You can save
our Pilots
Wednesday,
February 27, 2019
10:33 AM
Indians are elated,
country's Pilot is coming home. After a string of unfortunate events between
India and Pakistan since mid February, finally we are witnessing an elated
homecoming moment of captured Indian Pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan which
could be a clincher between Ind-Pak relationship. India has seen an array of
mixed emotions early this year.
However, the media
is handling this whole matter in a rigmarole manner. There is a term in
financial literature called "Mis-selling", which refers to selling a
product which is not needed at the moment. The media has taken all the
spotlight away from the analysis of how India could've avoided this whole
mishap.
We need to take a
pause and rethink, does India really need this chivalry from its citizens and
media, celebrating with fireworks, drums and trumpets? The IAF officer is still
doing his duty, he is still behaving the way he was trained for.
Are we as a citizen
of India doing ours? If we would be doing our part well, maybe our pilots would
never have to step in flying coffins. The so called fighter planes is slowly
fading obsolete technology which should have been replaced by the modern UAVs ,
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. This technology is widely accepted by the west. India
could have bought it too, but we are at a resource haul.
Our TAX to GDP ratio
is same as that of Columbia, Tajikistan
or Zambia, at 16.8%. What it simply means is out of Rs 100 worth of
goods and services produced by Indians, Government gets to keep 16 rupees. Of
this 16 rupees Government has to spend on various socio-economic schemes,
Military , pension , administration etc. India has a narrow tax base, not only
this, a poor tax administration and large evasion.
Take Israel for
example, the country is a leader in military technology, and has a tax to gdp
ratio of 36.8%, and has to take care of roughly 87 lakh of its population.
Comparing this with India's 133 crore people, one can simply understand the
arithmetic involved. This is not a present challenge, but a future one too,
when our so called "youth" will enter into old age and require
benefits without working.
Though, digitization
and linking of PAN has increased our tax fillers yet the rationale of evading
tax and tolls hasn't evanesced from the mindset of a common Indian.
"Paying tax is
essential for the development and security of a nation"
This message has to
be transmitted to Indian's like Swachh bharat abhiyaan, and I think this was
the best time to do so, the media could have done a better job.
References:
Wikipedia for tax/gdp
google for population stats
photo- https://www.google.co.in/search?client=opera&q=royalty+free+photos+air+force&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#
