In a startling initiative, the Income Tax Department is going to review the properties of Members of Parliament and also those who contested for the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and faced defeat.
This will be in addition to the affidavits they had already filed before the Election Commission and in a way it will be cross checking of what had been filed by the individual candidates and what actually they possess.
Sources in the Department of Income Tax told Central Chronicle that a separate letter has been sent to many candidates who had contested seeking clarifications on their claims on their belongings. The official said that plan is to seek the clarification from all the candidates irrespective of the fact whether they won or not.
The move might create hue and cry in the political circles as most of them don’t show their actual income and assets and this is one of the reasons of the survival of political corruption. The enormous expenditure in the election is also one of the reasons of the unaccounted wealth of candidates in particular and their managing capacity from their benami sources in general.
However, it is not clear whether the letters will be sent to the likes of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi or LK Advani to know their assets too.
“Please refer to the deposition made in the affidavit … filed before the returning officer … regarding movable/immovable assets owned by you in connection with General Election (Lok Sabha) 2009,” the letter sent to the MPs mentioned.
“You are requested to substantiate your affidavit as above with supporting evidence in the following format with your Permanent Account Number, and the copies of receipt for filing returns of income for the last three years, if any,” the letter added.
The letter is written in a way suspecting the claims of the affidavit filed by the candidates.
The format given to the candidates include details of their movable and immovable properties with date and cost of their “acquisition” and also “mode of payment” whether by cash or cheque.
The candidates will be given two months time to respond to the notice by the Department.
The move seems to force the individuals to show their actual assets before the election commission, otherwise it was just becoming a customary and a farce tale of electioneering process.
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Friday, June 25, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
We should have withdrawn support much earlier, should not have allowed government to go to IAEA on nuclear deal with USA: Prakash Karat
Cause of defeat in Bengal is loss of image among the people, wrong handling of contradiction between land and industrial development
No alliance with castiest parties like that of Lalu's or Mulayam's
Amidst criticism from a section of party about withdrawal of support from UPA government on Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement, the CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat is at calm and is not at all perturbed by the political venom spilt on him by insiders or outsiders.
While detractors of Karat feel that withdrawal was a tactical mistake that became responsible for the poll debacle in West Bengal giving opportunity to Mamata Banerjee to stitch ties with Congress, Karat opines that people did not like the image of the party lately due to mishandling of Nandigram.
The hardliner communist among the left front leaders, Karat was busy organizing party class and preparing for the extended Central Committee meeting on August 7-10, 2010 in Vijaywada, when he talked to the writer of this blog exclusively in his office to vent out some of the ideas relevant to the party’s health.
“Withdrawal was right decision and we should have withdrawn support for the UPA government much earlier. It was wrong on our part to allow UPA government to go on international forum IAEA,” Karat said.
This is the first time, Karat had said that the support from the UPA government should have been withdrawn much earlier and the government should not have been allowed to go to International Atomic Energy Agency at all.
Interestingly, Karat was not member of the negotiating team from his party with Pranab Mukherjee on the issue.
Congress worked to woo Samajwadi Party in the intervening period to switch sides to the government, even when the CPI (M) was hopeful of the third front gaining ground.
Karat’s opinion about this crucial issue will take concrete shape in form of document in August meeting in presence of almost 350 delegates and the role of those who believed and supported to give green signal to the UPA-1 government to go to the IAEA would be in under question.
“We also could not take the issue of withdrawal of support and the negatives of nuclear deal among the masses forcefully,” he added.
On Mulayam and Lalu, the SP and RJD chiefs respectively, Karat said that left will not have alliance with them.
“There is no question of alliance with Muylayam Singh Yadav or Lalu Prasad,” he said and added, “the party will continue with its policy of going with the left in Bihar and other places.”
“We will alone try to create our own niche in Hindi states,” he said.
On Bengal what went wrong, Karat said, “We are in power in the state for long time, and people expect more from us all the time, we tried to industrialise for employment, but the message went wrong.”
