ENVIRONMENT// Last December, 190 countries came together in Paris, France and agreed to take steps to prevent the Earth’s climate from getting too much hotter. last month, 175 of those countries signed the Paris agreement. This is the first time that so many countries have moved fast to sign an international agreement — it shows that most countries are taking the climate change problem very seriously. Under the agreement, each country has to take specific action to halt global warming and switch to renewable and non-polluting sources of energy such as solar and wind energy. However, there are still some steps to be taken before the agreement can go into effect. Each country must get its own government or Parliament to also sign off on it. India too signed the agreement. As per Indian law, the climate change agreement does not have to be approved by Parliament. Instead, only the Prime Minister and his team of ministers are required to accept it. It is likely that this will happen in 2016 itself.
POLLUTION// Delhi may be the worst city in India when it comes to air pollution but Mumbai is the noisiest. The latest report of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) took into account noise from vehicles, generator sets, office machines, aircraft, industrial and construction activities when coming up with the list of India’s noisiest cities. According to a report in The Times of India, Mumbai breached the safe noise levels — 55 decibels during the morning and 45 dcibels during the night — consistently between 2011 and 2014. Although Delhi has the highest number of vehicles in India, the city has a lot of greenery especially along main roads and this may have helped it stay at No 4 after Mumbai, Lucknow and Hyderabad. Noise pollution is a serious problem in India and the CPCB report pointed out how noise pollution could lead to more stress (tension), unhappiness, loss of hearing and sleep disturbance.
CONSERVATION// Tigers have made a little comeback with the total number of tigers in the world increasing for the first time in 100 years. A new tiger count has shown that 3890 tigers roam the wild, which is much higher than the 3200 tigers counted in 2010. The new data was published in a report prepared by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Global Tiger Forum (GTF), an organization that works for the protection of the tiger. More than half of the world’s tigers are found in India where 2226 out of the 3890 were counted. After India, comes Russia (433 tigers), Indonesia (371), Malaysia (250) and Nepal (198).
These numbers are tiny compared by the 100,000 tigers that roamed Asia one hundred years ago. Hunting and loss of jungle areas killed many tigers. After hunting was banned, poaching became a serious problem. Poachers are people who kill tigers illegally — they kill them for their body parts that are used in Chinese medicine. More than 1500 tigers have been killed by poachers between 2010 and 2014, according to data collected by TRAFFIC, a group that studies illegal wildlife trade. Therefore, in spite of the increase in numbers, tigers remain an endangered species. The number of tigers worldwide may be higher than 3890 and closer to 4000 as Myanmar has yet to announce its numbers.
CALAMITY// A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit coastal Ecuador on April 16 around 7 p.m. while people were going about their evening. The tremors buckled overpasses trapping drivers. A shopping mall partially collapsed on customers and several buildings have been flattened with their content spilled into the streets. All six coastal provinces — Guayas, Manabi, Santo Domingo, Los Rios, Esmeraldas and Galapagos — were in state of emergencies. People left their homes and wandered around, some sleeping in the streets. The hardest-hit area was the coastal Manabi Province, where about 200 people died. The cities of Manta, Portoviejo and Pedernales, a tourist destination, saw the most devastation but damage was widespread throughout the country.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least one million people have been affected by the earthquake. The most affected provinces are Esmeralda and Manabí, located 170 kilometers away from the capital city Quito. The Ecuadorian Government has declared the state of emergency in 6 regions of the country. Some of the most affected towns include Pedernales, Portoviejo, and Manta in Manabi Province, Muisne in Esmeraldas Province, and Guayaquil in Guayas Province. They estimate damages in the region of $3 billion.
technology. Its basic needs — from meals at home, transportation to work, management of their schedule, communication, education and money management — is now just a click away. This has been made possible by mobile applications developed globally for all consumer sectors. India has been the brainchild for most creative mobile applications, few of which have been supported by large venture capitalists and in our hands today.
