Unpredictable Life

Today was the last day of the demonetisation window provided by the government. During the last 50 days we have heard different voices from a wide spectrum of the people ranging from common man to political leaders to the economists. Let me as a common man also jump into this bandwagon and write about what I think. I would divide my blog into three sections each dealing with government, opposition and the common man. I would be considering the economists also as a politician in blog, as in Economics there is no standard formula or a case study to judge the impact of the demonetisation; each economist who has given views has given based on his political leanings.Hence i am not including any section for them.

Before I begin, I would like to thank all the honest bankers for their relentless effort in easing out the situation and bearing the brunt of the customers. 

Government

The Prime Minister on November 8th at 8 PM had addressed the nation and announced the demonetisation.  I being a bhakt had believed that the government would have planned it correctly and after initial 3 to 4 days, the situation will smoothen out. I was disappointed in the way the government implemented it, in most of the southern part of India the 2000 denomination was distributed for most of the days which was also not meeting the demand. Being in Bengaluru, I personally did not face much issue since I prefer online transactions more. But, here I can understand the situation of the people living in small towns, villages and daily wage workers. I had expected the government to pump in more of lower denomination notes and less of 2000 rupees, this would have eased out the situation a bit. Though people had 2000 rupees in their hand but it was like zero value as you cannot buy anything with it due to lack of change. Another mistake which I feel the government did was the announcement of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, this scheme should have been launched withe demonetisation. I believe the only reason government came up with this scheme was because the Indian Juggad had outwitted them. Government did a good job in updating the rules every day based on the need and also encouraging people to start doing digital transactions. This is how even in corporate world we improvise on changing situations and I do not see any wrong with this.

As the number of raids also started to increase, it made me think did the RBI and government purposefully let limited circulation to reduce such activities? Also, the government wanted to push people to start using digital way of transacting, this can also be one of the reason for reduced the circulation. But these are just speculations from a common mans mind and only RBI/PM can answer on it.  

As part of further steps towards this movement, I would like the government to bring in cyber experts to vet the security of the banks and payment wallets; as more people go digital the risk of cyber attack increases exponentially. It would also be good, if they can ask the public sector insurance companies to offer insurance for cards and payment wallets against cyber attacks. These can be bundled with Annual Card maintenance fees the banks charge and can be kept minimal 1 rupee or so. I would also like to see government coming up with incentives in terms of tax, reduction in cost of POS for digital transactions, increase in the tax slab and disincentives for cash transactions. Lastly, the demonetization of 2000 and 500 rupees notes once the other steps related to black money like the benami property, keeping tabs on gold and silver is placed. Though I am disappointed with implementation of the move, I still support our PM and I am as eager to hear him on new years eve as others.

Opposition

Opposition parties like the Congress, TMC & AAP started to oppose vociferously from day 1. I feel they were just opposing because they were loosing out the vote bank to the BJP. Being a sincere move, I had expected them to support the government in implementing it and highlight the short comings with ideas to address them. This was never visible in the opposition. Even today, they are asking the PM to resign which surprises me since the same parties did not ask Manmohan Singh to resign when every day a new scandal was coming out of the closet. 

 Opposition is really loosing its value and if these goes on we may be in a terrible situation where there would be no one to check the government in terms of their action. I would like the opposition to support good decision, aggressively oppose wrong decisions, but don’t oppose everything just because you are opposition. If you ever want to come back to power, please change yourself.

Common Man

Common man was very supportive and was ready to bear brunt. He stood in queues for long hours to withdraw his own cash, took a hit on his business,  some of them adapted very quickly to the digital mode and embraced it. But few of us failed the honest among us by colluding with corrupt. They are also equally responsible for the shoddy implementation as is the government. 

Demonetisation is the word heard everyday since the historic announcement from our Prime Minister. Since that day, my Facebook timeline is hugely dominated by positive and negative aspects of this move by our PM. I do believe that every decision will have pro’s and con’s; a decision is taken when pro’s outweigh the cons. After this decision was announced, we have seen multiple debates happening across all TV news channels. Today, we are progressing in such a world where the good thing which would happen with the decision is showed only for few minutes or say hours and slowly it is replaced by negative things. Once we have reached this point, we see any thing being linked to a decision to label it as a bad move. I would like to illustrate with a couple of examples: 

I read an article on a website of news house, which said that a man died due to Heart attack while standing in the queue to exchange his notes which were no longer valid. The opposition political parties started to blame ruling party for this. Without any disrespect to this death, I would like to know how a person can get heart attack by standing in a queue? Heart attack was due to come, whether he was in a queue or at home he would have got it. But strangely, I saw social media fluttering with posts blaming PM for his death. Even the media, used this opportunity to label this decision as bad. 

