[GreenYouth] Blame the hat: General Bipin Rawat has been far too eloquent on matters he ought to be quiet about. He did sound silly while elaborating on ways to deal with the Kashmir issue

[Sukla Sen]

[I was reminded of a scene from Gillo Pontecorvo’s film on the
Algerian war, The Battle of Algiers (1963). The Algerian guerrillas
are forced to use the guile and deception the weaker side in
asymmetric warfare typically has to resort to — stones against tanks.
In a climactic scene, the colonel of the counter-insurgency forces
confronts the guerrilla leader, now in custody, tortured and broken,
and asks him — aren’t you ashamed to use burqa-clad women and children
in this fight, what kind of men are you? The guerrilla leader replies:
Give us your tanks and your bombers… Now, I’m not quite sure what
General Rawat has in mind when he wishes that the stone-pelters were
better armed. Automatic weapons, perhaps?
I can see that he has a sort of duelling model in mind — a fair,
honourable combat, in which the adversary gets to choose the weapons.
Instead of this dirty war — in which men shoot pellets into the eyes
of angry boys. But there’s one minor correction, general. In the
typical use of the phrase “dirty war”, the “dirt” attaches not to the
side that is weak, but the one that is strong. Thus, others —
insufficiently nationalist — may say that we are the ones fighting a
dirty war in Kashmir. But it’s not the sort of thing that one boasts
about.]

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/general-bipin-rawat-kashmir-issue-nitin-leetul-gogoi-army-blame-the-hat-4702744/

Blame the hat
General Bipin Rawat has been far too eloquent on matters he ought to
be quiet about. He did sound silly while elaborating on ways to deal
with the Kashmir issue.

Written by Alok Rai | Published:June 14, 2017 12:00 am

Well, General Rawat’s hat is always aslant. I suggest that no deeper
explanation is required for the outrageous things that he has been
saying in the matter of the bewildered weaver who found himself
transformed into a human shield. Illustration by C R Sasikumar

Sandeep Dikshit’s colourfully phrased remark about the army chief’s
blustery machismo — “bring ’em on” — has got the political
establishment all hot under the collar. But actually this pother is
based on a simple misconstruction. It isn’t General Bipin Rawat that
is at issue, it is his hat.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man wearing a silly hat
— well, you know the rest. So strong is the association between silly
hats and silly behaviour that when, in that reliable archive of our
national consciousness, the Bombay cinema, the hero proposes to be
particularly outrageous, he puts on a silly hat, or tips it forward or
sideways — think Dev Anand, think Shammi Kapoor.

Well, General Rawat’s hat is always aslant. I suggest that no deeper
explanation is required for the outrageous things that he has been
saying in the matter of the bewildered weaver who found himself
transformed into a human shield. It is perfectly possible that
hatless, or with less rakish headgear, he might sound like the Chief
of Army Staff of a country that actually lays claim to the protections
of international law and convention — that is, smoothly hypocritical,
lying with proper gravity, after the manner of American generals, even
as their forces commit the most horrendous war crimes.

It is an index of the coarsening of our popular sensibilities that
large numbers of people think that the issue is about the “guilt” of
the weaver — was he a stone-pelter? Was he inciting stone-pelters? Was
he merely present — and culpably passive — when stones were being
pelted? Or about the ingeniousness of Major Nitin Leetul Gogoi’s
“solution” to the dangerous situation in which he found himself — in
village after village after village. Maybe Major Gogoi also flaunts a
fancy hat.

It is, by the way, a compliment to our tattered institutions that the
army at least goes through the motions of setting up a committee to
enquire into the incident — a minimal acknowledgment that something
happened that perhaps should not have happened. But the credit that
could have been derived from that committee of enquiry has been
recklessly squandered by the swashbuckling general, not only by
awarding a medal of commendation to Major Gogoi, but also by declaring
that he didn’t see the need to wait for the outcome of the committee
of enquiry because he knew what was going on there anyway. Please,
sir, hypocrisy is a necessary virtue for all institutions.We must keep
up the pretence!

