Tax Havens

India and Switzerland are negotiating a treaty whereby India can gain some access to details of the money deposited by its citizens in Swiss accounts. The question is, does the government have similar treaties in place or at least lined up with other countries also? Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Lichtenstein are three countries I, a layman, can think of off the top of my head which can be alternatives to Switzerland. Those who stash the money away must surely be more aware than I am.So unless there are treaties with all these nations I cannot understand how the Swiss treaty can be affective. 

Furthermore the treaty has to be approved by Parliament and when this will happen is a big question mark. Opposition parties have not been letting the Parliament function properly and surely there must be many politicians among those who have money abroad illegally. So the more the treaty's ratification is delayed the more time these people will have to look for alternative locations.

Another point of interest is the tax situation in our country. I do not have the exact figures but apparently about 1% or so of our population pays income tax. Somehow this seems unfair especially when we hear about various irregularities in spending the taxpayers' money. Agricultural income is not taxed at all. This can be brought into the tax ambit. Rates can be lowered and simultaneously penalties for evasion should be made very high to deter. In US courts defendants are occasionally slapped with very high damages. I believe the idea is to deter them from repeating the mistake/offence (the success of this is another question altogether). This is the concept I am talking about. The evasion penalties must be so high that people should think twice before planning tax evasion. However as I have said, the rates should also be brought down simultaneously, thus encouraging more people to honestly pay their taxes.

Man and Nature

Yesterday I saw the 2008 film The Day the Earth Stood Still. This is a remake of a 1951 film that I had seen in my childhood on TV once. The new movie is about aliens wanting to remove the human race from the earth so that it can survive while I think the old one was based on some weaponisation plans humans had in mind. Keanu Reeves' character says that he had come to save the planet which Jennifer Connelly interprets as saving humans, then she realizes that he wanted to save the planet from humans. Remember Agent Smith's comments in one of the the Matrix movies where he likens humans to a virus? Well, both of them do not sound so out of place when we saw what we are doing to our planet today. 

I was reading a forwarded Yahoo! article which says that microbes are busy cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. This once again illustrates how nature cleans up man's messes. Man is capable of great innovations but occasionally he needs that incentive to survive or flourish (something similar to a line from the 2008 film). I believe that one of the reasons why advancements in the renewable energy have not been as quick as is desirable is that we still have an abundant supply of fossil fuels. In spite of global warming, pollution, fluctuating crude prices and what not we still guzzle fossil fuels. If the present government takes a firm decision to increase the fuel prices in line with global prices for India's long-term economic health hypocritical and opportunistic political parties raise a hullabaloo. This can in fact force people to look at alternatives (the government unarguably also has a major role to fulfill here). India and China are the world's largest bicycle manufacturers, but is their usage being promoted as much in India as in China? We have a huge power shortage and the announcements I see in the paper are all thermal power plants (gas-based if not coal-based).

So, more incentives need to be given to the renewable energy sector even if that means taking resources away from the fossil fuel based sectors. Automotive companies should be given incentives to develop sustainable technology. I wonder when world leaders will really implement these measures and more in full spirit.

Pale Blue Dot

The title of this post is a book by Carl Sagan. I was going through this article on Wikipedia when I felt I had to share it with others. The image below is that of the earth taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Below that is the one which marks the earth in a circle.

I am directly pasting what is given on that page. The following words are by Carl Sagan himself.

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Humbling, isn't it?

As You Sow...

The British PM said in an interview to NDTV that Pakistan has to close terror camps on its soil to which Pakistan has reacted quite angrily saying its oft-repeated we-are-a-victim-too excuse.

It says it has done more than any nation has done. Question. Is it not in the present situation precisely because it has been a breeding ground for terrorism? There is an old saying that even if one takes care of a snake in its infancy it will grow up and bite its owner. This applies very well in this case also. Bush talked about the war on terror. What he did not mention was that this was something the US had created, this is a well known thing worldwide now. So lamenting that it is a victim when it has created the problem does not make sense.

The civilian government in Pakistan does not seem to have any control over either the ISI or the Army who actually have called the shots historically. Musharraf was busy with the Kargil invasion even as Nawaz Sharif was talking to AB Vajpayee. Till date to my knowledge nothing has happened to Musharraf for the coup against the civilian government too. That I believe was one of the conditions for him to cede power. Today he is apparently busy on the lecture circuit.

Apart from Kashmir and terrorism water has cropped up as an important issue today. Apparently Musharraf himself in a paper that he had submitted has predicted this would happen. Pakistan is blaming India for its water problems while it has been seen that it needs to manage its water properly before it can point a finger at India. It has also been blaming India for terror attacks on its soil. It has long maintained that insurgency in its Balochistan province is supported by India. There is prevailing denial mode where Pakistan refuses to accept responsibility for its problems and simply blames India for them. There has been a sense in India that Pakistan has always had to keep the Kashmir cauldron boiling so that its own domestic problems are not concentrated upon. I am sure the general, educated public in Pakistan (or at least some of them) understand the truth. But this will surely be a minority. And as they say, a good man's silence is worse than an evil person's activities.

