We have read a lot about the Baba Ramdev and the related stories. There is no doubt that the move by congress to use force on peaceful protestors was atrocious. I hope you would be glad that if I mention that this post is not exactly about that incident.
Instead of evicting Ramdev, I feel, congress could have genuinely considered some of the demands of Baba. Though many points raised by him are valid, it’s not practical to implement it.
However two major demands raised by him appeal to me
1) Bringing back the black money stashed abroad in tax heavens and
2) Electing the PM directly.
It is easier said than done to bring back all the black money stashed abroad. Congress has been in power for the past 60 years. I am sure that most of the money would belong to the congress ministers / party members. No wonder 4 of the senior ministers went to the airport (or at least they were planning to) to convince Baba either to drop the demand or to convince him. The issue of graft has been haunting congress for quite some time now. DMK which has been a part of the congress ministry has also criticized Baba. I believe, if you note the parties which criticize Baba and trace the amount of black money stashed by the members such political parties, 80% of such black money can be brought back to India. It would be foolish to expect the government (any ruling party for that matter including BJP and congress in particular) to act on this as they would be directly affected by this. Who would bell the cat?
If people elect the Prime minister directly, he would have more power and authority. The PM would then be directly answerable to the public when it comes to important issues. However in the current scenario you can have a dummy person as a PM. However good he may be, he would not be in a position to act independently. Again it’s not easy to implement this. There would be several issues. For ex. What would happen if a person from one party gets elected as a PM and another party gets majority? Would he be heading the government, while the ministers would be from other parties? That would be chaotic.
I believe if we address the second point (somehow) we can easily address the first one quite easily.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A fish out of water
“We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're gonna live on the internet!” I am sure you are aware of this quote; however, I am not sure whether we have realized the implications of this.
I am sure that most of us get frustrated if we do not have access to the social networking sites for a few days and I guess a majority of them would be women.
If Google ever takes a survey of who uses their chats most during the day, I believe, they would come up with an analysis that women use the chat windows more frequently when compared to men and for prolonged periods of time. Their active chat windows never cease to come down, whereas I observed that the active chat windows of guys are a few. For your record, I have not tried to peep into someone’s chat window. These observations are based on the casual glance of the screens of my colleagues as I walk past them.
What is the impact of these in the work place? You might think that it makes women concentrate less on the official work because of the online distractions. True. To some extent it has the effect of distracting them from their official work. But I cannot imagine a situation in which the internet access is blocked. It would frustrate them more and would make them less efficient.
Though the thoughts expressed above are gender neutral, I have focused on women as its impact would be more for the other gender, based on my experience. What’s your view on this?
I am sure that most of us get frustrated if we do not have access to the social networking sites for a few days and I guess a majority of them would be women.
If Google ever takes a survey of who uses their chats most during the day, I believe, they would come up with an analysis that women use the chat windows more frequently when compared to men and for prolonged periods of time. Their active chat windows never cease to come down, whereas I observed that the active chat windows of guys are a few. For your record, I have not tried to peep into someone’s chat window. These observations are based on the casual glance of the screens of my colleagues as I walk past them.
What is the impact of these in the work place? You might think that it makes women concentrate less on the official work because of the online distractions. True. To some extent it has the effect of distracting them from their official work. But I cannot imagine a situation in which the internet access is blocked. It would frustrate them more and would make them less efficient.
Though the thoughts expressed above are gender neutral, I have focused on women as its impact would be more for the other gender, based on my experience. What’s your view on this?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Inflation and auto fare
It has been a long time since I wrote a blog post. During this period if you analyze the front page news items, two major news items have dominated the front pages; Corruption and Inflation.
There are enough articles about corruption written by various columnists that I am bored of thinking about it let alone write on that.
Although inflation is equally talked about and discussed by everyone I thought of presenting a different analogy: A comparison of Inflation with auto fares. Why? One reason could be to make you to read further. Another, I happen to think about it. No specific reasoning behind it. Let me know whether this analogy appeals to you.
In my childhood days we rarely used to take auto. We generally used to travel by local bus as auto was considered to be costly. However since the public transport is not dependable sometimes we do travel by auto. During the late 80’s the auto fare for going to my uncles place from our place used to cost us Rs 5. For a government employee (clerical grade) the salary at that point of time was around Rs.5000.
Now auto fare for the same distance costs Rs.50. Auto fares keep increasing on a regular basis to factor the increase in the fuel prices and to factor in the inflation in the economy. Hence I thought considering this as a basis for the inflation is justified. Assuming that my assumption holds good (in sincerely believe it is), one should be earning Rs.50000 a month to be in the same category of the government clerk 20 years back. This shows how bad the purchasing power of a rupee has diminished over the years. If you consider the figure of 5000/50000 in the above example as net of tax, the gross figure should be around 65000-80000 (approx) assuming that you would be in a tax bracket of 25-30%
If you compare the above figures with your 5/6/7 figure salaries you can imagine at what level you are in the society vis-a-vis the government employee (clerk) a two decades back.
All these figures are for the period during administered pricing for the fossil fuels were in place. Going forward I cannot imagine a situation in which the prices keep fluctuating (read it as going up as the chances of downward revision is just a dream). Rupee has seriously lost value over the years, and what we have done is just added a few 0’s to our expenses and our salary. In actual terms either we have stagnated or went from bad to worse.
There are enough articles about corruption written by various columnists that I am bored of thinking about it let alone write on that.
Although inflation is equally talked about and discussed by everyone I thought of presenting a different analogy: A comparison of Inflation with auto fares. Why? One reason could be to make you to read further. Another, I happen to think about it. No specific reasoning behind it. Let me know whether this analogy appeals to you.
In my childhood days we rarely used to take auto. We generally used to travel by local bus as auto was considered to be costly. However since the public transport is not dependable sometimes we do travel by auto. During the late 80’s the auto fare for going to my uncles place from our place used to cost us Rs 5. For a government employee (clerical grade) the salary at that point of time was around Rs.5000.
Now auto fare for the same distance costs Rs.50. Auto fares keep increasing on a regular basis to factor the increase in the fuel prices and to factor in the inflation in the economy. Hence I thought considering this as a basis for the inflation is justified. Assuming that my assumption holds good (in sincerely believe it is), one should be earning Rs.50000 a month to be in the same category of the government clerk 20 years back. This shows how bad the purchasing power of a rupee has diminished over the years. If you consider the figure of 5000/50000 in the above example as net of tax, the gross figure should be around 65000-80000 (approx) assuming that you would be in a tax bracket of 25-30%
If you compare the above figures with your 5/6/7 figure salaries you can imagine at what level you are in the society vis-a-vis the government employee (clerk) a two decades back.
All these figures are for the period during administered pricing for the fossil fuels were in place. Going forward I cannot imagine a situation in which the prices keep fluctuating (read it as going up as the chances of downward revision is just a dream). Rupee has seriously lost value over the years, and what we have done is just added a few 0’s to our expenses and our salary. In actual terms either we have stagnated or went from bad to worse.
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