce mud-slinging between Modi Govt-BJP camp and the Opposition especially the Congress Party over PNB scam.
Fact is that the scam is unintended bhagidari of BJP and Congress regimes. The ecosystem for scam was jointly conceived by both without anyone realizing that it would be misused by Nirav Bhai, Mehul Bhai and their ilk.
The second fact is that bond between diamond business and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is too entrenched to be brushed aside as dirty politics. Third, accountability has to be fixed right from PNB to the PMO. They either overlooked or took in stride banking frauds that were even pinpointed by a RBI Deputy Governor at a conference in 2016. More of this later.
Ideally, the Supreme Court should step in and constitute a special investigation team (SIT). It ought to oversee full-fledged probe into a web of willful loan defaults, money laundering & cheating cases within the diamonds sector.
Focus on Domestic Taxation for SDGs Shouldn’t Sustain ODA Laxity
- Published on 04 March 2018
(Image Courtesy: The United Nations)
The governments’ urge to shore up tax revenues is universal. And this desire gets universal endorsement from multilateral development institutions (MDIs) when it comes to raising domestic resources for eliminating poverty & inequality on the earth.
But when the tax-raising objective gets subsumed into OECD’s 15-Action Points Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project & related tax reforms, the world should take a hard look at the means to achieve inclusive development agenda.
Four MDIs have lately been goading developing countries especially the poorest ones to pull their taxation socks to achieve United Nations (UN)-mandated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
The four MDIs are the UN, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Is the focus on taxation a smokescreen to implement BEPS project from the standpoint of developed nations that want MNC investments and their tax revenue back home?
Is focus on domestic tax revenue as financier for SDGs a ploy to divert attention from the West’s failure to comply with minimum level of official development assistance (ODA) that was globally agreed decades back?
Why quartet can’t hammer out a global agreement on levying global, innovative taxes as a new avenue for funding SDGs?
Routes to Secure Farmer Incomes
- Published on 21 February 2018
The blueprint for Doubling Farmers' Income should incorporate fully at least one of the four ways to enhance farmers' income security. The four options are 1) universal basic income for farmers; Statutory enforceable minimum support prices (MSPs) for all farm produce including fish;3)Transformation of all direct and indirect farm subsidies into direct cash transfers (DCT) into bank accounts of farm families farm households; and 4) contract farming where the contracting entity, be it public or private sector company, supplies quality inputs and agrees to buy entire the produce at a guaranteed price.
Time to Shift Focus from Acronyms to gaps in Performance
- Published on 20 February 2018
Would acronyms-laden growth model of Modi Government deliver magic during the forthcoming elections to certain state assemblies and the Lok Sabha?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to bank on new acronyms, renaming and repackaging of schemes. The other day he spun acronym ‘TOP’ at a BJP rally in Karnataka to woo distressed farmers.
Mr Modi reportedly said: “If you go to any corner of India, you will find three vegetables — tomato, onion and potato. That is why I call it top priority — the T of tomato, the O of Onion and the P of potato — TOP priority. Keeping these farmers in my mind, we announced Operation Greens in the Budget. Like how Amul is a model in the milk sector for enhancing the income of dairy farmers, Operation Greens will assure incomes for tomato, onion, potato… and all vegetable farmers.”
Any student of agriculture would tell you that all policy and institutional elements of TOP and Operation Greens already exist. There is nothing new in them.
On the contrary, Modi Government’s commitment to these elements has been either lacking or shrinking right from the very first year of its tenure. This is one of the main causes of worsening agrarian distress.
‘TOP’ and ‘Operation Greens’ need to be studied with clinical precision to prove that the duo is nothing but yet another Jumla (empty promise). To put bluntly, duo is nothing but yet another attempt to fool the farmers.
To arrive at the jumla conclusion, we have to start with promises made by BJP in its 2014 Lok Sabha Manifesto and how they have been acted upon so far.