Another news I read was that the Bengal BJP was aware of this move and hence they deposited 4 Crore rupees on 7th November in the bank. I wonder, how even this is linked to decision of demonetisation. If a person/organization is depositing any money in the bank, it is getting linked to his account and PAN details, the Income tax department can ask questions and can vet this transaction.

Unfortunately, we are living in a world where media houses, political parties have become so selfish that they are trying to get gains from anything and everything which they can without keeping in mind about what can be repercussions. The responsibility and integrity with which the news channels were reporting is no longer there; with social media coming into play as one more medium, it has become more of a competition to break the news without any focus on the journalistic ethics. The politicians have started to share the edited/morphed photos to prove their point. We as a citizen are becoming blind followers by sharing or retweeting anything and everything from their wall or handle without even reading the content.  People then continue heated arguments via comments or replies to prove their ideologies on these posts. 

Since June 1st my timeline on Facebook is flooded with posts on taxes the government of India is charging. This was triggered by a governments decision in the budget to charge 0.5% of Krishi Kalyan cess on all the services that come under the ambit of Service Charge. People are opposing this move because this will start burning pockets more. But will it really impact that much? Let us believe that a person spends approximately Rs.10000/- for monthly expenses so he will have to shed Rs.20 more because of the new cess which would not impact much on his pocket. So this fuss about paying more taxes is useless you are just talking putting that big post because someone else has written it and you damn do not understand what it is?

The government is currently charging two cess on being Swachh Bharath and the other Krishi Kalyan cess. The first cess is used to maintain the urban and rural India clean. I think the urban India deserves this and it should be considered as a fine for them. We staying in urban India litter the waste like cigarette butts, tea glasses, papers, sachets of pan masala on the roads, though we have dustbin few metres away, we have a pile of garbage littered on a unused land which stinks and breeds insects, we do not segregate waste as per the instructions of the Municipal corporations.  Why can’t we throw them in the dustbin as advised by the Municipal body? Until we change, I think we deserve it. So we should stop complaining and change ourselves.

The Krishi Kalyan cess was introduced to improve the facilities of agriculture in India. We all know how bad are our agriculture facilities; people in the drought effected areas are committing suicides, some of them are looking for alternate source of income. We should be happy to pay this as this would go for Agriculture improvement. If our Agriculture facilities are not improved soon we would be paying indirectly in terms of increased prices for vegetables, pulses, cereals and fruits. 

We have come through a very stagnant period of development till 2014 and also had a high fiscal deficit. The current government is trying to push development through government spending also trying to improve social security in India. so for the next few years we would be required to pay few additional taxes to see our India prosperous. 

I request everyone to be more pragmatic and be the part of this change. Let us stop cribbing and see what can be done to make our nation better. We should also make the government accountable for proper utilization of these cess.

Last week on 26th May 2016, Narendra Modi led NDA government completed 2 years at the center. During this tenure government went through lots of ups an downs. It has launched slew of programs like - Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Make in India, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, UDAY, Rural electrification, promoting usage of LED bulbs, increasing the solar power capacity, highways development, MUDRA yojana and Start up India Stand up India to promote entrepreneurship, Pradhan Mantri Jhan Dhan Yojana, Direct Benefit transfer, Atal Pension scheme, Pradhan Mantri Bima Suraksha yojana, Digital India etc which if successfully implemented could have good impact socio economically . The other positive of this government was the auctions of Natural resources, Spectrum which was conducted in a more transparent way and generated good revenue. The Ministers of the government responded to the people’s complaint on twitter. Be it railways or external affairs the nation felt that the government was with them always.

On the other side government had incidents like- Rohit Vemula, Kanhaiya Kumar, Award Wapsi, comments by few BJP parliamentarians which would remain as dark spot. These incidents have dented the governments and Prime Ministers image. 

On Friday, 4th December 2015 Delhi Government made a decision to reduce the pollution. Come January 1st 2015, vehicles on the roads of the Delhi would be halved the government has used the concept of odd and even numbers. Vehicles with odd number on the number plate would ply on days which have odd dates, and similarly vehicles with even number on number plates with ply on days which have even dates.

Citizens of Delhi have expressed their displeasure over this policy. I personally believe that this is a flawed policy and it will not work out in India due to following reasons:

Public transport system is not matured enough, we see that buses and metros are full of people during the peak hours. Before implementing this policy we have to improve our public transport.

For people who could afford will start buying another vehicle and try to get number with opposite number.

People may start forging number plates. Currently we do not have manpower to check each and every vehicle if the number plate is right.

I think the government could have taken following steps to reduce the pollution caused by vehicles:

Carpooling initiative could have been encouraged and police could have played vital role in allaying the fears of travelling with unknown people. Bengaluru police are currently piloting car pooling initiatives in Electronic City, Hebbal and Whitefield. People have shown positive response to this.

