Let the government provide social security measures, many evils will depart

In developed economies, it is the bounden duty of the government to dole out social security measures to  their citizens. The government gives adequate money to the people to continue to live a decent life.

There is a country-wide social security department which provides  social security number. The officials responsible for monitoring the lives of the people do regular checking.

India has gone in for adopting the capitalist system, but it has not started taking measures to clamp an all-India social security department.

If the government provides livelihood like this to all, many social evils like dowry system, caste system etc would hot have their vice grip over society.

Women will be greatly empowered, for they need not depend on others for their survival.

He is a money making man, even while being a fugitive

Vijay Mallya is the sort of man who makes money wherever he is. Now reports say he has got Rs 1.7 crore from a US liquor firm for promoting its beer brands.

Authorities in India have been trying hard to secure Rs 9,000 crore from him for default of loans taken by him from various banks.

Let him make money, wherever he is, but the people’s money which he received from banks should be repaid.

LDF not supporting P C George is big blow for him

P.C.George who has embittered many a politician in Kerala has not found favour with the CPM in Kerala. It has decided not to support him in Poonjar constituency in Kottayam district in the ensuing Assembly elections.

It seems PC George was hoping against hope that the LDF would support him, now that he has deserted the Congress-led UDF.

That the CPM has allotted Poonjar seat to the Democratic Kerala Congress led by Francis George is big blow for P.C.George.

In any case P.C.George would contest in Poonjar and it may present a four-cornered battle.

Mallya or Quattrocchi, what difference it makes to common man?

What difference it makes to the common man whether it is Vijay Mallya or Ottavio Quattorcchi who had fleeced the country?

These days  reports  abound about Vijay Mallya leaving the country without repaying loans of up to or more than Rs 7,000 crore to banks  .Reminders have also come  about Ottavio Quattrocchi of the Bofors fame escaping from the country those days.

Speeches are there tit for tat, but what does the common man benefit out of the argumentative class.

Be it Vijay Mallya or Ottavio Quattrocchi, money has been lost and this money should have been in the exchequer. The money in the exchequer belongs to the common man who is now finding it difficult to make both ends meet.

At one direction, people are living in luxury, perhaps out of ill-gotten money, but at the other extreme crores of people are wallowing in poverty.

No one is above the law of existence

Pictures of Super Star Amitabh Bacchan crossing the streets of Delhi unnoticed in a masked appearance have been released by him.

One must realize that the people don’t take cognizance of others unless feelers are sent to them. Often we see hundreds of people thronging the venues of activities of film stars, ministers, various politicians and leaders.

It must be understood that popularity and publicity are ephemeral. King-emperors and ruthless rulers have hovered over planet earth for some time. But then they vanish from the planet after some time.

No one is above the laws of existence

Good that the govt has withdrawn tax on EPF withdrawals

After much heckling from all quarters, the Union Government has seen reason and taken steps to withdraw the tax clamped on EPF withdrawals.

Earlier, the government had taxed 60 per cent of the withdrawals from the EPF by the employees.

All hell had broken loose on clamping the tax on employees.

The employees have only one source of getting some cash throughout their career. That is on superannuation when they can withdraw the EPF accruals in bulk. It was this benefit that was taxed.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced  in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that he was withdrawing the tax. It seems Prime Minister Narendra Modi had prodded him to fall in line.

CPM has no other go but to co-operate with chosen parties

The central committee of the CPM has allowed its West Bengal unit to craft an electoral strategy that will see a situation for it to co-operate with democratic forces in West Bengal.

The party had been decimated in West Bengal at the hands of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress.

Comrades in Kerala are by and large against any truck with the Congress Party, for they fear that would ring the death knell for it in Kerala where Congress is its main foe.

Whatever understanding it arrives at in West Bengal, it would be tedious to oust Mamata Banerjee, for she has already secured a strong position in that State.

Aedes egypti mosquitoes swarm Kerala, authorities are not bothered

I have been amused by reports emanating from Brazil that the military personnel have been deployed in Rio to make measures to control the spread of mosquitoes.

They go from house to house with insecticides to kill the menacing flies.

The Aedes egypti variety causes a lot of diseases like dengue fever, chikun gunia, debilitating guillain-barre syndrome and now Zika. Brazil is shattered by the outbreak of Zika virus. There is no treatment for the disease.

In Kerala, roads and public places and households are piled up with wastes and rotten stuff. This situation is game for outbreak of the dreaded diseases.

The authorities should take measures to wipe out the mosquitoes.

Bad debts pile up to this extent?

The Supreme Court of India has asked the Reserve Bank of India to list out the loan defaulters from among the big loanees.

Now the court has sought the names of people who had got their loans amounting to Rs 500 crore and above written off by the lending banks.

Think about the situation when a student has to struggle hard with the bank authorities to get a puny amount as loan for his or her education.

The banks levy up to or around 16 per cent of interest. And whatever money is repaid by the student is accounted for only with regard to the interest and not the capital of the loan portion. The loanee would never be absolved from the loan trap.

At this juncture, the banks have no qualms to spirit off thousands of crores of rupees to the big shark. Their debt is simply waived off. 

Do not mislead rubber growers

Every politician worth the salt in Kerala is saying he or she is hell-bent on helping the rubber growers who are hit hard by sharp price decline.

Earlier, the grower used to get Rs 240 per kilogramme of rubber, while now he gets less than Rs 100.