“CPI (M) was a party that consolidated its base on land reforms and we never wanted to give agricultural land for industrial purposes, but agriculture in the state had reached to its optimum, there was a need to find other avenues of employment for the youth,” he said and added, “but we failed to tackle the inherent contradiction in it properly.”
“People react when there is loss of image of the party and this time they reacted vigorously,” he said.
“We shall try to win over the people by launching special programme for the party,” he added.
“With one defeat we are not going to be irrelevant, we are the only political force who can stand against the capitalist or imperialist onslaught over the nation,” the CPI (M) general secretary asserted.
On the question over bickering in left front after the defeat in parliamentary and recent municipal elections, Karat said, “after such a set-back, criticism is obvious, but we are together in the Left Front.”
On minorities, Karat said that CPI (M) had been the only party who always tried to stitch alliance against communalism.
“Muslim families had gained considerably during land reforms, but their new generation needs employment,” he said and added that the West Bengal government was trying for the same.
While negating their truck with Maoists in Nepal, the CPI (M) general secretary said that his party has fraternal relations with CPN (UML) led by Madhav Nepal.
He characterized Maoists in India as “non-communist”, anarchist” and “not a political party in normal sense.”
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No alliance with castiest parties like that of Lalu's or Mulayam's
Amidst criticism from a section of party about withdrawal of support from UPA government on Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement, the CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat is at calm and is not at all perturbed by the political venom spilt on him by insiders or outsiders.
While detractors of Karat feel that withdrawal was a tactical mistake that became responsible for the poll debacle in West Bengal giving opportunity to Mamata Banerjee to stitch ties with Congress, Karat opines that people did not like the image of the party lately due to mishandling of Nandigram.
The hardliner communist among the left front leaders, Karat was busy organizing party class and preparing for the extended Central Committee meeting on August 7-10, 2010 in Vijaywada, when he talked to the writer of this blog exclusively in his office to vent out some of the ideas relevant to the party’s health.
“Withdrawal was right decision and we should have withdrawn support for the UPA government much earlier. It was wrong on our part to allow UPA government to go on international forum IAEA,” Karat said.
This is the first time, Karat had said that the support from the UPA government should have been withdrawn much earlier and the government should not have been allowed to go to International Atomic Energy Agency at all.
Interestingly, Karat was not member of the negotiating team from his party with Pranab Mukherjee on the issue.
Congress worked to woo Samajwadi Party in the intervening period to switch sides to the government, even when the CPI (M) was hopeful of the third front gaining ground.
Karat’s opinion about this crucial issue will take concrete shape in form of document in August meeting in presence of almost 350 delegates and the role of those who believed and supported to give green signal to the UPA-1 government to go to the IAEA would be in under question.
“We also could not take the issue of withdrawal of support and the negatives of nuclear deal among the masses forcefully,” he added.
On Mulayam and Lalu, the SP and RJD chiefs respectively, Karat said that left will not have alliance with them.
“There is no question of alliance with Muylayam Singh Yadav or Lalu Prasad,” he said and added, “the party will continue with its policy of going with the left in Bihar and other places.”
“We will alone try to create our own niche in Hindi states,” he said.
On Bengal what went wrong, Karat said, “We are in power in the state for long time, and people expect more from us all the time, we tried to industrialise for employment, but the message went wrong.”
“CPI (M) was a party that consolidated its base on land reforms and we never wanted to give agricultural land for industrial purposes, but agriculture in the state had reached to its optimum, there was a need to find other avenues of employment for the youth,” he said and added, “but we failed to tackle the inherent contradiction in it properly.”
“People react when there is loss of image of the party and this time they reacted vigorously,” he said.
“We shall try to win over the people by launching special programme for the party,” he added.
“With one defeat we are not going to be irrelevant, we are the only political force who can stand against the capitalist or imperialist onslaught over the nation,” the CPI (M) general secretary asserted.
On the question over bickering in left front after the defeat in parliamentary and recent municipal elections, Karat said, “after such a set-back, criticism is obvious, but we are together in the Left Front.”
On minorities, Karat said that CPI (M) had been the only party who always tried to stitch alliance against communalism.
