VOX POPULI                                                                   by                                                             S Kamat                                                                    as                                                             Aam Admi                                     Issue: 234                     Date: 21.05.2018            skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com 1. Recently Concluded Panchayat Elections in Bengal are a Blot on the Fair Face of           Democracy 2. Karnataka Elections Score 'One All' for the BJP and the Congress 3.   Is The Goa Congress Willing To Compromise? Recently Concluded Panchayat Elections In Bengal Are A Blot On The Fair Face of                                                                  Democracy The recently concluded panchayat elections in Bengal are a blot on the fair face of democracy. Starting from strong-arm tactics used to block nominations of candidates other than the TMC to booth capturing at the time of voting to intimidation of voters to make them vote for TMC candidates, the landslide victory that the TMC won needs to be derided by all those who believe in the democratic system. Added to that the 26 odd people who died during the election related violence are martyrs to the spirit of democracy. If winning elections in Bengal is done in this fashion, increasingly becoming a trademark, by the TMC, it is a sad commentary on Mamta Banerji's belief in democratic values. With her Prime Ministerial aspirations such election management techniques will not help her go far down that road in 2019.                 Karnataka Elections Score 'One All' for the BJP and the Congress The Karnataka elections and their results is a lesson of sorts to the BJP on not what to do. With 104 seats in their kitty what they should have done is adopted the high moral ground by saying that the people of Karnataka did not give them a clear mandate to rule and therefore they would sit in the Opposition as a responsible party. By jockeying for power they not only have lost public face with allegations of trying to buy MLA's but also united the Opposition nationally. This does not augur well for them for the upcoming elections in other States and the General Elections to follow since it will be presumed that the BJP will do anything to grab the seat of power. Like it is said it was a question of just 2 seats but even then it was a case of 'so near but yet so far'. Political sagacity and foresight was important at this time rather than political brawling which was a sorry sight to see. We must thank the Supreme Court for forestalling this ugly drama of horse trading by forcing the vote of confidence within 24 hours that is by 4pm latest on Sat, 19th when B S Yeddyurappa had to resign as CM admitting he did not have the numbers to run the government. One must say that the Karnataka elections was a score of 'One All' for the BJP and the Congress on the scale of debacles. Postscript: The Panchatantra tale of two cats fighting over a chapati when a monkey arrives and walks away with it, is so true in real life of humans, which is what makes the Panchatantra timeless. With the Congress and the BJP fighting for rewards at the hustings it was the dark horse in the form of JD(S) whose H D Kumaraswamy at No. 3 in the count of seats who walked away with the prize.                             Is The Goa Congress Willing To Compromise? Recently the Goan papers were carrying headlines that the Goa Congress has staked claim to form the government. It looks like the Goa Congress is living in a time warp, what they should have done when the Assembly election results came out more than a year ago they are doing now. At that time they were fighting amongst themselves as to who would be the Chief Minister and that led to inaction allowing the BJP-led coalition to pull the rug from under their feet. Now full well knowing that nothing would come out of their claim to form the government, the Goa Congress leaders have gone to the Governor and after that posed for pictures to show their purported 'unity'. However, the Congress can still play a wild card and going by the way of the Karnataka model after the recent Assembly elections and that is  to offer the post of CM to Sudin Dhavlikar of the MGP. Sudin is known to harbour CM aspirations and that could just about give the Congress the numbers for a majority in the Assembly. When H D Kumaraswamy can be made CM with Congress being the one with the larger number of seats, why cannot the Goa Congress make Sudin Dhavlikar the CM making his dreams turn to reality sooner? Postscript: Sudin Dhavlikar's MGP party won 3 seats in the Goa 2017 Assembly Elections which with the Congress' 17 would have tipped the scale of the 40 Seat Goa Assembly with 1 Independent but for the internecine squabbles within the Goa Congress allowing the wily Manohar Parrikar to lay claim to form the government. If the Congress want to come back to power they can think of making Sudin Dhavlikar the Chief Minister ala Karnataka model, particularly in this interregnum when Parrikar is unwell and away from the State. There is a precedent of sorts in this regard with Madhu Koda , an Independent, who leveraged to become the CM and ended up with a record of being the most corrupt Chief Minister in the span of 24 months that he was in office.                                                      ************************* Hi, I am mailing you the latest issue of Vox Populi to stimulate and encourage discussion and comment on current affairs. If you are interested in responding to any of the issues mentioned in this newsletter you could mail me or alternately post your comment at my blog - skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com. The comment if posted on my blogs will have the advantage of other people who peruse Vox Populi to see your comment and respond to it, if need be. On the kamatblog.blogspot.com blog you can see the back issues of Vox Populi also. IN CASE YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN RECEIVING VOX POPULI, YOU CAN MAIL ME BACK PUTTING - UNSUBSCRIBE VOX POPULI - IN THE SUBJECT LINE AND YOUR NAME WILL BE TAKEN OFF THE DISTRIBUTION LIST IMMEDIATELY. There is no catch in this and no payment of any kind is involved, now or into the future. This is being sent, as said earlier, to encourage your comment and involvement in current affairs. Thanking you for your patience in reading through this. HAPPY READING VOX POPULI. Yours truly S Kamat, S-1, Sanohitra Apts., Dr Rego Bagh, Alto St. Cruz, Goa 403202. Ph:(0832) 2458220 Email: kamatsrinivas@hotmail.com My Newsletter by kamatsrinivas  Alto St Cruz Alto St Cruz, Goa USA Sent to  kamatsrinivas@hotmail.com —  Unsubscribe  Delivered by

