Priority No 1

With the government firmly in place

it’s the wish of every Indian to see the

government is up to its job. The budget

is likely to be presented on 3^rd July.

Everyone has a wish list for the Finance

Minister. Just a week back top CEO’s

from the industry visited the Finance Ministerand presented

him their wish list. Well they demand only one thingand that

is to lower taxes. The working middle class would like to have

tax for higher slabs of income. Well I feel the FM should focus

first on the poorest of the poor.

The tax paying middle class hardly contributes 3% of

the population of India.The Government has raised the tax slabs

considerably in the last five years. When theNDAwas in power

a person earning less than a lakh had to pay taxes, now up to

1.5 lakh is completely tax free (its 1.8 lakh for women) and we

can add another 1 lakh under the section 80c deductions. The

BJP manifesto had one bizarre promise. They promised to raise

the ‘ No Income Tax’ slab to 3 lakh! If a person who earns more

than twenty thousand a month does not pay taxes then I wonder

who will!

The Left parties who were shown the door in the elections

may not be a hot favorite of the media now, but we need to be

thankful to them in more ways than one. Firstly Karat is right

when he says that the Left saved India from the financial

turmoil. Imagine our banks, insurance companies under

the Americans? Millions would have lost their jobs. And

now for an honest rendition of the election results. The

INC was voted to power not because it made sure the

Indo-US deal went through the parliament but because

it came up with social security schemes like the NREGA,

farm loan waiver etc. and had promised rice at 3 rupees a

kilo for families below the poverty line. As for the

implementation of the NREGA the credit should go to the

Left parties and the NAC (National Advisory Council). The

NAC had some tooth in the beginning because Mrs. Gandhi

was the Chairperson of the NAC before she steeped down

as being the chairperson amounts to holding an office of profit.

I am not anti-reform, but the first priority

should not be reform, but the aam admi.

The following happen only in India

1.836million of the 1.2 billion in India live on less than 20

rupees a day.

2.India is 126 in Human Development Index (HDI).

3.Life expectancy in India is less than Bolivia (poorest

nation in South America), Kazakhstan and

Mongolia and more shockingly,

4. India has added more newly hungry in millions than

the rest of the world put together!

So please place the Aam Aadmi ( which the government

claims to represent ) in front of everything.

Election Losers

In this blog let us take a look at the prominent losers in this Lok Sabha election. First in my list is, former Union Fertilizers and Chemicals minister Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan. Mr. Paswan is not only a prominent Dalit leader but also a guiness world record holder. I am sure not many know this fact. He won the Hajipur seat with seven lakh votes. The highest till date. So its a suprise that people of Hajipur have rejected him! He lost to a Eight-eight year old Ram Sunder Das. Fate has taken him very near the centre of power ( his address is 12 Janpath - u know who resides at 10 Janpath) yet he is not part of the Government.

The next in line is Mani Shankar Ayyiar. He lost the Chidambaram seat to a candidate from the AIADMK. He joins the list of well known MP's from the INC rejected by the people of Tamil Nadu. The Congress won 8 of the 16 contested seats in TN (winning percentage of 50 ) while the DMK won 18 of the 21 seats contested ( winning percentage of 86 ) . I think is a clear verdict against the Indian Government's hands-off policy with respect to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. Fellow INC heavy weights who lost include E V K S Elangovan and ThangaBalu. P Chidrambaram also had a very close shave.

Verteran leader of the CPM, Mr. Hannan Mollah also last his seat from Uluberia, West bengal despite his neat track record. He is a verteran of eight Lok Sabhas. We

can attribute this to the clossal failure of the Left in handling the Nandigram issue. A prominent face to lose from the BJP is Muktar Abbas Naqvi from Rampur, where is lost to Jayaprada. To add insult to injury he finished third behind Jayaprada and a Congress candidate. He attributes his loss to the 'C grade filimi drama enacted by ( you know who) Amar Singh'. We can give in to him considering Amar Singh's dubious past record!

From the Civil class the prominent losers include Capt. Gopinath from South Banglore where he lost to Ananth Kumar of the BJP, Mallika Sarabai from GandhiNagar against Lal Krishna Advani. Sarath Babu ( an IIM grad ) also lost from South Chennai.

Is Australia Racist?

The recent attacks on Indian students in Australia have made one wonder whether the continent is racist. Indian students and Cab drivers of Indian origin are the victims of these acts of violence. Australia is seen by a vast majority of students in India as the perfect place for tertiary education. Degrees obtained here are of immense value back home in India often overshadowing even the home-educated students with degrees from premiere institutes (by the way obtaining a seat in a premiere IIT is far more difficult than a seat in any other Australian university).

 

                        The media as expected has portrayed the violent side of the problem. There are several other issues that affect the Indian students there. One is the case of finding accommodations and problems at workplace. There are various ingrained and systematic issues, which need to be carefully examined and considered. Private Australian universities don’

provide honorary degrees to outside students. Its no wonder that even the Indian Cricket Team was under attacks in Australia (remember Bajji).

 

                        But are Indians the only sect of people under attack. The answer is no. At least the Indian students have a larger voice in Australia. Imagine the scores of people from other nationalities. Several South Asians are also under attacks from hooligans. Coming back to cricket, several of the South African cricketers ( even Kevin Peitersen) were under racial attacks. Why, take the case of  Muttiah Muralitharan. He was abused by fellow Australian cricketers ( Darren Leeman) and we also know the story of how people attacked him during the tri-lateral ODI series featuring Sri Lanka , India and Australia.

 

                        At the same time let us not confine this discussion to Australia alone. Indian students have been attacked and murdered in Russia (our so called friend) and our students have found it difficult in countries like South Africa. The only advice is nothing can be like our home, things will be difficult outside. So we need to take utmost care. On the other hand the Australian government should take immediate corrective steps else Education, which happens to be their third largest export would dwindle.