Tempted by that villainous hat, General Rawat went so far as to
dismiss all attempts to find some non-military solution to the Kashmir
situation — issue, not problem. There have been those, particularly
from among the ranks of soldiers, who have rightly observed that the
army should not be involved in domestic and civilian contexts — as it
has been, alas, for the past half-century and more in the Northeast,
and too many other places. It does the army no good, and as for the
people amongst whom — delicate prepositional choice there: Amongst,
against, upon, athwart? — it is deployed, there’s not much point in
saying 

[GreenYouth] Not worth the tax: Forget agriculture, it is more prudent to collect taxes from the service sector where the bulk of black income is generated

[Sukla Sen]

[The 12th point (in a recent article by Bibek Debroy, a member of the
NITI Aaayog) stated that the answer to an RTI application revealed
that “In 2012, 8,12,426 individual tax payers disclosed agricultural
income. The average income per individual assessee was Rs 83 crore.”
So, the incomes of these individuals turn out to be an astounding Rs
674 lakh crore. The GDP in 2012-13 was a little less than Rs 100 lakh
crore.
If correct, these individuals declared incomes that were 6.7 times the
GDP: Thus, the black economy that year was far more than Rs 574 lakh
crore or 574 per cent of the GDP. Coming from a high government
official, all this cannot be doubted.
If such data was available, demonetisation to unearth black incomes
was not required. Investigation of these eight lakh plus entities
would have been enough. Why did a billion people stand in endless
queues for two months? Many people lost their jobs, went hungry, even
died in queues and so on when officials knew what to do.]

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/service-sector-tax-agriculturefarmers-agitations-gdp-economic-growth-4702755/

Not worth the tax
Forget agriculture, it is more prudent to collect taxes from the
service sector where the bulk of black income is generated.

Written by Arun Kumar | Published:June 14, 2017 12:00 am

If such data was available, demonetisation to unearth black incomes
was not required. Investigation of these eight lakh plus entities
would have been enough. C R Sasikumar

The Niti Aayog press conference a month ago, in which the taxation of
agricultural incomes was suggested, embarrassed the NDA government.
When there are farmers’ agitations in many parts of the country, and
talk of farm loan waivers, does this make sense? The politics of such
a move is clear, its economic aspects were spelt out in an article by
Bibek Debroy in this paper (‘12 reasons why’, IE, May 3).

The article made 12 points, but it missed the 13th, which follows from
the 12th point. This missed point makes the other points redundant.
The 12th point stated that the answer to an RTI application revealed
that “In 2012, 8,12,426 individual tax payers disclosed agricultural
income. The average income per individual assessee was Rs 83 crore.”
So, the incomes of these individuals turn out to be an astounding Rs
674 lakh crore. The GDP in 2012-13 was a little less than Rs 100 lakh
crore.

If correct, these individuals declared incomes that were 6.7 times the
GDP: Thus, the black economy that year was far more than Rs 574 lakh
crore or 574 per cent of the GDP. Coming from a high government
official, all this cannot be doubted.

If such data was available, demonetisation to unearth black incomes
was not required. Investigation of these eight lakh plus entities
would have been enough. Why did a billion people stand in endless
queues for two months? Many people lost their jobs, went hungry, even
died in queues and so on when officials knew what to do.

According to data in the Income Tax Return Statistics AY 2012-13, in
2012-13, the “Number of Effective Assessees” was 4,72,67,582. That
number rose in 2014-15 to more than 5.167 crore. The categories
included here were Company, Firm, HUF, Individual, Trust and so on.
However, no category called agriculture is mentioned. This is
understandable since there is no tax on such incomes. Then, how is
data on agricultural income being generated by tax authorities?

If one has income from both agriculture and non-agriculture, then one
declares the agricultural income as well, even though one does not
have to pay a tax on that. It is just like dividend income, which, in
the hands of an individual, is free but is declared in the return. The
income data from the tax department for Assessment Year 2012-13
reveals that only 73,000 entities filed a return of above Rs one crore
and, of them, 1,600 entities filed a return of above Rs 50 crore. Only
2,600 entities paid a tax of above Rs 10 crore. So, very few from the
non-agriculture sector declared any income close to what the RTI data
reveals.

It is conceivable that people declaring a small non-agricultural
income may declare large agricultural incomes. But then, they should
be suspect and investigated by government agencies. Since there were
about eight lakh such entities, scrutinising their accounts should not
be that difficult. If these black incomes were caught, then 200 per
cent of the GDP would have accrued as tax collection whereas today,
only 5.5 per cent of the GDP is collected as direct tax. Is this data
believable? That brings one to the fourteenth and subsequent points.

If the GDP figures rather than the RTI ones are taken as more
credible, how much income tax can be collected from agriculture,
assuming that the income distribution in agriculture and
non-agriculture are similar? There are 138.35 million operational
holdings, but how many would have taxable incomes if agriculture were
to be taxed?