VOX POPULI                                                                            by                                                                                              S Kamat                                                                   as                                                             Aam Admi                                         Issue: 233               Date:  14.05.2018                                 skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com                VOX POPULI IS BACK! VOX POPULI IS BACK! VOX POPULI IS BACK! Contents: 1. Empty Gestures & Littler Men 2. Undermining The Institutions Of Democracy 3. Bank NPA’s : Who's Paying For Them? 4. Rapes That Dot The Country's Geography                                       Empty Gestures & Littler Men Narendra Modi's hurriedly cobbled up trip to China in April to meet President Xi is one of those empty gestures like dropping in on Nawaz Sharif for a cup of tea in Pakistan while returning from an overseas trip a few years ago. Nothing happened with Pakistan and importantly our relationship deteriorated to the extent that today it is at the nadir for the last two decades or more. One hopes that the same thing does not happen in the case of China. The lack of maturity being shown is coupled with the fact that Modi always wants the spotlight on himself and will go to any extent to ensure that full well knowing that sometimes these gestures will fall flat. Thus the April China trip was on the same day when the two Koreas were meeting and the whole of Asia, the US and the rest of the world would be looking towards that meeting. Modi wanted to rub of some of that shine onto himself by scheduling a meeting with Xi. It is a wonder that Xi agreed for Modi to come over since the Korea issue was an important issue for China and Xi would at most have probably given a cursory ear to Modi. The way the world looked at the Modi-Xi meeting was reflected in the BBC news the next day when the coverage was all about the Koreas meeting and there was absolutely no mention of the Modi-Xi meeting. From the media photos in the Indian press that were carried one can see Modi and Xi's pictures with dancers, visiting an exhibition etc. which are of the kind that are done at retreats on the sidelines of summits. One can safely say that it was an opportunity completely wasted. With no major issue touched like Dokalam or others as one newspaper put it, Modi had expressly gone to request Xi not to rock the boat on the shared borders between the two countries until the 2019 elections in India were over.  Talking of littler men, the controversy generated out of President Kovind not presenting all the National Film awards is a shame. The artistic community involved in our film fraternity spend a lifetime in their craft and for which they sometimes get nominated and win the National Film awards. Many get the award only once in a lifetime while others may get it a number of times. Thus for the majority of the awardees it is an important and memorable occasion of their lives to go up and collect the award from the President of India. President Kovind not recognising this simple fact is a shame. Could he not spare a few hours in recognition of the work of the awardees? We are living in the times that littler men and women are being given positions that they are not deserving of and out of that in the false sense of pride that they are filled up with, come up with unseemly and irrational conditions in the performance of their official duties. All past Presidents have given out awards for which they have had to spend hours and have not complained about it. Maybe we will have President Kovind declare that he will give out the Padma awards only up to the Padma Vibhushan while the awards after that like the Bhushan and Shri which are larger in number be given by the Vice-President!                                     Undermining The Institutions Of Democracy  Narendra Modi and his government progressively and with great deliberation has undermined the democratic institutions of this country. The first act of this unholy drama was not to renew the term of Raghuram Rajan as RBI Governor. This act was done with a complete lack of finesse with the delineated purpose of getting rid of the not-so-amenable Rajan and getting in Urjit Patel, who considering his new arrival could be taken advantage of to  push through the ill-conceived and badly managed Demonetisation exercise.  Post-8th Nov 2016 taking advantage of the new Governor, the Central Govt. financial bureaucracy led by the likes of Shaktikanta Das & Hasmukh Adhia, more the former than the latter, took over the RBI completely issuing circulars after circulars, many contradicting each other, knowing full that the RBI would be held responsible for all the repercussions. With Urjit Patel sidelined for the first month or more of his assignment, he had no option but to run away from the media in Gujarat since he was not in the know of things and was unsure of fielding the barrage of questions on the Demonetisation exercise that were likely. Never in free India had a sight been seen of the RBI Governor fleeing from the media! With Urjit Patel thereafter settling down into his job, he commenced paying back the Executive for giving him the assignment by first accepting that the Demonetisation exercise was recommended by the RBI in their Board meeting held on the morning of 8th November 2016 thus letting the Central government off the hook. Later Urjit Patel continued to stonewall the media and even a Parliamentary Consultative Committee on how much of the demonetised currency had come back with the claim that the RBI along with the banks are still 'counting'. Close to two years are coming to pass but RBI have not yet come out with confirmed figures on how many of the demonetised notes came back. The lack of clear cut numbers on the returned demonetised notes stopped the RBI from closing their books of accounts in the year 2016-17, the first time in ages. Thereafter the RBI finalised the accounts by declaring a reduced dividend to the central government by about Rs. 30 crores from what they would normally pay. The question is if RBI accounts were closed for 2016-17 then the amount of demonetised notes that did not come back were obviously estimated, if so why were these figures not revealed to the public. Why is the RBI Governor playing to the tunes of his political masters and indirectly defending them since this data once revealed would obviously provide fuel to the Opposition's fire before and during any of the elections that have been held since early 2017? Similarly in terms of interest rates, the economic conditions like inflation etc. were not amenable for a review of the rates being lowered since early 2017. Even then Urjit Patel marginally adjusted them a tad lower to again play fiddle to his political master's tunes. Thus ever since Urjit Patel has taken over the reins at RBI the  autonomy and independence of that institution has become suspect. In cricketing terms, RBI was the first wicket to fall in the Modi government’s plan to undermine the democratic institutions of this country. The second wicket to fall was the office of the EC - Election Commission when A K Joti was made Election Commissioner and then CEC in July 2017. Joti had served under Narendra Modi as Chief Secretary when Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat. Whether it was pre-planned or happened by circumstance, it was Jothi who was the CEC when the Gujarat elections were to be held. We all know how the Gujarat election dates were pushed out to accommodate Narendra Modi's visit to Gujarat when a number of vote gathering measures were announced and helped the BJP's principal vote puller to be in the public eye, when actually the Election Code of Conduct should have been in force. It was only after Modi returned to Delhi from Gujarat and gave Joti the green signal were the poll dates announced. As we all know the Gujarat elections were a close call for the BJP and  if Modi had not been able to make his whirlwind tour with the public sops prior to the elections, the results could well have been different.  It would have then been another story completely for Gujarat as well as the rest of the country. This trend of undermining the position of the EC has continued since then and for the upcoming Karnataka elections we had the dates leaked by a BJP functionary to the media even before the CEC had announced them to the media. The question is how does the BJP  know of the dates in advance unless they are giving it to the EC! This is the extent to which the EC has been subverted by the present political dispensation.  The third wicket to fall was that of the Supreme Court. Ever since the Narendra Modi led BJP Government came to power in 2014, the battle of attrition between the government and the Supreme Court was continuing. With a pendency of cases running into crores across the courts in the country, there has been a severe shortage of judges more so at the Supreme Court. Even after the collegium of judges give their recommendations the CJI and the Supreme Court have to wait for the say-so of the Government before the judges can be appointed to the High Courts and the Supreme Court. This love-hate relationship has continued through the tenure of many CJI's to varying degrees with some going in for outright confrontation to some others extending the hand of co-operation to government. With the present incumbent, CJI Dipak Misra facing the same dilemma, he apparently decided to become the willing collaborator by trying to please the government and thus win favour for the judiciary. This is where Misra made the mistake since the government follows the approach of - 'no give but all take'. The government interpreted this collaborative behaviour as acquiescence and started playing hardball to get the Supreme Court under Its thumb. In the meanwhile Misra's approach towards the government was seen in other circles mostly by the Opposition political parties that Misra was the government's man. A number of judgments along with the dissent among the Supreme Court judges on the 'favourable roster' that added fuel to the fire has led to a motion of impeachment against the CJI since dismissed. Thus we are seeing how a lack of leadership by Misra as CJI has made the Supreme Court fall into the hands of the Executive as is again evidenced with the refusal of the Executive to elevate a Justice K M Joseph to the Supreme Court despite the collegium's recommendation. One must also say here that the Supreme Court and the judiciary has not really applied themselves seriously to the pendency of cases in the courts and continues to be procedure bound rather than concentrating on speedy delivery of justice.  Apart from the above numerous other officials at all levels of the bureaucracy and the country's investigating bodies have been rewarded for giving favourable reports and/or judgments to the ruling junta functionaries which exonerated them from multifarious criminal cases of all varieties. An example of this is that Narayanan who headed the SIT that went into the 2002 Gujarat riots in which Narendra Modi was an accused and who was fully acquitted, was given the post of Indian Ambassador of Cyprus, a cushy posting to loll in the sun of the Mediterranean. Similarly other members of the SIT were given important and influential postings. We have lately seen Maya Kodnani being acquitted in the 2002 Gujarat communal riots cases on flimsy grounds mostly lack of evidence since the police do not put in any efforts to investigate such cases knowing full well that they will be thrown out of the courts. Then you have the Justice Loya case who had acquitted Amit Shah, BJP President in a murder case, where it is not clear whether the judge died of natural causes or was murdered.   