Special Economic Zones - whose nightmare ?

China, India. They are the world’s top two fastest growing economy. Ironically that’s the only similarity to be stated for the two when we talk of their economy. Rest is plethora of contrast. One of this is the opinion that everything happens in China with ‘top down’ approach and in India with ‘bottom up’. The government decides what has to happen and it gets swiftly done in China. In India, the demand comes from the people, who after years or turpitude from governments force them to act.

The ‘bottom up’ approach of India is considered most of the times for delays in accepting any proposal and implementing it. To make it up, they say this model (which can be termed as synergistic combination of ‘red herrings’) has more stability. In India the proponents of red herrings are galore. Political parties, committees, statutory bodies, commissions, newspapers with their own ideological tilt, columnists, members of commissions cum columnists, industrialist(secretly craving for politics), etc they all try to put their own agenda in anything good or bad that is proposed. I really don’t think we can afford all this for stability. Case in the point – ‘Special Economic Zones' (SEZs).

SEZs are any earmarked territory, having privileged set of rules for bureaucracy, customs and taxations. Much like Ayn Rand dream come true. The prevalent rules of country are not applied there. The entities in SEZ are given tax holidays. Obviously they become hotbed of economic activity. The present impetus in creation of SEZs and further relaxation of rules is due to Chinese influence. The huge FDI which China attracts is attributed to its numerous SEZs. India hopes to improve its pathetic FDI with the help of these SEZs.

Now true to Indian model we have opinions of every hues vying for attention. One of them is that creation of SEZs will lead to ‘loss of tax revenue’. This was put forward by a leading financial columnist of India terming it as “nightmare of any Finance Minister”.

I don’t agree to it. This is the classic example of myopic mindset. I agree that business entities in SEZs don’t have to pay tax for significant period but what is the aim of the tax collected by government? To collect tax or to provide benefits from the tax money? If the government is not able to provide infrastructure then what is wrong in allowing the entities in SEZs to provide that and not to pay tax? After all that’s what tax money in the first place is supposed to be used for. But in India where tax payer’s money is used for anything (even to subsidise the travel bill of journalists) but for welfare of tax payers, it was certain to have dissenting opinions. I am sure politicians will join the bandwagon because they have no existence in a free market economy like SEZs

I wonder why no one raises the point of having investments from tax havens like Mauritus, Isle of Man, Luxembourg, British Virgin Islands, etc. Owing to DTAA, all entities registered in those places and doing business in India pays no tax. They don’t bring any benefits which are supposed to come from entities in SEZs. FDI flow is preferable anyday to FII inflow, which most of the times is country’s own money earned by shady means. I don’t mean to say that this arrangement should be stopped but why to target SEZs singularly?

I would rather the learned columnist provided ways and means to increase the direct tax revenue in a country where only 2% population pay taxes. May be collecting tax from tax evaders is difficult, so every year those who pay taxes are made to pay more by all kind of cess.

I hope that atleast people whose views matter, extend their horizon a little bit more, and think of the larger good rather than to drive home their own (hidden) agenda.

World is small

Midsummer Day in Finland. Everything is closed except a pizza place. Inside it two guys working for the same firm waiting for their pizzas.

Hey what is your base branch in India?

Umm, Bangalore.

Mine as well. Where is your office there?

I don’t know now. What about you?

Me neither.

Which part of India are you from?

I am from ‘XYZ’ state. Where you from?

Me from the same state and what city did you tell in that state?

My hometown was ‘Abc’ city and I was there a long time for my studies.

What school you were in?

‘This’ school.

No way! I studied in the same school till class 6th, then dad got transferred and I had to move out.

They both start remembering the streets and neighborhoods of that city.

Hey where was your home then?

It was the yellow house on the street which was across the statue of Bhagat Singh.

And is your father a doctor?

Yeah he was! How do you know?

I know. I lived in the house next to your backyard.

The house next to Mr. Kumar?

Exactly!

They both are agape.

And you know your dad operated on my sister when was 2 years old and had cut her forehead. We still talk about your father. It is a family anecdote. My mother was good friends with your mother. That was 1983.


We moved from that place in 1984.

Yeah we also moved from that neighborhood very soon. I don’t remember your face but only remember you were three siblings.

So it means we are meeting after 22 years and that too in a different country.

Yeah we are. I was seven years old then. …………..
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That was my sister.

World is indeed small.

Courteous Cities

The result of Reader’s Digest survey of most courteous cities is out. The result I am sure will not be surprising for anyone. New York tops the list being the most courteous city, and Mumbai the lowest – the rudest city in world.