The UAE is a fast-paced country, which is building all its new platforms — from infrastructure, living, business — on new innovative technology. The country is promoting new business ideas and ventures through trade fairs for all consumer segments. These fairs have encouraged various venture capitalists to set up their operations in Dubai. The growing NRI population in Dubai also promotes a lot of intellectual property exchange between the two countries. In the past few years, we have seen various property developers exhibiting and holding business meetings in Dubai to raise funds for their innovative projects in India. However, since the past three years, various technology startups in India have now started visiting Dubai to raise money for their projects to launch new mobile applications. Such projects are being developed by students, innovators, new-age firstgeneration entrepreneurs, researchers, educational institutes and their faculty members in India.
I believe it’s now the new mobile application era; consumers need everything to be a click away on their mobile, which is only possible by the development of new mobile software. Based on my recent meetings with various fund management firms, venture capitalists and business setups in Dubai, it is evident that there will be numerous business investments between NRIs and technology entrepreneurs in India to support such startups. Once this trend is capitalised on in the next few years, numerous billion-dollar businesses are expected from this phenomenal growth. As we all know there is a lot of growth and opportunity in private equity, but the real gap is in continuous funding of such projects until they can function independently. Technology startups always have a high risk factor involved due to continuous evolution and innovation. Therefore, India has always had the advantage on surplus talent with a lower cost that allows NRIs to gain a good return on their investment in such ventures.
I am currently working on a mobile application development with various technology companies in India and ventures capitalist in West Asia, which will allow everyone to manage their medical records online through this application. Most of the aging population needs to maintain hard copies of their medical records during their travel or have to send special requests to their doctors to share it within the medical network. This application has already been shared with various hospitals in West Asia and Africa, and they have started downloading this application to store medical records and also pull medical records of their patients for review.
If any customer has an account with this application, they can view various hospitals and private doctors that are registered on this application, share their records with them and get medical opinions and cost of procedures. This application would allow patients to get global medical opinions from various doctors, compare prices and then select their place of treatment. The further expansion of this application requires approximately $10m to be launched full-scale. Currently, it has tie-ups with only few hospitals in West Asia and Africa. Africa is the testing platform and once revenue is generated on this platform the application will be further advertised and marketed. This will also help to increase medical tourism in India as lot many global patients prefer to have highly qualified Indian doctors.
This supports the opinion that India today needs NRIs to start flowing funds back to their home country. Few good mobile applications that have been recently developed in India and rolled out globally include, advanced retail shopping platforms, taxi services, and air travel applications. The concept of banking services has also become virtual for all global banks, with technology platforms formulated in India. Recently, there have been many articles on centralising medical services for patients on a virtual platform, which allows patients to research doctor’s globally according to their qualifications, services offered, fee structures and also share medical records with hospitals. In summary, the focus is now to assist the consumer conduct better research.
The question is whether this trend can now be maintained; can we have the NRIs and venture capitalists help this growth in India? Can the technology hubs in India be further supported? Is Dubai one of the neighboring hubs to support India? I look forward to seeing more articles on this subject in the media and also the development of more mobile applications in India in the years to come.
The word “startup” was yet to catch the fancy of new-age entrepreneurs, and angels were still more of heavenly creatures than investors with a large war-chest and a larger heart. India had started shining a wee bit, yet for three banking professionals to think of creating a worldclass bank by themselves in a country where inefficient public sector banks still set the rules of the game was more like a reel life story than one that is real.
However, the enormity of the task ahead did not deter Rana Kapoor and his two partners — brother-in-law Ashok Kapur and Kapur’s colleague Harkirat Singh — to make an audacious offer to Rabo Bank of Holland, who were looking for opportunities in India, to help them set up an NBFC business and a bank, which the three of them would run.
After some hard negotiation, the deal got through and the three pooled in Rs 9 crore to start a joint venture in 1997. Rana Kapoor put in Rs 40 lakh from his own pocket and the rest came as joining bonus from Rabo Bank.
Six years later, the three had sold their stake in Rabo for Rs $10 million each, which formed the seed fund for their next venture — opening a bank in India. They applied for a bank licence and the trio received a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India in 2003 and set up YES Bank, one of the only two new full-stream banks to have opened in the last decade.
To open a bank and name it “YES Bank” tells you the confidence that the founders have on their new venture. As the bank grew its presence and stature, the bank lost two of its founders — Harkirat Singh (due to differences of opinion, as is common in businesses) and Ashok Kapur (to a terrorist attack in Mumbai. The third, Rana Kapoor, stood firmly like a pillar of the bank.