This is how with institutions getting compromised both governance and the process of delivering justice have been subverted in this country under the present government eroding the foundations of Indian democracy.                                            Bank NPA’s : Who's Paying For Them? PNB Chairman has said that by Dec 2018 the bank would be out of the woods as far as the Nirav Modi/Choksi financial bungling scam. Another headline recently reported that NPA’s of some Rs. 2000 crores would be written off by Banks this year from the pile of Rs. 10 Lakh crores. Yet another headline in the financial papers reads that NPA’s will be on the increase in 2019. Clearly our banking system is in a major mess with the person in charge, the Finance Minister with serious and debilitating health issues, first it was the heart and now it is understood to be the kidney, which precludes his giving adequate attention to his onerous responsibilities. Thus before we have a multi-organ failure of the country's banking sector and the situation goes beyond the point of salvage we need to first get a fully functional and competent Finance Minister. The point is does Narendra Modi have anyone in mind and that is the moot question. There are no choices available for the Prime Minister with the possibility of calling back Yeshwant Sinha from retirement being out considering that he is singing a skewed tune compared to the government line and having called for Arun Jaitley's resignation many times in the past it would appear by appointing Sinha that the government was running the ship with an incompetent person in Jaitley. With Yeshwant Sinha having now quit the BJP, Narendra Modi has not much choice left to replace the Finance Minister.  Since the Nirav Modi/Choksi scam of some Rs. 10,000-12,000 crores, multiple banking scams have surfaced across the country with different banks running from Rs. 2000 to Rs. 6000 crores mainly relating to loan default and/or utilisation of funds other than for stated purpose leading to inability to clear loan dues since in the first place they were never intended to be repaid. This is clearly the case  in  the latest disclosure of the nexus between IDBI and Aircel promoter C Sivasankaran. This is one end of the scale of bank customers while at the other end common customers operating savings bank accounts are being harassed no end, with charges levied if minimum balances are not maintained and the latest is that account holders will be charged each time that they use the ATM. In Vox Populi I had written sometime back in an earlier issue that there will come a time when bank account holders will be charged for just stepping into the bank, so much for a service oriented industry! These are the same account holders that are forced to shoulder the brunt of the write-off  of the NPA's. Thus the common man will be paying through his nose for the shenanigans of bank officials and the mercenary money-grabbing ways of others like industrialists and those who avail big-time loans.  The Nirav Modi/Choksi scam at PNB is clearly a case of collusion with bank officials involved up the chain of command or responsible for their negligence and/or laxity on the job. Similar irresponsibility is shown in the other cases involving the scams and/or NPA's where there has been deliberate manipulation to clear loans and due diligence was given the go-by by bank officials. This is not to say that the entire banking system is rotten but one can safely say that majority of the top management in banks, both public as well as private, can be held guilty to the charge of connivance at one time or other or for one case or another when it comes to loans sanctioned that have since become NPA's. There is therefore the need for a complete revamp of India's banking sector before good money for re-capitalisation is again thrown at bad people, practices and procedures. This bail-out money could well be used for much needed alternate development activity around the country where many a deserving program is being starved of funds.                                              Rapes That Dot The Country's Geography The Unnao, Kathua and Surat rape cases with their callousness and brutality show that after the Nirbhaya incident in 2012 nothing really has changed in the way that women particularly children and even infants are seen by men not as human beings but as objects to satisfy their lust and sexual aberrations. The Ordinance brought in to accord the death penalty to rape offenders convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 is absolutely the correct measure. There was a need to have an exemplary punishment that would act as a deterrent to offenders and with it the declaration that the government had the will to enforce it. After the Nirbhaya incident when it was declared that all rape cases would be handled by fast-track courts one has come to realise that such courts have turned to be misnomers being caught in and unable to get out of the rigmarole in the Indian legal process and allowing the rape cases to drag on. The ambiguity or confusion on handling rape cases in the fast-track category can be understood with the government recently coming out with an announcement that rape cases involving victims who are minors will be dealt in the fast-track category! So what is the truth? If one looks at the frequency of rape cases across the country particularly where victims are below the age of 16 years and link it with the locales where the rapes have occurred, the age group and occupation of the offenders, one comes to the preliminary conclusion that we should not let our girl children remain unsupervised. Where the parents by virtue of economic compulsion have to go out for work  be it in urban or rural areas and there is no one in the family who can keep an eye on the children we find the children are at risk particularly the girl child. Thus the girl child needs to be under supervision as much as possible and kept in a safe environment. One of the methods could be is that we have our NGO's actively involved in this program by providing social shelters in localities particularly urban slum areas and in villages through the anganwadi system so that the girls are under some protective care. These shelters operating from 8am-8pm can be offered free of charge for the lesser privileged families and a nominal charge levied on those who are well off. Progressively these shelters can be moderated to become training centres for the children for inculcating skills and for socio-cultural activity. Thus we will not only have our girls protected but also become more accomplished.  The other thing that can be done is to ask all children not to accept any inducements like sweets, ice-cream or other food items from non-family members or strangers. Under the pretext of offering children these inducements the offenders take advantage of them. For this a concerted advertisement program has to be undertaken by the DAVP, one does not know whether it exists anymore, to educate children and their parents the risks of accepting things from strangers. This program can be expanded to cover schools where the idea can be reinstated in the minds of the children again particularly the girl child. But how much this will work is doubtful since the range and variety of inducements in these days of TV advertisements is extensive and very appealing and to have a child refuse something that he desires requires a great amount of will-power and self-discipline which their parents have to inculcate.  Then there is the issue of family values that needs to be tackled where added to the bravado that the young males exhibit generally, we find that in northern India the boys in the family tend to be handled more permissively than the girls. This leads to the boys targeting girls beyond the normal teasing what we call ched-chad and looking at them more as an object to satisfy their lust. This happens more as a group behaviour. Such tendencies can only be controlled by the parents of the boys and senior family members instilling the proper values of respecting girls other than in the family and putting them under a code of rigorous discipline. Any incidents which comes to the parent or guardian's notice should be immediately dealt with by exemplary punishment. This is easier said than done since social strata Issues and the impudence that wealth and power brings will come in the way and for seniors in the family to modify and change traits is a generational exercise. Nonetheless a start needs to be made.  Again if you analyse the incidents of rape in the last decade or so, you will find that it is probably the deprivation of sex which drives the rape impulse in offenders most of the time. That is why you have car pick-up drivers taking advantage of single women, Ola/Über drivers performing indecent acts when women passengers are alone as also trying to rape them, rapes happening at construction sites, slums etc. Recognising that we have a problem we as a society need to take a courageous decision and legalise prostitution. Once there is an avenue for men to exercise their sexual urges one hopes that the incidence of rapes will reduce. The other is a more broader approach and that is to have people stay as much as possible in their native places. We are today encouraging more of our people to leave our villages and move to urban areas. This leads to separation from their families and is one of the reasons for the increase in rape cases in slums and housing clusters in our towns and cities. In the villages the men stay with their wives and there is always a sense of  nervousness to attempt rapes since they are known in the village. In the places they move to like slums the curtain of anonymity that is the fact that they are not known encourages the proclivity to rape. Overall this encouragement of migration of population to urban areas is a Western thought which will not work in India. In the West the migration was encouraged so that land areas could be freed up and organised agriculture implemented. In India what is happening is that the urban migration is one of the reasons that leads to land going fallow which will end up with drastic food shortages nearer to famine in the future and in the interim prices of food will be driven up taking it beyond the reach of the needy since food will then become imports dependent. The related negatives of urban migration in the Indian context among others are slums and  higher cases of rapes.                                                          ******************************** Hi, I am mailing you the latest issue of Vox Populi to stimulate and encourage discussion and comment on current affairs. If you are interested in responding to any of the issues mentioned in this newsletter you could mail me or alternately post your comment at my blog - skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com. The comment if posted on my blogs will have the advantage of other people who peruse Vox Populi to see your comment and respond to it, if need be. On the kamatblog.blogspot.com blog you can see the back issues of Vox Populi also. IN CASE YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN RECEIVING VOX POPULI, YOU CAN MAIL ME BACK PUTTING - UNSUBSCRIBE VOX POPULI - IN THE SUBJECT LINE AND YOUR NAME WILL BE TAKEN OFF THE DISTRIBUTION LIST IMMEDIATELY. There is no catch in this and no payment of any kind is involved, now or into the future. This is being sent, as said earlier, to encourage your comment and involvement in current affairs. Thanking you for your patience in reading through this. HAPPY READING VOX POPULI. Yours truly S Kamat, S-1, Sanohitra Apts., Dr Rego Bagh, Alto St. Cruz, Goa 403202. Ph:(0832) 2458220 Email: kamatsrinivas@hotmail.com Sent from my iPad My Newsletter by kamatsrinivas  Alto St Cruz Alto St Cruz, Goa USA Sent to  kamatsrinivas@hotmail.com —  Unsubscribe                       Delivered by

