When UPA wanted to implement GST in 2006, BJP declined to cooperate but now Congress has fully cooperated with NDA government.

Former Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has termed the Goods and Services Tax (GST) imperfect with major flaws. He said the Modi government had hurriedly pushing through the new tax sstem when the country was unprepared.

“This is a very imperfect tax measure that has been rushed through or pushed through against the wishes of large majority of small and medium business persons,” he told reporters in Karaikudi on Saturday. When it was very clear that the country was not ready and many glitches had to be removed, the BJP government, in anxiety, had pushed through the tax measure, ignoring legitimate criticisms, he said.

The Congress was the original proponent of the GST but “this is not the GST designed by experts, this is not the GST advised by the Chief Economic Adviser, this is not the GST contemplated by the Congress and this is not the GST the country deserves,” he said Mr. Chidambaram alleged that too many compromises had been made adding to the imperfections in the GST. The major flaws were the multiple tax rates, the diarchy — both the Centre and the State governments exercising jurisdictions, keeping out petroleum products, electricity, alcohol and many aspects of real estate from the GST and the most obnoxious and draconian anti-profiteering provision, he said. 

‘This bizarre provision must have been conceived by someone who does not understand economics or business or market economy,” he said. All these flaws should have been removed and people given time before rolling out the new tax measure.

“Nothing would have been lost if the government deferred the rollout by two to three months,” he said. The GST should have been tested in trial runs and the glitches removed. Without all this, the government had rushed through the tax regime.”

Reiterating the Congress’s support to the GST, Mr Chidambaram said “this imperfect GST, which is pushed through when the country is unprepared, is a grave mistake''. He hoped that the price of the mistake was not too high. He wanted the government to engage the Opposition and remove the mistakes.

When he announced the GST on February 28, 2006 and the Congress-led UPA government wanted to implement it by 2012 or 2013, the BJP declined to cooperate and, therefore, the GST was stalled. But after the BJP came to power, the Congress fully cooperated with the government, he noted.

Walk the talk: Modi’s remarks on cow vigilantism need to backed by action

While it is impossible to fault Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for speaking up against killing in the name of cow protection, it is equally impossible to be convinced about its earnestness and efficacy. His remarks at an event in Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati ashram have come at a time when there is a groundswell of popular revulsion about violent, even murderous, cow vigilantism, leaving the unfortunate impression that it was but a response to public pressure. The #NotInMyName movement, which began with a Facebook invitation to participate in a protest in Delhi, had assumed viral dimensions, with other cities in India and elsewhere in the world organising or planning to organise similar events. What began as a somewhat limited mobilisation to campaign against lynching morphed into a broader movement involving all communities against state apathy to the phenomenon. The timing is not the only thing that gives rise to scepticism about Mr. Modi’s observations about cow vigilantism. Frequency is the other issue. A phenomenon that has wreaked violence, affected livelihoods, and created insecurities over the last couple of years — all of which have been compounded by a mischievous and hugely flawed order to regulate cattle sale — is deserving of a more muscular and frequent response. More importantly, it needs to be coupled with tangible action on the ground.

One of the contradictions that Mr. Modi must square up to as well as grapple with is that, by and large, aggressive cow vigilantes who take the law into their own hands are members or sympathisers of one or the other organisations of the Sangh Parivar, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s extended family. Given this, words are simply not enough — unaccompanied by strong corroborative action, they only serve to perpetuate the lie that the top is either totally divorced from the distasteful happenings at the bottom or that it doesn’t have the means to control it. It is true that as Prime Minister, Mr. Modi has no direct control over law and order, which is a State subject. But as the BJP’s most popular leader, one who has no real rivals in the party, he must wield his influence and power to crack down on those who indulge in violence in the name of cow protection. In the absence of this, Mr Modi’s remarks may constitute nothing more than a mild reprimand. There is no denying that speech is better than silence and his remarks may help sharpen the focus on how determined governments are to uphold the rule of law — firmly, decisively, and in a manner that deters cow vigilantism. Any politician worth his salt knows there is Condemnation and there is condemnation. Mr. Modi should show us that he hasn’t used the small .

With the adoption of GST, a clear road map is needed to simplify the indirect tax regime

 A landmark reform, India today switches to a new indirect tax system, the Goods and Services Tax. The GST subsumes the multiple Central, State and local taxes and cesses levied on goods and services, unifying the country into a single market, thereby making it easier to do business and ensure tax compliance. This will attract investors and more efficiently mop up revenues for the exchequer. The reform has been years in the making, and having shown the political will to finally pull it off, the Central government must work with the States to chart a road map to simplify the tax regime. Currently there are multiple tax rates ranging from 0% to 28%, plus a cess on some products, creating incentives for lobbying and rent-seeking. The level of preparedness for the new tax system too is not optimal, with sections of industry, trade as well as the bureaucracy visibly anxious about several aspects of the GST’s operational and legal framework. In response, the date for businesses to file the first GST returns has been deferred. The generation of e-way bills for moving goods worth over ₹50,000 too has been put on hold, along with the requirement for e-commerce portals to deduct tax at source from small sellers. The GST Network, which will digitally capture billions of transactions daily, was not able to test its software in advance; and there is concern about the preparedness of intermediaries mandated to help businesses transition to the completely electronic compliance system. The coming days therefore could test the system, and the capacity of the authorities to think on their feet will be vital.

