Shimla, June 26 (IANS) Offence is not proving to be the best defence, literally! In the past three months, hailstorms have damaged the apple crop worth crores of rupees, mainly in the Jubbal-Kotkhai belt in upper Shimla where the guns have been installed.
The state horticulture department last year installed the guns, after procuring them from a US supplier, in Deorighat, Kathasu and Braionghat to protect the apples during the flowering and fruit setting season from hailstorms.
The cannons have been connected with the weather radar set up at Tumdoo, located at an altitude of 10,000 feet near Kharapathar.
Horticulture Minister Narender Bragta told IANS that on some occasions the guns have failed to work. 'The anti-hail guns have been installed on a trial basis. The trials are still going on. The main reasons for the failure of the cannons to respond were human error and lack of power back-up in the guns.'
'Most of the problems have been rectified. Now the guns are efficiently quelling the hailstorms,' Bargta, himself a prominent apple grower in upper Shimla, added.
Contrary to the minister's claim, apple grower and opposition Congress leader Rohit Thakur said the government has befooled the farmers. He has expressed doubts over the usefulness of the guns and the quality of the equipment.
Zile Singh, a grower in Kathasu, said the farmers in the area had not installed anti-hail nets in the hope that the anti-hail guns would ensure crop protection. However, the recent hailstorms have caused extensive damage to the crop despite the installation of the guns in the village itself.
Kathasu is one of the villages that have suffered maximum apple crop damage.
Bragta admitted the hailstorms have badly hit the apple belt in Shimla district.
Hailstorms have so far damaged crops worth over Rs.248 crore in the state, he said. 'It's wrong to put the entire blame on the anti-hail guns. This season was quite unfavorable for the fruit crops. First of all, the extended winter damaged the crop. Then frequent hailstorms (in summer) have badly hit it.'
He said that the anti-hail gun technique has been functioning successfully in the US, Mexico, Canada and Turkey, as also in European countries.
He said the guns, installed under a Rs.3.29 crore central government-funded project, were set up in the areas having greater density of apple orchards and to test their positive impact on them.
'Scientists and experts of the state and the government of India have been continuously monitoring the results from the guns,' the minister added.
The state government has requested the central government to include hailstorms as a national calamity so that fruit growers are compensated.
The state-of-the-art acetylene-fired anti-hail gun covers an aerial distance of around 80 to 100 hectares and the coverage area of the weather radar is 25 km.
The guns send shock waves into the pressure areas where hail clouds are formed and puncture them, resulting in rain instead of the damaging hail.
According to horticulture department estimates, hailstorms damage 20-30 percent of vegetable and fruit crops in the state every year.
Himachal Pradesh's economy is highly dependent on horticulture, apart from hydroelectric power and tourism, with the annual fruit industry worth about Rs.2,000 crore.
The total fruit production in the state during April-December 2010 was 961,000 tonnes, of which apples accounted for 892,000 tonnes
.
Posted: 19 Jun 2011 06:17 AM PDT ( from Jago Investor) Suppose your Father has invested Rs 20 lacs in a Bank FD . He gets interest @8% , that's Rs 1.6 lacs per year . Now ideally he is not supposed to pay any tax on this because this income is less than the limit . But bank cuts the TDS @10% and pays Rs 16,000 to the govt as TAX (Note that TDS is cut only when interest income is more than 10,000) . To get back this 16,000 back , your father will have to file tax return and then wait for the tax refund to come back . Is there a simple solution to this problem ? Yes … read on .  TDS means tax deducted at source , what it means is that instead of paying tax at the end of the year , the tax will be levied on the income as and when it arises and hence taken in advance with assumption that anyways the tax has to be paid later . So TDS will arise when your salary comes , when interest of your bank account comes , winning of Lottery and many such things, the rate at which TDS is cut varies from one thing to another and also its different for Resident Indian and NRI's . Note that in case of Bank deposits , the TDS rate is 10% provided one has furnished his PAN details , otherwise if PAN details are missing the TDS rate is 20% , where as for NRI's who earn interest on their NRO's account are subject to 30% TDS . LESSON – 15 TAX DEDUCTED AT SOURCE Form 15H & 15GLet me tell you what are form 15H and 15G . In one line , These forms are self declaration forms to be submitted if total taxable income of a person is going to be less than the permissible limits . So if a person is sure that he will not be required to pay any tax in a particular year , then he can submit for 15H or 15G to avoid deduction of TDS from his interest income and other kind of incomes where TDS is applicable .Form 15H can be submitted by a person who is above 60 yrs (w.e.f 1/4/11) . An important point here is that a person should have not have paid any tax in the previous year . So only if one didn't have any tax liability in previous year can submit form 15H . It should be submitted at the start of the year itself , so that TDS can be avoided , there is no point in submitting this at the end of financial year because by then TDS would be cut anyways . Form 15H can not be submitted by HUF's . Form 15G has the same purpose as Form 15H , just that this form should be submitted by a person below 60 yrs old (w.e.f 1/4/11) . Also this form can be submitted by HUF's . Rest all things are common between 15G and 15H . Are these forms applicable to you ? Can you share something which is not covered here ? |
Masood Hasan<http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintWriterName.aspx?ID=9&URL=Masood%...>
Sunday, June 12, 2011
It is hard to believe that Pakistan was once a gentle country. It is even harder to believe that some of the most wonderful people lived here. All that seems like a misty memory which has little relevance as you face the day's first rude slaps. A friend passed me an interesting short article about the Anglo-Indians who lived and worked in what is now India and Pakistan. The Anglos are long gone swallowed up by the mists of time, driven out from here to fend for themselves. But in their extinction lies a bigger tragedy.