                                                                     VOX POPULI
                                                                           by
                                                                         S Kamat
                                                                                as 
                                                                         Aam Admi

                      Issue: 232                     Date: 18.12.2017

                      skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. Madhu Koda Got Off Lightly

2. Of Sexual Harassment & Justice To Victims

3. Taking Care of Trees, Saves Lives Also

As I am sending this the Gujarat elections results are streaming in on TV. BJP as expected is leading in 107 seats while the Congress+ are leading in 74 seats. My prediction for Gujarat (Total Seats -182) is: BJP - 100-105, Congress+ - 70-75, Others- 5-10. Any bets! 

                                                  Madhu Koda Got Off Lightly

The infamous Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda who after playing his cards  deftly in coalition politics and becoming the CM went on to make thousands of crores in coal scams was recently sentenced to 3 years in prison and fined Rs. 25 Lakhs. Considering the amount of money Koda has made by corrupt means, one must say that he got off lightly. For shameless politicians like Koda 3 years in jail is a blip in their time scale and Rs. 25 Lakhs is a drop in the bucket of his ill-gotten gains. It is time therefore that our justice system should award punishments commensurate with the crime which will act as a deterrent to the criminally inclined. 

                                       Of Sexual Harassment & Justice To Victims

Since Harvey Weinstein has been accused of sexual harassment, the 'MeToo' sites as well as independent media disclosures have seen women coming out with claims of being harassed/molested that has led to the Time Magazine Person of the Year, 2017 as the Silence Breakers given to them. This taint has affected even senior film stars like Dustin Hoffman, many politicians on both sides of the Atlantic and has also reached the doors of the White House with Donald Trump being accused by some women of having taken undue advantage of them, while George Bush Sr. has been accused of groping by a number of movie stars. It is not only the women but men also have came out in the open with accusations against many film stars notably Kevin Spacey who has become persona non-grata in Hollywood because of his homosexual escapades over the years. There are a couple of things in these incidents which merit analysis. The first being the image of the Western women as independent, strong-willed and capable of standing up for themselves has changed to show that they are as much vulnerable, fragile and prone to physical abuse as Indian women. The second is that justice in these cases not necessarily as awarded by courts but by society has been summary and immediate. There has been no question of being proven guilty prior to being punished. There has been also no rejection of the accusations by those involved. The reason for this could be that those accused knew that they were found out and realised it pointless to contest the claims. Also they would have realised that rebuttals would keep the matter active in the media and to avoid unwanted publicity the best option was to accept the fact and lie low. In India also the 'MeToo' sites made an appearance with linkages to the 'casting couch' in the film world but generally the victims refrained from naming specific persons who took advantage of them. The India 'MeToo' exercise was more in the nature of making awareness by a show of hands that sexual harassment and exploitation of women exists in our society. That one could say is nothing new. As for justice in this context one is reminded of the Tarun Tejpal case where he was accused of molesting a woman colleague in Goa. The case is dragging in the courts reaching up to the Supreme Court and charges against Tejpal are yet to be framed though a substantial time has elapsed since the particular incident took place. Where rape and molestation cases are supposed to be fast tracked the Tejpal case is setting records in framing charges which is the first step in a judicial process. Shows you how rich and influential people can continue to mentally harass victims by using the creaking wheels of the Indian judicial system to slow down justice. After all, this is India mere bhai ! 

