Revised property tax structure is arbitrary.

Revised property tax structure by BMC is arbitrary.

Your report, 'Property tax structure unfair' (DNA, Jan25) is an understatement. It is totally arbitrary. It does not befit a democratic body. Our CHS received the revised property tax structure a couple of weeks ago and we are asked to pay up almost 100 percent increase from April,2010 within a matter of three months. How can any democratically elected body increase tax 100 percent at one go and ask people to pay it up within three months ? What is the rationale ? Is BMC in league with the builders who increase their price every year for no reason making Mumbai out of bounds for all the poor and the middle class which provide the essential services to the city and its citizens. Already, 60 percent of the people live in slums.

Curiously, BMC is garnering more revenue when it does not collect what is its due. BMC has failed to recover Rs.5,064 crore from the state government, contractors and tax defaulters (DNA,Jan.28). BMC has failed the Mumbai citizens in every sphere of life – proper roads, good primary schools, garbage collection and disposal, traffic management ( pedestrians have no footpath) and many other civic facilities. BMC urgently requires managerial solutions to all these problems. It is time the corporate sector sets up a think-tank to come up with solutions to the civic issues to educate both the citizens and the elected representatives. This should be the part of its corporate social responsibility. The Central and States governments have to reorganize the structure of civic bodies to provide proper civic services.

Jan.29,2012.

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Pakistan is not a normal state.

Pakistan is not a normal state.

The beheading of the Indian army jawan by Pakistani military is not a new phenomenon as it has done similar ghastly things earlier during the Kargil war. It is due to the indoctrination of hatred towards India in the military and in the text books in Pakistan. India's response has been very pathetic The home minister says that CBMs will continue and there is no rethink on visa pact. The only way such atrocities could be prevented is by a' tit for tat' policy.

" Pakistan must act as a normal state", writes Ahmed Rashid, the well-known Pakistani journalist and the author of the book, Pakistan on the Brink, The future of America,Pakistan, and Afghanistan (2012), " rather than a paranoid, insecure, ISI-driven entity whose operational norms are to use extremists and diplomatic blackmail". And he adds, " To function as a normal state, Pakistanis desperately need a new narrative from their leaders, one does not perpetually blame the evergreen troika of "India,the United States, and Israel"for its own ills. He states that Pakistani military spurns any change in the strategic thinking as it undermines its own vast economic interests, its large share of the budget, and its overwhelming influence over the foreign policy. In addition to this,there is the feudal mind-set of the political elite. All these will lead Pakistan to an ideological dead end, he observes. Its geo-strategic location, its nuclear weapons, its large population, its terrorist camps and its enfeebled economy and polity makes it more vulnerable than Afghanistan. He says that the Pakistani military is supporting guerrilla war in Kashmir to tie down Indian army and Indian state at a low cost for itself. It has no vision for the progress and prosperity of its people.

The Indian politicians and the intellectual elite have failed to understand the mind of the Pakistani military and the Pakistani political elite. Its response for all provocations is feeble which emboldens it repeat its ghastly acts. Mikhail Gorbachev liberated Soviet Union with perestroika ( restructuring) and glasnost (freedom) but saved Russia. There is no such personality in Pakistan who can save the state from the illusions of parity with and hatred of India, and ensure prosperity for its people.

January 11,2012.

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