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THE HINDU: Staking claim to Twenty20 supremacy
India’s
triumph in the Asia Cup will have
surprised no one. It would appear that not only are M.S. Dhoni’s men the best
Twenty20 outfit in world cricket, as evidenced by their No.1 ranking,
they are
also close to impossible to master in the subcontinent. The win — India’s sixth
Asia Cup title and its first in this shortened format — was not merely a
statement of regional dominance. The India team would now assume that it has
served notice to anyone who might have designs on the World Twenty20, which
will be hosted in the country over the next four weeks. Bangladesh might have
briefly threatened a coup in the rain-shortened final — it deserves great
credit for its brave, attacking cricket all tournament — but few teams are as
adept at the chase under pressure as India. The batting unit contains a mix of
disruptive firepower and nerveless skill, contest-ending weapons both. When
deployed calmly — with the certainty that comes from doing it repeatedly, as
India’s batsmen have in the Indian Premier League — no target is safe. As team
director Ravi Shastri said after the final, this is a unit that knows how to
get the job done — a truism on the face of it, but, as Germany has shown in
international football tournaments, one that has been coined to explain the
unexplainable. In sport, there is such a thing as the ‘tournament team’.
Australia is the most obvious example this era in cricket. Dhoni-led teams
haven’t been far off, however; indeed the current one enters the World T20 as
the overwhelming favourite.
This is not to say India is without vulnerability. As
Mohammad Amir proved again in helpful conditions, no batsman enjoys the
combination of pace, bounce and movement. The Pakistani left-armer’s spell was
one of the moments of the Asia Cup — heart warming and eye-catching in equal
measure, given his road back from perdition and the sheer spectacle great
fast-bowling sets up. But it was just that: a moment. For a side to subject
India’s batting, it will need more. And considering it is unlikely that India
will play on wickets that assist the pacemen to the same degree in the World
T20, the chances of an encore are remote. Mystery spin is the other thing that
has challenged India in the past; there doesn’t seem to be enough of it around
this time, however. Perhaps the greatest dangers to India’s batting comes from
within: complacency and ego. The bowling still needs work; it can unravel when
attacked. But Jasprit Bumrah and his unique action offer India a
difference-maker, in support of R. Ashwin. The others will need careful
handling, but Dhoni, perhaps the finest reactive captain in the game, is adept
at it. The fielding moreover is world-class, so chances will be taken and
occasionally created. The Asia Cup was a title to be won, but also preparation;
having achieved both objectives in some style, India will be confident about
what lies ahead
out·fit
A set of
clothes worn together, typically for a particular occasion or purpose.
coup
A sudden,
violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.
a·dept
Very skilled
or proficient at something.
de·ploy
Move (troops)
into position for military action.
tru·ism
A statement
that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting.
o·ver·whelm·ing
Very great in
amount.
vulnerability
The state of
being vulnerable or exposed; "his vulnerability to litigation";
"his exposure to ridicule"
per·di·tion
(in Christian
theology) a state of eternal punishment and damnation into which a sinful and
unpenitent person passes after death.
sheer
Nothing other
than; unmitigated (used for emphasis).
com·pla·cen·cy
A feeling of
smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements.
un·rav·el
Undo (twisted,
knitted, or woven threads).
THE HINDU: Time to
deliver on Women’s Bill
By
clockwork precision, talk about the Women’s
Reservation Bill has duly floated
in ahead of March 8, International Women’s Day. President Pranab Mukherjee and
Vice-President Hamid Ansari have called for reviving the Constitution (108th)
Amendment Bill to reserve for women one-third of seats in Parliament and the
State legislatures. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been less forthcoming in
revealing whether his government has any plans to pilot the Bill through the
Lok Sabha. This is particularly disappointing. The Bill was passed in the Rajya
Sabha in March 2010 amid obstructive theatrics from parties such as the
Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party, but also with an unusual level of
cooperation among the national parties, especially the Congress, which was
leading the United Progressive Alliance government, and the Bharatiya Janata
Party. Thereafter they could not — or would not — overcome similar odds in the
Lok Sabha to deliver on their stated support for the Bill. Six years on, Mr.
