Change is in the air

The winter was long and quite dreary 

But now spring is arriving so cheery 

The cold winds now cease 

Warmer days increase 

As winter makes way for spring weary

Yes. Things are changing. Mostly for good. But not always. It sometimes feels like time just flows. And sometimes feels like Groundhog Year. I once liked the fact that the newspapers in this new adopted country of mine is a little more civil , with regards to reporting the news. But even that is now going down the drain. The elections might be over in the former United States, but the coverage, and its aftereffects is on the other side.

First , lets get this out of the way: the pandemic is over. The COVID-19 pandemic first reached Australia in early 2020. The government implemented increasingly restrictive measures like bans on public gatherings and travel to slow the spread of the virus. This had significant economic and social impacts on Australia. By April/May 2021, Australia had experienced over a year of the pandemic. Some of the key responses included closing schools which affected vulnerable children's education outcomes. The Reserve Bank of Australia also implemented unconventional monetary policies to support the economy. Throughout the pandemic, there were acute impacts on Australians' mental health as well as challenges for the healthcare system in treating patients and accessing personal protective equipment.

Inflation in Australia likely peaked in late 2022 and is projected to continue declining in 2023 and 2024 . But costs of things continue to stay high. The borders are now open, and temporary and permanent migration is not only high, but some say are higher than it has ever been.

But the biggest topic that has caught people's mind is the phenomenal , almost overnight rise of AI and the jobs it will reduce. And the repeated complaints of employers asking employees to return to office. Although these might look like two unrelated issues, they are more closely related than it seems.

I can still recall about 5 years ago, when Rising incomes, low public debt, affordable welfare state and immigration were discussed as things Australia was doing well. There was a general air of hope and confidence; this was the place to be, the model country for others to admire.

Maybe that spring isn't far away.

There once was a group full of hope Who said their investment would cope With schedules each day They planned things that way But optimism can lead us off scope

Most aspirant migrants won't be able to.

 Another half year done ! It is officially winter again in Australia, and summery-rainy in India. And with countries starting to take this vaccine-race seriously (except ScoMo, who prefers a stroll), things are starting to look better. Already countries are trying to remove travel bans, and come up with vaccine-passports, to allow unrestricted and un-quarantined travel internationally. 

Yes, very well aware of the fact that the vaccinated can still get COVID, but it won't be as deadly serious as it has been.

Which has brought back the attention to old conundrum- human migration. Unlike birds and beasts who can cross borders unrestricted, human beings need to get permission to move into a new country.

Over on reddit , clueless aspirants have always asked questions on how they can 'easily' move across to a more developed nation permanently, without the hassle of a higher education. And foremost among them are Indians.

People from every career and age group have been asking of the easy way to get out of India. And the answer is cruel. There is no easy way.

Most of the people asking questions about migrating, won't be able to follow through with their plans. They are the early stage of migrating, where they have not yet made a decision where they want to go to. The fact that they are asking questions on a free site for free information means they haven't done the cost and time analysis for a permanent migration.

Yes, moving permanently out of the country you were born into , to a totally new nation , with new rules, languages and culture is one of the biggest decision a person can take. And it is especially difficult when the mgirant is stuck in a third world country like India/Bangaldesh/somwhere in Africa, to a developed nation. And the reason for this is cost. The cost of the visa alone is unbearable , and many times the average  yearly salary. And there are additional costs and expenditures that play out when the migrant moves.

But there is also the red-tape that comes from the nations being so different. In India , for instance, many youngsters choose to study courses which don't have a worker demand in foreign nations. Like Art, or History. Nowadays the modern age has given rise to digital nomads, who 'specialise' in digital marketing and social media management. But these professions cannot help one move over, as they do not require special skills. Also courses taught in colleges in India need not be in tune with those taught abroad. This is why a thorough skill assessment is done during the the PR application process, to assess whether the candidate's education and work experience will be relevant in the target country.

But then there are the cut-offs. Countries which offer a points based migration path have upper limits to age, which leads to tricky situations. You could have 15 years work experience, and gain points, but by that time you will also be in your thirties, which means you lose points for age. The reality is this: if you have not migrated permanently by the time you are 30, your chances diminish rapidly after that.