Under Kapoor, who is now the managing director and CEO, YES Bank has managed to sail through different business cycles to emerge a decade later as the country’s fourth largest private sector bank in India. It is already valued over Rs 11,000 crore (net worth) — in today’s startup parlance, a unicorn (valuation of $1 billion or more) in its own right.
Dreams: An entrepreneur’s seed capital
It all begins with a dream, says Rana Kapoor when he looks back at his entrepreneurial journey. “You have to believe in God and you have to have a dream,” says Kapoor when asked about the secret of a successful venture.
For Kapoor, the dream to start a bank took roots when he first saw the large bank buildings in the US while he was in the country doing is MBA from Rutgers’ University in late 1970s. And that dream started to take shape as he joined Bank of America in 1980. In the 16 years he spent in the bank, he learnt the tricks of the banking trade and also held several positions of responsibility, including assignments in Asian countries, and went on to head the bank’s wholesale banking business.
He also won accolades from the bank for his stellar performance there, and was presented the Eagle Pin by the Chairman of Bank of America in 1990, the highest professional recognition at the bank.
In 1996, he joined ANZ Grindlay Investment Bank — the same bank that had rejected him in 1980. In ANZ Grindlay, he was involved in raising funds for Jet Airways’ fleet acquisition and Sunil Mittal’s telecom venture.
He had another stint — this time with the Dutch Rabo Bank, an association that paved the way for his journey to YES Bank. While in Rabo Bank, he was instrumental in Tata Tea acquiring Tetley, one of the biggest overseas acquisitions by an Indian company at that time.
The audacity of YES
YES Bank is the founders’ audacious journey as a bank that does not hesitate in saying YES to opportunities a fledgling free-market economy was ready to provide to businesses and entrepreneurs.
Kapoor says, “The reason behind naming it YES Bank was my firm belief that our bank’s differentiation begins with its service and trust mark YES. YES represents our true spirit of becoming a high quality, customer centric, service driven, Indian Bank.”
According to him, the brand also reflects the mood of the nation, a part of the country’s momentum.
The audacity did not stop at just the name. Within a year of starting banking operation (in August 2004), the bank decided to go public by offering 25 per cent stake to the public in June 2005. The issue was subscribed 25 times.
Acknowledging investors’ faith in the bank’s public issue, Kapoor had then said, “The overwhelming response received in the primary markets epitomises the faith and confidence YES bank enjoys in the banking and financial services domain. It also symbolises the enormous potential YES bank is perceived to have in this highly competitive industry.”
With Kapoor at the helm as CEO, the bank was already making its presence felt in the corporate and investment banking front. YES BANK’s Investment Banking Group was ranked 1 in M&A “Outbound Cross Border Transactions” in the Bloomberg League Tables. In 2008, its investment bankers were involved in a deal where Pune-based Suzlon acquired Belgium wind turbine gear box maker Hansen Transmissions International NV for $560 million. In yet another M&A deal that year, the bank helped United Phosphorous acquire Advanta Netherlands Holding BV for $120 million.
There was sadness, too. In 2008, Kapoor lost its second partner, Ashok Kapur, to a deadly terrorist attack in Mumbai that shook the whole world. As if that jolt was not enough, the global economy was going bust triggered by the fall of large financial companies, globally.
But for Kapoor, that “adversity brought opportunity” for the company. According to him, that was the time they concentrated on building infrastructure and brand — an otherwise costly exercise made affordable by the downturn.
Already proving its mettle in corporate banking, the bank was now planning for the second phase of its expansion — the entry into retail segment. By 2010, it had announced its foray into the retail banking space, a key component in the growth of its business into a full-fledged bank.
In an interview to a newspaper, Kapoor had then said that “by virtue of its name “YES” is destined to emerge as a retail bank. And he had ambitious growth targets. “In my view, banks like ours which are still at a high growth phase, should be able to grow at double or even triple the banking system growth rate,” he had said.
Of course, he was banking on technology and a model under which it had outsourced all its technology needs — a clever strategy since it allows it to attain “scalability at a marginal cost”.
