The Gavankars

The great (!) Mumbai Police have done it again…..in order to get some cheap publicity and to cover their inabilities in other areas,they have started a new drive through their traffic department. Today I was reading Hindustan Times and surprised to read the news that Mumbai Traffic Police will now punish the car drivers for listening to the music on their car music systems!Are the Police mad?If listening to music is illegal then how come the sale of car stereos is allowed legally in this country?How come all those automotive manufacturers give open advertisements for factory fitted music systems as added attractions to their top end models? Police claim that listening to the music distracts the driver and may cause accidents. Then are Police thinking of banning even co-passengers from sitting into the cars? Because they also can do the “crime” of talking to the driver and may “distract” him! Let us see what causes distraction and what does not. I fully agree that speaking on mobile pho...

Recently I read about Maharashtra Government's decision of building a big statue of Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Arabian Sea near Mumbai.The project will cost Rs 200 Crores! What followed was Mr.Kumar Ketkar's comments in Loksatta about how it is not right to spend such huge amounts on building statues than using the same funds for the welfare of the citizens.I think Mr.Ketkar is absolutely right.Political outfits like the one who attacked Mr.Ketkar's house are coward and they do not understand the meaning of "democracy" and "freedom of the speech" In case we have that kind of money with the government, why can't we create a charity trust in the name of Shivaji Maharaj and use the interest on that money/donations to the trust for needy people?Even if we target the corpus of Rs 200 Crores to start with and keep this money in fixed deposits in Nationalised bank,safely we can earn INR 18-19 Crores per year with prevailing interest rates.Imagine how ma...

I received this great email from one of my friends.Very interesting.. Don’t worry this article doesn’t use terms like Commodity market or debt to equity ratio or any other term that you hate to read in your business newspaper. This is really a good and simple explanation. Please give 5-10 minutes of your free time to read it, its worth. ANECDOTE: Once there was a little island country. The land of this country was the tiny island itself. The total money in circulation was 2 dollar as there were only two pieces of 1 dollar coins circulating around. 1) There were 3 citizens living on this island country. A owned the land. B and C each owned 1 dollar. 2) B decided to purchase the land from A for 1 dollar. So, A and C now each own 1 dollar while B owned a piece of land that is worth 1 dollar. The net asset of the country = 3 dollar. 3) C thought that since there is only one piece of land in the country and land is non producible asset, its value must definitely go up. So, he borrowed 1 dol...

Forest Case: What Relief are we talking about for Common Man? Who is the sufferer? Common man like us, who have been staying here for 4 decades or who have invested in house and paying Pre-EMI installments for last few years. (Without knowing whether he will get possession of the house) Developers have already build complexes and handed over to housing societies & in case of under construction projects it is the people’s hard earn money or loan taken from banks, it is not developers money at stake. Government would be responsible - if something like this happens Bigger Banking Crisis: if all the families staying in the affected areas stop paying EMI - 1 lakh families already staying & plus another 75000 families who have invested in house and have taken loan from the bank as per the progress of the development. (Let the state government pay for all the mistakes they have created) As per today’s scenario normally all banks processing housing loans have rigours check list before ...

Today I came across an interesting news in a Marathi newspaper.It was about an unusual RTI request made to Pune collector office by an applicant below poverty line. Govt of Maharashtra has started citizen services delivery via single window through SETU scheme some 5 years back.These SETU center are located at each Tehsildar and collector offices across all districts of Maharashtra.Citizens can get the services and certificates like caste certificate,domicile certificate,income certificate etc etc through these centers. This particular applicant in Pune filed an RTI to collector office Pune and requested the entire data and the supporting documentation of ALL SUCH SETU applications made by citizens at Pune SETU office in last 5 years!!!Please note that a typical such application for example one for caste certificate requires supporting documentation of at least 10 pages!.. In one day a typical SETU center receives minimum 50-60 such applications..and more when there is a heavy demand f...

After supreme court's historical verdict last week,it is now clear that 27 % OBC Quota will be implemented across all state run educational institutes from this year itself. However one thing which is not clear to me is,when the supreme court categorically told that a bachelor's degree is enough proof that the candidate is not "backward",then how come the quota will be applicable to PG institutes like IIM? Secondly,while the idea of creamy layer is being debated across all the forums these days,it is largely contained to reserved class candidates!No politician (surprisingly except Mayawati) talks about the "economically backard" criteria!Why can't we have a common criteria for all..the needy and poor students,no matter if they are brahmins or Dalit,should be provided with assistance.Also here are certain aspects of this whole debate I am putting across for larger review.Your comments are most welcome: 1.While it is true that Congress had been a strong su...

Hi All, This message is to let you all know that,as citizens of India,we can get our work done through the government with simple tools like Right to Information Act (RTI). Here is a personal example: I was inspired by the Right to Information campaign from Mr.Shailesh Gandhi and decided to use the act for getting the status of my Income Tax Return. My case was pretty simple:I received my refund order cheque for assessment year 2003-04 very late in Jan 2005 (The cheque was dated Oct 2004 and it was valid only for 3 months).So by the time actually I received the cheque,it was the last date of the validity. Still I deposited the same in my bank account and somehow it went for clearing on the last minute.The problem occurred when the bank returned the cheque to me next week saying that they did not receive the "payment advice" from the Income Tax department. Frustrated by the same I went to my CA who in turn told me to pay 10 % of the refund amount as bribe to the income tax o...