The Anglo Indians were fun people. But more than the singular expertise they brought to the jobs that became traditionally their forte, they added a swing, vibrancy and a sheer joy of living spirit to our society that in many ways epitomised the new, fresh spirit that was Pakistan. That was then. Now it's a fading sepia tone picture. Those of us who grew up with them, watched with considerable sadness as family after family left this country to go and live in alien climes. There was nothing left for them. They were wise in retrospect. Look at our bestiality towards our minorities. But while the Anglo Indians were here, they gave us a unique gift. The joy of living and of being alive.
The Anglos were a British creation - some say a hideous British blunder. Although the British Empire at one point held absolute power in over 52 countries there was only one undisputed 'jewel' in the royal crown. India. It was part of their policy to protect this jewel from within as well and so began a policy of encouraging British males to marry Indian women - Anglo Indians who would intrinsically be at home with British mannerisms and always do the 'pucca' thing yet be more English than Indian in their thinking, a defensive ring around British interests and way of life. Many experts believe that had it not been for them, the British Empire in India would have collapsed. Ethnically engineered, they were the only micro-minority community ever to be defined in a country's constitution and yet the irony was that they were a race without a country!
The Anglos were no ordinary people. In India and later Pakistan, they virtually ran the railways, post & telegraph, police, customs, education, nursing, healthcare, import/export, shipping, tea, coffee & tobacco plantations, coal mines and gold reserves. Thus Anglos became great teachers, nurses, priests and doctors and the girls, debonair, confident, skilful became the best executive secretaries, special assistants and office managers. There was no one to match them.
But it was their colourful and vibrant approach to everyday life that was so infectious about them. Like all small communities, they segregated into enclaves that were all their own. The Anglo-Indians were truly spirited people, fired with a zest to work and party hard. The boys were typically razor sharp, cutting deals that would invariably begin with lines like, 'I say bugga you know what happened? That bugga Tony, man he screwed me real good, bugga took my damn cash bugga and disappeared.' And the reply, 'You don't say bugga,' and 'I'm tellin' ya, ask Fernandez man - Tony rogered him too man,' 'Say swear,' 'Swear bugga this Tony cat, man he's somethin' else,' and on and on went the stories. There were always stories.
The Anglos were superb musicians and dancers. The floors (toba, toba) were full on Saturday nights, Sunday afternoons, jam sessions - and other handy occasions - sometimes they didn't even need to have a reason. At the hangouts, Karachi particularly and Lahore catching up all the time and Sam's in Murree, the Anglo Indians could set a floor on fire as they jived, jitterbugged, rocked & rolled, swung, waltzed or shook sensuously to Latin-flavoured mind blowing melodies. And it was on the dance floors that you saw girls who could break your heart with just a look, hair tossing, laughing their pretty heads off as adept and handsome male escorts took them through the paces.