Modi’s BJP commands a clear majority in the Lok Sabha. It is therefore in a position
not only to get the Bill passed by mopping up the support of just a few more
MPs, but also to force the Congress and the Left into reaching out across the
aisle in a polarised Parliament to affirm fidelity to a long-voiced promise.
Every session of Parliament must serve as a reminder that the real stumbling
block to the Bill has not been political from parties opposed to it, but
essentially patriarchal within the very same parties that have affirmed support
to it.
In the two decades since it was first presented in
Parliament, different governments have tried clearing it but faced tremendous
opposition, often accompanied by manhandling and name-calling. It is obvious
that despite the pretty speeches and public posturing, the political space in
the country, regardless of the ideological divide, is uniformly and strongly
chauvinistic. Opposition to the Bill has often taken the form of a demand for
the proposed quota to be diced along other parameters of disadvantage, such as
caste and class. Additionally, resistance has been rationalised as a caution
that women’s quota would be appropriated by relatives and proxies of powerful
politicians, neatly ignoring the fact that such a reality could well obtain
with regard to male legislators too. Women need to overcome gender prejudice
firstly in their respective parties before entering the wider electoral fray.
It is also a sign of lack of seriousness on the Bill that parties have not
taken up a considered discussion of the impact of the rotation of reserved
constituencies envisioned, and purposefully debate its merits against
suggestions for double-member constituencies, proportional representation and
mandatory women’s quotas for parties while announcing candidate lists for
elections. To have more women in legislatures and the government is a big step
towards empowering women in society. The experience of several village
panchayats that have women as effective leaders bears testimony to this fact.
Affirmative action of this kind is the best way to usher in social and gender
justice.
float
Rest or move
on or near the surface of a liquid without sinking.
re·vive
Restore to
life or consciousness.
forth·com·ing
Planned for or
about to happen in the near future.
a·mid
Surrounded by;
in the middle of.
mopping up
the activity of dealing with a small number of people, problems, etc. that remain after most of
them have been defeated or solved
af·firm
State as a
fact; assert strongly and publicly.
fi·del·i·ty
Faithfulness
to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.
stum·ble
Trip or
momentarily lose one's balance; almost fall.
pa·tri·ar·chal
Of, relating
to, or characteristic of a patriarch
tre·men·dous
Very great in
amount, scale, or intensity
chau·vin·is·tic
Feeling or
displaying aggressive or exaggerated patriotism.
tes·ti·mo·ny
A formal
written or spoken statement, especially one given in a court of law
ush·er
A person who
shows people to their seats, especially in a theater or at a wedding.
BUSINESS STANDARD: Withdrawing EPF tax will be grave mistake
It appears that one of the more forward-looking
provisions in the Union Budget for 2016-17, the decision to make a proportion
of employee provident fund (EPF) withdrawals taxable, may be put on hold. At
the time of withdrawal, 60 per cent of any money deposited in an EPF account
after April 1 was to be made subject to tax, unless it was re-invested in a
pension product like an annuity. The uproar from the salaried class was loud
and along predictable lines. This was in spite of the fact that the proposal
would apply to those drawing wages over Rs 15,000 a month - a minuscule
proportion of the total number of EPF account-holders, and an even smaller
proportion of the general proportion. The economic argument is clear: the EPF
provides a comfortable, tax-free return that is guaranteed and subsidised by
the government, and should thus not be encouraged with tax incentives any
further. In addition, the tax-exempt nature of the EPF meant that the
government's alternative and better structured pension product, the National
Pension System or NPS, was suffering in comparison and had not taken off to the
degree that it should have.