He had seen India, a grossly under-penetrated on retail services, with an enormous opportunity to spread its presence with “a superior client experience through well-trained staff”.
Kapoor’s vision paid off as the bank managed to grow (income) at a CAGR of 35 per cent from 2007-08 to 2014-15, not a mean achievement given both the global and the domestic economy were mostly in turmoil during the period.
Vision for tomorrow
Running a business at a time of enormous uncertainty and challenges is like wearing a crown of thorns. You have your fair share of controversies and difficult times. Kapoor has seen it all, be it the ugly spat with his late partner Ashok Kapur’s wife and daughter, or the mounting bad corporate loans that threatens to shake the very foundations of the banking sector.
However, Kapoor has his eyes clearly fixed at future even as he continues to fix the problems he faces in the present. He believes the next phase of growth would come from sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, hospitality, infrastructure, education and renewables.
“We believe these are industries where India will build competitive advantage and as a new age, non-legacy bank we aim to build skills which are going to meet the future requirements of our country,” he had said in an interview.
For the banking sector to grow, he says the industry would have to invest in new businesses and inventions. He believes financial technology and cashless economy would be the key themes for next stage of growth of the bank.
The bank’s recent tie-ups with FreeCharge, which is launching a mobile wallet service and T-hub, a public/ private partnership between the government of Telangana, three of India’s premier academic institutes (IIIT-H, ISB & NALSAR) and other private players to promote FinTech start-ups, are testimony to its future roadmap as envisaged by the MD and CEO himself on many platforms.
It is only fitting for a self-made entrepreneur like Rana Kapoor to look for future growth in the next generation of startups that could show the same level of commitment, audacity and passion as he himself showed in its early days as a first generation entrepreneur.
The Xbox One may have been announced almost three years ago, but now, with the summer vacations around the corner (and the concern about keeping kids busy), it is a good idea to revisit this successor to Xbox 360. In direct competition with Sony’s Playstation 4 and Nintendo’s Wii U, it is the third console in the Xbox family.
More than a gaming console
The Xbox One is a gaming console but it is also a media centre that wants to be at the heart of all your digital entertainment. The internet-connected Xbox One can turn any screen into a smart-TV, letting you browse the web, check your social networks, use Skype to video chat with friends, and stream music and movies on the internet. And you thought it was only for children?
The Xbox One also includes an HDMI-in port that your television set-top box can connect to. TV becomes just another app on the Xbox and it can be accessed without having to fish out your television remote to switch the video source.
When you buy the console, you have the option of buying it with the Kinect sensor (at Rs 45,990) or without (at Rs 39,990). The Kinect bundle also gets you Dance Central and FIFA 15, while the cheaper option gets you FIFA 15.
Design The Xbox 360 had round corners and a bright colour scheme that made it stand out and look a little like a toy. The Xbox One eschews this completely. It has a subdued dark design that makes it look like the Hummer version of a DVD player. The front of the device is smooth except for the Blu-Ray slot, and there is one USB port along the side. Everything else you need is at the back of the box. Neat, and very clean.
One HDMI in (for your set top box), one HDMI out (to connect the Xbox One to the TV), a port for the power cable, optical out for audio, two more USB ports, and ports for the Kinect and Ethernet are all placed within reach. Except for the USB ports, there’s nothing that should make you need to reach behind the console after setting it up for the first time.
If you opt to buy the model that comes with a Kinect, you also need to find a place to keep the camera. It's slim enough for you to be able to place it under your television without any problems. The camera is the only blocky looking piece of hardware that looks a little out of place with the huge lens staring back at you at all time. We spent a fair amount of time using the Kinect to Skype with people. You don't even need to use the controller, and the Kinect camera has an easy-to-use interface. Browsing the web and watching movies was handled easily enough with just Kinect, although you can use the controller as well.
In the box we got a headset, an HDMI cable, and one game controller. You can buy a second controller at Rs 3,999 online. The controller has been tweaked and looks a lot sleeker than the 360 version. It feels almost exactly the same as the 360 controller, although the balance might be a little better. The design of the triggers and bumpers has been streamlined and new rumble strips under the triggers make it feel amazing to use.
