Some food for thought
"Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live
up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as
near as possible to the Truth."
—Swami Vivekanand (Indian Philosopher, 1863-1902)
Word for the day
Epiphonema (n)
A sentence that is an exclamation, a general or striking
comment, or a succinct summary of what has previously been said.
First thought this morning
Many people have taken strong exception to the chanting of
religious and other slogans associated with our independence struggle on the floor
of the Parliament. They have usually been critical of BJP, enjoying a dominant
majority in the lower house, for its inability to protect the secular
credentials.
I believe these people are living in denial. They are choosing
to ignore the fact that just one month ago, these members of the Parliament
have been elected by majority support using these very slogans only. Expecting
them to stop shouting these slogans would actually be naive. Honoring the
democratic traditions, the will of the majority must be accepted as the law of
the land.
We, the people of India, have unambiguously expressed our
priorities. If the Parliament and State assemblies are functioning as per the
priorities set by us, there should not be any complaints.
On a more fundamental note, I would reiterate that the
government must work to remove the terms "secular" and
"socialist" from the preamble of our constitution. Let there be
clearly marked "Right" and "Left" politics in the country
so that the people can chose between Bread and Moon (Roti aur Chaand). These
degenerated socialists and pseudo secularists have already done tremendous harm
to the elementary fabric of our society.
Chart of the day
Tax vanity
Many people reportedly bought tickets for over hyped
India-Pakistan ICC World Cup 2019 encounter in black market paying as high as
£1000 per ticket. Add to this another £1500 for VISA fee, economy class return
airfare, 2night stay in London. This comes to staggering £2500 (INR 2,20,000)
per person for watching a match with a 6th ranked ODI team in world - which has
not been playing good cricket for two years; comprises mostly inexperienced
& inconsistent cricketers; and belongs to a country widely perceived to be
an enemy. Moreover, as per the available weather forecast there was only a 50%
chance of a full match being played.
Thankfully match happened and India won decisively as expected.
However, if we ignore the fun on the sidelines (drums, bhangra and
nationalistic fervor) the cricket was lacking from both sides. Virat Kohli gave
himself out despite umpire saying not out. Rohit Sharma gave two run out
chances. Dhoni played a poor shot to get out in a hurry. Bhumrah bowled below
par. Bhuvneshwar again raised doubt about his fitness. Entire Pakistan team
performed poorly save for some random glimpses of brilliance by Amir and couple
of batsman.
This reminds me of the Justin Bieber's Mumbai concert in summer
of 2017. People virtually scrambled to pay INR70,000 for each concert ticket;
travelled to New Mumbai stadium, and waited for many hours in hot and humid
weather for a pop singer to come and lip sing a few of his popular songs,
easily available for free download on internet.
I see three bothersome trends in these events:
(a) Income inequalities
in India have risen to a level where a section of people is able to splurge
obscene amount of money just for vanity purposes. I acknowledge that this has
been happening ever since ancient times. But earlier the underprivileged did
not have smart phones in their hand beaming such acts of self indulgence live
to their anguish, elevating their sense of deprivation.
(b) The people at
bottom of the pyramid are inspired to give priority to aspirational
spending (expensive smart phone, expensive vacations, extravagant marriages
& birthday parties, etc.) over necessities like good education, healthy
food, better living conditions etc. This is persistently increasing pressure on
the government to provide for the education, health, housing, fuel, electricity,
water etc.
It is common knowledge that a large portion of farmers' debt is
non farming debt. This debt is mostly taken for unaffordable marriages,
religious rituals on birth & death and medical treatment. This debt cannot
be repaid from meager farm income that is barely sufficient for survival. This
leads to frequent calls for debt waiver. The governments are obliged to honor
these loan waiver calls due to their political compulsions. The vicious cycle
is thus perpetuating. The primary consequence of this is perennial shortage of
growth capital.
(c) Media has become
too potent to influence economic behavior of consumers. This is true for most
of the democracies where media enjoys reasonable degree of freedom. But in our
case since it threatens to damage the socio-economic structure of the country,
a certain degree of control, may be higher standards of self regulation and
stringent check on motivated campaigns, may be warranted. Alternatively, the
State may consider running a counter campaign whenever a need is felt.
If the Finance Minister is searching for new avenues of raising
tax avenue and wealth redistribution, this kind of vanity spending that impacts
less than 2% of the population may be a good target. Let the GST on Justin
Bieber concert ticket be 40% and the foreign exchange purchase for non-business
and non-medical purposes may also be subject to 12% GST. Those who can spend
Rs2,20,000 on Indo-Pak match, they can spend Rs2,50,000 as well.
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