Leave and Travel?

For last few days, there was much noise about the tax on EPF. Thankfully the government has reversed the same now. But there is a feeble cry in my mind for a long time. This is about the non-taxable nature of Leave and Travel Allowance (LTA). To makes things simple and not to waste time on things that are not related to this post, please read about LTA here: http://taxguru.in/income-tax/taxability-of-leave-travel-allowance-lta-and-relevant-aspects-to-keep-in-mind.html

Why traveling alone is given a privilege over other forms of recreations or entertainments?

So what is the problem with LTA? I am not against LTA tax exemptions. But I am asking why traveling alone is given a privilege over other forms of recreations or entertainments? It is correct to argue that travel encourages tourism and indirectly benefits the economy and hence the tax exemption. But this can be said to anything. For example, a good guitar costs around 7,000 to 15,000 rupees. A good set of encyclopedia costs around 5,000 to 10,000 rupees. A hobby telescope costs around 4,000 to 8,000 rupees. Can you get tax deduction on these? They also encourage trade and business. It is profitable for the business and pays the craftsmen. It also encourages the "scientific temper" among the public which in turn may result in more inventions, discoveries, creativity and overall progress of the nation. Why there is no tax exemption on these things?

Also not everyone likes to travel. For example, I like to spend days together in a locked room than visiting 10 locations in 3 days. It is neither relaxing, not informative to travel that much in the small vacations we avail now-a-days. Some people may have a working spouse or studying kid or bedridden parents and hence couldn't plan for a travel. Physically challenged people, people with chronic diseases etc. also prefer to stay home instead of taking that extra risk of travelling. Also travels result in increased number of accidents, which indirectly harm the economy through reduced productivity, insurance cost and loss of life. As we can see, LTA is skewed towards people who like to travel a lot. But why leave behind the considerable population who don't want to travel?

A group of friends can travel to Goa or Pondicherry and booze and happily claim the travel expenses under LTA while another group of friends interested in astronomy have to fund their telescope without any encouragement like tax benefits. Is this acceptable? I think it is not! I try my best to list few of the things that can be exempted from tax. This can be clubbed under one new category "Recreation and Hobby Allowance" or RHA!

a. Exercise and Fitness Equipment

As an encouragement towards a stronger and healthy India, fitness equipment with valid scientific backing can be excluded from taxation. Why I say they should have valid scientific backing? Because claiming tax benefit for a magnetic amulet that can "cure" obesity is not what we want end of the day, right? Indian Medical Association and other such Government bodies should have a transparent process to identify valid fitness equipment so that people can get tax benefits for them. Also spending on proper sport gears like balls, nets, helmets etc. for children should be non-taxable for the parents. The price tag on a 600 rupees shoe will look like 540 rupees for a salaried middleclass parent. Will it not encourage a student somewhere to become a Olympic gold medalist holding the Tricolor?

b. Musical Instruments, Drawing and Painting Tools and the Likes

Music is integral part of our culture, so are the various arts. Music, drawing, painting, dancing, sculpting and other forms of arts demand lot of money for the equipment and tools involved. We all know that it is not cheap to learn any art. And art has no age too! Art is long and life is short, right? Is it wrong to learn Tanjore painting at 35? I am not even saying that the fee amount should be non-taxable (I will be happy if it is!) At least the money spent on the articles, tools and instruments involved should be non-taxable. Again, institutions like UGC should strongly scrutinize the candidates for this exemption as pseudo-science and religion can sneak in to this category easily.

c. Books, Infotainment Media (CD/DVD/e-Books/Downloaded Contents)

Good books are indicators of a good culture and civilization!

We are reading lesser and lesser if we don't consider our WhatsApp and Facebook ASCI diarrhea as reading. Good books are indicators of a good culture and civilization. In this modern era, not only books, but interactive software, videos and audios can also play a good role in shaping us. Again, government should make sure that no religious or pseudo-scientific books or media slips in to this category.

d. Scientific Hobbies

Young children often ask their parents "Dad, can you buy me a microscope?" or "Mom, can I get a electronics kit for this birthday?". Even if the parent is willing, when they check the price of the "gift", they get upset and settle with a video game console or a cricket bat, for which the kid shows no interest. But when the kid doesn't get what it loves and forced to love what it gets, we are silently murdering a scientist in making. If the government gives a double tax benefit on scientific equipment (again no pseudos!), we can see more and more kids looking in to the night skies or testing the salinity of the nearby pond. Who knows how many Sir C. V. Ramans and Satyendra Boses are going wasting time on WWE only because they couldn't get their hand on a book or an instrument they wished for? Giving a 10 or 20% tax benefit on these items can return the nation in many ways. Even if only 1 out of thousand becomes a scientist, given the population of India, we will be world's number 1 in few decades.

