A Question of Strategy – Farmers Stir and Its Foes

A Question of Strategy – Farmers Stir and Its Foes in India https://countercurrents.org/2021/07/a-question-of-strategy-farmers-stir-and-its-foes/  — by Hiren Gohain — 25/07/2021

Farmers believe since their movement has solid support of farmers and workers in the states other than those directly involved... But.. the support is not as organised, watchful and militant . Hence.. a flurry of policy measures that take them by surprise .

In Assam..a new directive from the centre many farmers here who had received Rs.6000 in three instalments  will have to return the amount as they do not hold secure land Pattas...On retrospect (this move) may well have been a cold, calculating stratagem to find out the amount of land to be ultimately given away to corporates.For dispossessing farmers of their land is one of the priority aims of the disputed laws.

Reportedly, the state government has been asked not to buy foodgrains from farmers any more.  the state government has been asked not to buy foodgrains from farmers any more. 

Given these attacks, front farmers' leaders have got to find solutions in time to such problems behind the lines

Sukla Sen Comments: 

.. the aim of the three farm laws, taken together, is to corporatise (with Adani/Ambani very much in the lead) food/agricultural trade/sector and, on the way, dismantle the system of procurement, and also distribution (at discounted rates) to targeted groups, by the state.

..The ongoing fight is, no doubt, a historic one; in order to overwhelm the regime. However, it has to generate strong waves of support from amongst the wider public. That's not yet happening.
Maybe the way the common consumers are going to be hit remains to be adequately highlighted.

The regime has, as it appears, opted to tire out the agitation - avoiding spectacular use of coercive measures.  In fact the stir has already significantly receded from public discourse.

So, it's admittedly, a tough situation. Nevertheless, the agitation is still on. Just had a big event at the Jantar Mantar. When and how a spark turns into a prairie fire or a flame gets simply doused - leaving only ashes behind, is not too easy to predict. It has, apparently, its own mysterious dynamics.

Other Views: Unless, State government moves quickly to sort out the existing problems with the APMC and Agricultural System, the Centre needs to only bide its time, and allow the agricultural crisis to deepen.   The issues include exploitation by CAs, lower price realisation, lack of transparency in the trading process, collusion among traders, price cartelisation, delay in payments and low quality of mandi infrastructure.  If the farmers are to have a fighting chance against the juggernaut of Corporatism, they would have to install a modern a system of transparent real time comparative information on  price, production, commodity.. and innovative local systems of finance freed from the clutches of trader manipulation.

How farmers view the existing Mandi system https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2020/dec/12/how-farmers-view-the-existing-mandi-system-2235123.html 
12th December 2020 The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020. enabling the farmers to sell their produce directly to any traders outside the state government-controlled markets. Second, by facilitating the setting up of electronic agricultural trading platforms.
Kurnool and Kadapa regions in Andhra and Ammur and Denkanikottai in TN Study: Over half of the farmers we interacted with (57%) are unhappy with the mandi system of sale. While 43% are satisfied.

The reasons for unhappiness are exploitation by CAs, lower price realisation, lack of transparency in the trading process, collusion among traders, price cartelisation, delay in payments and low quality of mandi infrastructure.
Those satisfied with the mandi system are due to trust built over time with CAs and traders, reasonable price discovery and trust in government control.

This section of the farmers preferred to stay with the mandis due to difficulty in adjusting to a new system and fear of exploitation and low price realisation. Yet, they demanded an improvement in the efficiency of operation of mandis and prices offered there. These results suggest that farmers are somewhat divided on their choice of the mandi system of trade. So the government did the right thing by allowing the farmers to continue to sell their produce in mandis and providing alternative options to others.

Most farmers depend on CAs for credit, price information, transportation and storage. This suggests that farmers’ ability to take advantage of the new trading opportunities depends on the institutional conditions that control farm production. Therefore, the government needs to put complementary support mechanisms to empower the farmers and reduce their dependence on CAs for agricultural support services. Then, the goal of freeing up the farmers from the clutches of mandis would become easier to achieve.