Hardware basics
The Xbox One uses an AMD APU that has an 8-core Jaguar processor clocked at 1.75GHz. It has a Radeon 7000-series GPU, 8GB of RAM and 500GB of storage. On paper that puts the Xbox One at par with a moderately powerful gaming computer, and several steps ahead of its predecessor, the Xbox 360. Real world performance doesn't always line up with paper so neatly of course.
Final verdict
Overall, it is a great gaming and entertainment device. My experience with the Kinetic with voice command has been great and my son is delighted and awestruck when I say “Xbox, On” and the console fires up. Trust me when I say this, as it is from personal experience, it is not just for the child in your home, but for the one inside you, too. Game on!
IT WAS 3 o’clock in the morning on Good Friday 2016. We had just got back from picking up the son in Cardiff a good 40 miles away.Yes, there was an explanation — isn’t there always? A Tube strike in London had made the son miss his train to Swansea and he had jumped into the next one only to discover it petered out at Cardiff. We are still trying not to read significant Freudian omens into why the son misses his train/ bus most times he plans to visit us. I don’t think we are going to succeed for much longer.
My eyelids were drooping shut when they were suddenly jerked open by the husband exclaiming, “Oh, tomorrow’s the White Pride March in Castle Square. We must go for it.”
The son moaned from the corner of the sofa where he had been demolishing triple choc cookies and milk. He’s really cute when he’s like that — you know, regressing into babyhood. “Dad, I’m on holiday,” he said weakly. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s already tomorrow. When do we sleep?”
“Don’t be silly,” returned his loving father. “This could be a major historical event. You can sleep later. Where’s my video camera? I must put it to charge.”
The son shot a pleading, chocolate-smeared look at me. “Well, let’s see when we get up,” I said, rubbing my eyes and stumbling bed-wards. But once there, all remnants of sleep vanished from my head, ruthlessly ousted by fears of what a White Pride March might entail. The family has a penchant for reading, and we were morbidly fascinated by the after-effects of all the historical times the Whites had declared their supremacy. Let’s just say a brown skin doesn’t leave much room for manoeuvre in such situations.
Should we really be going? I wondered, turning over for the fifth time. Suppose we were attacked? There would be plenty of policemen there, we’d been told by a friend. But the police would also be white, why would they rush to protect us brown skins? Certainly, no one had protected the Jews. But we’re Aryans, too, was my last thought as sleep finally claimed me, at least the husband and half of the son are….
Morning came all too fast and I woke dutifully along with the husband, mentally girding my loins for whatever the day had in store for us. And so, surprisingly, did the son. As a family, we have a healthy respect for the husband’s alter ego as a news hound. Even though it has led us down the path to disaster several times, but those stories will keep for another time.
When we were in Delhi, the husband stayed on standby mode until four newspapers and a corresponding number of cuppas had been consumed.I learnt early on in our marriage that “newspaper time” was a good time to slip something past the husband, there was no fear of him actually paying attention.
Fast forward to Swansea and the only thing that has changed is that the newspapers have gotten replaced by the innumerable news feeds to which the husband subscribes.
Earlier this year, when the Kanhaiya Kumar episode unfolded on the Indian media scene, the Jain family was kept minutely up-to-date by the husband with blow-by-blow accounts of all that was happening in Delhi and Hyderabad. As the loving spouse — and the only one in his immediate vicinity — I bore the brunt of his obsession. We listened to KK’s speech so many times that we were chanting it as we strolled up to the Tesco: “Hamein chahiye – azadi!’ Then we listened to the Songify-ed version of the speech. Then the Songify-ed version set in dubstep. While we’re on it, what is dubstep and why does it exist?
The nights were taken over by the husband and the son engaging in long, heated debates over the phone. I would rather have been watching Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible for the twentieth time, but at least I was not in the line of fire. The only imperative was to nod every once in a while when the husband shot me a look. The husband is not the only one in the family with the gift of tuning out, but don’t tell him that.
“You know what your trouble is, Dad?” said the son after he had been bested in an argument. The lawyer in him turns nasty at times like that. “You want to be out there, in the field, reporting. Why don’t you write an opinion piece about it instead?” This was pulling out the big guns. Nasty. Below the belt. Unfilial. The husband has never been known to do anything until a deadline is beating its drums into his ear.