Then there is the language problem. Except for a few countries like US, UK, most developed nations use a different language for everyday conversation. And this poses a big problem for those trying to move to Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands...etc. Even Canada uses French. So moving to such countries automatically means gaining the required expertise in whatever language they use. This means additional cost, and time, to train and take the language test. And yes, the tests are strict, and there are various levels that accurately measure exactly how fluent you are.

And finally, there is the harsh reality that getting a visa to move is just step 1. Step 2 is to get that first job. And there is no guarantee of how long it will take you to land your first job in the new country, after having moved there. Companies are hesitant to make offers to immigrants who have just moved in. The afore mentioned differences in language and culture are some reasons, but most employers are just not willing to take that risk, until they can get a proper reference from you. I have heard stories of people who spent upto 6 months looking for jobs, and had to return when they couldn't land one.

Moving countries is not easy, and needs investment in money , time, and patience. And most important, a plan. Like most things in life, there is no easy way out.

But people have done it, and continue to do it. And that means that it is not impossible. The pandemic has dealt a blow to the migration plans of many millions, and changes in the way people and companies work means things will be visibly different from now on. 

To summarise, most aspirant migrants wont' be able to do so. But for those who are committed to the cause, and willing to go any length, maybe, just maybe, they could.

How much are you committed  ? 

How India lost the vaccine war

Text from the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/how-india-lost-the-vaccine-war/

If you’ve been following the news, two really important events happened last week.

 

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced that all adults across the US would be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in the next two weeks. Earlier, the US had expected this to happen by 1 May. Things are going so well that they’ve decided to move it up by two weeks. 

 

Meanwhile, India is going in the opposite direction. The pace of vaccination, which was steadily picking up, now appears to be slowing down. Multiple states have reported shortages, while the number of coronavirus cases across the nation is accelerating. Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India (SII), the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, has said that existing production capacity is "very stressed, to put it frankly" and that “we are still short of being able to supply to every Indian”. 

Public memory is short, but back then, we weren’t even sure if we’d even get a vaccine. Nobody had created a working vaccine for a coronavirus, and the fastest vaccine ever developed took us over four years. We had to achieve the impossible while the world was in a global lockdown, with supply chains paralysed. 

Even in the early days, any betting person would tell you this—if a vaccine was going to be developed, it would likely be developed by a pharmaceutical company in the US. The logic was obvious. The pharma industry in the US was one of the most advanced in the world. It had the know-how. It had a history of research and development. And it had the capital. 

 

However, if you asked the same betting person to guess where the vaccine was going to be manufactured on a mass scale, the most likely answer you were going to get was… India. 

 

Again, the reasoning was obvious. India is a vaccine manufacturing powerhouse—at that time nearly 60% of the world's vaccines were manufactured by a small group of manufacturers in the country.

 

For the global pandemic to quickly end, the US would have to develop and discover the vaccine, and India would have to manufacture it. 

 

The US was going to be the inventor. India was going to be the factory. 

 

And both of them had to work faster and smarter than they had ever done before to make it happen. 

 

Operation Warp Speed

 

Faced with this reality, in May 2020, the US federal government decided to act boldly and swiftly. It understood that the problem wasn’t whether we’d develop a vaccine but was to identify a vaccine sooner and to manufacture it faster when it was identified. With every additional month, people were dying, lockdowns became more severe, and the economy continued to plummet. This needed to be arrested quickly.

 

So the federal government made a plan. The plan was to support seven different vaccine candidates simultaneously to speed up trials and the approval process and to promote ways to manufacture them at scale.

 

This program was called Operation Warp Speed. And it was conceived as a partnership between the federal government and private companies. 

 

Pay attention to the last bit. It’s important.

 

The US government was smart enough to understand that the only way that a vaccine would emerge faster was if it just gave the pharma companies lots of money to fund their research and got out of the way. Not all companies needed the funding. Companies like Pfizer, which were well-capitalised, didn’t need it. However, others did. And once pharmaceutical companies realised that there was free money on the table and that they didn’t need to put in risk capital of their own, they jumped at the chance.