For other articles on farmers agitation: http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/farmers-agitation-against-black-laws 

Critique of the Political Economy of Farmers Agitation

 “Gramsci at the Delhi Border: Indian Farmers and the Revolution against Inevitability”
  https://antipodeonline.org/2021/06/14/gramsci-at-the-delhi-border/  14th June 2021

Extracts: The ongoing farmer and worker protest in India presents a confounding moment in global history. .. For six months they have remained at a tense deadlock with the government. During that time, the protest has grown to encompass diverse strands of Indian society...cutting across caste, religious, gender and class lines.....this protest is not led by a single, secretive party, nor is it driven by the objective of seizing political power. Even in the face of severe repression, the protest has eschewed the use of violence. 

Indian farmers ..fear these laws will lead to their gradual impoverishment and eventual eviction from agriculture altogether. .. the government and its supporters repeatedly claim that cultivation has become stagnant, and that a greater proportion of people need to be moved into other occupations. Yet instead of addressing the technical problems in agricultural policy, or developing greater local industrial capacity, it is content to allow private corporations to leverage their immense purchasing power to manipulate prices and control the food supply-chain. Market imperatives will then completely dictate cultivation practices, setting off waves of uncertainty, indebtedness and consolidation in the countryside. Far from “reforms”, these laws are little more than a license for corporate monopolizing that will result in rural displacement.

In this sense, the Indian government is pursuing a derivative strategy of accumulation.. a warped attempt to follow the trajectory of 16th–18th century England, where peasants were forcibly expelled from the countryside to end up in cities as workers in factories, or as soldiers and settlers in various imperial ventures. 

..21st century India scarcely offers the same chimeric possibilities: remunerative manufacturing jobs are pitifully few; there is no scope for colonizing entire continents. A more likely prospect for ex-farmers will be to join the swelling ranks of the urban poor to find whatever haphazard work is available, while a fraction desperately seeks migration abroad.

The farmer’s protest is therefore a revolt against capitalist inevitability. It embodies a critique of the stale logics of deregulation, privatization and dispossession. 

Small-scale independent cultivation can be made viable.Public investment and localized regulation can become efficient. In Panjab several initiatives are underway for joint cultivation and resource-pooling which involve large numbers of farmers and even landless laborers. These techniques would be both equitable and sustainable, and scalable, if given the right support.

Private enterprise, will lead to  mono-cropping, chemical-dependence and factory-farming. The primary aim of a corporation is to endlessly pursue increasing profit every quarter and year, regardless of the rise in inequality or damage to ecology. ..

The fortunes of the struggle at the borders of Delhi thus have implications for the rest of the world. .. Indian farmers are battling to articulate new kinds of economic rights, to subvert current neoliberal orthodoxy in order to place collective wellbeing at the center of democratic politics. 

'Fix a Broken System'

Tamil Nadu Finance Minister PTR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdTCYPX2vaI ( 19mins) In an exclusive interview with The Quint’s Editorial Director Sanjay Pugalia,

Growing Centralisation of Revenue and control.: https://youtube.com/embed/HdTCYPX2vaI?start=70&end=132  (1 min) Why this global economic advisory group? This is following a state planning group set up for a State perspective. . Collective should reflect our Economic and POlitical Philosophy.  (ref: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/tn-sets-up-economic-advisory-council-with-duflo-rajan-7369708/ While the new advisory council is likely to function as a superpower, above the existing planning board, State Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan told The Indian Express that it would not operate “in a conventional way”. “First of all, these are not paid positions but honorary positions. Their functioning also will not be in a traditional way as many would expect… This is not for a one-time meeting to submit a report, but will be an ongoing process.)

State of States Finances:  https://youtube.com/embed/HdTCYPX2vaI?start=132&end=611 ( 8 mins) Five CAG reports were not tabled. The state finances are much worst that we thought when we made the manifesto promise to reduce fuel prices He talked about how the DMK-led government intends to reduce the petrol price, the need for states to safeguard their rights and the BJP's poor performance in Tamil Nadu politics. Chosen to  pick priority segment like bottom of the pyramid. One time restructuring needed because debt to GDP has gone up is such a way that we cannot service debt. But we need to fix the broken system. The Union wants to take over everything..

COVID Data System https://youtube.com/embed/HdTCYPX2vaI?start=704&end=855 (< 3 mins)   the state will soon be the first to have a transparent data system for coronavirus deaths and infections..

Who will challenge this dominant BJP? in 2024?  https://youtube.com/embed/HdTCYPX2vaI?start=852&end=1016 (< 3 mins)  Either we are going into a more regional party led coalition, or the BJP will continue.  

https://youtube.com/embed/HdTCYPX2vaI?start=611&end=704 (2 mins) Religion is democratised in Tamil Nadu. BJP notion of Hinduism is directly opposed to the TN notion of hinduism..