Which is where we stood when the White Pride March was announced. And, for once, we were all up in timely fashion. This is tougher than it sounds if you take into the calculation the fact that the son’s talent for sleeping is second only to his talent for arguing.
“It’s raining,” I said, looking meaningfully at the son, who was shoving his way into the hoodie that he’s had since he was 18. It was mine for ten years before that. “No camera,” I added.
“We’ll walk,” retorted the husband. It’s only in families that you can have threat, attack and counter-attack in so few words. The husband knew I hated walking.
Well, walk we did. And in the rain. For a full 15 minutes. There were plenty of people in the square and I could feel my blood up its dose of adrenaline for a flight/ fight response anytime it was required. Cops were everywhere, as were… “Why would you bring babies in their prams to a protest march?” I asked. “Why would you bring dogs?” asked the son, for whom dogs are a higher form of creation than babies.
“What is he singing?” asked the husband, who was the only one looking at the lone figure gyrating on the stage in one corner of the square.
“Ha, ha!” chortled the son. “Keep the Nazis off the Street!”
“You mean to say all these people are here to protest against the protestors?” I asked in amazement. “But where are the protestors?”
“There they are,” said someone close by, and, sure enough, there was a surge of people towards the road where the march was to take place.
“Where are the protestors?” I asked again. “Here, climb up here,” said the husband kindly, whisking me up above the armpit level of the general population.
“But, but… there are barely 20 of them there,” I spluttered. “Why are they wearing masks? Are they scared?” This motley group holding a sodden white flag bore no resemblance to the menacing white supremacists I’d seen in my nightmares. The protestors waved their flag weakly and shouted something that was borne away in the rain. The anti-protestors shouted something back. And then the cops escorted the White Pride March back to the station.
“Where was the march?” I asked. Neither man in my life deigned to reply. We walked back home. The husband switched on his computer and images of a packed JNU auditorium echoing to the slogans being shouted filled his screen. “Hamein chahiye… azadi!”
The son shook his head much like a dog and sneezed. “I told you, you would get wet,” I scolded.
‘Well, at least I didn’t take my video camera,” said the husband woefully. The son and I kept quiet. In families, love is sometimes a silent emotion.
When the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power, it showed promise in its early days, what with some bold policy decisions to improve the government’s tax extortionist image. It announced it would not resort to retrospective taxation, decided not to appeal against a high court decision in favour of Vodafone in a transfer pricing case, and made a slew of small changes to make paying taxes and filing return easier and simpler.
And when it announced the formation of a panel on simplification of tax laws and implemented 17 out of 20 of its recommendations, everyone thought we are finally moving in the right direction making the country’s tax laws more business-friendly and amenable to taxpayers.
Of course, there were some minor hiccups — the mindless Black Money Act and the controversy on applicability of minimum alternate tax (MAT) on foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Experts and tax commentators brushed aside these “mistakes” as mere anomalies.
However, when we thought the government is working overtime to make India a non-adversarial tax regime, the government surprised us all with some inexplicable policy moves.
Even as the ghost of Black Money Act was not far behind us, the government recently announced that people with over Rs 50 lakh annual income must disclose in their income tax return assets such as cash in hand, jewellery, bullion, yacht, vehicles, aircraft and immovable properties.
The focus of the government obviously is more disclosures in income tax return (ITR) form, so that it can catch those who are purposely showing lower income to avoid tax or are earning income disproportionate to their assets.
While the objective of the move may sound lofty — given the government’s commitment to curb black money — implementation of the law may be a big problem area. How do you value a certain asset, say a yacht or a luxury car? What if your valuation of assets is rejected by the income tax department? Would it open another Pandora’s Box and lead to more tax disputes? Through this law, is the government handing more subjective power in the tax officers, who for long have been known to spook honest taxpayers? The most important question though is whether the government is unleashing another round of tax terrorism.
The government’s defence to the accusation of resorting to aggressive tax rules is rather lame. Revenue Secretary Hansmukh Adhia said the new law would only affect 1.5 lakh tax payers and not impact the common man. Somebody must tell Adhia that bad tax laws often find favours with the government and before long the threshold of Rs 50 lakh may be lowered to encompass more taxpayers.