The share of agriculture and allied activities in the 

[GreenYouth] Legal proceedings against Trawler, Captain demanded

[T Peter]

*Kerala: Legal proceedings against Trawler, Captain demanded  **June
14,2017   |  Source: India.Com
*



National Fishworkers Forum has urged Shipping Minister to launch legal
proceedings against the owner, Captain and crew of the Panama registered
cargo vessel which had hit a fishing boat off Kochi, killing two persons.
In a letter to the Shipping Minister, a copy of which was released to the
media here, Forum national chairperson Narendra R Patil and General
Secretary T Peter also said cargo ships and foreign fishing vessels should
not be allowed in Indian coastalwaters.

The forum demanded that adequate compensation should be paid to the
families of the fishermen who had lost their lives and fishing boat and
implements which had suffered severe damage in the collision should be
restored. The Indian Navy and Coast guard should be directed to protect
fishermen who put out to sea, the forum said adding free medical aid should
be provided to the injured fishermen and their loss should be compensated.
The cargo vessel, Amber L, had collided with the fishing boat on June 11 at
2.30 am. While two fishermen drowned, one was missing and 11 others had
been rescued.

-- 
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 greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send an email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[GreenYouth] 'Govt tips for healthy baby: Avoid lust, non-veg'!!!

[Sukla Sen]

[Experts (mercifully) ridiculed the suggestions and said they have no
basis. "In fact, eggs and non-vegetarian food is highly recommended
during pregnancy as they are rich in protein," a doctor with a leading
hospital in Delhi said. Doctors also said caution while having sex is
advised during the first trimester when the placenta is low-lying and
especially in the case of high-risk pregnancies. Otherwise, if the
pregnancy is normal, there is no need for abstinence as the baby in
the womb is protected by the amniotic fluid and the uterus muscles.]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/govt-tips-for-healthy-baby-avoid-lust-non-veg/articleshow/59135419.cms

Govt tips for healthy baby: Avoid lust, non-veg

Sushmi Dey | TNN | Updated: Jun 14, 2017, 12.31 PM IST

HIGHLIGHTS
The pointers were given by Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy
They are part of recommendations contained in a booklet “Mother and
Child Care” distributed ahead of Yoga Day on June 21
Experts ridiculed the suggestions and said they have no basis

NEW DELHI: Pregnant women have been advised to stay away from "desire
or lust", avoid non-vegetarian food and have spiritual thoughts, the
government-funded Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy
has said in a booklet released by Shripad Naik, minister of state for
Ayush.

The controversial observations, which clearly lack any discernible
rationale, are part of recommendations contained in a booklet "Mother
and Child Care" distributed ahead of Yoga Day on June 21. It also
includes advice like the need to avoid bad company.

"Pregnant women should detach themselves from desire, anger,
attachment, hatredness (sic), and lust. Avoid bad company and be with
good people in stable and peaceful condition always," the booklet
said.

He said the booklet doesn't suggest pregnant women avoid sex but only
detach themselves from desire and lust.

Top Comment

Excellent advises. It is important that we shape our future generation
with good thoughts and good health. Yoga will be part of daily life of
every Indian and people everywhere. Don't inject religion... Read More
Cleanup India

He also said, "Non-vegetarian food should be avoided during pregnancy
as that is a common principle in naturopathy." Part of the
government's information, education and communication (IEC) material,
the booklet has also suggested that expecting mothers read about the
life of great personalities, keep themselves in "peace" and hang "good
and beautiful pictures" in their bedrooms for a healthy baby.

***Experts ridiculed the suggestions and said they have no basis. "In
fact, eggs and non-vegetarian food is highly recommended during
pregnancy as they are rich in protein," a doctor with a leading
hospital in Delhi said. Doctors also said caution while having sex is
advised during the first trimester when the placenta is low-lying and
especially in the case of high-risk pregnancies. Otherwise, if the
pregnancy is normal, there is no need for abstinence as the baby in
the womb is protected by the amniotic fluid and the uterus muscles.***
[Emphasis added.]




