Professor Vinod Anand

GOVERNMENT receipts have two major components: revenue receipts and capital receipts. The former are grouped into two categories: tax revenue and non-tax revenue. The latter include market loans, external loans, small savings, and government provident funds besides accretions to various deposit accounts, depreciation and reserve funds of departments like railways.

One of the most serious problems of central finances has been GTR (Gross Tax Revenues)-GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ratio, which had earlier declined by almost two percentage points to 8.1% in 2001-02 from 10.3% in 1991-92. It then recovered to 9% in 2003-04 and reached a level of 11.4 per cent in 2006-07 and improved further to 11.8 per cent during 2007-08. In time to come it is expected that it would further move up. This has happened because of the structural shift in the Central Government's ability to mobilise resources. Such a shift enhanced revenue mobilisation through reasonable rates, better compliance and widening of the tax base is yielding tangible results. In this context we must also remember that the revenue from direct taxes has shown high buoyancy since tax reforms were initiated in 1991, but there has been no such improvement in the indirect taxes both in terms of administration and enforcement. But even this “high” GTR-GDP ratio is too low as compared to other developing countries.

The only way out to increase this ratio is to look at other sources of raising revenue like increasing the tax net of income tax, extending it to the agricultural sector, where most of the urban income gets invested by the so-called richer people with a view to avoid taxation. Such steps will surely push up the GTR to higher levels, and push the economy towards macro economic stabilization, and achieve higher rate of economic growth.

But no matter what the level of this ratio is, the fact remains that nothing much reaches the masses through percolation (trickle down) process in terms of say, low prices of things of daily use, low taxes for the common man, and also in non-monetary terms like, basic social provisions, day-to-day security, effective law and order situation, public discipline and responsibility, and elimination of ‘rent-seeking’ nefarious activities.

The coffers of the government are full (not necessarily through tax revenue, but also through the non-tax revenue of various varieties as mentioned above in the first paragraph, and also through capital receipts like recovery of loans, other receipts mainly public sector undertakings disinvestment, borrowings and other liabilities), and they have no policy to accord such benefits to the people). The ruling parties are concerned more with political gimmicks to enhance their electoral power. They spend superfluously in the name of ‘non-plan capital expenditure’ and ‘non-plan non-capital expenditure’. This is one basic reason as why our union budgets become highly deficit, and add to country’s fiscal deficit too. This is well exemplified as follows:

When someone wins a medal say in the Olympics, Asian Games or other such events, and brings laurels to the country, he or she is immediately given a lot of cash money (as a token gift) by the ruling ministers/ chief ministers and so on in their names and not in the name of the ‘tax payers’. Similar cash gifts are given to cricketers to make them rich overnight and win the electoral support of their fans for the next election so that they continue wielding power on a continuous basis. There are many examples of such shameful acts by the ruling politicians to attract the attention of the country towards them. They must understand that it is not their money, it is the nation’s money, and they have no right to give all this in their individual names by misusing their designation, especially in a democratic country.

There is another query in this context. Why should the politicians (the so called VVIPs) have so costly security system of various varieties? And why should they spend a lot of our money on their air travel and other luxuries? Why can’t they realize that it is not their money, and they have no business to enjoy everything at our cost? If they are true politicians (statesmen) they should not be scared and, hence, should have no security at all. They should live and walk like a common citizen.

The government has fully failed to provide full (internal and external) security to the country, and there is nothing like disaster management too. But once something unexpected happens like what has recently happened in Mumbai, the concerned authorities immediately come forward and that too as a show off to support only monetarily the affected persons and their families. They get the name, and the tax payers get nothing. Such a paradox is really amazing. It is highly immoral and unethical for a country which has a strong cultural heritage.

Let the politicians get converted to statesmen and understand the reality, and honour the people who take the real burden of the whole system.

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Guantanamo still needs to be closed

TWO days after entering office, President Obama issued an executive order announcing his intention to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within one year. Obama's order called for a cabinet-level panel to grapple with issues including what locations inside the United States prisoners might be moved to and which courts they could be tried in.

But Obama's efforts have hit a roadblock when the Senate voted 90 to 6 to approve an amendment barring the use of funds to transfer detainees to the U.S. Though Democrats in Congress are supportive of closing Guantanamo, they said that they planned to "withhold the money until the White House settles on a comprehensive plan for dealing with detainees." "The feeling was at this point we were defending the unknown," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL). "We were asked to defend the plan that hasn't been announced," he said. Ken Gude, the the Associate Director of the International Rights and Responsibility Program at the Center for American Progress, explained to TalkingPointsMemo that "Congress, on the legislative calendar, got ahead of Obama on this." "It's the kind of problem you have when you have two different tracks moving, but not at the same rate," Gude said. Though Republicans have responded to the move with glee, Obama is not backing down from his pledge to close the prison. In a speech at the National Archives, the President answered "critics of his dismantling of Bush-era policies on detention and interrogation" and urged "Congress to be patient while the administration explores options for relocating Guantanamo detainees."

According to Center for American Progress, a Washington based think tank, “Immediately after Obama finished speaking today, former Vice President Dick Cheney attempted to "answer" Obama with a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. Appearing on CBS's Face The Nation recently, Cheney argued that keeping Guantanamo open was "important" because if captured detainees were brought to the United States, they would "acquire all kinds of legal rights." Cheney is not the only voice calling for Guantanamo to be kept open indefinitely. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been attacking Obama for weeks over the closure of Guantanamo.”