                                          Taking Care of Trees, Saves Lives Also

We have yet another tree fall in Chembur which has taken the life of a woman, the breadwinner for her family comprising of college and school going children. This time it was a Gulmohar tree which crashed while the woman was sitting on a bench under it. The last time again in Chembur a coconut tree had collapsed on a woman that resulted in her death. There have been countless incidents like this of tree falls in Mumbai particularly in the last rainy season resulting in death, injury of people or damage to public property. The situation is similar across India's metropolises with tree cover like Bengaluru. In the latest Chembur incident the talk is that the Gulmohar tree is a 'foreign' species to India and falls without warning! This comment is rather surprising since the Gulmohar tree that is seen across the Indian sub-continent and calledkrishnachura in Eastern India figures regularly in age old poetry and literature. Such excuses are made to justify the neglect and lack of maintenance of tree cover within urban areas by our municipal bodies. Similar justification is given at the time of cutting old trees wherein it is said by 'experts' that trees more than 60 year old have served their useful life! When it is pointed out that with cementing of pavements very close to the trunk of trees, they are deprived of water, it is said that for big trees the roots go 'deep into the soil' and there is no need to let some bare soil around the tree trunk. Now if you do not allow bare soil around the tree how will water seep down into the earth for the tree to draw upon since obviously the roots cannot reach deep enough to reach the depleting water table? If you look at statistics it is these trees that have been hemmed in with cement which are falling. Thus it is time that across India specifically in urban areas a standard is established that bare soil of at least one meter in radius should be left around the tree for it draw its sustenance from. For bigger trees with larger trunks, more space than 1 meter may be provided. With this you will find that tree falls will reduce dramatically in our cities. For this space of bare soil to be provided around the tree any of our environmentalists or NGO's can move the NGT so that this becomes a law which will make it difficult for municipal bodies to ignore it. We need to realise that this measure will not only save trees but also protect humanity and public property. The other thing that needs to be done when it comes to tree cover in urban areas is that the municipal authorities or a cell specially created in the State Forest Dept. for this purpose be made responsible for regularly inspection of trees and trimming them for both purposes of stability as well as traffic safety as well as look after the general maintenance of the tree cover. It is time we did this since taking care of trees saves lives also. 

                                                          ****************************

Hi,

I am mailing you the latest issue of Vox Populi to stimulate and encourage discussion and comment on current affairs. If you are interested in responding to any of the issues mentioned in this newsletter you could mail me or alternately post your comment at my blog - skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com. The comment if posted on my blogs will have the advantage of other people who peruse Vox Populi to see your comment and respond to it, if need be. On the kamatblog.blogspot.com blog you can see the back issues of Vox Populi also.

IN CASE YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN RECEIVING VOX POPULI, YOU CAN MAIL ME BACK PUTTING - UNSUBSCRIBE VOX POPULI - IN THE SUBJECT LINE AND YOUR NAME WILL BE TAKEN OFF THE DISTRIBUTION LIST IMMEDIATELY.

There is no catch in this and no payment of any kind is involved, now or into the future. This is being sent, as said earlier, to encourage your comment and involvement in current affairs. 

Thanking you for your patience in reading through this.

HAPPY READING VOX POPULI.

Yours truly

S Kamat, S-1, Sanohitra Apts., Dr Rego Bagh, Alto St. Cruz, Goa 403202.

Ph:(0832) 2458220 Email: kamatsrinivas@hotmail.com

Sent from my iPad

                                                         
                              VOX POPULI
                                       by                                                                   
                                 S Kamat
                                        as 
                                Aam Admi
           Issue: 231                     Date: 11.12.2017 

 skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. Pushing Back India By 50 Years
2. Was Ahmed A BJP Member? 

3. Jerusalem As Capital Of Israel 

4. Mani Shankar Aiyar's Expulsion A Hasty Move

                                  Pushing Back India By 50 Years

The expectation from an effective government is that it will first take care of people's material needs. Like food for instance where prices have been randomly spiralling time and again with the frequency of the spirals increasing. Take for instance the situation on onion and tomato prices that have been going through the roof which situation is made more disturbing with Minister Ram Vilas Paswan saying lately that he cannot do anything about it. A few weeks back it was vegetables which across the board had seen phenomenal price rises with French beans selling at Rs. 160 per Kg. Now the question is that if the government is unable to tackle and minimise the randomness of the rise in food prices or show their unwillingness to do so then do they have the right to remain in power?

The other thing is that citizens look to the law and order situation being secure and safe. However, random incidents of killing, lynching and murder across India lead to a fear and anxiety in the common man. This more so when you look at crimes against women and children particularly rape, sodomy and murder that have been on the increase. And if you happen to be dealing in cattle you have to carry your life in your hands to transact business since mere possession of any kind of meat that looks like beef or transporting cattle could have you beaten up and/or strung up from the nearest tree. Last month a woman care giver of cattle had to seek help and police protection in UP to transport a sick cow to another town for treatment. The support was commendable but why is it required in the first place? Then we have just had a person hacked to death with an axe and then torched in the name of love jihad. The video of this incident was carried by TV channels and one suspects that it will not be long before we will have similar incidents happening across the country in the name of the emotive issue of love jihad. 

The trend for making irresponsible comments scaling the heights of unreasonability and exhibiting a limited mindset continues with the furore being created lately on the film Padmavati. After lighting the fires of discontent among students in JNU & Osmania University by intolerance, then the violence by cow vigilantes, we are into the next phase. One does not understand why these needless tensions are created. Is it to seek the attention of the higher ups in the political establishment by ambitious party workers? These are questions to which answers are difficult to find. One feels that in the absence of a hard line being laid down by the top echelons of the party, those down the line take advantage of this silence and tend to play the fool.

