And for the first Friday after the Union Budget , some thoughts.…. some musings…..
The best news of this years National Budget – nothing. And that’s the right thing to happen. There are no “flashy freebies”, no empty slogans, no shocks for the honest tax paying professionals and HNIs. To finance the Covid impact, the pseudo socialists and Commies were crying hoarse to introduce Wealth Tax, Estate Tax, Gift Tax and raise upper taxation limits from the already cruel 43% to even higher. Some of these sleazy politicians and leftist economists have a vicarious pleasure in always targeting the successful. They cannot bear to see the professional who has studied well, slogged hard and competed with the best and taken high calculated career risks to succeed in life and accomplish the fruits of his labour and get the right rewards. There is nothing wrong in wanting to be rich and have all the luxuries in life, as long as the means are fair, legal and sustainable. Every Indian must be encouraged to work hard, increase productivity and become rich. That’s how, we as a nation will become rich.
This obsession with the farmers as “Annadattas”, special citizens to be treated on a pedestal and given all the subsidies and privileges in the 75th year of Independence is ridiculous. Agriculture today is just another vocation in rural India. The poor and marginalised in rural India ofcourse need support just as much the poor and marginalised in the towns and cities. The pandemic has exposed the underbelly of poverty and suffering of the poor in city or village. But it’s just the politicians who want to win seats that keeps the farmers as a preferred lot. Fertilisers subsidy of 1.41 lakh crores, paddy and wheat procurement 2.37 lakh crores, free electricity and free water. What sin has those working and living in cities done that they have to keep subsidising the farmers all the time. Forty years ago it was a different era that is no longer valid in modern India.
In the digital world of internet and smart phones, of AI and IOT, of 5G and Vaccines, let us all initiate the change to a new India, the competitive way, the sustainable way, the SEEGOS way.