The Covid Mortuary

The Covid Mortuary

We emptied our COVID ward two days ago.

Trusting the world’s incompetence at learning and planning, I am fully aware we will have to reopen it in some time. Still, an empty ward is a sight I never imagined could be this pacifying.

The Covid Ward in Shaheed Hospital, Dalli Rajhara, Chhattisgarh saw an overwhelming  number of stories with all possible outcomes during the last two and a half months. The stories are not different from what you saw on TV and  lived too  because I am sure someone from your family also struggled for breaths. Their scripts though, have more content than stories elsewhere.

The number of patients we lost in April-May exceeded twice of what we lose in an entire year. The number of people we had to turn away exceeded the numbers we treated.  What made it worse was knowing that the person I am denying admission was not going to get admission elsewhere too. The injustice that laughed at a patient dying inside the ward due to delayed admission and no vaccination, laughed harder at the patient who was turned away from the hospital’s gate.

There was less time to treat, even lesser to mourn and literally no time to let it all sink in.

In a short period of time, I have moved from being terrified to be numbed by the flow of patients in and out of the mortuary.
On one such night of numbness, standing outside the mortuary and gazing at the corpses through a narrow window, I happened to realize there were few additional chambers.

The lowermost chamber was for the corpse of Humanitarian Politics. She had died well before the pandemic set in but I saw her ready for the last rites for the first time. She  was all bones and no skin and it looked  like vultures have had their fun with her. She  had a heart which was cut open from the middle and eyes that were left untouched.

The chamber adjacent to it was for Global Solidarity. He  was kept suited up in Armani, for his last wish was  to look good at the outset even after death. A thousand pages of conspiracy theories kept bundled near his head, he had shoes brought from UN’s office. The suit covered the cracks he had in his skin, the shoes covered gangrenous feets. People whisper it was a suicide.

The chamber above had Scientific Temperament lying in a rugged coat. He lived a secret life in India, kept working silently and the moment he tried to come out, he was lynched to death. Witnesses say he screamed a lot. But no one came to help. Sad.

The chamber next to it had Social Solidarity. She  had clothes of all colors. All blood stained. She  was stabbed multiple times on news channels for days and ultimately died of shock. No method of resuscitation worked.

The smallest chamber in the corner had no corpse but a hefty bunch of papers. They were the political commitments of health. They were very neat and beautiful. I hope they get mummified and discovered later sometime in future.

Above that, was Privilege. He helped people reach faster than anyone else to the ERs, move to multiple ERs too. He did his best to cover political goof ups and inequities. But he died too, for he was very fragile in his making and  there is a limit to stealing someone else’s oxygen. To be honest I wasn’t much sad about this chamber.

One of the chambers at the top had Trust. He  gave a long fight. A tough fight. But succumbed to internal injuries. He tried to keep the doctors and patients together. He tried to make people believe that healing is a process of equal participation. But he suffered progressive ischaemia and gave up.

Besides these, there is a heap of corpses lying behind the mortuary. Difficult to identify, it has all the dreams of equities in healthcare lying dead. Poisoned, perhaps. Not sure whether they will find a space inside the mortuary or not. Will see in sometime.

Do these corpses let other ones lie peacefully even in a mortuary? This whole sight, will surely take some time to settle in my head and heart.  

In a rural-tribal area like ours, mortuaries do always have these extra chambers. Its just that they almost never make it to a national register. The moment a patient is received in the ER or OPD, his/her chances of survival become a function of all the factors that contributed to the death of above deceased entities. Every step of the treatment then, becomes a fight with injustice that has been done and being done to the patient. In a privileged urban setting where all the demigods of healthcare and politics visit so often, these fights find no space.

The struggle to provide quality care in difficult areas goes on in its traditional way, only this time the pandemic catalyzed the rate at which it consumes it participants.

This makes me mention another chamber in the mortuary. The topmost one. Its still empty. It is reserved for my Faith and few other silly things. My faith that all this, is meant for something better in future. My faith, that those who died were not all sinners and the people who lost someone have something good coming there way. That universe will compensate for this in some way. My belief that all the efforts, regardless of the outcomes will make society learn something.

A hope that this last chamber remains empty just like our Covid Ward.

