[《"The government is willing to consider all suggestions to further strengthen the cleansing of political funding in India. It has to be borne in mind that impractical suggestions will not improve the cash denominated system. They would only consolidate it," Arun Jaitley wrote on Facebook.》
That's why the provisions for (i) removing the cap on political funding by corporates, (ii) making these "donations" anonymous for the public and (iii) but trackable *only* by the state, even before the donations are actually made, were brought about as a part of last minute amendments to the budget proposal ***to dodge any meaningful discussions in the Lok Sabha and turn the Rajya Sabha into a virtual bystander***. Compare: <<The Companies Act, 2013, required that corporates could donate up to a maximum of 7.5 per cent of their average net profit in the past three financial years to political parties and were required to disclose the names of the beneficiaries in their profit and loss statements. Under Mr Jaitley's stewardship, the government on March 23, 2017 moved an unprecedented 40 amendments to the Finance Bill, 2017, tagging along non-tax bills in the legislation to make them Money Bills. These included an amendment to the Companies Act, 2013, that proposes removing the cap that barred companies from donating more than 7.5 per cent of their average net profit to a political party. Also, the companies no longer need to disclose the name of the party to which the donation is made. The BJP-majority Lok Sabha passed the bill the very next day: the more balanced Rajya Sabha watched helplessly as it has no jurisdiction over a money bill. ... The Orwellian script in the months to come is predictable. Corporate funding for the BJP will continue unabated. For everyone else - each time a company goes to a bank and buys a bond for say, 1 crore, and fills a KYC disclosure form, the details will be passed onto the RBI. The central government, the Finance Ministry and its allied arms such as the CBDT will have immediate access to this information. A delicate phone call will be made to the company to ensure the bond comes only the BJP's way, or else... the forces of the CBDT, the CBI and all available heavy artillery will be unleashed on the corporate or individual.>> (Source: < https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/arun-jaitley-the-name-is-bond-dhoka-bond-1795987 >.)] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/open-to-suggestions-to-cleanse-political-funding-arun-jaitley-1796867 In Defence Of Electoral Bonds, Arun Jaitley Also Takes A Dig At Critics "The government is willing to consider all suggestions to further strengthen the cleansing of political funding in India. It has to be borne in mind that impractical suggestions will not improve the cash denominated system. They would only consolidate it," Arun Jaitley wrote on Facebook. All India | Press Trust of India | Updated: January 07, 2018 16:11 IST In Defence Of Electoral Bonds, Arun Jaitley Also Takes A Dig At Critics Arun Jaitley last week announced the contours of the electoral bonds. (File) NEW DELHI: HIGHLIGHTS Arun Jaitley had last week announced the contours of the electoral bonds The bonds will be sold by country's latest lender SBI The bonds are being pitched as an alternative to cash donation The electoral bonds mechanism is a substantial improvement in transparency over the present system and the government is open to suggestions to further cleanse political funding, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today. In a Facebook post, Mr Jaitley said the conventional practice of funding the political system was to take donations as well as undertake expenditures in cash. The sources are anonymous or pseudonymous. The quantum of money was never disclosed and the system ensures unclean money coming from unidentifiable sources. "It is a wholly non-transparent system. Most political groups seem fairly satisfied with the present arrangement and would not mind this status-quo to continue. "The effort, therefore, is to run down any alternative system which is devised to cleanse up the political funding mechanism," Mr Jaitley said. The finance minister had last week announced the contours of the electoral bonds, which will be sold by country's latest lender SBI and will have a tenure of just 15 days. The bonds are being pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties. Mr Jaitley said the choice has now to be "consciously" made between the existing system of substantial cash donations involving unclean money and other transparent options like cheque, online transactions or electoral bonds. "While all three methods involve clean money, the first two are totally transparent and the electoral bonds scheme is a substantial improvement in transparency over the present system of no-transparency," he said. "The government is willing to consider all suggestions to further strengthen the cleansing of political funding in India. It has to be borne in mind that impractical suggestions will not improve the cash denominated system. They would only consolidate it," Mr Jaitley wrote. He said India, despite being the largest democracy in the world, has not been able to evolve a transparent political funding system in the last seven decades. "The round the year functioning of the political parties involves a large expenditure... These expenditures run into hundreds of crores. Yet there has not been a transparent funding mechanism of the political system," he said. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
