Indian envoy outlines Pakistan’s direct involvement in manufacturing terror

India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, TS Tirumurti, has lashed out at Pakistan, saying it is the nerve centre of terrorism.

“It is a well-known fact that Pakistan is the nerve centre of terrorism. Pakistan is home to largest number of listed terrorists, internationally designated terrorist entities and individuals, including Jamaat-ud-Dawah, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen,” Tirumurti said.

Pakistan prime minister (Imran Khan) has on record said that there are around 40,000 terrorists present in the country, Tirumurti further said.

Referring to United Nations’ 26th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concerning ISIS, the ambassador said there is a clear acknowledgement that the leadership and funding for the terrorist entities like Al-Qaeda, ISIS emanate from Pakistan.

“Under the 1267 Committee, which submits its report periodically terrorist activities of ISIL al Qaeda and its affiliates. There are several direct references to Pakistan’s involvement,” Tirumurti said.

He stepped up the attack further, saying Pakistan has been trying to internationalise the bilateral issues it has with India. Tirumurti said that Pakistan’s latest attempt fell flat.

“Attempts by Pakistan to try and internationalise what is a bilateral issue is nothing new. Contrary to what the foreign minister of Pakistan has asserted, there has been no formal meeting of the UN Security Council on India-Pak issue since 1965,” said Tirumurti.

“What came up recently was a closed-door and completely informal meeting under ‘Any other business’, which is not even a recorded discussion,” India’s permanent representative to the UN added about the recent UN meeting.

“Pakistan’s attempt fell flat. Even UN secretary general, in his statement last August, clearly referred to 1972 bilateral Shimla Agreement. Consequently, Pakistan’s efforts haven’t met any traction in UNSC. Even if Pakistan persists, there are no takers here in the United Nations,” he said.

Tirumurti then went on to talk about the “infodemic” launched by Pakistan about the Covid-19 situation in India and how New Delhi countered it.

“India and a group of select countries, cutting across regions, made a joint statement in the context of infodemic in the context of Covid-19, at the UN. The statement was designed to counter exactly this type of disinformation spread by countries like Pakistan in the context of Covid-19 to foment division and create disharmony among communities,” he said.

Tirumurti was appointed India’s permanent representative to the United Nations in April. He will replace Syed Akbaruddin.

PM Modi surprised over Rajya Sabha blocking OBC commission bill

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “surprised” over the bill to accord constitutional status to an OBC commission getting stuck in the Rajya Sabha.

Modi told a group of OBC MPs of the BJP on Wednesday that it was a long pending demand made by a Parliamentary committee and that MPs of all parties had personally demanded the same from him.

On Monday, the Lok Sabha cleared with voice vote the bill, which seeks to “safeguard” the interest of the socially and educationally backward classes. Blocked by the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, the bill has been referred to a select committee of the upper house.

 

The committee to examine the bill will be headed by BJP member Bhupender Yadav. It has been asked to submit its report by the last day of the first week of the next session.

“This kind of negative politics to deprive the backward classes of their rights is regrettable,” Modi told the BJP MPs who felicitated him for bringing in the bill. He asked BJP MPs to reach out to opposition members and convince them about the benefits that a constitutional status for the commission will bring to the backward communities.

An aggressive outreach to the most backward communities in the recent assembly election in Uttar Pradesh helped the BJP sweep the polls. The ruling party has tried to woo these socially influential groups ever since Modi, who also comes from a backward community, was projected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in the run up to the 2014 general election.

With the aim of consolidating the BJP’s support from backward communities, Modi also asked the BJP MPs to discharge their “moral and constitutional duty” to create “awareness” among the socially marginalized groups about the government’s move and how it would benefit them.

“New opportunities to improve their life will be created under the new commission,” Modi told them. Describing the backward communities as a self respecting social group, Modi said they never forget even smallest help extended to them.

Lok Sabha passes key GST bills: Understanding the tax reform and what it means

India on Wednesday created history when the Lok Sabha cleared all the four bills for the launch of the much-awaited Goods and Services Tax (GST), the country’s biggest tax reform since Independence.

The GST will unify India into a common market, eliminating a string of central and state levies.

Central taxes such as the central excise duty, additional excise duty, additional customs duty and service tax will all be merged into one CGST.

State levies such as VAT, sales tax, entertainment tax, purchase tax, mandi tax, luxury tax, octroi and entry tax will be subsumed into SGST.

The Centre will levy the central GST and integrated GST, while states will impose the SGST. Several countries have implemented GST or another form of a value-added tax, but Canada is the closest to India with a dual structure.