Conclusion

There can be more such things which can be classified as both entertainment/hobby and beneficial to the individual and society. I am not here to list them all. This post is just to share my opinion on the skewed nature of LTA benefits. Why I am saying this is because, government cannot decide that travel alone is what everyone wants and it is not sufficient to give travel alone some tax benefits while things far better and beneficial than travel are given no encouragement at all. As we have seen in above examples, there are lot many things people like to get involved in their free time. Given the direct positive effects on trade and economy and the indirect benefits of building a stronger and brighter nation, tax exemption on these secular and scientific areas of human interests is need of the hour!

Leave The Bulls Alone!

The the common bulls of Tamil Nadu are classified along bears, panthers, tigers etc and hence Jallikattu is technically banned. Wow! Kerala can go ahead with its elephants, which are actually wild animals in every sense. But Tamils should not touch the bull. The bulls of Tamil Nadu are selectively bred for their strength and endurance. As an agrarian society, Tamils relied upon bulls for ploughing and drawing carts from prehistoric times. You can't say that selectively bred and domesticated animals are "wild" by any definition. Also, if bull is wild then how cows can be allowed to be kept in farm and their milk to be sold? Can we sell tiger milk?

Unlike bull-fights of Spain, where the bull is actually killed, Jallikattu actually ends with just holding a bull for certain seconds or certain count of jumps. Usage of liquor, torture devices etc are non-native practices and they should be monitored and stopped. But to stop the event itself is far-fetched. Are we going to ban cricket due to gambling? Also regulations can be made to ensure audience safety. Instead of taking such rational and simple steps, organizations like PeTA are forcing government to ban the event itself.

On the other side there are people who are crying that there is a corporate conspiracy to kill the native breed. This also seems to be an overkill. So these people are saying that same PeTA which wants to ban milk and leather industry in the West wants to bring foreign breed cattle here in India! Also some Facebook/Twitter posts by these conspiracy theorists claim that PeTA is silent about beef but protests Jallikattu. In reality PeTA is actively protesting against all forms of meat from chicken to beef. They will surely protest against goat/rooster sacrifice in rural temples. They have already protested against Eid sacrifices. Please go through the links below.

http://www.petaindia.com/blog/celebrate-life-vegan-eid/ - PeTA against Eid
http://www.petaindia.com/issues/animals-used-for-food/milk/ - PeTA against milk
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/meat-environment/ - PeTA against meat
http://action.petaindia.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=111&ea.campaign.id=2856 - PeTA in action
http://www.petaindia.com/blog/victory-animal-sacrifice-banned-at-nepals-gadhimai-festival/ - PeTA against Hindu animal sacrifice

From above links, it is clear that PeTA is a militant and stupid organization that wants to push its version of morality, disregarding the sentiments and traditions of native people. But the conspiracy theorists selectively portray that PeTA is only against Jallikattu and trying to bring other breeds of cows. This nonsense also takes religious and racist tones in some posts. If you people are silent about other activities of PeTA, then the price you pay for it will be a ban on Jallikattu. Are you ready to fight PeTA in all fronts? Then we can get Jallikattu back!

We either look it as a conspiracy by West/NGO/Corporates or we see it as animal cruelty and act of barbarianism. Both are not exactly true. The truth is some where in the middle.

PeTA, which protests against everything from KFC to cow's milk, is often ignored as a fringe group. But that fringe group already has a lot of impact in our everyday lives. They want to save stray dogs at the cost of road users and children's lives. They want to portray meat eaters as criminals, rapists etc. They want to portray traditional foods like fish, poultry, lamb etc as unhealthy. They want to ban fishing, farming of animals, leather, wool, testing drugs on animals and the list goes on! All these have a direct and enormous impact on our lives. Yet they are deceptively hiding the facts and portray themselves as people for protecting animals and a group that is fighting against cruelty.

From hate speech to scaremongering hoaxes, PeTA has tried its hands on many "below the belt" tactics with the public. And with politicians and bureaucrats, they cheat, bribe, threaten or lobby with people's money against people's interest. This organization without any help from corporates can do such dirty jobs and I think this group itself is a corporate! So what we need to do is to identify such groups, isolate them and ban them. One such group is Greenpeace, which our government rightly identified and banned recently. PeTA should face the same fate.

Some people are cherry picking PeTA's campaigns to support some of their views and care less about what PeTA is doing in other issues. For example, some people who are opposing meat, support PeTA thinking that they are actually helping. But they care less about PeTA's stand on milk. How many Indian vegetarians are ready to give up milk? If you support PeTA, think twice. Check out their motto and modus operandi in all issues and then decide if you want to really support them.