Increase the taxes on new vehicle purchase.

Ensure a limit of one vehicle per household or per 4 members of a family.

Being from Raichur, though initially i was bit disappointed when Raichur lost out to the race of IIT to Dharwad; but later on when tried to analyze and understand the decision i felt it was the right decision. Raichur is a backward district where we still have to fight for our basic amenities like water, electricity, better infrastructure in terms of roads, hospitals, public transport and it has very less industries other than rice and cotton. Though we have one of the biggest thermal power stations in India, we have to suffer with power cuts of around 5 to 6 hours day. Have we ever protested for this? Isn’t our right to have electricity 24 X 7? But since the decision of IIT was announced, people have felt dejected and have started to organise massive protest and want an IIT in Raichur. Actually I was surprised with the flurry of petitions, protest marches and rail roko abhiyan after the IIT decision, which till now was never done for basic amenities which we citizens deserve. 

Let us understand why an IIT requires a such a high infrastructure. IIT is an institute which requires a better infrastructure; it thrives on research and collaborations with industry to develop cutting edge technology. We need IIT and industries to co-exist, which would eventually serve the purpose of development of the region. But with current infrastructure facilities we have in Raichur no industry would be ready to put in their money, hence setting up an IIT would not thrive any development in the region.

People living in metro’s and tier one cities have to battle with traffic problem on a daily basis. They spend at least 10 to 20% of their time in commuting from work to home and vice versa. But this problem is not going to reduce, as it is growing at a rapid phase. As an example, it used to take me 40 mins to commute from my home to office 2 years back, but the same has now increased to 60 mins or more. There are plenty of reasons for this problem, few of them are highlighted below:

Metro’s and tier one cities have become major source of employment.

With increase in people’s salaries and availability of cars at very economical price, every working household has a minimum of one car.

With reduction in the quality of public transport facilities, people tend to use personal transportation for commuting between work and office.

Concentration of work places in a single region. Example- outer ring road of Bengaluru has the largest concentration of tech parks and companies.

No by lanes for bus stops on ring roads.

Public transport and infrastructure has not been able to catch up with the increase in the population.

Break down of public transport buses in the mid of the roads or on flyovers.

 Now the question that arises is, how can we contain this problem and what can be done to make sure that it doesn’t get worse than what it is now. I can think of the following solutions that can reduce our traffic problems in considerable ways:

Creating awareness and promoting carpooling services. One of the best solution that I can think of is encouragement by companies for carpooling. Companies can give incentives to the people who choose to use carpooling facilities.

Government can also give some tax incentives to the people who use carpooling. They can take the help of the companies in getting the data of the people who are utilizing carpooling.

Increase the public transport facilities. For example - In Bengaluru, after 11.30 PM the public transport gets closed. But being a metro, where people work 24 X 7 and also tend to go to parties post work, we need public transport functioning 24 X 7. The frequency of the buses can be reduced in the night.

Encouraging the companies within the same technology park to synchronize the work timings of maximum of their workforce which would help in pooling the company transport services.

Metro’s and tier one cities should have dedicated bus lanes, so that they do not cause jams when they stop at bus stops.

Each bus should undergo mandatory checks before it leaves the depot for the day’s trip, so that the chances of break down are reduced. Even if the bus breaks down, the nearest bus depot should be able to repair it or tow it as soon as possible.

Government has to think at much greater pace and improve the public transport infrastructure. For example - If Bengaluru had metro from Banashankari to Whitefield, it would have reduced a larger part of traffic problems. But, as per the current plan we are not going to see that happen by 2022. Here it is due to lack of future thinking from the government that we are facing this problem. Even the existing projects have not been completed on time.

Every year first Sunday of August is celebrated as friendship day across the world. Especially in the Indian subcontinent it is celebrated with much enthusiasm. People, especially the young generation spend the whole day outside with their friends, they tie a band to each other which is symbol to their friendship. So why we celebrate and cherish this relation?

Friends form very important part of our life. They are kind of our alter ego. We like to spend time with them, share secrets with them, discuss things which we cannot talk with our family, take advice on everything, they become your relationship guru, in short we know everything about each other and which is the best thing of this special bond called friendship.

Its been one year since India witnessed the result of historic election. Last year on this day, the results of General Elections 2014 were out and India was in jubilant celebratory mood. For the first time in 20 years, a party had got the majority. BJP led by Narendra Damordas Modi had won 283 seats out of 543 for the lower house of the parliament. The Congress party was reduced to just 44 seats which is less than 10 percent of the total seats. The results were very embarrassing for the congress party. Mr.Modi had proven his track record in Gujarat, and people were expecting the same to be replicated at the national level. During the entire campaign the “acche din” had become the thrust of BJP’s campaign with slogans of “har har modi, har ghar modi”. We had become eager to see the ache din after Mr. Modi’s victory.The government was sworn in 10 days later on May 26, 2014. 