Given the many arguments in favour of the change to the EPF's tax-exempt status, it is unfortunate that the government seems close to bowing to pressure from this limited section of the public. It has been reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has suggested a "detailed examination" of the proposal and that the finance minister might put its implementation "on hold" while the examination is carried out. This shows a puzzling weakness on the part of the government and its leadership. On the one hand, the PM himself told an audience of industrialists recently that subsidy rationalisation should extend to those that are enjoyed by richer Indians - and which are typically, as with the EPF, not called "subsidies". The Economic Survey provided a detailed accounting of such subsidies and showed that they accounted for Rs 1 lakh crore a year, or 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product. Clearly there was both an economic rationale for cutting down on such government support for the rich and also a political understanding of the need to do so. The government is also a majority government that could be able to push a change like this through. There is thus very little reason for this proposal to be put on hold. If it is in fact put on hold, then it must be seen as yet another example of an unwillingness to reform even when the government possesses both the understanding of the need to reform and the capability to do so.
This is not to say that adequate preparatory steps were taken to make the proposal's acceptance smooth. For one, no attempt has been made so far to explain that the proposed tax would only apply to the relatively well-off sections of society and those who had many other tax-free options for savings. Moreover, the idea that investing in annuities must be encouraged, by permitting the taxable proportion withdrawn to remain tax-exempt if invested in annuities, should have been preceded by necessary steps to create a large enough market for annuities to help savers enjoy a wider choice. Without such steps, it could serve as little more than a boost for inefficient and expensive annuity plans run by only a few insurance companies. Certainly, therefore, there are good reasons to reflect on the details of the EPF proposal. But rolling it back in response to pressure from the better-off sections of the salaried class should not be an option.
Given the many arguments in favour of the change to the EPF's tax-exempt status, it is unfortunate that the government seems close to bowing to pressure from this limited section of the public. It has been reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has suggested a "detailed examination" of the proposal and that the finance minister might put its implementation "on hold" while the examination is carried out. This shows a puzzling weakness on the part of the government and its leadership. On the one hand, the PM himself told an audience of industrialists recently that subsidy rationalisation should extend to those that are enjoyed by richer Indians - and which are typically, as with the EPF, not called "subsidies". The Economic Survey provided a detailed accounting of such subsidies and showed that they accounted for Rs 1 lakh crore a year, or 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product. Clearly there was both an economic rationale for cutting down on such government support for the rich and also a political understanding of the need to do so. The government is also a majority government that could be able to push a change like this through. There is thus very little reason for this proposal to be put on hold. If it is in fact put on hold, then it must be seen as yet another example of an unwillingness to reform even when the government possesses both the understanding of the need to reform and the capability to do so.
This is not to say that adequate preparatory steps were taken to make the proposal's acceptance smooth. For one, no attempt has been made so far to explain that the proposed tax would only apply to the relatively well-off sections of society and those who had many other tax-free options for savings. Moreover, the idea that investing in annuities must be encouraged, by permitting the taxable proportion withdrawn to remain tax-exempt if invested in annuities, should have been preceded by necessary steps to create a large enough market for annuities to help savers enjoy a wider choice. Without such steps, it could serve as little more than a boost for inefficient and expensive annuity plans run by only a few insurance companies. Certainly, therefore, there are good reasons to reflect on the details of the EPF proposal. But rolling it back in response to pressure from the better-off sections of the salaried class should not be an option.
grave
Giving cause
for alarm; serious.
up·roar
A loud and
impassioned noise or disturbance.
well-off
rich
better-off
to have more money than you had
in the past or more moneythan most other people
INDIAN EXPRESS: Ray of
light
Ray
Tomlinson, the Arpanet contractor who is credited with sending the first email
across a network, is no more, but his creation remains the killer app of the
internet. It is the one feature which no user can do without. Email came before
the internet, some of whose building blocks derive from it, and it could
outlast the internet as we know it. Venture capitalists have been dying to
invest in the next killer app, but it isn’t happening in their lifetime.
