View Articles

KOLKATA: Recent discussions between Central and West Bengal Government officials over the increasing activities of suspected Islamic extremists in West Bengal have revealed several areas where security needs tightening up urgently. State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is expected to discuss these and related matters when she meets the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi during her forthcoming visit to Delhi.

Getting the country’s carefully built trillion-dollar-plus parallel economy by dauntless tax evaders, often with the help of direct and indirect tax collectors, busted merely through tough warnings from the government, has achieved little over the last 65 years. There is no genuine reason to believe that these crafty Indian big black money hoarders parking unaccounted wealth in the country and across the world’s 26 safe tax havens will come clean by September 30 in response to the wishes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Every government in the past had used strong warnings as also announced seemingly attractive voluntary disclosure schemes and amnesty programmes to entrap big tax evaders and black money hoarders. However, they failed to yield. Big black money hoarders are habitually strong risk takers. Their profile is generally very impressive. Many of them are well-known politicians and their family members, senior judges, bureaucrats, businessmen, legal professionals, doctors, actors, policemen and taxmen. They come from almost every section and profession of the society.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A determined attempt by the dominant A and I groups in the State against Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, V. M. Sudheeran has been thwarted by the Congress High Command. The immediate upshot of the High Command’s decision has been that Sudheeran will remain the KPCC president.

The persistence of financial flows routed through offshore financial hubs such as Panama and Mauritius with the concomitant upshot of fiscal losses stemming from “the disconnect between income generation and productive investment” have been deftly dealt with by the UN Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD). The latest flagship annual publication, World Investment Report (WIR), 2016 pertinently underscores the urgent need to create “greater coherence among tax and investment policies at the global level.

Even though post-Brexit anarchy vibrates UK, panic has tamed in India and Asian countries. Green shoots are visible. After an initial jerk, stock market bounced back to the original upsurge trajectory within a week. BSE Sensex of 30 companies leaped to 27,145 on 1st July, after crashing by 700 points to 26,398 within a day of referendum. Rupee returned to its stability. According to Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, the whirlwind of Brexit ended and India turned a “safe heaven” for investors. India was the third or fourth least affected country, he said.

Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani has an uphill task running an airline beseiged with problems not of his own making. Last month-end, he had to quit an ongoing meeting at the CII headquarters in upscale New Delhi to rush to his minister to explain a delayed flight from Delhi to Hyderabad which caused powerful union minister of urban development Venkaiah Naidu to cancel an important meeting in the Andhra capital.

Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi was right in saying India lived in its Six lakh villages and cottage industries alone could create much needed jobs and livelihood to the majority of the 1.25 billion people. In India 60 per cent of the population still is dependent on agriculture but they accounted for just 15 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. So vast number of people are disguisedly unemployed in the farm sector and the number is increasing with land holdings getting fragmented generation after generation. So what is the way out to ensure rural prosperity and the answer is simple: to develop clusters of small industries dotting all over the country.

What looked like a mere cabinet expansion turned out on Tuesday to be a major reshuffle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers. And the result; the stunning demotion of Smiriti Irani from HRD to textile and dramatic promotion of Prakash Javadekar, elevated to cabinet rank and given charge of HRD, marked a comprehensive ministerial appraisal. The Prime Minister’s office has prepared reports of performance of each minister for two years. This was the basis for promotion and demotion of ministers in the recent cabinet reshuffle.

Once again there is speculation whether Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will come to active politics or not. This ‘will she, won’t she’ question is dogging the Congress, which is presently facing an existential crisis. No one should be surprised at Priyanka’s entry as it had always been held that she would join politics at some time or the other. That ‘some time’ has come now. The only question is will the dynastic face click?

KOLKATA: It seems pre-election fears among a section of opposition parties in West Bengal are coming true: there has been very little movement in recent months in the ongoing official probes into three major financial scams in the State.