Featured Articles

To file or not to File

Even though the officially stated  policy is to trust the tax payer, the app has so many cross checks which signify that they dont trust us.  

Most of the errors are because the portal tries to trip you up at every entry. Do you really need to check if a person is "minor" online?  Why cant you just give a message rather than block that entry.  These things can be cleaned up by BOTS/ AI  Algorithms  later... 

I don't understand this obsession in having an completely online system. For example the income tax portal could be de-centralised, where income tax consultants and CAs can have independent hosts based on a platform created by Infosys where every transaction is block chained.. and there is a daily batch processing update of the main portal.  

Plus only minimum verifications/checks need to be piped through the decentralised system.

After that BOT an be made to scrutinise each app, and raise red flags. Customer must be assured that they will get a notification that each red flag will be communicated to them and they given an opportunity to correct their entries, again through the block chained off line systems.

Govt. can encourage young B Coms to set up kiosks, or portable guides, thus creating WFH opportunities

40 issues with the IT portal: https://taxguru.in/income-tax/issues-income-tax-portal-www-incometax-gov-in.html 

Even after a snub from finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the technical issues of this new portal remain unresolved. So much so the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) department had to allow filing form 15CA/15CB (required for foreign remittances) in manual format instead of filing it on the new portal.

Almost every user has been complaining of technical issues from the very first day and even after a week the glitches continue. Taxpayers are unable to view past e-filed returns and many features continue to be displayed as ''coming soon''.https://www.moneylife.in/article/income-tax-new-portal-continues-to-frustrate-users-with-technical-issues/64228.html 

 

Localisation & 5 G

https://worldlocalizationday.org/ Localization is a new human story founded on the principles of connection and diversity.

A thought for the Localisation day workshop.. As a layman, more ideologically incline, I believe that the way Big tech is planning roll out of 5G seems to do overcome the main issues of High band, High Spped, High density local transmission into one that is connected so as to "centralise" ( ie applications across vertical markets such as manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation, where 5G will play a major role in everything from advanced manufacturing automation to fully autonomous vehicles. https://www.digi.com/blog/post/5g-network-architecture )

As a persons who believes in subsidiarity, I feel that the more of our techies should work on developing local servers, connected to devices on rooftops, or pillons which are in turn connected by LAN or wire to homes/offices or even street devices like webcams , . This I suppose will greatly reduce the radiation inside homes and offices and at the street level.

5 G can also be used to create local consumer and producer groups, as well as cultural organisations, if local servers provide applications for e tailing, home services, local transport. The local servers can in turn process on batch processing basis services and good from or to a larger area.
The same logic will work for social media.. where perhaps the density and intensity of message is more local, and the wider global can be reached through piping and interfaceable applications rather than the large unipolar apps like whats app.

I have not been able to convince young techies to work on this approach, even though it provides better and more distributed employment opportunities, because they feel they cannot fight the system, or the efficiency of the centralised system. Can we work towards enabling inspiring our youngsters, many of whom have dropped out of IT companies, and are now doing farming.. Perhaps they can use their knowledge to further a more human scale IT arhitecture..

 

Mired in Past, Messing with Present, Muddled about Future

Parakala Prabhakar​ https://youtu.be/PiiK4S47tM4?t=86 The ruling dispensation seems to be mired in a shamanic view of COVID. Also the planning for the post covid economy seems to be limited  to talk about e mobility, next gen batteries, artificial intelligence, and 5G technologies.   No bread and butter issues, that afflict the marginal and vulnerable today or in the next few years.. 

There is very little post pandemic scenario planning, and the parliamentary committee on Finance reportedly expressed dissatisfaction the Niti Aayog presentation, while it spoke of two extreme possibilities, did not outline anything about what India could need to do.. Public Universities are also not working on post pandemic scenarios..

Obscurantist narratives prevail in the current dispensation which has lead to underestimation of the challenge and overestimation of our exceptionalism.. preceding an assault on scientific temper.

Ref: Preparing for a post Pandemic Economy: from Sunset to Sunrise areas of growth.. amitabh kant 4th March 2021 http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid/813-preparing-for-a-post-pandemic-economy-from-sunset-to-sunrise-areas-of-growth

 Ref: Indian economy to bounce back soon from effects of COVID-19: NITI Aayog Vice Chairman https://dst.gov.in/indian-economy-bounce-back-soon-effects-covid-19-niti-aayog-vice-chairman 

 

For other posts on COVID see: http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid

On Economy & Equity see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/economy-equity