And if we look back, and try to connect the chains of some of the aggressive tax policies of the government — last year it made it compulsory for taxpayers to disclose foreign assets in ITR forms — we will realise this government, in its zest to “unearth” the treasure trove of unaccounted money stashed abroad by unscrupulous taxpayers, is unleashing another era of tax terrorism.
Of course, the government gets a moral boost when exposés such as the recent Panama Paper leaks reveal a long list of Indians with overseas assets and investments. What news reports like these do is create sensationalism, often at the cost of facts and generate public outcry to make stricter laws against individuals and entities who open companies and trusts overseas. However, lost in the midst of rhetoric and public outcry is the fact that people can, in fact, legally open companies or own assets outside India. Both the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the tax authorities offer tools for individuals and companies to own companies overseas, and people using these tools should not all be seen with suspicion.
The information revealed in earlier such exposés have not led to any meaningful prosecution, and the recent one is unlikely to lead to any significant discovery of black money stashed abroad either. In a similar exposé in 2013, 700 Indian names appeared in a list of people, with business connections in overseas countries. In this case so far, only 52 prosecution complaints has been registered and the tax department could detect a credit of only Rs 2,000 crore. The Enforcement Directorate is investigating only 20 of these cases.
There are other tell-tale signs of the government’s aggressive tax policies. It has issued fresh tax demands on Vodafone and Cairn — the two companies that were earlier hit by the UPA government’s tax extortionist ways. The government has even decided to appeal against a Bombay High Court decision in favour of Vodafone in the Rs 8,500-crore transfer pricing case (different from the case mentioned earlier).
Defending the appeal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government thinks it is an appealable order and, therefore, there is no reason why it should not appeal against the case. Although he reiterates that the appeal has nothing to do with retrospective taxation, the government has actually brought back the days of retrospective taxation unleashed by the previous government.
After the earlier enthusiasm the government showed in addressing the tax woes of businesses and the common man, it seems it has now come to terms with the hard realities of the country’s limited revenue resources. With a low tax base and poor tax- GDP ratio of 9-10 per cent (compared to 15 per cent for Brazil and Russia, and 25 per cent for South Africa), the government of the day has always faced serious resource crunch and to fill the revenue shortfall it end up squeezing those individuals and companies which are already paying taxes.
The right way, though, is to make efforts to increase the tax base of the country, bringing millions of people who go untaxed into the tax net. While this is a long-term solution, what bothers taxpayers is the government’s short-term solutions.
Given the government’s slow and steady change in its tax policies, we can say that tax is something you cannot trust with any government. Irrespective of who is at the top, you would be sure that the government is there to squeeze every penny of tax it thinks you owe it.
It is a well-known fact, with scientific evidence, that the mind causes physical symptoms to embody themselves. Most modern lifestyle diseases are psychosomatic in nature, involving both the mind and the body. The World Health Organisation reports that mental disorders are amongst the leading causes of ill health worldwide. We find that mind plays an important role in the onset of diseases.
Before we examine the effects of emotions on our body and brain, let me share the famous water experiment carried out by Masaru Emoto on the effect of emotional energies on water. He exposed water in different glasses to both positive and negative words, different types of music, prayers, and so on. On freezing the water after exposing to the emotions and vibrations, it was found that the crystals formed when the water was exposed to positive words and thoughts like “I love you”, formed symmetrical and pleasing structures. On the other hand, water molecules exposed to negative words i.e. “I hate you” formed asymmetrical and ugly structures.
As our bodies are comprised of 70 per cent of water, you can well imagine how emotions affect our organs, systems and cells and molecules.
It is a well-known fact that when one is angry or anxious, one may develop physical symptoms of rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure, palpitations, nausea, and so on. These are immediate effects that are seen on the body. But what causes these symptoms? These symptoms are caused due to the increased activity of nervous impulses sent from the brain to various parts of the body that trigger the release of adrenaline into the bloodstream. The brain, under the influence of emotions, also affects the cells of the immune system, leading to physical diseases. Therefore, by thoughts alone we can turn on the switches that trigger the onset of a disease. As we start living our life like this, we become emotionally and mentally unstable and weak. When we turn on these switches but are not able to turn them off; we head towards an illness or disease, and slowly but certainly, our immune system also gets weakened. Our resistance and fighting ability against external bacteria and viruses and also the internal functions get disturbed because of the limited or excess release of enzymes and hormones.