The new indirect tax is expected to shore up government revenue and spur economic growth by 1-2 percentage points.

Four-slab GST structure

– The new regime will have four slabs of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%.

– There will be no tax on essential items such as rice and wheat.

– The lowest tax rate of 5% is proposed for items of mass consumption such as spices, tea and edible oil.

– There will be two “standard” rates of 12% and 18% covering most manufactured items and services.

– The highest tax, of 28%, will be imposed on items such as luxury cars, pan masala, tobacco and aerated drinks.

Compensation to states

– The compensation bill that was passed on Wednesday will ensure states get compensated for the first five years for the revenue loss after the GST rollout.

– The money will come from a fund created from the cess the Centre will charge on certain goods, above the GST rate.

Dual control on taxpayers

– The Centre and states will both assess taxpayers with an annual turnover of above Rs 1.5 crore.

– States will also have the power to assess taxpayers with a turnover below Rs 1.5 crore.

Exemption from GST

– In Northeastern states, businesses with an annual turnover of Rs 10 lakh or below will be exempt from GST. For the rest of India, the limit is Rs 20 lakh.

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The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will replace a patchwork of central and state levies on goods and services.

India inches closer to July rollout of tax reform as LS passes 4 GST bills

The proposed goods and services tax (GST) moved a step closer to reality on Wednesday with the Lok Sabha approving four bills that will subsume a profusion of central, state indirect taxes and help create a single, unified market.

The Lower House passed the bills by voice vote, after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan initiated clause-by-clause voting at the end of a long Parliament debate on GST, billed as the country’s biggest tax reforms since Independence.

“These are revolutionary bills which will benefit all. States have pooled in their sovereignty into the GST council, and Centre has done the same,” said finance minister Arun Jaitley, who aims to introduce the GST from July 1.

These supporting legislation for the GST were introduced as money bills and will now go to the Rajya Sabha, where the NDA government doesn’t have the numbers to push through key reforms.

But the Upper House can’t reject money bills, as it only has powers to make recommendations on such legislation, which the Lok Sabha can choose to accept or reject.

Once the bills are passed in Parliament, the government will issue a notification after the President’s consent. The states will pass a separate law — the State GST (SGST) bill — to roll out the reform.

The four proposed legislation are the central goods and services tax (CGST) bill, the integrated goods and services tax (IGST) bill, the goods and services tax (compensation to states) bill, and the Union territory goods and services tax (UTGST) bill.

The passage of the bills removed years of political differences over the GST that will eliminate tax barriers, and subsume a host of indirect taxes levied by the Centre and the states, including excise, service tax, entertainment, entry, luxury and value-added taxes.

“The July deadline is possible. We have promised businesses that there will be clarity on the law at least three months before its implementation. That has come from the passing of the four bills,” revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia said.

He announced that the GST council will pass all nine sets of rules by March 31.

The CGST will give powers to the Centre to levy tax after excise and service taxes and additional customs duty are subsumed. The IGST will be a tax on inter-state movement of goods and services.

The UTGST is for Union territories such as Chandigarh and Daman and Diu.

The clause-by-clause voting was held as the Congress and other opposition parties sought a division vote as well as more than 30 amendments to the proposed legislation.

“Several amendments were moved but none were passed,” Adhia said.

Opposition parliamentarians raised concern about the GST council, fears of revenue loss and loss of autonomy.

“I hope we will not end up cloning Parliament and creating the GST Council … like human cloning, years later this will also raise moral questions,” said Mohammad Salim of the CPM.

Trinamool Congress’s Saugata Roy summed up the mood in the opposition camp: “I support the GST bills with a heavy heart … where is cooperative federalism?”

But most MPs showed consensus that the new indirect tax is the biggest reform since Independence and is the need of the hour.

Congress leader M Veerappa Moily said: “Seven to eight years have passed after the UPA government initiated the GST bill … the country has lost Rs 12 lakh crore because of the delay.”

More than a decade in the making, the GST is expected to shore up government revenue and spur economic growth by 1-2 percentage points. The government has gone on record to state that the tax burden will be reduced, but experts say the GST will stoke inflationary trends in the initial years.

The rates in the four-slab structure of the GST will be 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. The CGST, IGST and SGST bill provide for a maximum tax of 20% each. The bills allow creation of a fund through a cess to ensure states are compensated for any revenue loss in the first five years of the new tax regime.