-- 
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 greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send an email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[GreenYouth] RBI identifies 12 mega defaulters for insolvency, their total NPA Rs 175,000 cr (gross bad debt of the Indian banking system as of March was at Rs 7.11 lakh crore): Two Reports

[Sukla Sen]

I/II.
http://indianexpress.com/article/business/banking-and-finance/rbi-identifies-12-mega-defaulters-for-insolvency-reserve-bank-of-india-4702973/

RBI identifies 12 mega defaulters for insolvency, their total NPA Rs 175,000 cr
25% of total NPA in these accounts with overdue above Rs 5,000 crore each.

Written by George Mathew | Mumbai | Updated: June 14, 2017 7:36 am

“The IAC noted that under the recommended criterion, 12 accounts
adding up to about 25 per cent of the current gross NPAs of the
banking system would qualify for immediate reference under IBC,” the
RBI said on Tuesday

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is moving to resolve the bad loan
crisis with an Internal Advisory Committee (IAC) of the RBI having
identified 12 accounts of corporate borrowers who owe over Rs 5,000
crore each — and overall involve an amount of close to Rs 175,000
crore — for insolvency proceedings under the newly enacted Insolvency
and Bankruptcy Code 2016 (IBC).

The RBI committee has recommended for IBC reference all accounts with
fund and non-fund based outstanding amounts in excess of Rs 5,000
crore, with 60 per cent or more (Rs 3,000 crore or more) classified as
non-performing by banks as on March 31, 2016.

“The IAC noted that under the recommended criterion, 12 accounts
adding up to about 25 per cent of the current gross NPAs of the
banking system would qualify for immediate reference under IBC,” the
RBI said on Tuesday.

However, the central bank did not reveal the names of these 12
defaulters. The RBI list came a day after Union Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley reviewed the performance of state-owned banks in New Delhi on
Monday.

With total NPAs or bad loans of banks now close to Rs 700,000 crore,
the money of banks stuck in these 12 accounts is estimated to be
around Rs 175,000 crore.

“The IAC also arrived at an objective, non-discretionary criterion for
referring accounts for resolution under IBC,” the RBI said.

The RBI, based on the recommendations of the IAC, will issue
directions to banks to file for insolvency proceedings under the IBC
in respect of the identified accounts. Such cases will be accorded
priority by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Once referred to
the NCLT, the resolution of the case in terms of either a sell-off of
assets or revival or winding up will have to be completed within 180
days.

The RBI is expected to release details of the resolution framework in
regard to the other non-performing accounts soon.

On June 12, the 12 accounts were identified by the IAC comprising
mainly of the RBI’s independent board members. They considered
accounts which were classified partly or wholly as non-performing from
among the top 500 exposures in the banking system.

“As regards the other non-performing accounts which do not qualify
under the above criteria, the IAC recommended that banks should
finalise a resolution plan within six months. In cases where a viable
resolution plan is not agreed upon within six months, banks should be
required to file for insolvency proceedings under the IBC,” the RBI
said.

The government had issued an ordinance last month by amending the
Banking Regulation Act to empower RBI to recover ballooning NPAs. The
amendment empowers the RBI to ask banks to initiate insolvency
resolution proceedings for bankruptcy code cases and recover bad
loans.

The RBI recently announced several steps, including the reconstitution
of oversight committee (OC) and bigger role for credit rating agencies
to bring down NPAs. It also sought information on the current status
of large stressed assets from banks. The oversight committee so far
comprised of two members. It has been constituted by the Indian Banks
Association in consultation with the RBI. It then decided to
reconstitute the OC and enlarge it to include more members so that the
OC can constitute requisite benches to deal with the volume of cases
referred to it.

The RBI plans to expand the scope of cases to be referred to the OC
beyond those under the Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed
Assets (S4A) as required currently, it said.

According to the RBI, the current guidelines on restructuring are
under examination for such modifications as may be necessary. In order
to prevent rating-shopping or any conflict of interest, the RBI is
exploring the feasibility of rating assignments being determined by
the RBI itself and paid for from a fund to be created out of
contribution from banks and the RBI.

The loan recovery exercise will require coordination with and
cooperation from several stakeholders including banks, asset
reconstruction companies, rating agencies and private equity firms.