Through numerous studies, it has been found that when we worry about a future condition or worry that a particular illness may occur and continue focusing on that thought, the physical body physiologically changes itself in order to prepare itself for the future scenario. The body will respond in a manner that the future condition has already manifested in the present. The autonomic nervous system gets activated and the corresponding stress chemicals are synthesised leading to the onset of the disease.
Louise Hay, the famous author, has ascertained that each and every disease has an underlying emotional cause. For instance, lack of joy causes heart problems, self-criticism causes headaches, cancer is caused due to deep hurt and resentment, and so on.
I would like to share a real incident with you of a Delhi-based girl. She came in touch with me through Facebook. Only 29 years old, the first thing she said to me was, “Kapil sir, I don’t want to die… I have breast cancer, please help me.” I agreed to help her and started working on her. In the process, I came in for a surprise. Although the girl wanted to get cured, there was something deep within her that was not willing to leave her illness. During the investigations and consultations, I came to know that there was lot of anger inside her due to some deep hurt. I asked her what had happened about five or seven years ago in her life. She brushed it aside saying that it was a thing of past and doesn’t concern her present life. I insisted and with great difficulty she told me the incident.
“About seven years ago, I was deeply in love with a guy, whom I wanted to get married to. But due to different religious background, my father did not allow it.” She broke down into sobs. After a while, she continued in an angry tone, “I want my father to suffer. He loves me the most in this world but now he will have to go through the same pain. He is suffering daily seeing his daughter go through the pain.” She stopped abruptly. She could not believe what she had said. There was so much bitterness and anger and non-forgiveness inside her that had manifested the cancer and she was not willing to let go of the bitterness and anger, which was not letting her disease to be cured.
Just as negative emotions are the precursors of diseases, holding positive thoughts, emotions and feelings bring about epigenetic changes that improve health.
There are numerous stories about miraculous healings where people have healed themselves by holding positive thoughts, emotions, practicing meditations or even have laughed their way to health. Dr Joe Dispenza had fractured his six vertebrae in a car accident and chose not to undergo a crucial surgery and used the power of his mind to resurrect his vertebrae and was able to walk in three months.
So what is the scientific explanation of such miraculous healings?
When one is truly focused on an intention for some future outcome, if the inner thoughts are more intense than the external environment during the process, the brain does not know the difference between the two. It has been seen that if we are grateful for a future condition, the unconscious mind begins to believe that the condition is already present. When we practice appreciation and thankfulness with clear intention, we are instructing our body and brain which changes themselves to make the future situation into a present one.
In such a scenario, new genes are signaled to function in new ways to prepare for this imagined event. As you mentally rehearse the desired outcome over and over again, say to become healthy, the frontal part of the brain get into work and creates an intention of being healthy and shows a mental picture of being healthy. It lowers down the impact of the external world. The frontal lobe in response to new thought produces new neural networks in different parts of the brain which synthesizes neuropeptides and hormones which signals the cells’ DNA to turn on a certain set of genes and turning of another set of genes which reflects the new state of being.
It is said that the physical body is a mirror of our inner thoughts. Therefore the conversation which you are having with your systems, organs and cells is very important with regards to your health. Our minds are created within relationships — including the one that we have with ourselves.
It is seen, therefore, that mind, relationships and brain play an integral and coordinated role in the well-being of a human being. The mind can change the structure of the brain and relationships. The brain can change the structure of the mind and relationships. Relationships can change the mind and the brain.
Meditation, prayers and other holistic healing techniques work at the emotional and physical levels and bring about a balance at those levels leading to improvement of health. It has been found through various studies that people practicing meditation have reduced anxiety, depression and pain. It is seen that the effects of meditation was comparable to the effects of behavioral treatments on patients. Brain imaging studies have shown that meditation activates those regions of the brain involved with emotional regulation, attention and self-awareness.
Therefore new thoughts create new choices, which trigger new actions and behaviours, leading to new experiences, generating new feelings, which ultimately lead to a new state of being.