The Anglos congregated in special areas within the cities where they made warm, inviting homes. In Lahore, they were behind The Indus Hotel on The Mall, in the environs of the railway colony and in residential areas where family names like D'souzas were as common as Mohammad Iqbals today. In Karachi names like Preedy Street, Elphi were synonymous with them. Wherever they were - they were not very affluent, but you were always welcomed with a cold beer, a quick shot if it was nippy and at Xmas time, the special cakes made to order with each family guarding its secret recipe passed from generation to generation. There was the Burt Institute, the Railway Colony to name just two and then there were the clubs and nightspots. In Karachi there were many and even more there were the musicians - row upon row who filled these and played jazz, rock even fusion - or whatever you fancied. The bands grew on trees. The Strollers, Francisco Boys, The Bugs, The Cossacks, Willie Po and the Boys, The Incrowd (inspired by that superb hit from Ramsey Lewis and quite the rage then), The Drifters, The Panthers, The Talisman Set (see their group picture, faded and blurry and you could mistake them for The Jackson Five), Bloody What's the Matter? (Yes there was a group called just that), The Keynotes, Flintstone, The Fatah Brothers, Captivators and the Saints of Rawalpindi (now surely replaced by the devils incarnate).
Nightclubs with foreign acts especially in Karachi were the rage. Agents, artists, con men, musicians, strippers, belly dancers all arrived and exited at this hustling port city. Jazz legends like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Byrd, Benny Carter, Quincy Jones (who gave Michael Jackson that memorable beat heard in 'Billie Jean' and who was to give MJ some great musical direction) - they all came here and they loved Karachi and this country called Pakistan, where there was hardly any crime worth mentioning and nobody knew how to use bombs leave alone the killer guns. 'If someone fired a shot in midair in Golimar,' muses a gentleman from those days, 'the word would spread through Karachi like fire.' But that was a Karachi that was perhaps just a million not burgeoning at all ends with an estimated 14 million now. And although someone recalls that 'the city was planned differently but grew differently', Karachi started to disintegrate before our eyes in the 70s.
The 1972 laws enforced by ZAB to please the fundos broke the spirit of all of us, particularly the Anglo Indians. Bars, discos, clubs all shut down in fear. Suddenly hosts of musicians and other artists had no livelihood. 'Tolerance went up in smoke,' recalls one sad person. Came 1979 and the evil Zia and the coup de grace forced the Anglos to escape, migrate anywhere they could go. They left by the droves, never to come back.. The clubs died, the dance floors uprooted, the many services they offered fell by the wayside. In driving out this small community, we dug our own graves. We rapidly became soulless, grey, hypocritical and boring. With them gone, an integral part of decent civilian life was snuffed out. Guns replaced guitars. The scorched landscape that we inherited, now mocks us. Laughter has changed to anguish. Pakistan may be a 'hard country', but it is also a barren and desolate land. One gentleman of the fabled 60s sums it all up in one line: 'Those days are gone. They will not come back.' Quite an epitaph wouldn't you agree?
The writer is a Lahore-based columnist. Email: masoodhasa...@gmail.com
Dr. Manmohan Singh,
Prime Minister of India,
South Block,
New Delhi.
Dear Prime Minister
You may recall that I had submitted on April 15, 2011, a 225-page petition seeking your permission {viz., Sanction u/s 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act (1988)} to prosecute Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
Ms. Gandhi has been a public servant since 1991, initially by virtue of getting the 10, Janpath, New Delhi, a Government house, allotted to her as her residence for life. Since 2004 she has been the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council with Cabinet rank and which is serviced administratively by the Cabinet Secretariat.
According to submissions and documentation in my petition, Ms. Sonia Gandhi is culpable of having committed a criminal offence e.g., u/s 13 of the afore-referred to Act, in the Bofors scam and hence the criminal law has to be set into motion for which I first need your Sanction.
According to the CVC direction on grant of Sanction, you have to decide within three months, i.e., July 15, 2011, whether or not to grant me Sanction.
I shall be at Harvard University from June 23rd to August 10th. If therefore I am not informed by you upon my return whether or not I have been granted Sanction, I shall be compelled to approach the Courts against your failure to perform your statutory duty under Section 19 of the said Act.
I have also established by some credible documentation that Ms. Sonia Gandhi is the legatee of an illegal bank account, and of a Trust, in Switzerland that was earlier in the name of her now deceased husband Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. From this bank account, payments were made to pay the tuition fees and other expenses of her son Mr. Rahul Gandhi when he was in college in USA, briefly at Harvard in 1990-91 before he was compelled by circumstances to quit, then later at Rollins College, a Catholic Christian establishment, near Orlando, Florida.
Hence the money trail from this illegal account can be tracked in view of the Amendment to the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between Switzerland and India, recently passed by Swiss Parliament on June 17, 2011, when read with Restitution of Illicit Assets of Politically Empowered Persons Act (2010) passed earlier by Swiss Parliament.
I am prepared to assist your Government to get the necessary documents from the Swiss authorities if you are serious about the matter of bringing back such black money deposited abroad. The procrastination in the Lichtenstein Bank matter however is not inspiring.