The top leaders of the party in the meanwhile instead of concentrating on important issues of governance get overly involved in every election that comes up converting each into a prestige issue, like in the present case with Gujarat. With a comfortable majority in Parliament with which the government should have been passing legislation required for the country, this present government seeing the hurdles of not having a majority in the Rajya Sabha as an obsession has been chasing the States to control much needed votes. This has resulted in neglect of governance. 

To avoid this stigma the government in its anxiety to show performance has gone for the Big Bang measures like Demonetisation and implementation of GST without fully grasping the impact of these on the people and the economy. What is disturbing is that the government is ignoring the human pain and suffering that is caused by these two measures. By wearing a halo that they are fighting black money and corruption the government wants to cover themselves with glory. At the same time they tend to ignore the lakhs whose livelihood has been affected by either businesses compelled to get closed or thrown out of jobs. In the context of GST the stated aim of government is to legitimise businesses, minimise the use of cash in trade and improve tax recovery. All these are laudable objectives but the way the government is going after them is to throw the scare into people and with so many changes being advised, people would temporarily halt their economic activity until the situation settles down. If so and with this trend continuing the tax revenues will drop. For collecting tax, you need people to continue with economic activity, right?

Thus if you put all this together which is runaway prices affecting people's day to day lives, no safety or security for life or limb when you go out, a medieval mindset prevailing overall and no incentive for pursuing economic activity, one would have to conclude that since the present government has come to power in 2014, India has been pushed back by about 50 years. There is a serious need to reverse that s retrograde trend.

                                               Was Ahmed A BJP Member? 

Narendra Modi & the BJP in the context of their utterances during the election campaign in Gujarat seem to be obsessed with the Mughals ranging from Babar to Aurangzeb whom they invoke at the drop of a hat. This is rather unusual considering the saffron brigade's anathema of anything Muslim. It also brings to the fore that the major city in Gujarat over 22 years of BJP rule continues to be named Ahmedabad!

                                                  Jerusalem As Capital Of Israel 

Donald Trump's explosive announcement of the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will reverberate a long time in the Middle East and will kindle the fires of turmoil where a shaky, tenuous peace has been prevailing. For long the city of Jerusalem holy to  Jews, Christians and Arabs has been thought to be kept as a common territory jointly administered by both Palestine and Israel in the final peace settlement if and when it happens. Trump's unilateral proclamation in this regard is going to stir things up in this region with people already taking to the streets in protest in Palestine and other Muslim countries. The announcement has also not been received well by the Western allies of the US like France and the U.K. among others. With the fires in North Korea not yet doused, Donald Trump one feels is taken on things which are more than that he can handle. One also fails to understand why the US President is stirring things up in places which are a lesser problem than concentrating on resolving matters which have reached conflagration point as in North Korea. 

                                   Mani Shankar Aiyar's Expulsion A Hasty Move

The Congress party one feels should show some more spine. A couple of days ago it expressed contrition for calling Narendra Modi a chaiwallah when he himself has admitted to being one on the current Gujarat campaign trail. There was no need for the Congress to express any regret considering the levels that Modi has been stooping with a new low by equating the Congress party to termites apart from other insults. Not only that he has been twisting history and re-interpreting  the utterances of eminent Indian leaders of the past to show that they were against Gujarat and Gujaratis to seek the sympathy of voters. In actual terms whatever Modi claims in these instances has never been what has happened or is the truth. 

Now the suspension of longtime leader, Mani Shankar Aiyar from the primary membership of the Congress party for calling Modi a 'neech admi' takes the cake. The riposte by Aiyar against Modi was absolutely in order and was probably done not to get Modi and the BJP get away with murder in slandering the Congress party and its leaders, both past and present. Modi has been fully deserving of this comment. Any sympathy that anyone thinks that Modi will get from the voters in Gujarat for this comment by Aiyar are all misplaced. It was important for the Congress to give back as much as it gets. There is also the situation that to get a message across sometimes you have to talk in a language that is understood by the other party. Modi and his BJP cohorts speak this kind of language  and it seems that it is the only language they understand. In fact by such comments Narendra Modi has been devaluing and demeaning the office of the Prime Minister of India which is rather a sad state of affairs. Now that the Congress has taken this hasty step in removing Aiyar from the party, you will find that Modi and the BJP will go to more extremes in their actions and language for the remaining part of the Gujarat campaign hoping that the Congress will expel more of their senior leaders. They already have Kapil Sibal on the Babri Masjid issue in their crossfires. In this manner Rahul Gandhi has played into the hands of Modi and the BJP.

It is said that all is fair in love, war and in election times. Modi is playing this maxim to the fullest extent. There  is no place for sentimentality and propriety at election times which is what Rahul Gandhi should understand and he should be giving back as much as he gets from the opposite party. Rebut them on every issue that they raise while remaining committed to the election plank that the Congress is pushing. With the impending elevation of Rahul as President of the Congress party, one could interpret the action of expelling Mani Shankar Aiyar as a show of strength. But if Aiyar wants he could make this action backfire against Rahul by laying the groundwork for a split in the Congress with the seniors going one way and the youth (below 60) remaining with Rahul. This scenario could be a flashback almost six decades back when Indira Gandhi put down her foot on who will run the Congress party. Testing times for Rahul Gandhi for sure. But Aiyar is too much of a Gandhi family loyalist to invoke this option though his feelings seem not to be equally reciprocated by the family. 

                                                             *************************

                                                        VOX POPULI

                                                                               by

                                                                           S Kamat

                                                                                as

                                                                         Aam Admi

                                                    Issue: 230                     Date: 04.12.2017

                                skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. After Cyclone Ockhi The Western Coast Needs To Pull Up Its Socks