 

How much money? 

 

Oh, a little over $11 billion. Given out to eight of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. 

 

All tasked with one mission — find a vaccine. 

 

All of them used different methods to get there.  

Here’s a list, from Wikipedia.

And that’s how the American pharmaceutical companies got to work. 

 

In India, on the other hand, something else was happening. 

 

Serum Institute of India

 

India had several vaccine manufacturers, but the biggest one was a company called the Serum Institute of India (SII). 

 

SII is an unusual company for many reasons. First, it’s entirely privately held by a billionaire family. It originally started off as a horse farm and soon graduated to vaccines. By 2020, it was the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world, churning out nearly 1.5 billion doses every year. SII’s customers are mostly from other countries around the world; it’s an Indian private company with international customers. 

 

And when the pandemic hit, SII saw an opportunity and stepped up. One could argue that they had no other option. Others could argue that it would have been foolish to skip such a business opportunity. 

 

Nevertheless, SII was ready for the challenge. 

 

SII may be a private, family-run company, but it was still a company. Companies have a certain amount of risk appetite. And SII had a choice ahead of it—do they manufacture the vaccine or not? And by when? 

 

From SII’s standpoint, the sensible thing to do would have been to wait until it found out which vaccine would work and then scale up the production of that vaccine. 

 

Instead, SII decided to take a calculated bet. 

Last May, Poonawalla met the AstraZeneca chief executive, Pascal Soriot, on a video call, and negotiated a deal for SII to manufacture about 1bn doses over 12 months – almost half the overall total.

The same month a package arrived at SII’s vast campus in Pune, 150km south-east of Mumbai. Packed in dry ice was a vial containing the components needed to create the Oxford vaccine, cell substrate in which to grow it and detailed instructions. Not included were the results of any clinical trials or regulatory approvals that the vaccine was effective or even safe.

Nevertheless, Poonawalla ordered three of his factories – which were at the time making “some very lucrative [other] vaccines” – to immediately switch production to the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine AZD1222.

“We produce 1.5bn vaccine doses each year. We never imagined the whole world being so dependent on us, but nobody else has our capacity to scale up,” he said. The decision to invest, he added, was easy because the firm is a private business “and not accountable to investors and bankers and shareholders”.

Instead, he says, “it was just a quick five-minute chat between myself and my father.” It was also, he admits, “a huge gamble – huge, huge, huge. People said I was crazy or stupid doing such a big bet at that time.

Now SII is a company in pursuit of profits, so this wasn’t exactly an altruistic move. Business decisions aren’t supposed to be altruistic. Despite this, it’s hard to deny that it was a risky business decision. 

 

But there was one problem. It was the same problem as in the United States.

 

Money. 

 

There was no Operation Warp Speed in India. In fact, for a long time, news about whether SII would receive funding to scale up and manufacture the vaccine was quite murky. In one interview back in April 2020, Poonawalla said that “(the government) are very happy to share some risk and fund something with us, but we haven’t really pencilled anything down yet”. Around the time, the Department of Biotechnology had helped fund a Phase-III clinical trial for the vaccine developed by SII. 

 

So in August, SII, for the first time in its history, went for external funding. It spoke to private equity investors, raised $150 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and even invested $100 million of its own money. 

 

There are no news reports to be found about any funding for SII from the Indian government. 

 

Incentives 

 

It’s one thing to offer funding for research and development, but in July 2020, the US government went one step further. 

 

It placed an order with Pfizer for 100 million doses of the vaccine. It paid nearly $2 billion to Pfizer for this. And it did this even before it knew whether the vaccine was going to be a success or not. At that time, several critics pointed out that this was a small number, but the US government had another clause in the deal—it gave itself an option to purchase an additional 500 million doses from Pfizer.

 

It didn’t stop there. 

 

It went and signed another $1.5 billion contract with Moderna for another 100 million doses. 

 

It didn’t stop there. 

 

It also signed contracts with Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, and AstraZeneca for more than 500 million vaccine doses. 

