This material belongs to: Scroll.in.
A selection of readers’ opinions.
Protecting the corrupt
This is a novel way to protect corrupt people and the blatant misuse of executive powers devised by the Vasundhara Raje government to throttle those who fight corruption (“Rajasthan tables controversial bill shielding public servants amid opposition”). This puts a question mark on the BJP and prime minister Narendra Modi’s claim of being committed to eliminating corruption in India. – Dharam Prakash Gupta
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This is very bad and sad news. The government is trying to strangulate democracy. – Vibha Bhalla Kakkar
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The ordinance will allow the functioning of a fear-free corrupt regime and the public will sufferer. Where are the claims of transparency and accountability in government work. Instead of “corruption free” we are moving to “free for corruption” regime. – Ajay Gupta
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The media’s job is to criticise the government where required. Modi’s promises of achhe din, Rs 15 lakh in bank accounts and sab ka saath aur sab ka vikas have proved hollow. Demonetisation was a catastrophe and GST a black-mailing tactic. The entire range of reactions of the ruling establishment borders on crudity. There is no dignity of language, behaviour or actions. Criticism of the government is what democracy is all about. Without criticism, govt’s tend to become dictatorships. – Onkar Singh
GST woes
Thank you for bringing forth the delay in our refunds despite a commitment from the finance minister (“‘It will be a dry Diwali’: Exporters yet to receive GST refunds despite government’s reassurances”). One more thing ends to be highlighted. Merchant exporters have been worst affected by this delay, as they operate on a very low profit margin. So, the blockage of working capital of merchant exporter has hurt them the most.
During the October 6 meeting, Arun Jaitley made the wonderful decision of introducing 0.1% GST on supplies to merchant exporters. This will prevent the further blockage of working capital. But there has been no official notification by the government on this.
Because of the delay in refund, a huge part o f the capital of exporters is stuck and exporters have stopped taking orders. The 0.1% GST will act as oxygen mask for dying exporters. – Nipun Kapoor
Demanding respect
I will never forget what my first boss job told me, that respect must be commanded, not demanded (“Stand up, show respect when ministers and MLAs visit, Adityanath government instructs UP officials”). If you are good at your work, your colleagues, seniors and juniors will respect you. – Gopal Iyer
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How much respect do elected representatives show to the public? After all, they are elected to represent the people. – Jashwant
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This clearly shows how India, a great nation which stood for its impeccable moral values, is going backwards. If the MPs and MLAs visit they must concentrate on the job they went for instead of looking for sycophants. They must not forget they were elected by the citizens of this country to serve the nation. – Azad Ahamed
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Respect is earned, not demanded. If Adityanath’s government does respectable works, everyone will feel like respecting them. In fact, it is shameful that secretaries don’t stand for his MLAs and MPs on their own and have to be nudged to do so, it indicates that they do not feel that respect for the elected representatives. The solution is not to demand respect by force, unless the agenda is to create fear and retain power in a dictatorial set-up. – Divya Bala