So to conclude, the fight is not only towards Jallikattu ban. Tomorrow it may be a ban on animal sacrifice in temples or ban on camel slaughter during Eid. So for everyone's interest, let us fight these inhuman organizations like PeTA, AWB and other such elements that cause too much trouble in the society.

Update: Central Government has made amendments to allow Jallikattu in the law, but the decision has been challenged in court!

Animal Farm - Book Review

Do you want to know why Russia and West are fighting over Ukraine? Do you think communism can save the world? Do you like children's fantasy? If you answer 'yes' to any of the above questions, then ”Animal Farm” by George Orwell is a good choice for you. Counting just less than 100 pages, the book tells the story of a farm in England. But wait! Are you wondering how a farm in England can explain current political mayhem surrounding Ukraine? Written in early1940s, the book is much of a prophecy that can even belittle blabbering of Nostradamus.

Most of us would have read or at least heard about ”Gulliver's Travel”. The story about Lilliput's! You got it? But many of us are not aware that Jonathan Swift wrote the story not only as children's fantasy, but also as a political and philosophical satire. Swift ridiculed the Imperial French and British as well as the struggle between fading archaism and emerging modernity in Gulliver's Travel. Orwell on the other hand encapsulates the raise, progress and fall of USSR (Soviet Russia) inside children's fantasy, with clever parodies. The wow factor is, Orwell wrote about events happening today 70 years before.

The story opens with a farm run by one Mr. Jones in England. The animals of the farm, fed up with the mistreatment at the hands of human masters, plot and execute a rebellion successfully and take over the farm after expelling Jones. Soon, they create certain rules and orders for themselves and start running the farm all by themselves. But as time passes, the power at the hands of pigs start to corrupt them. Soon the farm is attacked by neighboring humans but the attack is successfully thwarted but with great losses too. But the pigs start changing the laws to suit their desires and gradually collaborate with humans and start imitating them in everything. They go so far that even the animals can't identify pigs from humans. At last all other animals go back to the state which they were when humans ran the farm.

The story narrates how power corrupts people who rule(pigs), how religion is used to keep people under ignorance(raven), how army and police forces are used to suppress free thought and speech(dogs), how media is used to promote personality cult(Minimus and the black cockerel) and at the same time brainwash people and spread false news(Squealer), how even after all these things some people blindly support ruling class(sheep) and finally how bad the sufferings of people can go unchanged whatever way they choose(other animals, especially horses and hens)!

In the last chapter, there is a scene when the pigs fight with humans. But this time, it is not about the ownership of the farm or welfare of animals but about the card game they are playing. This is what happening now between West and Russia. As Orwell predicted 47 years before fall of USSR, they even renamed the nation! Communism in theory is good. It can be practical in short run too. But sooner or later power will corrupt the rulers and thing will end no better or even worse than before. George Orwell, came to this conclusion long back. I still admire USSR, their rational culture and their radically new political and economic structure, their raise from a poor nation of peasants to first nation to put a man in space within few decades, their books, their bold stance against capitalist West etc. But alas... It all fell apart for just one reason. It too was run by humans.

So read the book, not only as a fantasy. The power is all yours to corrupt your mind with truth :-)

Atheism and Rationalism

There are many people who claim that they are Atheists for various reasons. Some people simply lack faith in supernatural, some have lost it after a catastrophic event in their life, some choose it as a mask to attack other religions they don't like and very few come to that conclusion after skeptical and rational analysis of things. The above statement is true for every other religion too. In case of other religions, most people follow a religion only because they are born in to families practicing those religions. Now what makes Atheism special?

Most of the religions claim that they are the oldest, only true religion, most scientific, have proof etc. Likewise Atheists also suffer from a problem, “rationalism”. Few of the prominent Atheists were/are rationalists. That won't make all Atheists rationalists by default. So let us see the how good rationalism of Atheists fare.

Type 1: I don't believe in anything supernatural

This is sufficient to make one Atheist. But this includes people with differing level of intellect, critical thinking and rationalism. For example, I know people who believe in Homeopathy, but say that they are rationalists. “Wait sir, you are an Atheist, but believing in Homeopathy is superstitious.” But if I tell them that Homeopathy is fake, then, the following argument will be like telling a religious person that his/her religion is fake. So there is no rationalism in their Atheism. They just lack any religious belief may be due to brought up or because they thought it is fancy. There are lot of Atheists I know, who believe in alien invasion, astrology as science, some races are superior, moon landing never happened etc.