 

The US was basically wearing two hats. In one hat, it acted as the State, pumping in taxpayer money to fund research of the vaccine because it was in public interest. In another hat, it was the vaccine companies’ first customer. It pumped in money to boost their cash flow and to be first in line to reap the rewards should the vaccine succeed. It was the ultimate illustration of skin in the game. 

 

Other countries followed suit. The UK decided to purchase 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. In November, the European Union reached an agreement with Pfizer to buy up to 300 million doses. Canada decided to purchase up to 76 million.

 

The vaccine companies wanted capital. And they had gotten it. 

 

The only question was whether they’d be able to manufacture it at the scale that was needed. 

 

So the US government decided to create incentives not just for development but also for manufacturing. 

 

The missing purchase order 

 

Meanwhile, in India, SII was manufacturing the vaccine at full speed. Since it went ahead even before the vaccine was fully tested, SII had accumulated a stockpile of several million vaccines in its warehouses by the end of 2020. 

 

The company had stepped up, but there were a couple of problems. 

 

Problem 1 : Who gets the vaccines?

 

The deal that SII had struck with the Indian government was that India would purchase the first 100 million vaccines at a price of Rs. 200 ($2.66) each. This was one of the lowest prices in the world. And the only reason that SII signed on with the Indian government at this low rate was based on the understanding that it could sell subsequent doses on the private market at a higher price. 

 

However, SII was not unduly worried because it had already received purchase orders from several countries—including Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Morocco—for millions of doses. All of this would help fund SII and enable it to scale up. Morocco had signed a supply contract for 20 million doses back in August 2020.

 

But there was a problem: the Indian government hadn’t signed any purchase orders with SII. 

 

In January 2021, India’s largest vaccine manufacturer had no idea how many vaccines the Indian government would need and by when. 

The vaccines were ready. 

 

50 million of them. 

 

But the Indian government wasn’t. 

 

Problem 2 : More vaccines were needed

 

SII was manufacturing close to 60 million doses a month. It needed this number to be much higher to have any hope of meeting India’s requirement. Then the company had a fire in its factory, which Poonawalla later said cut short its plans to expand production. 

 

India had an entire year to scale up manufacturing capabilities across the nation, all to produce the vaccine at a war footing when it was ready. 

 

But it didn’t.

 

Then on 11th January 2021, the Indian government finally placed an order with SII. It was its first purchase order.

 

It ordered 11 million doses.

 

Two weeks later, the United States federal government exercised its second option with Pfizer and Moderna. 

 

It ordered 300 million doses, bringing the total order to 600 million doses. 

Meanwhile, in India, as the coronavirus cases rose, India quickly suspended exports on all vaccines. 

 

Countries that had booked vaccines with SII much earlier than everyone else were told to wait. India’s needs had to come first.

 

One of them was Brazil, where 3,000 people die from the coronavirus every day. 

 

Two days back, SII received a legal notice from AstraZeneca, the developer of the vaccine, over delays. 

 

Earlier this week, SII asked for financial help from the Indian government to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore (~$400 million). 

 

As of this morning, there has been no official response from the government to SII’s request.

There’s no real moral to this story, but it does reveal some interesting perspectives about the two nations. 

 

The story of India and the US’ contrasting methods of developing the vaccine is one of the oldest in political theory—it’s about the relationship between the state, capital, and the free market. All these entities are quite complex and often exist with a great deal of tension between them. Even more complicated is the fact these entities also operate together—and often have orthogonal goals. 

 

The US federal government understood the rules of the game and played by it. It understood that private players operate in a free market and acted as a buyer while also providing capital. 

 

If you look at the US, it appears as though everyone won—the pharma companies, the government and even the American citizens — every single person received the vaccine for free.

 

India, on the other hand, did everything else. It treated private companies like the SII with a mixture of disdain and ownership, and by the end, it’s clear that nobody is a winner. 

 

Not the Indian government.

 

Not SII. 

 

And certainly not India’s citizens. 

 

It’s going to be a rough few months ahead. 

 

Stay safe and take care.