BJP’s victory tempts opposition leaders to switch loyalty

After its spectacular show in the last round of assembly elections, the BJP is learnt to be on a fishing expedition yet again– this time in Maharashtra– to catch more disgruntled elements from opposition camps. There is now speculation about Shiv Sainik-turned-Congressman Narayan Rane’s dalliance with the BJP. Although his son Nitesh has scotched it, BJP sources in Delhi do not deny their interest in the Konkan strongman.

The ruling party at the Centre is becoming a haven for politicians who are on the lookout for greener pastures, the latest being Aam Admi Party MLA Ved Prakash who switched his loyalty to the BJP last week, a month before the municipal elections in the national capital. SM Krishna, senior Congress leader and former chief minister of Karnataka, also joined the party last week.

At the BJP’s parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday, parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar pointed out to MPs that senior Congress leader MV Rajasekharan had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, praising his leadership and it was an endorsement of his popularity.

Political analysts might be a little befuddled by the BJP’s strategy to bring in ‘spent forces’ from other parties but BJP strategists see it differently.

Krishna’s entry, for instance, is expected to send a message to dominant Vokkaliga community in Karnataka that will go to polls next year. With B S Yeddyurappa, a Lingayat, holding the reins of the BJP in Bangalore, the BJP has made conciliatory overtures to the rival Vokkaliga community whose loyalty is broadly divided between the JD(S) of HD Deve Gowda and the Congress. A similar assessment drove the party to flirt with veteran Congressman and former UP and Uttarakhand chief minister ND Tiwari. Brahmin leader Tiwari’s well-publicized meeting with BJP president Amit Shah at the party headquarters in Delhi ahead of Uttarakhand elections did send a signal to the community even though he no longer enjoyed the clout among them.

Apart from these palpable– though not measurable– gains, such spent forces help the BJP create a buzz about disintegration in the opposition camp. “Lead me, follow me or get out of my way”: a union minister quoted this remark by 1992 US presidential candidate Ross Perot to a young Congress leader when the latter complained to him about the current state of leadership in the party. “You should remind Rahul what Perot said. Till he is there at the top, he won’t allow others to grow,” the minister said, explaining in his inimitable style how desertions in the Congress camp help the BJP.

Eighty four-year-old Krishna’s entry helps the BJP to drive home the point that even a trusted aide of the Nehru-Gandhi family has lost faith in the Congress. “If someone like Krishna can’t trust the Congress, how can the electorate?” a BJP office bearer in Delhi said.

Defection from the Congress and other parties helped the BJP in UP, Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh. The gambit has paid electoral dividends to the party. What might tempt potential defectors is the way the BJP has rewarded those who switched their loyalty. Five ‘turncoats’ got ministerial berths in the BJP government in Uttarakhand. Four, including former UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi, got Cabinet berths in Adityanath Yogi Cabinet in UP.

Opposition parties and critics might sneer at the BJP for this strategy, but the saffron party won’t mind fishing in troubled waters as long as it remains a winning formula.

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BJP chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the swearing-in ceremony of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath.

 

Mayawati protests: More of the same in view

The dismissal of the vice-president of the UP unit of the BJP, Dayashankar Singh, and his subsequent expulsion from the party for his derogatory remarks about BSP president Mayawati have sparked events that speak of both change and continuity in our political life. The fact that virtually all parties, including the BJP, have condemned this shows that the Dalits, whose leader Mayawati is, cannot be ignored anymore. This is a change for the better. The BJP, which has had to face considerable embarrassment after the suicide of a Dalit scholar in Hyderabad, could not afford to be silent at the insult to the charismatic Dalit leader from UP, which is going to the polls next year. Secondly, it also shows Mayawati’s elevation to iconic status among the Dalits, which was not the case 21 years ago, when she was attacked at a guest house in Lucknow in June 1995. Then too vile abuse had been thrown at her but that did not set off the intense condemnation we are seeing now. Today an insult to Mayawati is read as an insult to the Dalits as well.

This much is for the change. But what brought out the aspect of change are ingrained attitudes. It has been a common male trait in India to abuse a woman by using sexual terms that Mr Singh did. Politicians of yore did exercise restraint in this regard at least publicly, but now they seem to have cast off the pretension of doing so. Second, how far was the expelled BJP leader sure of the charge of auctioning party tickets that he had brought against Mayawati? In doing so, he merely played to the drumbeat of a view that is being orchestrated by another expelled leader but belonging to the BSP. Both should have known that such methods do not work in this day and age. But still politicians of all parties have the habit of creating a miasma of corruption around their political opponents, without sparing a thought for how such aggression will be received by the people they are trying to influence.