The GST impact: What will be cheaper, which ones are going to be expensive?As it stands, the GST in its initial avatar has a complicated structure, with far too many tax rates that could lead to classification disputes, and with the exclusion of key inputs such as petroleum products (with particularly high indirect tax levies). The Finance Minister has asked industry to ensure that the benefits of GST rate cuts are passed on to consumers, but it is not clear how businesses with higher tax incidence are to adjust pricing strategies or how the stringent anti-profiteering clauses will be interpreted. The transitory effects on India’s largely informal economy, which has already been hit by demonetisation, must be watched closely. Tax buoyancy, an easier investment climate and the 1% to 2% growth spurt expected from GST may take some time to be realised. Yet, reforms are the art of the possible and the government has said it will strive to rationalise the number of tax rates and bring excluded sectors into the GST over time. This is the first step in the evolution of the GST, and some initial hiccups are perhaps inevitable in a system founded on political consensus and federal adjustments. This is why it is unfortunate that some opposition parties, including the Congress which led the initiative on the GST for much of the past decade, decided to boycott the midnight inauguration in Parliament’s Central Hall.

According to the latest figures released by the Aurangabad divisional commissionerate, which monitors the farmer suicides in Marathwada, 445 farmers have embraced death this year as on June 26.

Despite the fact that the Maharashtra government has announced loan waiver for farmers, there is no let-up in the spate of suicides in eight districts of Marathwada. In the last two weeks, as many as 42 farmers have ended their lives, which government officials said highlighted the magnitude of the rural distress.

According to the latest figures released by the Aurangabad divisional commissionerate, which monitors the farmer suicides in Marathwada, 445 farmers have embraced death this year as on June 26.

Between June 19 and June 25, as many as 19 farmers ended their lives, while 23 farmers had committed suicide between June 12 and June 18.

The government had made the first loan waiver announcement on June 11, after which the statewide farmer strike was called off. The state cabinet then cleared the loan waiver plan to the tune of Rs 34,000 crore last Saturday. As per the latest figures, Beed district has witnessed the highest suicide figure of 74, followed by Nanded (75), Osmanabad (68) and Aurangabad (62) in the last seven months.

Four days ago, while announcing Rs 34,000-crore crop loan waiver for farmers, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had said the government was waiving off loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh per farmer. He also said the decision would benefit around 89 lakh farmers in the state and make around 40 lakh debt-free.

Fadnavis said the waiver would help all debt-ridden farmers and small and marginal ones. Kishore Tiwari, who heads the government-appointed Vasantrao Naik Shetkari Swavlamban Mission, said the farmer suicides would stop once the loan waiver would take effect on the ground.

“The moment the farmers get to know that their loans have been actually waived by banks, we expect the suicide figure to drastically fall,” he said.

Tiwari said continuing farmer suicides despite announcement of loan waiver highlighted the level of rural distress.

“There are several factors responsible for the extreme step being taken by the farmers. Debt is one of them. The government is working at all levels, such as providing food security, crop insurance and health cover to farmers, to alleviate the distress,” he said, adding that results would take time to reflect on the ground. Echoing his views, Aurangabad District Collector Naval Kishore Ram said, “Besides mounting debt, disease and family problems are also responsible for farmer suicides.”

The Japan-South Korea Comfort Women Deal

The cycle of negativity surrounding Japan-South Korea relations since the Abe-Park era began in early 2013 has at times eclipsed North Korea as a source of angst among observers of Northeast Asia. Even the modest improvements that accompanied commemorations of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic normalization in June 2015 were tinged by frustration over the two governments’ failure to move forward on the comfort women issue. The chief problem was the lack of acknowledgement of Japanese responsibility for the coercion of girls and women to provide sexual services to the military in imperial Japan, and this disagreement extended to other historical issues that hung over the relationship.

It was especially surprising, then, that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and President Park Geun-hye cut a deal to resolve the comfort women issue. The agreement reached the end of 2015 followed more than a dozen rounds of consultations between the two governments, a process that unfolded under intense media scrutiny and ever-growing suspicion of the other side’s intentions. Park made resolution of the problem a condition of the “re-normalization” of relations with Japan, while Abe and many of his supporters appeared increasingly frustrated and fatigued by the inability of the two sides to move past this and other historical issues.

PM Modi was speaking at the centenary celebrations of the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent a stern message to cow vigilantes in the country saying that killing in the name of cow is unacceptable. He was speaking at the centenary celebrations of the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

“Killing people in the name of cow is unacceptable. No one has the right to take law into his/her hands. We belong to a land of non-violence. Violence is not the solution to any problem,” said the Prime Minister. He added that Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Nation, would not approve of such incidents.

The remarks come in the backdrop of several incidents of lynching and murder of people by self-styled cow vigilante groups over rumours of cow slaughter. The most recent incident was the murder of 15-year-old Junaid Khan by a group of people on a Mathura-bound train in Ballabhgarh in Haryana after an argument escalated over seats. Junaid, who was accompanied by his two brothers, was going back home after Eid shopping when he was mocked over his skull cap and referred to as a ‘beef-eater.’ Five people have been held so far in the incident.

In August last year, the Prime Minister had similarly criticised the actions of self-styled cow vigilantes and asked the States to prepare dossiers on them.

“It makes me angry that people are running shops in the name of cow protection… Some people indulge in anti-social activities at night, and in the day masquerade as cow protectors,” PM Modi said. He added that people who wanted to serve cows should ensure that the animals do not eat plastic.

On Wednesday, demonstrations were carried out by citizens under the banner of ‘Not In My Name’ at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and several other cities across the country protesting the government’s silence over such attacks on Dalits and minorities. People held banners saying ‘All lives matter’ and ‘Muslim lives matter.’

“Unless we speak up, the people who are behind it are by default going to think that they have the majority’s support — which is not true”, Monami Basu, Professor of Economics at Delhi University told indianexpress.com at the protest.

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