Vidit Panchal

Pushing a particular narrative of Coalition

Mainstream Media tends to impose some of it polarities on politics. An example of it, is the assumption that if the Congress decides to go it alone in the next election it means the disintegration of the Mahrashtra government Alliance. All parties should in fact continue to spread its own ideology and programme and canvass for it. They should then join hands to form coalitions based on acceptance of the election results, and make attempts to change it in the next. This is political maturity.

There is not reason for political players to fall prey to media hype and respond like the current chief minister.

One India Hindi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sgNmK2mk08 Nana Patole Maharashtra में भी सियासी तूफान अपने चरम पर है. Nana Patole का कहना है कि Congress पार्टी Maharashtra में अकेले assembly elections लड़ेगी. इतना ही नहीं, उन्होंने कहा कि अगर हाईकमान फैसला करता है, तो वो मुख्यमंत्री का चेहरा बनने के लिए तैयार हैं.

Shiv Sena, NCP to think together about future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CmSnO02b9Q 17th June Sanjay Raut on Congress remarks on Maharashtra polls  Jun 17, 2021.  Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut Thursday said his party and NCP may think of its future together if Congress decides to contest Maharashtra polls alone, even while remaining in the government. So be it. 

HT: Congress to go solo in Maharashtra Assembly polls 2024? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnfHAAwfZX4 Shiv Sena responds  Congress to go solo in Maharashtra Assembly polls 2024? Shiv Sena responds  What S Raut said was : . “A friend in Maha Vikas Aghadi, Nana Patole said Congress will contest polls alone. They will be a part of the Maharashtra govt but contest polls alone. Then the remaining two parties will think about what they would do together in future,”  But what the graphics said was "Raut slammed Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole" 

Mahua Moitra in her interview with Shoma ChaudhuryL https://youtube.com/embed/qgTN5tShwGA?start=2589&end=2705 says that  to take on the BJP, the idea that you need a national party to take them on,  gone. You can have a conglomeration of regional parties, where in each state the local party takes on the BJP. The Congress will be in four states.

Please also see:

http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/development-in-india/86-toward-2024-through-2022/851-both-gop-regional-parties-will-have-to-tango

Both GOP & Regional Parties will have to tango..

Wake up, grand old party: Regional parties do not add up to a pan-Indian whole. Opposition desperately needs a Congress revamp
June 18, 2021, Pavan K Varma (PV) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/wake-up-grand-old-party-regional-parties-do-not-add-up-to-a-pan-indian-whole-opposition-desperately-needs-a-congress-revamp/  -- It is sobering to remember that even in its shrunk state, Congress is still the principal opposition in states as far apart as Kerala and Assam... Even when reduced to just 52 seats in the Lok Sabha in the 2019 parliamentary elections, it garnered 12 crore votes (BJP got 22 crore) and 20% of the electoral vote share.

see  https://youtu.be/wyiqOG5aKoE?t=829 where Shekhar Gupta (SG) tells why Congress is the only other horse --   20% of the Congress is solid, so even if it increases to 25%, it will make a big difference. But it must be remembered that the Gandhi family is critical to the Congress party. 

Comment: So someone will have to devise a way in which they are there, but they dont surround themselves with a coterie or  isolate themselves from the rest of the power groups in the erstwhile Congress.  For this the Congress as a whole (including G26),  and in particular the Gandhi family, will have stop falling prey to machinations of the right wing and the mainstream media, by buying into the narratives as well as becoming transparent about their plans. For this the different Congresses would also need be transparent.. and take an accommodative  stance.

Back to PV: Strong regional parties in  Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, and West Bengal constitute 164 parliamentary seats.

Congress is directly posited against BJP in MP, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab (where the Akali Dal is a factor), Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka (where the JDS is present too). These states account for around 150 seats. Here Congress Strike rate was 16% in 2014 to even lower in 2019 <  SG: https://youtube.com/embed/wyiqOG5aKoE?start=423&end=70 >

PV: (big) If – Congress were to genuinely revamp itself, then, in conjunction with anti-BJP regional parties, and an entry in UP and Bihar, it could give BJP a run for its money in 2024.

Comment: Upto now that the mainstream media has been asking the Congress to make adjustments with the other parties. This usually runs into  problems as each one is afraid to subsume their identities to the other. 