Finally, the manner in which BSP workers protested in Lucknow on Thursday showed that good change pales before vulgarities that dominate our public discourse. Not content with asking for the arrest of Mr Singh, some of them have gone to the extent of asking for his ‘hanging’. An award has also been declared for slitting Mr Singh’s tongue. Such animosities feed on one another, and prepare the soil for certain types of crassness that should have been a thing of the past long ago.

NDA has no stomach for criticism. FTII ‘conduct affidavit’ proves it again

It is true that governments dislike criticism but the BJP-led NDA government seems to be particularly sensitive to any derision of their agenda or world view. Here’s one more example of this: The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), which was rocked by 139-day campus protests last year over the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as its chairperson, has made it compulsory for all new students to submit a “conduct affidavit”. The affidavit bars students — adults who have voting rights — from violating the “decorum and decency on the campus” and “insulting” faculty members. It goes on to add that the institute has the full right to initiate disciplinary proceedings against students who violate any of its rules and regulations. The bottom line: Come and study, but don’t get into a debate on issues beyond textbooks or raise voices against social injustices/government agenda. No radical thoughts, please.

This is the first time that such a notification has been introduced in the institute, but it is not difficult to understand why it has been done. Other than last year’s protests in FTII, the country witnessed two other major protests this year by the student community in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Hyderabad Central University (HCU). In both cases, students, especially the Left-leaning ones, clashed with the ones on the Right, which is trying to get a foothold in India’s campuses. The FTII affidavit is also clearly part of this broader agenda of changing the narrative in these universities. This agenda is also being pushed through bureaucratic (as seen in FTII) and policy (the new education policy) measures. In an interview to HT, this is what TSR Subramanian, who led a committee established by the HRD ministry to come up with ideas for a new education policy, argued in support of curbs on students’ political activism on campus: “The opinion basically states that freedom of expression is a fundamental right… But there should be restriction to ensure that this right of a few should not impinge on the majority of the students. It is possible to have such restrictions”.

It is not only that the Centre cannot digest criticism of its actions, it is also using all kinds of means to ensure that student agitationists are kept in check. JNU recently refused to register the 21 students who were involved in the events of February 9 for the new semester, which includes students’ body president Kanhaiya Kumar. If the Centre thinks that student activism is bad then it should also rein in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) too. It can’t be that ABVP’s politics is benign and what other parties/students indulge in is toxic. This amounts to double standards and does nothing to enhance education in the country.

Parliament must pass the GST Bill this session

India’s plan to roll out a goods and services tax (GST) and create a common national market has missed several deadlines, including the last one of April 1. The next deadline looks to be set at April 1, 2017. Once adopted, the GST will dramatically alter India’s indirect tax structure by replacing a string of central and local levies such as excise duty, value added tax and octroi into a single unified tax and stitch together a common national market. But, the wait could get longer if Parliament fails to ratify the 122nd Constitution Amendment Bill in the monsoon session that began on July 18.

If Parliament fails to pass the Bill in this session, it will further delay the process of getting it ratified in at least half of the state assemblies. The Bill’s holdup until Parliament’s winter session, which usually runs till December-end, could mean most states will not be able to take up the legislation before their respective Budget sessions in February-March next year, the same time around which assembly polls in five states — Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur — are likely to be held. This will, in turn, push back the enactment of the supplementary and subordinate legislation that will have to be passed after the main central law is enacted. These include the state GST law, the central GST law and the integrated GST law. These are enabling legislation that are necessary for rolling out the new tax system.

Pending the passage of the Bill, the proposed GST council cannot be formed. This will delay decisions on rates and the structure of the dispute resolution mechanism. A delay in Parliament’s approval of the central law carries the risk of pushing back this process by a few months. In addition, it is also imperative to have a robust country-wide information technology (IT) network and infrastructure to make the implementation seamless. The IT network is still a work in progress, which has to be tested in the run-up to April 1, 2017 before its final roll-out. The fiscal hurdles among states have kept away large-scale investments in what should otherwise count as one massive, attractive market. But, for how long can India avoid the roll-out in its quest for an ideal GST model? India cannot continue to remain an assortment of several dissimilar markets governed by diverse sets of tax rules and rates.

