Congress witnessing exodus of many leaders
The recent exit of a prominent Congress leader in Madhya Pradesh to join a leading National Party is surprising. The move comes at a time when the Congress party is witnessing the exodus of many leaders while the assembly is staring a defeat owing to the loss of majority. The exodus since 2019 General Elections is worrying especially to the common man who is caught in an off-guard situation and anticipating assembly elections yet again.
The Congress party has lost one of its best leaders owing to a legacy carried from his father and goodwill earned from the people of the entire M.P. region. As a newly nominated MP for Rajya Sabha, BJP will otherwise immensely benefit from such a people-driven personality and princely icon especially in a region considered as a fortress of the scion’s family.
Varun Dambal
Congress in crisis
Jyotiraditya Scindia met Union home minister Amit Shah, and then the two leaders met PM Modi at his residence. They quit the party to reduce the Kamal Nath-led government to a minority. I wonder, if such great leader deceive party then it is impossible to believe in other members. Congress will have to keep safe its MLAs and MPs if it want to survive its political life.
M Qasmi Nadwi
Don’t be afraid to discuss Coronavirus
Most children will have already heard about the virus or seen people wearing face masks, so parents shouldn’t avoid talking about it. Not talking about something can actually make kids worry more. Look at the conversation as an opportunity to convey the facts and set the emotional tone. Your goal is to help your children feel informed and get fact-based information that is likely more reassuring than whatever they’re hearing from their friends or through news.
Dipti Joshi
Postal cash-receipts should carry stickers for users of postal-services
Presently system at Department of Posts is to issue computer-printed cash-receipts where the portion used by Department of Posts has sticker while the portion given to consumer is without sticker. Department of posts for convenience of users of postal-services should have sticker also in the portion given to the consumers so that they may not require gum at their end to affix it on their despatch-registers or documents etc. It will be benefit to public-exchequer also presently appreciable man-hours and gum are utilised by various public-authorities to paste postal cash-receipts on their despatch-registers.
Department of Posts will not be burdened extra because even presently one of the dual-portion of same cash-receipt still has sticker on back for the portion kept by Department of Posts itself. Rather ultimately it may be economical and convenient to print computer-stationery for issuing postal cash-receipts if sticker is there on complete dual-portion of cash-receipts rather than on single portion only.
Madhu Agrawal
Highly irrational GST-system
GST-system is highly irrational when spare-parts of cars have varying GST-rate. While clutch-assembly attracts 28-per cent GST-slab, clutch-bearing attracts 18-per cent GST slab. Surprisingly even car-battery comes into luxury segment attracting 28-per cent GST. There is irrationality in GST-slabs of other items like sweets, salted items, biscuits and bakery items which all attract different GST-slabs. It is illogical to have just 5-per cent lower GST slab on luxury item like sweets which is otherwise also considered health hazard increasing blood-sugar level.
GST structure should be totally modified so that at least similar items sold by a particular trader like confectioners and bakers may have a common GST slab of say 12-per cent. Likewise there is no sense in keeping some car-spares in luxury-segment of 28-per cent. Instead cars can be kept in luxury-segment of 28-per cent while all car-spares can be put in lower slab of 12-per cent.
There have been talks of reducing number of GST slabs for long for simplification and to be in tune with other countries having adopted GST system. Ideally there should be just three slabs of 0, 12 and 28 per cent With zero-GST applicable only on raw materials which cannot be directly used like unbranded food-grains, vegetables, cotton-yarn etc, most commodities may be under 12-per cent GST slab with 28-per cent slab reserved for luxury items and of items of long-term use like cars, refrigerators, air-conditioners, TV sets etc.
If such a system is adopted to end with GST slabs of 3, 5 and 12 percent, then even corruption-generating Input-Tax-Credit system (ITC) can be retained only for trading purposes abolishing it from manufacturing and service sector. Such one-time consolidated GST reform will fetch much more revenue that too by reducing cost of goods and services inducing towards honest GST regime. Also cess-system for extra-luxury items should be replaced by special GST-slabs in multiples of 50 or 100 per cent.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)