Thanks to Prashant Kishore meeting with Sharad Pawar, there is speculation that the regional parties can be shown how they can form a solid block, based on federalism issues.. like GST, COVID, Elections schedules, planning and advisory bodies, central v/s state agencies, capture of institutions like governorships, judiciary, Human Rights and Caste  institutions. 

Such a formulation itself will switch around 4% of the votes in their own states to them, in 2024 as people dont want to "waste" their vote. Somehow they need to counter the narrative -- State me Hum, Centre me Modi. They also need to counter the "double engine" threat,  by forming a solid opposition to centralisation of decision making.

So all in all, I think the Prashant Kishore exercise to highlight a decentralised, federal alternative,  can lift  issues to a higher plane.. and offer a more acceptable choice before the people.

Further, such a formulation will automatically give "Congress" more votes in the State where the Congress experiences a direct fight with the BJP . Unfortunately we will have spoil sports like in Punjab, and perhaps Odisha, even some parties in Up and Bihar,  who have to taken a vigorous stand against the Congress in their states.

As Prashant Kishore has emphasised earlier, you need a face and a concrete programme which is presented to the public at least two years in advance, and not just six weeks before elections.

< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IldCA4JLehw Unboxing with Prashant Kishor | What it takes to plan, execute and win an election Nov 15, 2018>

Unfortunately, the mainstream media has made us believe that only a strong centralised face will work. Vajpayee's dictum of "coalition dharma" is projected a personal trait, which only greats like him can carry.  The events of the past 7 years has shown us that when you have a single centralised face, it  has to vanquish opposition usually using undemocratic force.   Also the constituency that supports it, feeds on so called "master-strokes" most of which take us away from democratic norms of functioning. 

So an alternative which checks extreme concentration of authority and arbitrary power needs to be projected, and shown to be viable. ( Maharashtra for example).

Editorial With Sujit Nair: Does Prashant Kishor Have A Solution For The TINA Factor? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJc5O4wNkZM   According to Nair, Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, or even Mamta are not really seen as a viable alternative to the current dispensation.  But there was one, in the UAPA model -- a viable alternative where  the popular face and PM face of the alternative is bifurcated. You need a PM who can put his foot down, unlike Manmohan Singh, and the popular face which can keep the various factions together. 

The alternative may not show a single face, but a bi-polar option, which itself is projected as  desirable in order to check the extreme concentration of authority and arbitrary power. It must demonstrate that its opposition to Modi is backed up by a federal democratic and decentralised  imperative.  Here again we need to go to Prashant Kishore, who says that you need time to plan and execute the viability of the alternative. You need to set the agenda which the alternative will deliver to the masses..< see  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IldCA4JLehw
Unboxing with Prashant Kishor | What it takes to plan, execute and win an election >

Today, there are some concrete areas where the regional parties and Congress can prove how they can work together: a) COVID b) post COVID economic recovery, c) Migrant Labour, d) SMEs e) Using employment guarantee to target economic recovery and engaging educating youth in these spans through a special employment scheme for economic recovery projects. f) special inter-caste (or rather multi-caste) development schemes/services/enterprises at local and district level to break the cynical use to caste divisions in elections. After all you will recall that Modi started his campign by promoting the Vibrant Gujarat Narrative, after the internal polarisation of Gujarat!

Mahua Moitra in her interview with Shoma ChaudhuryL https://youtube.com/embed/qgTN5tShwGA?start=2589&end=2705 ( 2 mins ) says that to take on the BJP, the idea that you need a national party to take them on, gone. You can have a conglomeration of regional parties, where in each state the local party takes on the BJP. The Congress will be in four states. New notion in Indian politics..

आखिर राहुल गांधी की पालटिक्स है क्या? । RAHUL GANDHI । CONGRESS Jun 19, 2021 कांग्रेस नेता राहुल गांधी आज 51 साल के हो गए .आज भी बहुत से लोग उनकी पालटिक्स नही समझ पाते हैं ,क्या है उनकी पालटिक्स ?आज यही समझेंगे जनादेश चर्चा में शाम सात बजे . Saurabh Bajpai Rahul G has come up strongly on Communalism issue and the issue of Crony capitalism.. but the campaign of "pappu overshadowed.. Shravan Garg:
 Before 2014 politics was nationa wide,pro poor .. petrol prices, inflation etc were big issues. Now politics is retricted to cow belt.. of ten states. Rahul G does not know how to do this politics.  Congress does not have a good hindu leadership.. nor hs it projected hindu leadership.. also at the time of Manmohan Signh Rahul played the role of opposition.  But now outside the govt he is not able to do opposition politics. a he is not able to do cow belt politics.. While he is in the congress, he is not in it..