Type 2: I lost my faith

Losing and gaining faith is a matter of personal choice. I am not here to say no one should lose their faith. But losing your faith won't make you a rationalist. You are only an Atheist, only when you critically examine things, you become a rationalist. I have seen a very religious person who lost his faith in supernatural after a miserable event in his life. But he still believed some incorrect things taught by his religion. And whenever he faces some big problem, he will softly revert back to his religion and after the problem resolves back to his lack of faith. These type of people just argue against existence of a deity in only one line. “If there is a God, then why there are so many sufferings and troubles in the world?” Other than this, they don't know anything else. So their lack of faith too is not about rationalism but about pessimism.

Type 3: Hiding The Truth

There are some popular figures in media and politics, who act like they are atheists and use that cover to attack religions they don't like. There are some directors and actors who claim that they are Atheists, but attack other religions while softly criticizing or in some cases, militantly supporting their own religions. These people may or may not lack faith in supernatural. But they claim that they are Atheists, only to avoid problems while attacking other religions. These are the worst type of Atheists. They too lack any rational thoughts, as rational thoughts prevent one from doing morally evil things, while what these people do is outright immoral. Like the religious wear secular mask, these people choose Atheist mask to avoid counter attacks while criticizing other religions.

Type 4: Rational Atheists

They are the minority within Atheist community. These people are the only one who are suitable to be called rationalists. But most of them can't be seen or heard in public. They are the one who works on science and technology. They are the one who try to makes law and society neutral from the grips of religions. But wait! There are such rational minorities in every religion. But I have to accept that Atheists have a higher percentage of such people. Chances are high that a person lacking in faith can question things easily without fear or angering a deity or hurting their own sentiments. But how many Atheists move to this step apart from simple lack of faith?

Conclusion:

Buying a laptop without OS won't make you a Free Software supporter. Only when you install a Free Software OS, you become one. Likewise, lacking faith won't make you rationalist by default neither associating with a religion makes you irrational, unless you partake in superstitions. Only when you critically think and examine things around you, you are a rationalist. In olden days rational minds stayed religious. In recent past great minds had belief in supernatural yet remained rational. They called themselves Deists. Even today, many people culturally associate themselves with a religion but in practice remain rational. These type of people are encouraged by their society and education to free their mind from shackles of superstition. Such cultural change can produce even more rationalists than simple lack of faith.

No matter whether we believe in supernatural or not, it is better to keep such beliefs personal and try to apply critical thinking in whatever we do in our life. By that we can can serve people and God (if you believe in one) better.

Noah's Ark Wager

There are lot of people who take a literal interpretation of Bible, especially the first book, Genesis. I have seen lot of educated people believing in creation legends as literal truth, word for word. There are lot of refutations on this subject available on the Internet. But here I am presenting a wager that "If you take Noah's story literally, then you must believe in evolution"

First, to give an overview, there are more than 3,500 species of mosquito, more than 6,000 species of lizards and more than 43,000 species of spiders. After the level of species, we have sub-species in many animals/insects and at last, we have lot of breeds. For example, there are around 400 breeds of dogs and nearly 100 breeds of cat.

There are 6,000+ lizard species identified as of now

According to science, formation of one species from another takes millions of years, let us assume, at least ten thousand years. But the problem with ark advocates is, they claim that the ark is just 4,500 years old. So for example, if we consider Noah took one pair of spider with him, then each year, there should be 10 new species of spider evolving to match the number of species identified today. If some one claims that Noah took a pair of all the 43,000+ species with him, then there should be 86,000+ spiders alone on the ark, which will result in lack of space when we extrapolate this to all animals.

Feeding 86,000+ spiders needs another 100,000 insects at least!

The ark will have space and "float" only if the argument is one of each "kind", not one of each species. If ark advocates are to say that it is only one of each "kind", then, there are other problems like how polar bears and grisly bears came in to existence as polar bears can't live in temperate climate and grisly bears can't live in polar climate. So, the only logical solution for the arkeologists is to accept either Noah's ark is practically impossible or there was evolution of species after the flood.

There are some religions and sects which try to escape arguments say that the flood is local. But then we have to laugh at them that, why God didn't advise Noah and his family to move to some other safe place instead of ordering him to build a ship/ark? So this argument is nothing but a lame face saver for their interpretation of religious texts.

Noah's story can be a good bed time story or a theme for Sunday school skit. But not as a hard fact historical lesson! Finally, my intention is not to hurt sentiments of any religious group or individual. My intention is to tell others what I understand and encourage critical thinking. So, instead of believing literally what religious texts say, it is better to use God given common sense to understand things properly. God is not glorified by blind faith, but by good understanding.

Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.  Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. -Proverbs 4:6-7 (Holy Bible)

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. -Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430)