Polished Externally, Filthy Internally?

I once heard a story from a friend of an acquaintance (yes, long chain!). This guy used to sell software related to mobile phones. One day he went to a posh office in Gurgaon to meet the senior management. The office had a modern appearance, but the person he met gave him a shock. He was sitting in his chair with his legs propped up in the traditional village style. His take was that these were people who had come into money recently through selling their agricultural lands. The money changed their outer appearances but at heart they were what they were. My present narration is something on those lines and specifically has to do with the disgusting Indian habit of public spitting.

One case was of a person who I am assuming is an employee of a software company. I saw him in Salt Lake where a lot of software professionals stay, he was of the right age to fit the profile and had a bag which had the name of a software company on it. He had a polished appearance and had he put on any more deodorant I would probably have had breathing problems. Then he spit on the road from a moving auto. The other case was of a guy travelling by car. At a traffic signal he opened the door leaned out and spat onto the road. What is the use of external polish if the man does not change? 

There is a sloka which goes like this(forgive me for any mistakes) -

कर्पूरधूली  रचितालवालः कस्तूरिकापन्कनिमग्ननालः|

गङ्गाजलैः सिक्त समूलभालः स्वीयम् गुणं मुञ्चति किं पलाण्डुः ||

The meaning is something like this - Whether you use camphor, musk or water from the Ganges an onion will never change its true nature. Are some people like this only?

Note: The Sanskrit font and this post have been made via Epic browser.

How to Watch a Movie with Five People

Date: 19th July 2010

Venue: City Centre 2, Kolkata

The movie bug bites me and I decide to go and watch The Sorcerer's Apprentice. My flatmate who also wanted to come to the movie has slept off. I doggedly go to the mall next door. I approach the ticket counter and I get to know that the show is not there as the hall needs at least 5 people for a movie to be screened (shocked, at the lack of footfalls).

I go down, buy an Amul sundae and come up again to try my luck. The seller says the same. Now I find a mother and son (Germans) who also want to watch the movie. They have seen the movie but want to watch it again (surprised internally). We wait for more people to come in. Another guy approaches, wants to watch Lamha (curse him) and is waiting for his friend. The mother is all charm and we convince him to watch our movie instead (bless us and him). Now we have four people. I suggest splitting the fifth ticket, the son is fine, the mother dithers (I thought expats were paid well!). We wait and wait. A couple comes, they want to watch some other movie (curse them). They are not willing to convert to our movie. Some random guy comes, the mother is all charm. He has someone else with him who has an exam the next day and hence cannot watch the movie. Someone from the theatre comes, sees our earnestness and asks us to buy the tickets (bless him). The random stranger buys a ticket so that we (mostly the foreigner) can see the movie (bless him anyway). Mother and son are shocked at his sweetness and comment on it. Said good guy buys ticket and leaves. We go watch the movie. Five people enter. 

Interval time. The mother turns back and tells the projectionist to continue as no one was going anywhere. By the time we leave there are a few more in the hall leaving out the staff (surprised). The mother is no longer interested in any conversation and runs away. Overall, an interesting experience.

Ruminations on a Railway Trip

There is a place called Burdwan about 100 km from Kolkata which is the district HQ of the district of the same name. This district is like the rice bowl of West Bengal. I went there on some official work and had these thoughts on the way back on a local train. 

I was reading the Economic Times and noticed that there were three articles which had something or the other to do with LG. One article was an interview with someone from the company's senior management etc. There was this phenomenon of paid news that was well, in the news a little while back. When I saw this I began to wonder if companies actually pay newspapers to group articles about them together so as to improve recall in a reader's mind.

One of the best places to marvel at India's population is a railway station. Just stand inside the Howrah station when a local train comes in and try to walk against the flow. Those who have stayed in Mumbai must have experienced this to a much larger degree.

Railway officials stand at station exits to check whether people have bought tickets or not. This is fine as far as large stations are concerned, but what about the smaller ones? There are two kinds of people broadly that come to a railway station, passengers and those who accompany the passengers. While the former are expected to have train tickets the latter are expected to purchase platform tickets. The ticket counters are separate from the entrance possibly to reduce crowding at the entrances. But there can be many people, especially on local trains who do not purchase any kind of tickets. If the railways can allow entry only after a ticket is bought I am sure the revenue will go up compared to what it is. At the same time this should  not lead to stampedes, so appropriate measures will have to be taken in that direction also.