2. Modi's Irresponsibe Comments On The Gujarat Campaign Trail 

3. Celebrating GDP Figures Premature

               After Cyclone Ockhi The Western Coast Needs To Pull Up Its Socks

With India aspiring super-power and technologically advanced country status, the inability to give adequate early warning recently to our fishermen in the southern States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka about Cyclone Ockhi is somewhat disappointing. Thousands of fishermen from these States have been affected with some deaths, many rescued and hundreds still missing. This is a serious lapse on the part of the IMD and the State authorities to be responsible for causing human tragedy at such a large scale. As is usual the ball is being lobbied back and forth between the agencies mentioned above about the notices of the imminent cyclone not having been received in time from the IMD, while the IMD claims that though they advised on time the State authorities have been remiss in their duty to inform the fishermen. In any case, the tragedy remains a fact. The laxity on the part of the IMD and the State authorities could stem from the belief that on India's western coast cyclones are rare. The cyclone prone zone in India is the eastern and south-eastern seaboard off the Bay of Bengal which being ravaged by many cyclones during the season are as we are told fitted with a network of cyclone warning weather radars for almost the entire coast. The State authorities in this part of the country particularly after the last tsunami about a decade ago take the job of informing the local population about the impending cyclones with great seriousness and expeditiously so that people can take protective measures. The western coast in these matters is somewhat lax considering the incidence of cyclones being few and far between. But Cyclone Ockhi may be the first of many to hit the western coast from now on considering climate change and unusual weather patterns that we have been seeing around the world. Therefore it is imperative that we get our cyclone warning weather radars installed throughout the western coast so that there is some local intelligence about these natural events rather than have to depend on IMD all the time. Not only that State authorities have to gear up local administration to inform the local population of the impending natural disaster quickly and effectively so that preventive and protective measures are taken to protect the people. India aspiring to be a super-power need to accept the responsibilities that goes along with that status.

                  Modi's Irresponsibe Comments On The Gujarat Campaign Trail

Narendra Modi needs to tone down his comments which most of the time do not behove the office of the Prime Minister. His latest on the campaign trail in Gujarat is that those who object to the Bullet Train can travel in bullock carts. In a democracy to manage dissent is a necessity since otherwise we tend to quickly degenerate into an autocracy. We are a disparate country where affordance varies widely when it comes to public transport and bullet trains cannot obviously be the common or preferred mode of travel. Moreover the Bullet Train project takes away much needed funds from improving the existing creaking railway infrastructure. Not only that with separate isolated tracks, stations etc. the Bullet Train competes for infrastructure with the existing rail network and puts constraints on it. Not only that it encourages discrimination and is divisive to our society. Modi also needs to remember in this context that the last Vajpayee government went out of office on the irrelevance of the India Shining platform whose main proponent was the present Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley. It should not be that Modi finds himself booted out of office come 2019 for pursuing programs that support the rich to become richer and ignore the distress of the poor and the marginalised.

Modi went further in Gujarat and has said in the context of Demonetisation and the implementation of GST that his government will not back down and/or reverse difficult decisions. It is one thing to be firm when it comes to administration and yet another to be insensitive. Modi's government is more the latter when it comes to the two important measures that his government has taken as referred above. As for not taking back decisions made, his government has lately reverted the measure where the movement of cattle was banned, more famously known as the beef ban measure. The plea is that they will come with a better worded and more effective law that will take into account the realities of cattle trade which in the earlier draft was missing resulting in the lynching of people who were just going about their business with cattle that in some cases they had been doing for generations. In similar manner the cases of Demonetisation and the implementation of GST has been characterised by the ham-handed approach in putting through the programs. This all reflects as the Modi government's ineptness in handling matters of governance.

Concluding Modi on the election trail should remember the Prime Minister's office from where he is coming from and not indulge in casual, flippant comments and refrain from interpreting  history to suit his election plank.

                                          Celebrating GDP Figures Premature

On the GDP figures Arun Jaitley should know that one swallow is not the harbinger of summer as they say. He has to wait a couple of quarters to see if the trend has actually been reversed. Blowing his own trumpet and that of the government now is absolutely premature. Not only that the 2Q figures at 6.3% are just a tad above the 1Q 5.7% which is not robust enough to claim growth. It is also understand that amongst manufacturing that grew substantially in 2Q, oil refining had a major share. It should not be that the difference of 0.6% if true is because of the rise in international oil prices and the Ambani hand known for jiggling figures who dominate Indian oil refining. A little help from one bhai to another before Gujarat goes to the polls!

                                                          ***************************

                                                           VOX POPULI  
                                                                    by
                                                               S Kamat
                                                                     as
                                                              Aam Admi
                                           Issue: 229                Date: 27.11.2017
                     skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com   

Contents:   

1. Go Easy On Cashless Operation Until It Gains Acceptance With The Population

2. Follow Restraint With Regard To Ivan(k)a Trump's Visit To India 

3. 90% Cost Subsidy for Electronic Taxi Meters & Speed Governors In Goa

4. Non-Pensioned Senior Citizens Are As Much Deserving As Judges & The President For 
    Cost Of Living Compensation

    

            

                Go Easy On Cashless Operation Until It Gains Acceptance With The Population

The cashless dictum and the mobile payments drive is reaching alarming proportions with news coming out that the government may think of withdrawing cheque facility of bank customers to push them towards mobile payments. All this is tantamount to financial terrorism by the government on the hapless citizens. The  government in all this is going one step too far in its zeal to move towards a cashless society. Apart from the urban - rural divide which may make people not very comfortable in moving towards mobile payments, there is a discomfort in dealing with the payment process and also issues relating to network connectivity across the country. The basic reason is that in the payment process there is no reassuring and strong confirmation that the payment has gone through and received at the other end. There is always a level of uncertainty and a feeling that the receiver may come back at a later point in time claiming that the payment was not received. For people who have been used to a record through receipts of payments made which are enforceable in any forums, it is just not enough to get a cryptic 'payment made' message on your mobile or Internet device. These could be early fears since the cashless payment mode is new and over time with lesser problems seen and reassured with the fidelity of the payment process there could be greater acceptance. But for this the government needs to have patience and give people time and not try as is now to force cashless operations down the gullet of its citizens.

The other issue related to this is that in more and more interactions of the citizens with agencies both government as well as private mobile numbers are being asked for. This is being done without understanding that certain people may have problems with cellular phones both conceptually as well as in the usage methodology of these devices apart from reasons related to physical issues like hearing impairment etc. Some categories of our people be it because of age, lack of education or those that are physically or mentally challenged tend to get flustered and nervous when while using the mobile something goes amiss with the call and they are not able to recover the call or transaction. This leads to anxiety and distress. There is no consideration being given to such cases and those without mobiles are being considered today as pariahs and deprived of availment of certain services and facilities. This in a sense is isolating a part of our society from mainstream activity. This isolation will be accentuated and deepened by the present zeal of the incumbent government to move to cashless society which will as time passes have a part of our population completely debarred from mainstream societal activity. This kind of polarisation of our society is actively being pursued by our government which is rather regrettable.