Internet is a weak substitute

This is a great interview with Jia Tolentino in Interview magazine. Take for instance her answer to the question “What has this pandemic confirmed or reinforced about your view of society?”:

That capitalist individualism has turned into a death cult; that the internet is a weak substitute for physical presence; that this country criminally undervalues its most important people and its most important forms of labor; that we’re incentivized through online mechanisms to value the representation of something (like justice) over the thing itself; that most of us hold more unknown potential, more negative capability, than we’re accustomed to accessing; that the material conditions of life in America are constructed and maintained by those best set up to exploit them; and that the way we live is not inevitable at all.

From later in the interview:

I think the American obsession with symbolic freedom has to be traded for a desire for actual freedom: the freedom to get sick without knowing it could bankrupt you, the freedom for your peers to live life without fearing they’ll be killed by police. The dream of collective well-being has to outweigh, day-to-day, the dream of individual success.

 

Viral of the bad kind.

There’s something in the air. And its not just love. Something viral. And its not any video, or much shared selfie. Nor is it any of those maths question which divides the internet .Pun unintended. And its also not a picture which fools the eyes.

In that last decade or so, the word ‘viral’ has gone on to take a meaning of entirely its own. People encourage it, creators tried to come up with new ‘viral’ content. So it feels strangely awkward, when the word returns to its true meaning in the common tongue. A new strain of deadly virus strain has emanated out of China, and has now travelled to 24 countries, including India and Australia. The number of people affected, cured and of those who have succumbed to the strain varies depending on which news agency one tunes to. But the general trend is that all three numbers are increasing. Yes, many have been cured, but then ten times more are affected by the next wave.

The new strain has now been named the 2019 Novel Corona virus. But after more than 2 months of the initial infection been reported, little is known about it more than this name. And the fact that ground zero is in China has not helped at all. All the news and reports coming out of China has always been heavily censored. The outside world does not get latest updates. And the attack of fake-news has entered into exactly this vacuum. False, unverified and hoax news about the disease now spreads faster than the strain itself. Along with the 1500 people who already succumbed, the strain affects global economy and supply chain networks due to misinformed fears. Countries and companies are refusing to trade with China; many countries have already placed blockades on flights originating from China. Travellers are warned, and are looked upon with suspicion.

And various places are reporting a growing behaviour of racism towards people from China. Some of the strain related news claimed that the original hosts of the virus were bats, or snakes, or pangolins. People in China are known to trade and eat these kind of game animals. Most of those affected in the first viral wave where workers in Wuhan’s meat market. It is now proven that the virus can spread through human contact, and it does not show symptoms for the first 14 days. This has resulted in people in other countries just avoiding places frequented by Asians, and the people themselves.

This is unprecedented. And all this is fuelled by the simple fact that all of mankind’s medical science have yet failed to identify the source of this strain, and the best ways to prevent its spread and it sure-footed cure.

The common consensus is that it will take he world’s scientists more months to properly identify and create the cure. A possible vaccine. Hopefully, mankind will come together and annihilate this freak of nature. Like how we fought SARS , and nipah. Because otherwise, the future looks bleak for us. Medical science needs to continue to grow and co-operate to fight these strains. 

Because if there is one thing this new virus has proven yet again, it is that we as a species, is more connected than ever before.

PS: Source of the virus or not, IMHO, people should just stop eating bats.

1917 - A Heros’ journey

1917 -  A Heroes’ journey

I watched 1917, Sam Mendes’s movie set in World War I, a week ago, and I still recall overwhelming scenes from it. By now the whole world is talking about it, about how the story unravels in real time, about how the whole movie appears to be a single , continuous take. Set in a few hours of the war, the story starts one fine afternoon, and the climax is set in next day morning.

This movie is an epitome of technical achievement in movie making. One of those projects which take months to plan and schedule, and if everything works out as predicted, could be shot in a few hours. The location they chose, building the French country side in England, the costumes, weapons, ammunition, all period correct. The soldiers all speak in different English accents, telling us the whole of the country has been called to action. The sounds , and sometimes lack of sounds of action. This is one big immersive experience. The movie may not win awards for its acting, but it will be talked about for its technical brilliance for years to come.

