Caste system poses threat to Indian society, says Kannada writer

TNN
May 1, 2019

Mysuru, May 1: Perpetuation of the caste system posed a grave threat to the ethos of India, warned acclaimed Kannada writer Moodnakudu Chinnaswamy here on Tuesday.

Chinnaswamy, participating in a seminar on ‘Ideologies of BR Ambedkar’ organised by the Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore at the BM Shri Auditorium, recalled Ambedkar’s tireless crusade against caste in India, juxtaposing the vision of the architect of India’s Constitution with the importance caste was being accorded in the country today. “India is steeped in caste. Those belonging to the upper castes cling to their communities since it gives them the right to dictate the culture of India. It is those belonging to Dalit communities who should disown their respective castes, and work towards establishing a society without it. Ambedkar said that democracy would not survive on the basis of caste, and showed us the path of The Buddha,” Chinnaswamy said.

The author decried the miserable position that Dalits found themselves in even after seven decades of Independence. “In Ambedkar’s day, Dalits were treated in a manner that was inhuman. It is sad that this culture is still prevalent in today’s society. We are living in a society wherein individuals are not being respected. AMbedkar exhorted citizens to unitedly pull the chariot of equality, but is sad to see the ruling party in New Delhi trying to establish a society entrenched in Brahminical principles, and Dalits and the backward classes are supporting this endeavour. Majority of the country’s wealth rests with around 41% of the upper castes, whereas those belonging to Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs), who constitute 27% of the Indian population, own just 11% of the nation’s assets. Reservation has not helped them,” added Chinnaswamy.

‘Democracy in India a farce’

Chinnaswamy opined that the existing multi-party system in India had put imperiled democracy in the country. Dubbing democracy as practiced in India a ‘farce’, the author added, “There should be some criteria for candidates to contest the polls. Today, an 80-year-old can contest elections, and can help his grandsons enter the fray at the same time. Ambedkar had warned the country about the danger of unconstitutional methods, describing them as components of Grammar of Anarchy, which is what we are contending with today. Intellectuals are forced to stay silent. On social media platforms, they are reviled. Independent organisations too are silent in India today.”

UoM vice-chancellor Prof G Hemantha Kumar, who inaugurated the seminar, exhorted students and research scholars to imbibe Ambedkar’s principles.

Prof NM Talavar, Nanjaiah Honganuru and Vijayalakshmi Karikal were among those who attended the seminar.

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Agencies
July 9,2020

Twitter has hinted that it is planning a paid subscription platform that can be reused by other teams in the future.

The news that the micro-blogging platform is building a subscription platform with a team codenamed "Gryphon" resulted in Twitter stock rising over 8% on Wednesday.

Twitter revealed its plan via a job listing that seeks a full-stack senior software engineer in New York to join "Gryphon".

Interestingly, Twitter "edited" the job listing once the news broke, removing the part about "Gryphon" and any mention of their internal team or their subscription feature. The listing said the company is looking for an Android engineer to "work on a bevy of backend engineering teams to build components that allow for experimentation to deliver the best experience possible to all of our users".

Later, Twitter users noticed that the company restored the earlier job listing that mentioned the upcoming subscription platform and "Gryphon".

A spokesperson for Twitter told CNN on Wednesday that it's only a job posting, not a product announcement.

This is not the first time Twitter has thought of a paid product. 

In 2017, it sent out a survey to users and a preview of what a premium offering of its TweetDeck app might look like, including breaking news alerts and more analytics, according to The Verge.

"We're conducting this survey to assess the interest in a new, more enhanced version of Tweetdeck. We regularly conduct user research to gather feedback about people's Twitter experience and to better inform our product investment decisions, and we're exploring several ways to make TweetDeck even more valuable for professionals," a Twitter spokesperson had said at that time.

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Agencies
June 24,2020

New Delhi, Jun 24: The Centre has made it mandatory for sellers to enter the 'Country of Origin' while registering all new products on government e-marketplace (GeM).

The e-marketplace is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry which facilitates the entry of small local sellers in public procurement, while implementing 'Make in India' and MSE Purchase Preference Policies of the Centre.

Accordingly, the ministry said the move has been made to promote 'Make in India' and 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat'.

The provision has been enabled via the introduction of new features on GeM.

Besides the registration process, the new feature also reminds sellers who have already uploaded their products, to disclose their products' 'Country of Origin' details.

The ministry further said that failing to disclose the detail will lead to removal of the products from the e-marketplace.

"GeM has taken this significant step to promote 'Make in India' and 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'," the ministry said in a statement.

"GeM has also enabled a provision for indication of the percentage of local content in products. With this new feature, now, the 'Country of Origin' as well as the local content percentage are visible in the marketplace for all items. More importantly, the 'Make in India' filter has now been enabled on the portal. Buyers can choose to buy only those products that meet the minimum 50 per cent local content criteria."

In case of bids, the ministry said that buyers can now reserve any bid for a "Class I Local suppliers. For those bids below Rs 200 crore, only Class I and Class II Local Suppliers are eligible to bid, with Class I supplier getting purchase preference".

In addition to this, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has reportedly called for a meeting with all e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Flipkart to display the country of origin on the products sold on their platform, as well as the extent of value added in India.

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Agencies
July 13,2020

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Income Tax Department has facilitated a new functionality for banks and post offices to ascertain TDS applicability rates on cash withdrawal of above Rs 20 lakh in case of a non-filer of the income-tax return and that of above Rs 1 crore in case of a filer of the income-tax return.

In a statement, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said that now banks and post offices have to only enter the PAN of the person who is withdrawing cash for ascertaining the applicable rate of TDS.

So far, more than 53,000 verification requests have been executed successfully on this facility, a statement by the CBDT said.

"CBDT today said that this functionality available as 'Verification of applicability u/s 194N' on www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in since 1st July 2020, is also made available to the Banks through web-services so that the entire process can be automated and be linked to the Bank's internal core banking solution," it said.

On entering PAN by the bank or the post office, a message will be instantly displayed on the departmental utility: "TDS is deductible at the rate of 2 per cent if cash withdrawal exceeds Rs 1 crore", in case the person withdrawing cash is a filer of the income-tax return.

In case the person withdrawing cash is a non-filer of income tax return, the message shown would be: "TDS is deductible at the rate of 2 per cent if cash withdrawal exceeds Rs 20 lakh and at the rate of 5 per cent if it exceeds Rs 1 crore."

The CBDT said that the data on cash withdrawal indicated that huge amount of cash is withdrawn by the persons who have never filed income-tax returns.

To ensure filing of return by these persons and to keep track on cash withdrawals by the non-filers, and to curb black money, the Finance Act, 2020 with effect from July 1, 2020 further amended IT Act to lower threshold of cash withdrawal to Rs 20 lakh for the applicability of this TDS for the non-filers and also mandated TDS at the higher rate of 5 per cent on cash withdrawal exceeding Rs 1 crore by the non-filers.

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