Reader’s Digest had its own undercover reporters doing the survey; testing on factors like holding the door open, saying ‘thank you’ to shoppers and helping someone pick up their stuff.

Stockholm according to them was ‘second’ best in shopping experience and from my personal experience I can say that is quite correct. I would give Stockholm high marks in other areas like experience of dining in restaurants. I always relish eating out in Stockholm and the servers are so courteous. That when there is no tipping like in New York.

Helsinki got rather low - 22nd position. I don’t think Helsinki is that discourteous? I have heard people not thanking you if hold the door open but not that no one holds the door open. In Hameenlinna that is not the case. Here people hold the door open and also say thank you. May be Helsinki scored low on picking up someone’s paper after they fell down on streets.

Amsterdam was two ranks above Helsinki. I have not found Amsterdam that co-operative for example - I had great difficulty in buying tickets from their automatic machines which had only Dutch interface. If you buy from counters you have to pay more and all tourist end up buying from there. I don’t think it takes much to have English interface in the automatic machines. Oh well, this is true even for Finland, they can put English interface in their ATMs as well.

Mumbai was lowest at 36th, bit unlucky that Delhi was not surveyed. It won’t have been lowest then. In Mumbai the Reader’s Digest reporter found that, let alone picking the fallen papers from a person, people walked on those papers in a super store. And a retailer even tried to justify his rude behavior! Good that they didn’t have any traffic related test or Indian cities would have made a hole in the bottom to find their place.

I hope this survey has some constructive effect.

Update 1 :- This post has generated the expected controversy. Mumbai mirror has picked it up in their blogger park. And Raj your comment is there. Read it here

Update 2 It seems that this is getting intersting. Even Indiatimes have picked up this post. You can see it here (scroll down on right side and see under communities.

Summer - the season of Paradise

Yeah, I totally mean the title. One can find the real value of summer in Finland. Over the past two weeks we are having perfect summer. All the bloggers of Finland like Sami and Heather have done the customary post on summer.

For a change the morning starts with the sound of lawn mowers and not snow plow. The Sun greets you, the cool breeze sweeps you away and smile can be found in everyone’s face along with the designer sunglasses. Everything looks so beautiful, flowers are blossoming and trees are all green.

It is so difficult to sit at your desk and just look at the panorama outside. Last year around this time I cribbed about people taking month long holidays in summer. This year I wish I also could take that vacation now. But I am glad that save for one weekend, I have enjoyed every other. Everyday I manage to find at least one hour during the day to walk around the city, either sit in the park or take a walk alongside the lake.

Everywhere people around are either tanning their skin, eating ice creams, enjoying coffee at the numerous side walk café, getting chilled with the beer or just letting the spirit of summer permeate the soul. All the other countries are full of tourist and backpacks have become ubiquitous. Finland seems like paradise now. Though I am sure the summer will last only one more month. So enjoy it till it is here.

Does these happens to you ?

Have you ever noticed that there are few things which always create a scene with you in the centre, for no fault of yours?

One of my favourite in that segment is the ‘access gates’. They never seem to behave properly when I am about to cross them. I have had this happen enough to me on several occasions, at different places, to rule out the co-incidence explanation. Always when I will swipe my access card, ticket, or any tag it will never be accepted in the first attempt. Either the door will not open or light will turn red or worse, it will start howling. All of it will happen in the public place so as to create a scene. The latest to happen was couple of weeks back. I had gone to a nearby city to the Spa. After a nice relaxed couple of hours, I was coming out of the spa area to reach the counter to clear my bills. I saw the gates and knew that something interesting will happen. I showed the RFID tag and true to me, the light turned red and started beeping. Now there is no reason for that to happen when someone is coming out. In my frustration I could only say “God, why this always happens to me?” This whole incident totally amused the women at the counter who was seeing this scene. I could see her barely managing to conceal her laughter when I was paying my bills. I wanted to say that don’t be hard on yourself, laugh as much as you want. There are numerous incidents like this but I don’t want to remember them now.

The other such thing is ‘static electricity’. Yeah it happens a lot in Finland and they are not minor shock. They can be of high intensity and just when you least expect it. In winter I know that happens due to layers of clothing which we wear. But why in summer? This weekend, I was in the supermarket doing the regular grocery shopping. After finishing the job and carrying the heavy grocery bag, I reached the exit. No, this is not access kind of door but with sensor so that it opens by itself. The door was opening, the frames parting, I don’t know what happened to me and I touched the metallic centre lock. I got a huge static electricity shock. I jumped backward and squeaked rather loudly “Jesus Christ, damn you static electricity”. Just then I realized I was in a public place and I turned back. I saw a girl behind me. I didn’t even stop to see whether she was laughing but scurried from there. I have got lot of static electricity shocks, but first time I managed to get myself so embarrassed.