It was almost like playing a third person shooter video game. Those of us who have played the original Call of Duty video game will be able to relate to this kind of experience instantly. A single soldier , being tasked with a secret and vital mission to save lives, and has to travel through enemy territory armed with only a rifle and a few grenades.

It is not fully in real time, because a large part of the night is cut out, with our lead character soldier unconscious. This one, loud and clear cut is essential to the runtime of the movie, there is no way they could have told the story of the entire night if they wanted it to be in realtime. Overall, the soldier passes through every stage of the hero's journey, redeeming himself in the end.

The truth is that although political leader and nationalists glorify war, the ground reality was the polar opposite. Big or small, wars are horrible. Countless young lives have been lost in order to preserve the way of life of the free world. You could read a thousand books about the sheer pointlessness of wars, or you could watch a movie like this one, which instantly transports you to a different time and place. And shows you how brutal and painful it really was.

Caught my eye:

1.   Fantastic story bookending. The movie begins with corporal Schofield sitting below a tree, and it ends with the (spoiler) corporal sitting under a different tree on the new battle ground. He finally gets to rest after his epic journey.

2.   This is a moving film. Not that kind of moving, emotionally moving too. There is a death scene right before the half time mark, which is totally unexpected. Gut wrenching. When Blake asks a question, Schofield hesitates to answer. The film makers further ensure that the face of the person about to die turns pale; he is loosing blood, and we get to see it before they do.

3.   There is an Indian soldier in the movie. This is factually accurate and kudos the movie for setting aside one of its thousands of on-screen soldiers as a sikh solder from India. This sepoy ni he movie gets on well with his comrades, but points out to them that “you eat meat”; implying that he probably is vegetarian. Over one million Indian troops served overseas, of whom 62,000 died and another 67,000 were wounded. Some of their letters have been preserved and tell shocking and sad stories.

14.   Loved the music. Thomas Newman. Who also composes for Disney animations. Haunting and inspiring at the same time. He has been nominated again for an Oscar for his score. I hope he finally wins one this time, after all those nominations for his genius.

The Ponzi scheme is now 100 years old

 

Heard of a Ponzi scheme ? This fraudulent gimmick to fool investors out of their money was at first started by Charles Ponzi, in January 1920. He found and tried to exploit a weakness he had found in postal reply coupons introduced around that time. Ponzi made millions out of this scheme, but he owed even more debt to his investors. He was later arrested and served time in jail. He died in poverty, having spent the last of his days in a charitable hospital.

But a hundred years later, even today, people still fall for this kind of ‘investment’ scheme, having learnt nothing from the past.

Today the internet is a fertile ground for ‘get rich quickly’ money schemes. But the underlying foundation is still fraud. People fall for it not because they are greedy, but due a fear of missing out. You see, if a new investment schem works, those who DON’T invest are going to miss a rare opportunity.

So the next time someone tells you of a new investment opportunity, and promises to double your money, don’t fall for it. Its nothing new, it is a very old form of fraud.

 

Students lead the way.

If 2019 has sent society any positive message, it is that when it really matters, it will students who will lead the way. There have been multiple examples of co-ordinated movements and uprising driven primarily by college and school students. Around the world ! They might have not yet completed their eduation, but they know enough to rise against wrongs.

When heptagenarian heads of world governments denied man-made climate changes, children lead the charge. Greta Thunberg was the most visible leader of these students, who encouraged climate activitists to walk out of their school classes around the world.

Over in Hong Kong, university students took up the baton against China's attempts to an earlier power grab.

And now in India, when both the houses of the government, along with its puppet president, passed two laws which are fundamentally against India's constitution, it is once again students, who were the first to protest.

For me , this phenomenon is the best news to have come out of this mess of a year. The uncorrupted, educated minds of young students is where the true future of the world resides. We see it time and time again, education is the only path to enlightment. Here is hoping more of us get to see the light of truth and righteouness in this new year.

Happy New Year. And long live the revolution !