The politician’s tall talk about subsidy and other perks has not helped the grower a wee-bit.

The State Government says it had paid about Rs 100 crore by way of subsidy.

Still, why the grower refuses to go in for tapping?  The truth is simple, rubber cultivation is no more a gainful employment.

Commissioning works on time, the PM's call is relevant

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for constructing and commissioning works on time.

This would definitely save a lot of money from the exchequer by way of cost over-runs.

Usually contractors are hands-in-glove with the authorities for having a stint more with the sort of work they are undertaking so that they could claim compensation for delay and higher rates for the rest of the work. This is depleting the exchequer.

What is happening in Kerala, everything turned upside down?

Political space in Kerala, the Southern-most State of India, is vitiated by everyday reporting of affairs of Saritha, Solar scam and bar bribery cases.

It is high time things turned better for the hearts and minds of the people with savoury stuff.

Let us hope the judicial commission going into the details of the Solar scam would come out with a truthful report and set at rest all rumours and bad stuff.

Women plantation labourers in Munnar, on their own, discarding traditional trade unions

Women plantation labourers in Munnar, Kerala, have started standing on their own without the prop of traditional trade union leaders.

By now they have made it clear that the trade union leaders have been acting at the behest of the owners of the plantations enjoying largesse meted out to them by the owners.

In fact, the women labourers have chased out a legislator from participating in the sit-in protest.

The women labourers have been demanding daily wage of Rs 5,00 which the owners refuse to pay saying the plantations would go into losses if the wages are hiked.

It is an interesting scenario in the plantation sector where the proletariat have discarded the dictatorship of the trade union leaders.

Let us not be carried away while paying homage to APJ Abdul Kalam

The demise was so sudden and the loss irreparable. That was the situation when Dr APJ Abdul Kalam breathed his last the other day.

But all on a sudden people have started putting names to minor institutions and processes after him. That would be a disservice to the great personality.

Think-tanks should ponder over the issue seriously and pinpoint suitable memorials to him, which should help to sharpen the intellect.

Our media could have taken up Tamil Nadu campaign for prohibition

So far our media in Kerala has not taken up the campaign for clamping prohibition in Tamil Nadu.

For quite some time Vaiko has been calling for prohibition saying a lot of youth have been led astray by drinking.

Now DMK has come out with the offer to have prohibition once it comes back to power, which though may be tough in the wake of the crowning popularity of Jayalalithaa.

All the same, not only Kerala, but its neighbour also is suffering from the pangs of too much drinking by the people.

Where is the likelihood of K.M.Mani resigning?

The Opposition is making a hue and cry to have Finance Minister K.M.Mani’s resignation over the bar bribery case. But where is the likelihood of his calling it quits?

Unless there is any court dictum against Mani, one need not expect any resignation move from the Kerala  Congress.  And it is not remotely likely that the courts would ask Mani to go.

There were worse issues before the Oommen Chandy Government in the recent past, but all the storms have been weathered by the UDF Government. 

How many hundreds of millions spent for Attappadi and Wayanad tribes, still there is no uplifting?

One may not know exactly how many hundreds of millions of rupees have been spent ostensibly for the welfare of tribals of Attappadi and Wayanad in Kerala, India.

Still the tribals could not be led out of their morass. They wallow in abject poverty.

There are umpteen number of governmental and non-governmental agencies taking care of them. But the organisations may be thriving, not the tribals whose illiteracy and ignorance may have been taken advantage of over a period of time.

What we need is a team of committed workers who could genuinely work for the welfare of the tribe of people who are still living on the fringes of forests.

Congress Party is in the doldrums and Narendra Modi is shining like anything

After the results of Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections have come out, it is crystal clear that Congress Party is in the doldrums and Narendra Modi of the BJP is on Mount Everest.

It seems for some time now, the graph of Narendra Modi would continue to go up. Congress Party leadership is  not striking back in campaigning to the extent that is desirable.

Plea for making K.M.Mani the Chief Minister, but reaction is muted

The call for making Kerala Congress (M) supremo K.M.Mani the Chief Minister of Kerala has  not been that shrill and the reaction from responsible quarters has been muted.

It appears the call Is  only a wide chase by a section within the Kerala Congress(M). No one has any doubt about the suitability of Mani as Chief Minister. His stuff is tantamount to that of a Chief Minister, but his party has only nine members in the 140-member Kerala Assembly.

KPCC president V.M.Sudheeran has said Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee is not aware of any such moves.

Which means there has been only demands made in the media and not within the serious circles of the ruling coalition in the State.

L.K.Advani could be spoil-sport for Modi

Everyone thought Narendra Modi does have a field day and he could romp home to victory as the next Prime Minister. But tarry a bit, there is 87-year-old party veteran L.K.Advani who wants to become the PM in case the BJP does not get a sweeping number of MPs.

In fact there are talks of a 160 club which wants the party's strength in the Lok Sabha limited to that figure. In that case secularists would not weer round to supporting Narendra Modi, instead they would want Advani to lead the country.

But Modi has been thinking hard about it and maybe trying to settle Advani at Gandhinagar from where he had become MP for the last 16 years.
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But Advani fears that Modi's grassroots level workers may not do his calling. Defeat may face him. That is why he is angling for the Bhopal seat which Narendra Modi is not keen to give to Advani.

If Advani fumes, there may be trouble for BJP.