According to Politico, McConnell "has needled the president about the issue in 16 floor speeches, a Washington Post op-ed, several Sunday shows, weekly stakeouts, and a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 27 that kicked off the effort." In his Washington Post op-ed, McConnell claimed that "there are no good alternatives to Guantanamo." After the Senate vote yesterday, McConnell crowed about the new "bipartisan agreement on Guantanamo." But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI), who sponsored the amendment to block the funds, emphasized yesterday that the measure was not a rebuke of Obama's intention to close the prison, telling the Washington Post that it was "not a referendum on closing Guantanamo."

One of the main arguments put forward by Obama's critics is that the U.S. prison system can't handle terrorist detainees. On CNN yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said that he didn't think that U.S. prison facilities "could keep some of these detainees secure, at the same time, protecting the surrounding communities." When CNN's Kiran Chetry noted that "a number of people who have been convicted on terrorism-related charges in U.S. courts" have "been held in our U.S. prisons," Inhofe argued that "those individuals who are actually criminals, they actually committed crimes and were not involved in the type of -- in the type of terrorist activity as we've been experiencing in Iraq and Afghanistan." Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) argued on Monday night that if detainees were transferred to U.S. prisons, American prison guards would "have no idea what they're getting into." Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) responded on the Senate floor yesterday, saying that Bennett "ought to have a little more respect for the men and women who are corrections officers." "The reality is that we're holding some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world right now in our federal prisons," Durbin said.

As Durbin pointed out, the U.S. prison system is currently holding hundreds of convicted terrorists "including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the shoe bomber, the Unibomber, and many others." Indeed, terrorists such as the Blind Sheikh and Zacarias Moussaoui were convicted and sentenced to life in prison at the Colorado Supermax. Additionally, the high-security wing of the naval brig in Charleston, SC, confined Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri for more than five years. The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has noted that, "[u]nlike the staff at Abu Ghraib, the brig staff had been trained for the job. Their mission, as they saw it, was to run a safe, professional, and humane prison, regardless of who was held there." Despite the conventional wisdom that "no member" of Congress has stepped forward to say that their states could take Guantanamo detainees, Sen.

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said on the Senate floor that California's prisons were "eminently capable" of housing detainees. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) also suggested that his state could hold detainees in a maximum security prison. "If the governor and the local officials are open to it, that's something that should be considered," said Levin. Read the Center for American Progress' plan for effectively closing Guantanamo Bay here.

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Free Aung San Suu Kyi

ALL of Burma's international trade and aid partners should strongly condemn the renewed imprisonment of the democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in the notorious Insein Prison, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on the UN secretary-general, members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, and India in particular to press the authorities for her immediate, unconditional release.

"Burma's military authorities have taken advantage of an intruder's bizarre stunt to throw Aung San Suu Kyi into one of Burma's most notorious and squalid jails on trumped-up charges," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "China and India, as Burma's main supporters, and ASEAN should condemn this injustice and use their leverage to push hard for her freedom."

New, spurious charges that she violated her house arrest relate to the unwanted intrusion into Aung San Suu Kyi's home on May 3-5, 2009, by John William Yettaw, an American who allegedly swam across Inya Lake in Rangoon to visit her.

On May 14, Special Branch police arrested Aung San Suu Kyi and her two live-in party supporters and domestic workers, Daw Khin Khin Win, and her daughter, Win Ma Ma, at Aung San Suu Kyi's home in Rangoon, and transferred the three to Insein Prison. Authorities charged them under Section 22 of the State Protection Act, which states, "any person against whom action is taken, who opposes, resists, or disobeys any order passed under this Law shall be liable to imprisonment for a period of from three years up to five years, or to a fine of up to 5,000 Kyats, or to both." The trial is set for May 18.
Burmese authorities have held Yettaw since his arrest on May 6. A US embassy official visited him on May 13. He was charged today under the same provision as Aung San Suu Kyi.

Human Rights Watch called on ASEAN member states, China, and India to put pressure on Burma's rulers to free Aung San Suu Kyi immediately and unconditionally, as well as more than 2,100 other political prisoners.

Burma's military government has announced elections for 2010, as the next step in their "road map to democracy," a sham political process that has dragged on for more than 15 years. Most of Burma's main trading partners and diplomatic supporters - China, India, Thailand, Singapore, and Russia - have repeatedly expressed support for the process. But in the past two years, arrests and intimidation of political activists have intensified. The number of political prisoners has doubled, offices of the Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy party (NLD) have been forcibly closed, and freedom of expression, assembly, and association have been sharply curtailed.

"China, India, Singapore, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries should be calling for a genuine and participatory political process in Burma, which means serious public pressure for the release of political opponents," said Pearson. "Aung San Suu Kyi's latest arrest shows how their silence simply encourages more contempt for basic freedoms."

The United Nations has attempted mediation between Burma's military government and Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the NLD, calling for "national reconciliation" without success. Ibrahim Gambari, the current special adviser on Burma for the UN secretary-general, has visited Burma several times and met with Aung San Suu Kyi without obtaining any tangible results. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement today expressing "grave concern" and calling "on the government not to take any further action that could undermine" the process of national reconciliation.

"There is no processes of national reconciliation whatsoever as long as political opponents like Aung San Suu Kyi are behind bars," said Pearson. "The UN has tried talking nicely to Burma's generals for years, but now the secretary-general should simply insist on Aung San Suu Kyi's unconditional release, from prison and from house arrest."

Aung San Suu Kyi, general secretary of the NLD and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has spent more than 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest. She has been detained in Insein Prison only once before, following the Depayin incident, when a pro-government mob attacked her motorcade in upper Burma on May 30, 2003.

Her five-year house arrest detention order was set to expire at the end of May 2009, after authorities imposed a one year extension in 2008. Aung San Suu Kyi's health has deteriorated in the past two years. Last week, members of her party said she suffered acute dehydration and low blood pressure.

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