Harjinder Singh: RG in response to "appu" tried to estabish himself as intelletual.. and not as a peoples man.. 

Sompal Shastri: https://youtube.com/embed/B2l8z6yQdjQ?start=1708&end=1984  Jun 13, 2021

Coal to Plastic Plus CO2

The world's worst plastic. https://actions.sumofus.org/a/coal-to-plastic  From the world's worst coal. the era of coal-fired power is over. But coal barons are planning to turn their unburnable coal into the dirtiest plastic on earth... Adani Enterprises has submitted plans to build a $4bn plant to convert coal dug from its bitterly opposed mine in Australia and turn it into toxic PVC plastic in India.

The world already has a plastics problem. And a climate crisis. Adani’s idea combines the two -- coal based plastics create triple the greenhouse emissions of conventional plastic.. One oil executive described coal-to-plastics plants as “massive CO₂ machines that make chemicals as a sidestream.”

Adani blasted over ‘toxic’ $4bn plan to use Australian coal to make plastic in India https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/17/adani-blasted-over-toxic-4bn-plan-to-use-australian-coal-to-make-plastic-in-india  The company is seeking environmental clearances to build the massive “coal-to-PVC” plant that will take up almost 3 sq km in Mundra, Gujarat..Adani enterprises said the coal will go through several stages of processing, creating calcium carbide and then acetylene, which is further processed to eventually produce PVC.
Environmental campaign group SumOfUs has launched a petition to pressure Adani’s financial backers to withdraw from the group over the coal-to-plastics project.
The group claimed the coal-to-plastics process was emissions intensive, and described the plans as toxic.

Egocracy, Digital Freedom & Data Privacy

Egocracy, Digital Freedom & Data Privacy Parakala Prabhakar​ Jun 15, 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-vFCdXwpNs Parakala deals with
1.Indian Government's attempts to throttle our freedom of expression on the digital platforms; (2020 saw 150 internet shutdowns 109 in India https://www.accessnow.org/issue/internet-shutdowns/)
2. the tech companies unbridled collection of our personal data without our consent, ( after rule 21- govt will be prosecutor and judge, will define "public order, security of the State, )
3. the safety of our data in the hands of both government and tech companies.( BN Srikirshna report of july https://prsindia.org/files/bills_acts/bills_parliament/Committee%20Report%20on%20Draft%20Personal%20Data%20Protection%20Bill,%202018.pdf 
Bill not in line with BNK report.. In fact SNk has said that the draft, as it is, is "dangerous" still brought in . Sec25 is a problem..

Meanwhile on the Internaltional front--
India signs statement against ‘politically motivated internet shutdowns’ https://scroll.in/latest/997458/india-signs-statement-against-politically-motivated-internet-shutdowns
India signs statement against ‘politically motivated internet shutdowns’
India on Sunday signed a joint statement by G7 countries on “open societies”, which upholds “human rights for all, both online and offline” and the freedom of expression. The statement referred to “politically motivated internet shutdowns” as one of the threats to freedom and democracy.

However, India is a leading offender in this category. It recorded the highest number of internet shutdowns in the world in 2020, according to a report by digital rights and privacy organisation Access Now on March 3. Of the total 155 internet shutdowns globally, India alone accounted for 109, according to the report. The next highest was Yemen, with six shutdowns, and Ethiopia with four.

India a natural ally of G7 nations, says Modi, calls for ‘democratic values’ in cyberspace  https://scroll.in/latest/997441/india-a-natural-ally-of-g7-nations-says-modi-calls-for-democratic-values-in-cyberspace   Invited as a lead speaker to the session on open societies and economies, Modi stressed on the need to ensure that cyberspace remains an avenue for advancing democratic values and not for subverting it, the prime minister’s office said.

The prime minister called upon technology companies and social media platforms to ensure a safe cyber environment for the users, Additional Secretary (economic relations) of the Foreign Ministry, P Harish, said in a press briefing on the G7 summit. The comments assume significance on the domestic front also, as the Centre and social media companies tussle over the implementation of new information technology rules.

For other articles in this blog: http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/digital-democracy

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