The great Indian taxpayer is an elusive creature

There is a very elusive species of creature in India. It works very hard everyday, day and night,sometimes more than 14 hours a day for its food and family. Everyday is a work day, hardly any rest. It also suffers most of modern lifestyle induced sickness. The country, draws significant growth from the hard work of this little species, and ultimately rewards it almost nothing in return.

This species is called the great Indian bustard tax-payer.

I have always known of the hard life this species lives. It does not live, it simply survives. But the data to correlate and breakdown its sad state was buried undred thousand page reports prepared from half informed forms. But recently, there was a nice article summarising its pitiful state.

The salaried income tax payer in India often feels cheated. “What are my taxes being used for," he often asks himself. The roads continue to have potholes. The traffic never ends. The public transport system never seems to expand fast enough. The healthcare system is non-existent. The legal system takes years to give a judgement. The police are corrupt, and so on.

Read on, and pass further into depression.

A few jaw droppers from this piece:

A small portion of India’s salaried population pays the bulk of its individual income tax, which gets redistributed to others and doesn’t benefit the taxpayers that much. In the process, it drives them away from the Indian state. At least, that’s the feeling going around.

“If the state’s role is predominantly redistribution, the middle class will seek—in professor Albert Hirschman’s famous terminology—to exit from the state. They will avoid or minimize paying taxes; they will cocoon themselves in gated communities; they will use diesel generators to obtain power; they will go to private hospitals and send their children to private education institutions."

About 4% of citizens who vote pay taxes, the percentage should be about 23

This last line is truly a clincher. It means the majority of people pariticipate in this democracy do not actually contribute to the country, but instead, feed on the little benefits it is able to pay out.

Individuals paying an income tax of greater than ₹1.5 lakh accounted for nearly 79% of the total tax.

If you happen to belong to this group, you might really feel that you have a good portion of the burden of the nation on your shoulders. Of course, this is good enough reason for the government to start taxing agricultural income over a certain level. Given that the bulk of the tax is paid by a small proportion of the population, there is always talk going around about doing away with the income tax at lower income levels.

But the question is can the government really afford to do this?

The public nuisance that is TikTok

There are, hundreds of thousands of people publicly embarrassing themselves on TikTok. In the mad race to gaining 'likes' and 'followers', it is amazing how many people are willing to be the laughing stock of the word.

It is actually pathetic. And in a way, sad.

Why are they doing this ? Is it for money ? Does the playform pay ?

I looked it up. The answer, it turns out, is a humongous NO.

The service itself makes money, by placing ads. But the poor actors/dancers/jokers on them, can only gain virtual hearts.

Unless they are able to get sponsorship from brands, or move their subscribers over to a paying platform like youtube, it is just virtual fan worship.

There are a few, a handful of creators on the site, who have some originality. Are able to approach a challenge in a new , or different way.

But most of them are just ape-shit copy cats. And not even very good copy cats. The site, and its actors are just public nuisance.

I wonder if it is worth it all, becoming the butt of jokes that is the internet, all to enjoy that 10 second hall of fame.

The Vices of Malayalis, and how the state lives on it

Came across a much needed, and nicely researched article on how the state of Kerala, India, feeds off the taxes paid by its poorest citizens. Keralites, you see, have a penchant for alcohol, and lotteries. And both of these are controlled largely by the state government. A third vice is finance instrument called chit-funds, a remnant of a once stronger economy. Some of the figures being reported in this article is truly scary; and its all debt !

Kerala’s is an interesting, if not curious, economy.  The cash-strapped state -- it has a debt ratio of over 30 per cent -- the highest and most deteriorating debt among all states since 2013 -- is keeping its finances alive through the vices of its people - heavy alcohol consumption and penchant for lottery tickets. The state government has the monopoly to sell alcohol, through the Kerala State Beverages Corporation or Bevco, while the ‘gambling-type’ addiction of buying lotteries of its people is fed through the Lotteries Department, which sells lakhs of lottery tickets on a daily basis. At over 8 litres per person per year, Kerala has alcohol consumption per person per year compared to the national average of 5.7 litres per person per year. The sales tax on alcohol has been going up from 20 per cent in 1960-61 to 210 per cent now.