After coming back from sabbatical we see a lot of energy in Rahul Gandhi and is seen often targeting the government and terming it pro- corporate and anti-poor. One of his recent jibe was calling the government suit boot Ki Sarkar. But is this jibe justified?

If we look at the policies of the government they have been pro poor and pro entrepreneurial which would lead to job creation. They have moved away from the traditional subsidy model and are trying to eliminate poverty by creating and providing jobs, focussing more on financial inclusion, reducing the misuse of the subsidies by transferring directly to the account, inflation has come down, providing 24 X 7 power and water which would help our farmers. Apart all this, the biggest achievement till now is the government has remained scam free.

On the contrary, if we look at the last 10 years of the UPA government headed by the congress was more inclined towards the subsidy model which was being misused a lot. Scams were much common. 2G, coal blocks, commonwealth games, arms deals, adarsh are just few which benefitted some of the corporates, their own party leaders, middle men’s etc. this list goes on.

Today Bengaluru witnessed bandh in protest to the resolution passed by the TN assembly opposing the Mekkedattu dam project. In India, bandh is a way become a way for the political parties to express their protest to the decisions. But real question, does showing a protest by shutting down a city help in anyway? 

We see that during bandh, entire city is shut down and it comes to stand still, public transport is shut; other mode of transportation like auto rickshaws, taxis ply but with less number charging exorbitant amount exploiting the situation. In addition to these, shutting down the city causes the loss in crores in a metropolis like due to no business. We have also seen during these protests, the protesters damage the public property which causes loss to exchequer. 

​​Yesterday supreme court scrapped the controversial section 66A of IT information act. The freedom of speech activists are ​over joyous with this decision. It was called the draconian act which curtailed the freedom of expression or free speech and violated our fundamental rights. Under this act we had seen many people being arrested for expressing their thoughts. For example a cartoonist from Jadavpur university was arrested a creating a cartoon that made fun of chief Minister of West Bengal, two girls from Palghar who had written Facebook post on the death of Shiv​Sena supremo Bala Saheb Thackeray which offended the shiv sainiks. These are the just the examples of one side of the coin. We have also seen instances where social media and internet is used as tool spread rumours and create panic, one of them was using whatsapp and messages to spread rumours about attack on North east people in Bengaluru during mid of 2012. This led to mass panic among people from North East and they started​ ​to back to their home state. Like this we have had several instances which have even led to violence and days of shut down.

on Saturday, our Finance Minister came presented the Union Budget for 2015-16. After the budget the opposition started to hit out at the budget saying it was anti-peoples/poor budget. which literally surprised me. From my understanding of the budget, though i am not a economist to completely decipher the budget and give a verdict. I have seen last five budgets and i believe that this budget is best among them and is not anti people/poor. Our finance minister has touched every strata of the society with this budget. 

Firstly, the major change was with acceptance of 14th Finance commission recommendations, the government had to devolve 42% of the central government funds to the state government. With this the finance minister had pretty less in his kitty, which led in the reductions of allocations to social schemes compare to last year. But, with devolution of funds, the states would also need to pitch in and allocate some of their share to these schemes.Other major change was in creating a social security net, which was missing in our country and was very essential. The Announcement of this scheme is a welcome move which would certainly help poor people with saving them from any unforeseen calamity when something happens to their near and dear ones.Government has also continued to support MNREGA and has also allocated highest money to the program. Definitely, with these schemes the budget cannot be termed anti-poor budget. These are gonna effect day to day life of a poor people positively.

For the middle class, tough there is not much benefit other than increase in the deductions to encourage savings and create pension funds. With government sticking to fiscal consolidation which would help RBI reducing the interest rates which in turn would reduce the EMI's for the middle class people. The only thing which we the middle class won't like is the increase in the service tax which is gonna cut our pockets. But we all know that, for a economist to balance his balance sheet, he has to increase somewhere to manage the deficit caused by reductions. The government has also come up with abolition of wealth tax and levying surcharge on people with more than 1 crore annual income.

For agriculture sector we see that the government has allocated funds for national irrigation program which also is PM Modi's pet project "per drop more crop" and also the Soil health card program. In addition to these, we see allocations for education sector, setting up of a online portal for education loans so that no student misses out on higher education. We also see government allocating 1000 crore rupees for technology startup which is clear sign of encouraging entrepreneurship. For the corporates, the finance minister announced the reduction in corporate tax to 25% in 4 year period starting from next year. In addition to these, the exemptions received by the corporates would be rationalise which is also a welcome move which would encourage more investments and bring our taxation system at par with the global countries. Finally, the icing on the cake was rather a bold move government announced a new law for black money, bankruptcy also providing additional powers for NBFCs to check on defaulters.