“Muslim families had gained considerably during land reforms, but their new generation needs employment,” he said and added that the West Bengal government was trying for the same.
While negating their truck with Maoists in Nepal, the CPI (M) general secretary said that his party has fraternal relations with CPN (UML) led by Madhav Nepal.
He characterized Maoists in India as “non-communist”, anarchist” and “not a political party in normal sense.”
----
Consultation after consultation, poor still to be identified
One can understand how Naxals emerged strong in the country where the Union government took two years to estimate the poverty and it is still not clear how to identify the poor.
To add to the woos, the Union Rural Development Ministry has been asked to conduct Below Poverty Line (BPL) survey, but not final, but as pilot project in only 260 villages. No one knows when the government will finally come out with the BPL survey as final.
The states had been fighting with the Centre on the number of BPL families and the fight resulted in hiccups to deliver the benefits to the poor in the villages, or even the urban areas. The Food Security Bill is also being pending on the pretext of the lack of authentic BPL survey.
The work on the pilot project may begin in July, 2010 for a month long period to will test the feasibility of exclusion and inclusion criteria of the final BPL survey.
“It’s ridiculous,” said an observer and added that the whole exercise is being done to favour some agencies at a time when the whole administration in the country is engaged in the census.
“The same government employees who are going from House to House for census activities, could have done the BPL survey too as most of the questions the data collectors of the pilot project would repeat what has already been asked by the census employees,” said sources in the Ministry of Rural Development.
In the pilot project too, the Ministry has come out with the criteria like Muslims, SC and ST households, casual and agricultural labourers, artisans and traditional professionals, single woman or minor led households, MGNREGS card holders who have worked for or over 50 days will be first suo motu included in the list of BPL and then on the basis of their land holdings and assets as well as on income criteria they will be excluded.
“This is unnecessarily complicated process and the process of inclusion and then exclusion will give rise to corruption at the local levels,” an observer added.
To add to the woos, the Union Rural Development Ministry has been asked to conduct Below Poverty Line (BPL) survey, but not final, but as pilot project in only 260 villages. No one knows when the government will finally come out with the BPL survey as final.
The states had been fighting with the Centre on the number of BPL families and the fight resulted in hiccups to deliver the benefits to the poor in the villages, or even the urban areas. The Food Security Bill is also being pending on the pretext of the lack of authentic BPL survey.
The work on the pilot project may begin in July, 2010 for a month long period to will test the feasibility of exclusion and inclusion criteria of the final BPL survey.
“It’s ridiculous,” said an observer and added that the whole exercise is being done to favour some agencies at a time when the whole administration in the country is engaged in the census.
“The same government employees who are going from House to House for census activities, could have done the BPL survey too as most of the questions the data collectors of the pilot project would repeat what has already been asked by the census employees,” said sources in the Ministry of Rural Development.
In the pilot project too, the Ministry has come out with the criteria like Muslims, SC and ST households, casual and agricultural labourers, artisans and traditional professionals, single woman or minor led households, MGNREGS card holders who have worked for or over 50 days will be first suo motu included in the list of BPL and then on the basis of their land holdings and assets as well as on income criteria they will be excluded.
“This is unnecessarily complicated process and the process of inclusion and then exclusion will give rise to corruption at the local levels,” an observer added.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Fight Against Terrorism is the most fraudulant concept in Administration
Fight against Terrorism is the most fraudulent word in today’s world, so is fight against tribal based Maoism in India. Let them live alone and they will be alright. I mean tribals have always been fighters, they don’t want to live up to modern day consumerism; they would destroy themselves and the other, for the sake of their identity that is core to their heart.
Specifically, for the tribes in India, they have been living in forests and they were unto themselves till we did not go to them to “develop” them. But whenever we went to them, we did not intend to “develop” them, rather we wanted to remove them from the place where they had been.
More often than not, we treated them like snakes, which were around the treasure and we wanted to grab the treasure in any possible way. When we talk about military actions, we give them a message like what Saddam Hussain had done to Kurds or what Americans had done to the native people on the land to establish the new country, the “first modern democracy” in the world.