Yours sincerely,
( SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY )
By now, one must have heard, read and known a lot about India's World Cup win. But every word has not yet been said and every
detail has not been disclosed. Gary Kirsten, the man behind the triumph, revealed some in Mumbai recently. At a gathering of elite
business leaders, he came up with his side of the World Cup story.
So what led to the triumph? The creation of a happy environment, focus on the team's strengths than the opposition's, stress on the
process and not the results, the realisation that playing for something bigger than their own thing and emphasis on preparation than
performance…
Thus said Kirsten: "We created a sense of team and a sense of meaning that was bigger than an individual. That's what unfolded as we
got to the three big knock-out games. You would notice that there weren't any huge individual performances. There were a lot of little
contributions along the way. People were playing for something bigger than their own thing and it's great when a team plays that way."
At the gathering, organised by Ernst & Young, Kirsten did not just theorise the triumph. He made a few disclosures too. Gautam Gambhir,
he said, lacked self confidence and Suresh Raina, he felt, won India the World Cup. Sachin Tendulkar, according to him, contemplated
retirement. And Dhoni? Well, with the skipper, he would be prepared to go to the war.
"One word that comes to my mind about Dhoni's leadership is presence. I put the words — inspiration and presence — together, because
I believe, I was in a position to inspire people through my work ethic whereas Dhoni was a leader for them through presence.
"I want to go to war with this guy," Kirsten said talking of the skipper.
"I have read that great leaders in the world give credit to others when things are going well and take responsibility when things are going badly
. MS Dhoni is that to the 'T'."
Kirsten felt Dhoni is very unemotional and in that way very unIndian.
"Winning and losing don't mean a lot to him, he just gets on with it. He has this uncanny presence about him without saying much.
People want to follow him, people want to go with him."
The former coach then revealed about the dressing room activity before Dhoni famously promoted himself in the final.
"I remember before the final that we had been floating him at No 5 or 6 in the batting order and Yuvraj was batting at No 4.
Every now and then, I would walk up to him and ask whether we want to do any rotations? We had Randiv (Lankan spinner)
bowling and it was tough for the left-handers. So, I just went up to him and said 'MS why don't you go in now'. And he said 'I don't know'
and he walked away.
"If he had made a call, I would always leave him with that. The next thing I turn around and I see he has had his pads on. I asked him
what's happening and he said 'I am in next,'" Kirsten revealed.
"And I knew straight away that he was going to win the World Cup for us. Because that's the individual he is. He has this x-factor and
walks around with his presence."
Kirsten thought he and Dhoni had formed a great leadership combination. "I think what we were able to do is form a great leadership combination.
The admirable thing is that in the three years that I was with him, he never lost his temper even once. We operate in a highly volatile and emotional
environment and you always knew from the leader that he was never going to lose his temper but you knew he meant business when he had
something to say."
Kirsten said Gambhir had to be reminded about his importance to the team. "Gautam is a serious and intense guy but lacks a bit of his own
belief. And this is a great player, who ended up getting a 97 in the World Cup final and set up the game for us to win. I knew Gambhir was a crucial component to our team, and if he lacked self belief or had self doubts, then it was my responsibility. So, everytime I got on the team bus, I would
give him that sense of affirmation of what he meant to the team."
Suresh Raina, according to the former coach, won India the World Cup with his showing against Australia. "He pretty much won the World Cup for
us with that knock against the Australians in the quarterfinals. He had just played one game and then he went on and played the most responsible, mature knock and won us the game. For me, that was really a combination of years of making mistakes but learning along the way."
Kirsten said Tendulkar wanted to see a friend in him. "I will never forget the first interaction I had with each player. Sachin said just one line
— 'I want you to be my friend'. It was a very powerful statement and only later did I understand it because you know when I look back, I felt
'gee that's easy, I can be a nice guy,' but that's not what he meant. He wanted me to be a genuine friend.
"As the three years with the Indian team unfolded,I began to realise what he was saying. The day before the World Cup final, his wife,
Anjali, came to me and said 'I want to thank you for all that you have done for my husband'. And that's when I realised the effect of working
with Sachin for three years. He had actually considered retiring from international cricket. He had some poor relations with the previous
leader of the team."
Kirsten thought before he joined the team, the Indian team did not know how to prepare for a game.
"If I had to rate it out of 10, I thought the way the Indian players practised was about 1 or 2. Basically, what I realised was there was no
connection between preparation and play. We just upped the ante on our preparation and we had real purpose to everything we did and
then the Indian team probably became the hardest working and preparation team in the world. From 2 we went to 7 or 8."