UNREASONABLE DEMANDS

The recurrence of violent protests led by relatively well-off communities demanding reservation, be it Patidars in Gujarat last year or Jats in Haryana this year, is perplexing. The Jats are a relatively prosperous land-owning community in Haryana and are regarded as being high on the “social ladder” in the region. Their political and social might is even more evident in the influence they wield in rural areas and in the leadership of the dominant political parties in the State. The National Commission for Backward Classes had in the past come out with specific reasons against the inclusion of the Jats in Haryana in the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) list. This was overruled by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre through a notification in March 2014, promising a special quota for Jats over and beyond the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in jobs and higher education. It was left to the Supreme Court in March 2015 to reiterate the reality and to quash the decision of the UPA to include Jats in nine States among OBCs, stating that “caste” alone could not be the criterion for determining socio-economic backwardness. Clearly, even if the demands do not make any constitutional or legal sense, the bipartisan consensus over extending reservations has emboldened protestors among the Jat community. After all, the Bharatiya Janata Party in power too had voiced support for the implementation of the March 2014 notification.

Sonipat: Buses set on fire as the Jat agitation for reservation intensifies in Sonipat on Saturday. PTI Photo(PTI2_20_2016_000234B).  photo file from rajesh sood sonipat.

Yet, the demands for reservations from these powerful communities is also a consequence of the success of the system of reservations that formed the most significant component of the Mandal Commission recommendations, implemented for the past 25 years, apart from the 65 years of reservations for Dalits and Adivasis. The larger goal went beyond the uplift of the underprivileged and the historically backward; the purpose was to reduce the gap between the “upper” and the “lower” strata in the social hierarchy. That communities which have identified themselves with the upper strata of society also seek “backward” status suggests that through public sector representation and expansion in access to higher education the “economic gap” has been narrowed, or is at least seen to be narrowing. Specifically in the case of Jats, despite higher economic and social standing, there has been a reduction in landholding owing to distribution over generations and a squeezing of rural incomes due to the persisting sluggishness in the agrarian economy. It is a combination of these structural issues over time, besides the relative success of the reservation programme, that has fuelled the unreasonable demands made by Jats. In the case of the more prosperous and diverse Patidars in Gujarat, the demands for reservation were a thin pretext to do away with the system of reservation itself. The agitations, in a way, point to the need to review the list of castes counted as OBCs and to deepen the definition of creamy layer. An opportunity for this was provided through the Socio-Economic and Caste Census, but it was missed.

CLEAN AIR AGENDA FOR THE CITIES

Air quality has a strong bearing on India’s ability to sustain high economic growth, but national policy has treated the issue with scant importance. This is evident even from the meagre data on pollution for a handful of cities generated by the ambient air quality measurement programme. A new report from Greenpeace, based on NASA’s satellite data, indicates that people living in some parts of India are at greater risk for health problems linked to deteriorating air quality than those living in China. The measurements for Aerosol Optical Depth, which have been used to assess the level of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) that gets lodged deep in the lungs, point to a worsening of air quality in India in the 10-year period from 2005, particularly for States along the Punjab to West Bengal corridor, compared to China’s eastern industrial belt. This finding matches the Air Quality Index data for cities monitored by the Central Pollution Control Board. Quite simply, pursuing business as usual is not tenable, and the Centre has to act to enforce control mechanisms that will make the air safe to breathe. This has to begin with a more comprehensive system of real-time data collection, expanding the coverage from the present 23 cities (not all of which provide full or regular information) to all agglomerations with a significant population and economic activity, and within a given time frame. Putting the data in the public domain in an open format will enable multiple channels of dissemination, including apps created by the community for mobile devices, and build pressure on both policymakers and polluters.

High levels of particulate matter in cities arise from construction and demolition activity, burning of coal in thermal plants, as also biomass, and from the widespread use of diesel vehicles, among other sources. The Ministry of Environment and Forests has six-year-old data that attribute about 23 per cent of particulates to construction activity in six cities studied, and another 20 per cent to diesel vehicles. The onus of curbing pollution from these sources is on the States, and evidently they are not taking their responsibility seriously. Greater transparency in data dissemination and public awareness hold the key to change. Technological solutions to contain construction dust are equally critical, as is the low-cost solution of covering all urban surfaces with either greenery or paving. Widespread burning of biomass for cooking can be avoided if the government encourages innovation in solar cookers. Cheap, clean-burning stoves can have a dramatic effect as well. The transformation of cities through good public transport and incentives for the use of cycles and electric vehicles — which India is committed to achieve under the Paris Agreement on climate change — will reduce not merely particulate matter but also nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide. There is little doubt that the worsening air quality in Indian cities is already affecting the lives of the very young and the elderly, and reducing labour productivity. India needs a time-bound action plan.