One more thing happens to me often. But I have excused it on seeing that others also face same predicament. This is slipping on the snow. I have slipped on almost all the streets in Hameenlinna. But most of the streets, most of the time are deserted so I always managed to escape without any scene. On one weekend last December, when I was in Stockholm, I saw one lady also slip on the snow. And the street was pretty crowded. No one laughed and a gentleman helped her getting up. So now I know that this happens to others as well. Hence I don’t mind slipping on the snow anymore.

If I know that the other two things, which I mentioned, also happens to others then I will be greatly relieved. So please do tell. Thanks in advance.

Deja Vu

I might not have a better deja vu than this. May be cause this time I have it documented. Past couple of days, few thoughts are crossing my mind with not so 'usual' frequency. When I thought more about it, I felt that I have written a post about it. I searched my blog and finally got the post. I had written this last September. I will reproduce the post below.


Life
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We all are at some point in our life; the question is, how many of us thought we would be, what we are today? Looking back few years or even two year, did we all think we would be having life like this? I mean all the facets, our personal life, professional life, the friends we have or friends we don’t have?

I would never believe my life as-of-now, if I go back couple of years from now. For example, what I wanted to do in this world may be totally different from what I am today. I don’t remember what exactly I wanted to be when I was child, but I know what I thought I would be doing when I was in my undergrad. Still..

In fact any aspect of my life was not what I thought it would be couple of years back, but I guess this is life. Your plans don’t materialize as they should, or they were impractical or unrealistic or the stark reality of this world put so many limitations on you or you put trust on something/someone you should not. I mean there can be thousands of reasons for any plan to go awry, the strange thing is that we all get so used to the grind that we hardly think, is this what I dreamt? Is this what I wanted to achieve? Is the present parameters of success were the one I had in my mind ? Is this how I want to be known after death ?

All these things are coming in my mind cause I was thinking what different I am doing? There are 6 billions people on this planet, each of them takes birth, then studies, does something for a living, might or might not start a family and then dies.

I don’t have any answer, don’t know where this life is leading onto, but one thing I can be sure, it won’t be as I plan it to be.

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Now since this is documented, I can say that I have had put some amount of my time thinking about this. Why could I not accept what I said and closed the issue. Why the issue is still afresh ?

Opinionated in India

There can be several measurements of maturity of a society. One of them is opinion or ideas or thoughts and subsequent dissemination of them. But presence of “opinion” alone is not correct or sufficient indicator. According to me the maturity of a society vis-à-vis opinion is reflected in the diversity of opinions or alternative ideas, no matter they are popular opinion or not.

I will take two examples from Finland, an egalitarian country, which has been proved to be a mature society by variety of parameters. After the great depression of 1990, the prosperity of Finland is much attributed to its joining the European Union in 1995 which helped transform the country. The person who led Finland to European Union was Esko Aho, then Prime Minister and leader of the conservative government. Considering much of Finland has immensely benefited from his effort to get EU membership, it is expected that everyone would think highly of him. But this is not the case. For each individual praising him you will find a critic. Next take the example of rock band ‘Lordi’ which won the Eurovision for the first time for Finland. Largest ever crowd of people came onto the street to felicitate them. Apparently all of the country would be singing paeans for it. Again it not the case, not all thinks same of the band.

Now I come to India. The thing which baffles me there is the similarity of opinion. Whether it is sports, politics or general state of affairs, whole country it seems to have the same opinion. It is the same person who is the best , same one who is the worst, the same proposal which is best, the same course of action which has greatest benefit potential, so on and so forth. Why it is so? What is the difference in being opinionated in India and elsewhere? Suppose we bring a person from some other planet to Earth for just one day. In that one day he/she is given a tour of India and asked about the country? I am sure the answer will be anything except that “India is an egalitarian society”. Then how come India is so ‘egalitarian’ when it comes to opinions?

The only plausible explanation which comes to my mind is that ‘Indian intelligentsia’ largely consists of only one section of the society. Had it been representative of all sections of society, we would have seen similar diversity in opinions as the society.

There can be several reasons for the distorted representation. May be other sections don’t have means to disseminate the opinion, or the entire bandwidth has been hogged by one particular section or may be others don’t have luxury to opine. What ever the reason may be, the visible opinion there can’t be taken as opinion of all country, but merely a lop-sided one. A particular opinion might have more visibility, more visible representation and more calls for support but that does not make it the voice of the majority of Indians.