As per the latest data, the income from the lottery for 2017-18 stands at Rs 9,034.16 crore while the revenue from liquor sales (state excise + sales tax) stood at Rs 12,937.09 crore in the same period. Add to this is the bumper sales during festivals like Onam. In the pre-Onam week alone, Bevco sold a whopping Rs 487 crore worth liquor while the lottery tickets offer eye-popping prize money of Rs 16 crore.

“The entire approach of the state government is flawed and regressive. To manage its coffers, Kerala Government is not only punishing the poorest but it is also encouraging them to buy an addictive product like lottery by selling dreams,” said Jose Sebastian, who teaches at the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation.

“It’s no secret who’s consuming most liquor and who’s buying the lottery tickets. It’s mostly the poorest sections of society. Gujarat neither sells liquor or lottery, yet it is the top-performing state in the country,” he said.

According to a study by Sebastian, Kerala has a wide tax base covering various sections of people and different kinds of economic activities. This is not reflected in the revenue collection. “Virtually, the effective revenue base has been getting narrowed down to four items -- petroleum and petrol products, liquor of all kinds, motor vehicles and lottery,” he said.

“An unintended consequence of the evolution of Kerala’s revenue structure is that it places a disproportionately high burden on the poor and marginalised sections of society. They are the major consumers of liquor and lottery. The share of these two in SOR increased from 14.77 per cent in 1970-71 to 34.46 per cent in 2016-17. Motor vehicles like three-wheelers, pickup vans and taxis powered by petroleum products are the source of livelihood for many of this class,” he said.

V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist, Geojit Financial Services, said the LDF Government and its Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac have been adopting a policy of borrowing and continued borrowing to meet the day-to-day needs. “Hard decisions such as hiking education fees, concessions for students travel or the property tax, which have not been touched for several decades, are not taken as it will backfire politically,” he said.

Vijayakumar pointed out that property tax has not been hiked since 1995 while students continue to travel at nominal rates though they have no qualms in spending thousands on mobile bills or on autos/share cabs every month.

Another big consumption by the state is gold, but it now comes under the Goods and Services Tax. Recently, the Finance Minister lamented that the state government gets less than Rs 200 crore as tax from gold sales while under the scrapped Value Added Tax (VAT) regime it used to fetch Rs 750 crore. Kerala is the top consumer of the yellow metal and Isaac blamed lack of preparedness and absence of invoices for the ‘huge leakages’ in GST revenue. Economist K V Joseph pointed out that the tuition fees in government medical colleges are as low as Rs 25,000 while in private colleges it is Rs 5.5-6.5 lakh yearly.

“While lower-income bracket people and SC/ST category can be exempted from higher fees, the government should look at hiking fees for those from higher-income families,” he said. Joseph advocated similar hike in taxes from forestry and land/property registration and taxes.

Geojit’s Vijayakumar blamed the state government for spending recklessly when the state coffers are drying up. “The state’s debt is Rs 1.5 lakh crore. When the state is in deep debt, the government has spent Rs 5.90 crore on politically accommodating VS Achuthanandan in Kerala Administrative Reforms Commission. Our Public Service Commission has 21 members while Madhya Pradesh PSC has just four members and Gujarat seven. All these members are paid over Rs 1.5 lakh per month. The government would do well to cut its unnecessary expenditure first when the state is in deep financial crisis,” he said.

Will Finance Minister Isaac think out of the box to find new revenue models? Will he bite the bullet? No chance when the state is heading for an election season -- the byelections followed by the local body polls in 2020, and the Assembly polls in 2021.

Another addictive habit of Malayalees is joining money-saving scheme or chits or chitties, which combine the advantages of both investment and advance. No wonder, while most Kerala PSUs are loss-making or white elephants, the Kerala State Financial Enterprises or KSFE, which runs chitties of several sizes, is flourishing. Compared to unofficial chits run by individuals, which are illegal, the KSFE chits are risk-free safe haven for the public as the institution conducts only chitties fully governed by provisions of the Central Chit Fund Act 1982.