II.
http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/npa-problem-12-mega-defaulters-to-go-under-insolvency-says-rbi-117061301442_1.html

NPA problem: RBI identifies 12 mega defaulters for insolvency
The RBI will issue directives to banks on these large accounts

Anup Roy & Abhijit Lele |  Mumbai
June 14, 2017   Last Updated at 

[GreenYouth] The Ongoing Struggle for Gorkhaland: Two Notes

[Sukla Sen]

I/II.
https://scroll.in/article/840588/the-daily-fix-the-centre-needs-to-seriously-consider-the-demand-for-gorkhaland

A Union of linguistic states

2 hours ago

Shoaib Daniyal

The hills of West Bengal have been in turmoil for the past week. The
agitation started when Nepali-speaking Gorkhas began to protest
against the decision of the Mamata Banerjee government to make Bengali
compulsory in school. But given that the movement has continued even
after Banerjee has clarified that the order will not apply to the
hills, it points to deeper roots. On Tuesday, Gorkha parties –
including the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and the Gorkha National
Liberation Front – got together to adopt a unanimous resolution
calling for a separate Nepali-speaking state of Gorkhaland to be
carved out of West Bengal. The resolution was even supported by the
Bharatiya Janata Party.

The separation of the Nepali-speaking areas of West Bengal is one of
the oldest statehood demands in India – the issue came into existence
almost as soon as the British transferred power to Indian hands in
1947. In this, the Gorkhas do not stand alone. The linguistic
principle has been the basis of Indian politics for some time now. In
1920, as Mohandas Gandhi reorganised the Congress radically in order
to transform it from a genteel talk shop to a vehicle for mass
movement, he made sure to constitute the Congress’ provincial
committees along linguistic lines rather than have them reflect the
Indian provinces at the time, which were arbitrary and often reflected
the history of British conquest. The message was clear: India was to
consist of an union of language communities.

This message was given concrete political shape in the second decade
after Independence, as India’s states were reorganised on linguistic
lines. The arbitrary state of Bombay and Madras were split up into
Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu lands.

Yet, in this reorganisation, the Gorkhas of West Bengal got left out.
This step-motherly treatment was due to expedient political
calculation. Unlike Marathis or Tamils, Gorkhas were too small in
number to shake up New Delhi. Of course, Kolkata herself was loathe to
give up areas that bought in valuable tea and tourist revenue, even if
it ignored the character of West Bengal as a Bengali-speaking state.
This anomaly has led to long years of neglect. Bengali politicians do
not win elections from the hills and Gorkhas by themselves are too
small to influence Kolkata.

In the 1980s, support for Gorkhaland exploded into terrible violence
which scarred the hills. This forced some devolution from Kolkata. In
1988, West Bengal formed the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. In 2011,
this gave way to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration with
expanded powers. Yet, this is not only weaker than other similar
autonomous regions such as the Bodoland Territorial Council but, of
course, has powers that fall far short of a state government.

India’s principal of making states using languages might seem, at
first glance, a divisive tool. However, it is the glue that has kept
the Union together, balancing the multiple identities of citizens as
both Indian and as members of their local language community. The
example of the break up of Pakistan, which tried to wipe out the
Bengali identity of East Pakistan, is a warning about the price that
could be paid if linguistic nationalism is sought to be suppressed.

II.
https://scroll.in/article/840456/reviving-gorkhaland-how-language-identity-and-ethnic-strife-is-driving-violence-in-darjeeling

WEST BENGAL POLITICS

Reviving Gorkhaland: How language identity and ethnic strife is
driving violence in Darjeeling
The Trinamool's aggressive wooing of minority groups in the hills is
further catalysing the issue.

Yesterday · 07:30 am

Shoaib Daniyal

Tourists fled Darjeeling on Monday as the Gorkhaland Janmukti Morcha
chief Bimal Gurung asked them to leave the hills, warning that
“anything might happen”. The hills of West Bengal have seen a violent
agitation by the GJM since Thursday, sparked off by the West Bengal
government’s decision to make the study of Bengali compulsory in all
schools across the state. Even after Chief Minister Banerjee had made
it clear that the Bengali compulsory rule will not apply to the mostly
Nepali-speaking hill regions, the agitation has continued, pointing to
deeper reason for discontent.

Darjeeling in Bengal
The hill regions of West Bengal were originally a part of the Kingdom
of Sikkim. In the late 19th century, Nepal captured Darjeeling from
Sikkim. In 1816, the British in turn wrested it from Nepal. Rather
than give it back to Sikkim, the British decided to keep it, merging
it with Bengal. In 1947, as Bengal was partitioned, Darjeeling was
made a part of West Bengal, thus bringing it to its current status.

Almost immediately after 1947, however, the Nepali-speaking Gorkhas of
Darjeeling started to agitate for a linguistic state of their own,
separate from West Bengal, under the leadership of