Tomlinson
is credited with a tweak to the SNDMSG programme, used for transferring text
messages between computers, which enabled it to send messages across a network,
and eventually the internet, which is the network of networks. It is generally
agreed that he sent the first real email in 1971, though the technology existed
earlier, in the form of messages passed between users of a shared computer.
There were no distributed networks at the time. Arpanet, on which Tomlinson
worked, was the very first, and it offered the first opportunity to mail across
a network.
However,
Tomlinson didn’t have the familiar inbox, outbox and send button. Emails are
just text strings, and the earliest were sent from the command line. In fact,
it is still possible to type out and send a mail from a blank command line, but
it is a rare form of self-torture. Tomlinson was also responsible for the
ubiquity of the @ sign, borrowing from the Unix addressing convention which
identifies a user of a host computer as user@host. Tomlinson never tried to
take credit for his tweak, and his contribution was not noticed until well
after it had changed the way the world communicates. He got no reward for it,
and he would have been agreeably surprised to find that today, his passing is
being noted the world over.
tweak
Twist or pull
(something) sharply.
ubiquity
The state of
being everywhere at once (or seeming to be everywhere at once)
THE DNA Brazil’s leaders don’t seem untouchable anymore
For two years now Brazilians have
watched a widening corruption scandal drag the economy and some of the
country’s most storied names in politics and business into disrepute.
On Friday morning, federal police
launched phase 24 of Operation Car Wash, the massive probe into kickbacks and
influence peddling at the state oil company Petrobras. Just after dawn, police
swooped down on 33 addresses in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia with search
warrants. They rounded up 11 people for questioning, including former president
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his wife and three sons.
No charges were filed, and Lula was not
arrested or handcuffed, but it was hard to miss the symbolism of seeing the
once-beloved leader — who was revered for lifting millions from poverty and
telling truth to power — shuttled into a police car and sped away for
interrogation.
Yes, police and prosecutors succeeded
in exposing the looting of Petrobras by targeting big-shot moguls, lobbyists
and former political bosses suspected of bribery or selling favours. But as the
Car Wash probe has crept along, critics like my friend Avelino have wondered
just how high the law would reach, and who among the country’s sitting
officials would be spared.
True, Lula’s successor, President Dilma
Rousseff, has been battling an impeachment drive, but that is for alleged
fiscal misdeeds and not corruption. And then there are the nearly three dozen
sitting lawmakers whom attorney general Rodrigo Janot named nearly a year ago
as suspects in the Petrobras case. He cannot bring them to trial without the
Supreme Court’s imprimatur.
Now, that bubble of invincibility may
be beginning to deflate. Lula is under investigation for a laundry list of
alleged misdeeds, including letting government suppliers pay for home
improvements and taking donations and speaker’s fees from companies charged
with bribing officials for contracts at Petrobras. That’s still a long way from
the defendant’s chair, never mind jail, but the fact that he too is the target
of such scrutiny suggests that even legends must answer to the law.
The arrest of Rousseff’s campaign
manager, Joao Santana, has raised questions of whether she financed her 2014
reelection with Petrobras bribes. And on Thursday, the Supreme Court voted to
send House Speaker Eduardo Cunha to trial for allegedly pocketing a bribe from
a Petrobras supplier. That ruling makes Cunha the first House Speaker ever to
be ordered to face trial in Brazil’s high court.
And thanks to a small revolution in
Brazil’s legal system, the dragnet may spread even higher. Until recently, no
one could be sent to prison in Brazil until all possible appeals had been
exhausted — an indulgence born of the laudable principle that the innocent must
be afforded full protection. In reality, the rule practically ensured impunity
by allowing powerful defendants with clever lawyers to barrage the courts with
writs and infinite appeals. Last month, the Supreme Court closed that escape
hole, deciding that anyone convicted of a crime in a lower court, and whose
conviction was upheld on appeal, must go straight to jail.