Hawkers are not allowed onto trains as far as I understand, they still get on and I have nothing against that per se. An interesting innovation I saw was a hook from which packets were suspended. In local trains there are these hand supports that hang from above. The vendor had his stuff hanging from a metal construction which had a hook at the top. He could thus suspend it from the hand support. I found this pretty neat. There was a vendor who was selling rice papads which are like chips. I asked him for a packet and was surprised when he said it was for two rupees. I believe these chips and other eatables (like Kurkure) are made from broken rice which is very cheaply available. Granted a company like Lay's has other expenditure like distribution costs, endorsement costs etc, but I was left wondering what the profit margins on such products are like.

Industrialization at What Cost?

Protests against protests seem to have become almost the norm in India today. Nandigram and Singur captured national attention some time back. Posco is facing opposition in Orissa and in the latest such occurrence police have lathicharged protestors in Andhra Pradesh.

The West Bengal Chief Minister has publicly spoken about the need to industrialize the state and one of his own ministers has publicly contradicted him. The minister in question has said that agriculture is the way forward for Bengal. Leaving out the rhetoric, we should consider if there is indeed truth in this. Mahatma Gandhi talked about revitalizing Indian villages. I believe this exlcusive focus on villages at the cost of industry has been criticized by the likes of Gurcharan Das. In my opinion industrialization is inevitable. How long can we sustain only on agriculture? Even in agriculture once machinery and extensive farming set in (like in the western world) the employment potential can actually come down (there is a lot of hidden unemployment in Indian agriculture).

At the same time India has been facing a crisis of sorts in food. Food inflation has been above the 10% mark for quite some time now. Tweaking the monetary policy is only a short term solution. If there is indeed a shortage of food supply for how long can restricting money supply control inflation? The government has recognized this to an extent and hence there is some movement on this front. But agriculture is a long-term game and nothing much can be done in the short term in terms of productivity or area. So in such a situation is giving away fertile land for SEZs and industries a wise move? Can we actually blame the protestors for their actions? I am not trying to do an Arundhati Roy here, I am just raising a question.

My Sanskrit sir in school used to say that a certain part of Andhra Pradesh (I forget whether it was the Konaseema part or West Godavari district or some other) can feed the entire country. While this might be a practical impossibility it suggests the fertile nature of the area. At the same time, this was not always so. Sir Arthur Cotton is one of the few Englishmen revered in India. He was the one responsible for bringing irrigation to the Konaseema area and making it the fertile area it is today. Thus the earth can provide. It is upto us how to utilize what she provides.

Diabetes Breakthrough in India

My grandfather was a diabetic. I used to see him prepare in the afternoon for his dose of insulin. My grandmother used to boil the syringes and he used sit and inject himself. I used to wonder how he could do it. Now this could be a thing of the past. Indian scientists have created a form of insulin which needs to injected much less frequently, maybe as less as once a month. This is definitely a boon for diabetic patients.

An interesting point is that this breakthrough has been achieved by a government institution and not the private sector. So there is a greater scope for this to be put to common use and less emphasis on the commercialization of the product. A patent has been filed already. Now care has to be taken that this is not leaked to anybody and that the institute that has created this should be allowed to fully enjoy the benefits.

In other news Maharashtra has suspended bus services to Belgaum in Karnataka which has been a bone of contention between the two states. The centre has said that language cannot be the only criterion to decide the state. This has been met with opposition by some Maharashtrians. Their stand is akin to saying that Kashmir should go to Pakistan because the majority population is Muslim.

I am reminded of a joke I read somewhere once. When God created the world he called his wife and showed her his creation. She examined it and said, "You have loaded India with so many riches, is it not unfair to the rest of the world?" God gave a smile and said, "Wait till you see the kind of people I create in this country."

How do you fool an EVM?

The recent movie Rajneeti has a climax scene where Manoj Bajpai is brought out of hiding by misinforming him that electronic voting machines (EVMs) were being tampered with remotely. Ajay Devgn (sic) says this is not possible and follows him. NDTV has a very interesting article on this issue. The Telangana Rashtra Samiti in Andhra Pradesh has fielded such a large number of candidates that it is not possible to accomodate them on an EVM. This is apparently to force the use of ballot paper. The paper system is easier to tamper with. Booth capturing is not an unknown practice in Indian democracy. The link says this is primarily an Indian practice. Is this our "contribution" to democracy?

This disturbingly reminds me of a Tantra tee shirt that I saw once. It says the Indians invented zero and then goes onto say that the speaker always knew that we were good for nothing!

The Common Man

A kid's parents have blamed the PM's security for their son's death. VIP security has always been a headache for the common public. The road is cleared much before the cavalcade passes through and this turns into a nightmare for the 'aam aadmi' travelling on the road.

In this case the parents had apparently told the security personnel about the need for immediate medical attention, but to no avail. This is what makes this case particularly revolting. But is there a solution to this? The PM or CM can be asked to fly over short distances also. I admit this is not practical in all cases but this option still needs to be explored. There is also the risk that security forces will point out that someone can try and shoot down the vehicle. This also needs to be factored in. After all, those who are in power to 'serve' the public should not engage in actions that will kill this very public.