Just remember, when we were not “developing” them, they were not Maoists, when we wanted to “develop” them they turned violent and followed left wing extremists. It is not that Maoists for the first time have trained them to fight, they had been fighting by bows and arrows, by rolling the rocks for ages, now Maoists have equipped them with guns and they use to attack whoever goes to invade their privacy in jungles.
They consider us outside invaders and that is the reason they are against us so fiercely at the call of the Maoist party. As far as communist revolution is concerned, tribals would be the last persons to understand communism, not because they don’t have mind, but because they had already practicing primitive communism inside the jungles since our civilisations reached them.
Maoists are successfully persuading them to follow the party because we are showing them ills of capitalism, of modern day bureaucracy and the same of police formations. We have no better things to show to them than what they already had. But conversely, we considered them fools, ignorant, and weak thereafter. We were arrogant when they allowed us to enter the forests and they considered us wild when they interacted with us.
They became easy prey to Maoists, because the tribes can most scientifically cognise the life of communist society than we in plains. Their lives had been based on equality with a societal discipline, we in plains have been trained to live in social and economical inequality. We the people in plains had been cruel and barbarians to the tribes as well as amongst us for all purposes and they had always been scared of our gun power, our knowledge of English or non tribal languages.
They had faced our institutions and complicated property rights rules that never functions unless the officials sitting behind the chairs are greased well with money.
They were scared of coming to towns and face us do good for them. They suspected us, our officialdom failed them as citizens and pushed them to the walls.
Our gun power does not scare them, they get more rebellious to see us attacking their life style. They attack us, as American President George Bush attacked Afghanistan calling them as attackers on American way of life. The tribal way of life is equally important and glorious than machine driven out city lives. Our development, our riches scare them and they don’t want to be part of us so easily unless they themselves get corrupted.
Specifically, for the tribes in India, they have been living in forests and they were unto themselves till we did not go to them to “develop” them. But whenever we went to them, we did not intend to “develop” them, rather we wanted to remove them from the place where they had been.
More often than not, we treated them like snakes, which were around the treasure and we wanted to grab the treasure in any possible way. When we talk about military actions, we give them a message like what Saddam Hussain had done to Kurds or what Americans had done to the native people on the land to establish the new country, the “first modern democracy” in the world.
Just remember, when we were not “developing” them, they were not Maoists, when we wanted to “develop” them they turned violent and followed left wing extremists. It is not that Maoists for the first time have trained them to fight, they had been fighting by bows and arrows, by rolling the rocks for ages, now Maoists have equipped them with guns and they use to attack whoever goes to invade their privacy in jungles.
They consider us outside invaders and that is the reason they are against us so fiercely at the call of the Maoist party. As far as communist revolution is concerned, tribals would be the last persons to understand communism, not because they don’t have mind, but because they had already practicing primitive communism inside the jungles since our civilisations reached them.
Maoists are successfully persuading them to follow the party because we are showing them ills of capitalism, of modern day bureaucracy and the same of police formations. We have no better things to show to them than what they already had. But conversely, we considered them fools, ignorant, and weak thereafter. We were arrogant when they allowed us to enter the forests and they considered us wild when they interacted with us.
They became easy prey to Maoists, because the tribes can most scientifically cognise the life of communist society than we in plains. Their lives had been based on equality with a societal discipline, we in plains have been trained to live in social and economical inequality. We the people in plains had been cruel and barbarians to the tribes as well as amongst us for all purposes and they had always been scared of our gun power, our knowledge of English or non tribal languages.
They had faced our institutions and complicated property rights rules that never functions unless the officials sitting behind the chairs are greased well with money.
They were scared of coming to towns and face us do good for them. They suspected us, our officialdom failed them as citizens and pushed them to the walls.