What helped clinch the case against
Cunha and put Lula on the investigators’ radar was the testimony of criminal
suspects who agreed to name names in exchange for milder punishment. Brazil is
better for this ruling, but you wouldn’t know it from the mood on the street,
where public opinion is already sharply polarized and anti-government
protesters are planning to press for impeachment on March 13.
dis·re·pute
The state of
being held in low esteem by the public.
kick·back
an amount of money that is paid to someone illegally in exchange for secret help or work
swooped down
to make a sudden attack on a place or group of people in order to surround and catch them
re·vere
Feel deep
respect or admiration for (something).
bat·tle
Fight or
struggle tenaciously to achieve or resist something.
impeachment
A formal
document charging a public official with misconduct in office
im·pri·ma·tur
An official
license by the Roman Catholic Church to print an ecclesiastical or religious
book.
invincibility
Indomitability:
the property being difficult or impossible to defeat
defendant’s
(defendant) a
person or institution against whom an action is brought in a court of law; the
person being sued or accused
drag·net
A net drawn
through a river or across ground to trap fish or game
laud·a·ble
(of an action,
idea, or goal) deserving praise and commendation.
im·pu·ni·ty
Exemption from
punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action.
bar·rage
A concentrated
artillery bombardment over a wide area.
THE DAWN: Charsadda bombing
NEARLY two months after militants staged a deadly attack
targeting Bacha Khan University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Charsadda district, the
area once again witnessed terrorist violence on Monday.
A suicide
bomber targeted a court building in the Shabqadar locality, resulting in a high
number of fatalities. The Jamaatul Ahrar faction of the banned TTP has claimed
responsibility for the atrocity; among the ‘justifications’ for the attack is
revenge for the execution of Mumtaz Qadri last week, as well as criticism of
the country’s justice system.
The
unfortunate incident indicates two things: firstly, despite all the supposed
successes of the fight against militancy and the National Action Plan, gaping
holes still exist which allow insurgents to unleash horrific violence.
Secondly,
the rhetoric of mainstream religious groups in the aftermath of Qadri’s
execution is now being employed by banned outfits to further their agenda. Both
these aspects need to be addressed to further hone the counterterrorism effort
in this country.
The area
attacked on Monday is quite close to Fata’s Mohmand Agency. This agency happens
to be the stronghold of the Jamaatul Ahrar, which was known in its earlier
avatar as TTP Mohmand.
Despite the
state’s actions militants remain active in the area and are involved in various
illegal and terrorist activities, including extortion and targeted killings,
affecting the surrounding regions — even up till Peshawar.
The attack
on the court building, as well as the earlier BKU assault, reiterates the vulnerability
of areas located close to zones where militants have harboured influence, or
continue to do so.
The state
must do a better job of not only protecting such regions, but getting to the
root of the problem and disrupting what remains of militant networks. Where the
‘justification’ of the attack is concerned, the militants have picked the very
same issue that most of Pakistan’s religious parties are currently agitating
about: the execution of Mumtaz Qadri for the murder of Salmaan Taseer.
Whatever the
religious right’s feelings about Qadri, they must realise that by threatening
to launch a protest movement in memory of the executed convict, they are only
strengthening the militant right’s hand.
This
presents a very dangerous, unpredictable scenario. Those with cooler heads
within the parties of the religious right — and there are quite a few seasoned
politicians in this group — should tone down the rhetoric so that it does not
aggravate the situation to the point where radical elements use it to justify
their unconscionable crimes.
a·troc·i·ty
An extremely
wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury.
hone
Sharpen (a
blade).
re·it·er·ate
Say something
again or a number of times, typically for emphasis or clarity.
ag·gra·vate
Make (a
problem, injury, or offense) worse or more serious.
un·con·scion·a·ble
Not right or
reasonable.
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