The way to go forward on the reduction of usage of cash in the Indian economy is to let it evolve on its own which will form a more sustaining basis that will endure rather than rash and hasty steps that will result in more disruption and chaos than smooth implementation. It is also important for our government to study how cashless economies are evolving around the world and take lessons from that rather than trying to do everything from scratch and ending up more as a bull in a china shop in its implementation process. The Scandinavian countries  as reported in a leading international study considered to be leaders in cashless transactions use the debit  and credit card more compared to mobile payments. Between the debit card and the credit cards, the usage of the former is three times that of the latter which indicates an evolution or trend considering that the credit card came earlier to the debit card. Surprisingly countries in Africa like Kenya and Ghana lead the pack in the highest mobile payments. Thus India's place in terms of a cashless economy could be somewhere between Europe and Africa but that position has to be carved out from solid acceptance by our citizens. No amount of tom-toming figures of higher cashless transactions and threats of withdrawing ATM's and chequebooks will get the government anywhere since only time can give a solution.

                     Follow Restraint With Regard To Ivan(k)a Trump's Visit To India 

We are taking things a little too far with the US in terms of relationships between our two countries. It is reported that Ivan(k)a Trump, the daughter of the US President who does not hold any official position in the US government, will be hosted to a dinner at the Falaknuma Palace on the Nizam's dining table claimed to be the longest in the world by none other than the country's most eligible enforced bachelor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Why we need to go to such extents is beyond anyone's imagination? Why should India's Prime Minister rarely seen in social circles within the country except for the very formal occasions make such a concession for Ivana Trump? She has been invited by Chandrababu Naidu, who by right should take the responsibility of hosting her during the visit to Hyderabad. Not only that it was reported in the papers that there were going to be house-to-house searches of dwellings adjacent to the Falaknuma Palace just before her visit. We are as said earlier pandering to the dictates of the US Secret Service a bit too much. Lives of Indian citizens should not be disturbed or inconvenienced by a non-official US visitor. We have had similar irresponsible security strictures being put during past US President visits specifying that Indian security and police personnel should not be anywhere near the dignitary which is insulting and denigrating but our governments have swallowed such conditions. These measures are not reciprocal since even our dignitaries like Abdul Kalam, Pranab Mukherjee and others while holding official positions in the Indian government were frisked and searched by US agencies for which we again kept silent at the time the incidents occurred! It is only much later that these matters came to public light. So it is time one thinks that one needs to draw the line that our people, our agencies and our institutions should be equally dealt with proper respect by all foreign countries including the US. One wonders in this context whether Narendra Modi has conveniently forgotten that his visas to the US were refused by them many times in the past.

                         90% Cost Subsidy for Digital Taxi Meters & Speed Governors In Goa

                                                   

The digital fare meters and speed governors that are to be installed on Goa's taxis are leading up to a classic case of corruption. The government has said that they will give 90% subsidy for installation of these equipment. At the same time, there was news sometime back that digital fare meters are available at Rs. 3,000 in Belgaum while the cost for the same in Goa is Rs. 9,000. Thus with the 90% subsidy the excess recovery by way of inflated prices is funnelled to the supplier of the taxi fare meters, so that a large part of the money can come back to the politicians and/or government officials. Precisely the same thing was done sometime back in the case of the secure number plates that were to be installed on cars where Goans had to pay around Rs. 3,500 when the same plates around the country were being fitted at Rs. 1,000. Large subsidies in excess of 20-30% on anything attract the suspicion of corruption and naturally so at 90% being proposed for the digital fare meters and speed governors. What the Goa government should do is to first ensure a fair price is obtained for the items which are proven and reliable and that is comparable with the national price through the tender process and then have the payout of subsidy done directly to the taxi owners after inspection of fitment of the equipment. This will limit the chances of corrupt dealings in this whole exercise. 

                  Non-Pensioned Senior Citizens Are As Much Deserving As Judges & 

                                    The President For Cost Of Living Compensation                                            

There is news of the judges of the High Courts and the Supreme Courts likely to get substantial raises in salaries which will be in retrospective effect from Jan 2016. With the judges getting more money the President of  India is likely to be given a raise since currently his salary is lower than that of the Cabinet Secretary. The ostensible justification for all this is manifold. Like for the judges, it seems that they have not been given a raise for the last 21 years. But the common thread in the salary escalation is to compensate for cost of living increases an euphemism implying to combat rising prices. This is also the basis on which salary raises for legislators are being considered in Goa which will as is usual result in the hat being passed across the various States in the country who will follow suit and also in the Houses of Parliament. It is rather unfortunate when legislators and judges are being considered to be eligible for cost of living increases, there is a large population of senior citizens who are not covered by pensions considering that they were involved in businesses or employed in the private sector or were professionals like lawyers, doctors or chartered accountants. This category of people in their active working lives have contributed to the welfare of the nation but are now having to depend upon the interest income from their bank fixed deposits in the absence of support of pensions. While the government makes it sound like a virtue of having pensions revised by successive Pay Commissions to compensate for cost of living increases, the above category of people are finding firstly that interest on fixed deposits with the banks has been going down over the years from a 15% in the heydays to around 7% now. And secondly with the interest rates being at such low levels they are no longer a hedge to inflation. Thus those dependent on interest income from fixed deposits with banks are finding their purchasing power going down day by day. Though the Prime Minister  had announced a scheme for Senior Citizens that offers a guaranteed rate of interest of 8%, this is just not enough. When everyone across the country is being assisted to ward off cost of living increases, it is therefore suggested that Senior Citizens who do not qualify for payment of income tax be granted a 15% interest rate on their deposits upto a limit of Rs. 20 Lakhs. This will be a great service that the government will do for a category of population in the country that is not very large and deserving too considering that there are many assistance schemes that exist for varied sectors of our population.

Postscript: I had written on this issue to the PMO in early Nov 2016 which handled it under its complaint resolution process by first referring it to the Min of Finance, the Budget Divn. Which conveyed that since the interest of 15% on Fixed Deposits is a policy decision, it has been 'noted'. This was in Feb 2017, which meant that nothing would be decided in the upcoming Budget of 2017-18. My letter was also referred to the  National Savings Institute, New Delhi which responded in Sept 2017 to me stating that my suggestions have been 'noted' and a 'suitable view will be taken in due course of time'. In the meanwhile on the cusp of the New Year 2017 the PM announced the guaranteed 8% interest scheme which is being implemented through LIC. I have again written to all the above agencies, the PMO, the Budget Divn - Min of Finance and the National Savings Institute on the matter in early Nov 2017 to see whether we can get a decision on the issue. This is fyi.

                                                              ********************************