Our gun power does not scare them, they get more rebellious to see us attacking their life style. They attack us, as American President George Bush attacked Afghanistan calling them as attackers on American way of life. The tribal way of life is equally important and glorious than machine driven out city lives. Our development, our riches scare them and they don’t want to be part of us so easily unless they themselves get corrupted.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
India succumbs to the pressure: accepts bidding for non-permanent seat in the UNO after a decade
By Akhilesh Suman
New Delhi
Silently and to some extent clandestinely, India has changed its policy towards bidding for permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and has decided to join non-permanent seat in the world’s topmost body.
The election of the non-permanent members of the UNSC will take place in October, 2010 and India is lobbying the world country to get a seat in virtually a “musical chair” group that gets irrelevant in two years time.
In 2000, during the NDA regime, India had decided not to “beg” for non-permanent seat of the UNO and started endeavours for permanent seat.
“It was like a moral pressure on the members of the world body, especially, on the the USA and the Chinese who were blatantly opposed India’s candidature,” a senior official in the Ministry of External Affairs said.
“Now US and the Chinese will support us for the non-permanent seat and our deserved place will go to the real backburner,” the official averred.
India had made a group of like-minded countries who too deserved to get permanent seat in the UNSC so that the world most powerful body might reflect global political reality. These countries of this group were India, Japan, Germany, Brazil and South Africa.
These countries pitched hard and could have made the world body ready, if USA and China had not rejected India’s natural ambition in this situation. At that point of time Pakistan too had been lobbying hard so that India does not get the chance to enter in the UNSC.
Interestingly, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came to power, he just abandoned the idea of the permanent membership of the world body and sources in the government said that strong instruction was given from the PMO to the Ministry of External Affairs not to raise the issue of permanent membership at any forum.
Even the Group of the aspirant countries was virtually dismantled. USA come out in open support of the Japan’s bid for the permanent seat, but even Geroge Bush with whom Manmohan Singh was considered to be very close did not back India, ostensibly in pressure from Pakistan and also on terms close to the chest of the world’s sole superpower.
“What US and China are telling today, had been telling for last one decade, there is nothing new in the assurance. But the way we considered bidding for non permanent seat in the UNSC, we have succumbed to the desires of the USA and China and the process of expansion of Permanent Seat is further delayed in complex delaying tactics,” observers feel.
New Delhi
Silently and to some extent clandestinely, India has changed its policy towards bidding for permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and has decided to join non-permanent seat in the world’s topmost body.
The election of the non-permanent members of the UNSC will take place in October, 2010 and India is lobbying the world country to get a seat in virtually a “musical chair” group that gets irrelevant in two years time.
In 2000, during the NDA regime, India had decided not to “beg” for non-permanent seat of the UNO and started endeavours for permanent seat.
“It was like a moral pressure on the members of the world body, especially, on the the USA and the Chinese who were blatantly opposed India’s candidature,” a senior official in the Ministry of External Affairs said.
“Now US and the Chinese will support us for the non-permanent seat and our deserved place will go to the real backburner,” the official averred.
India had made a group of like-minded countries who too deserved to get permanent seat in the UNSC so that the world most powerful body might reflect global political reality. These countries of this group were India, Japan, Germany, Brazil and South Africa.
These countries pitched hard and could have made the world body ready, if USA and China had not rejected India’s natural ambition in this situation. At that point of time Pakistan too had been lobbying hard so that India does not get the chance to enter in the UNSC.
Interestingly, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came to power, he just abandoned the idea of the permanent membership of the world body and sources in the government said that strong instruction was given from the PMO to the Ministry of External Affairs not to raise the issue of permanent membership at any forum.
Even the Group of the aspirant countries was virtually dismantled. USA come out in open support of the Japan’s bid for the permanent seat, but even Geroge Bush with whom Manmohan Singh was considered to be very close did not back India, ostensibly in pressure from Pakistan and also on terms close to the chest of the world’s sole superpower.
“What US and China are telling today, had been telling for last one decade, there is nothing new in the assurance. But the way we considered bidding for non permanent seat in the UNSC, we have succumbed to the desires of the USA and China and the process of expansion of Permanent Seat is further delayed in complex delaying tactics,” observers feel.
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