With the price of tomato touching Rs 60 per kg and expected to rise by another Rs 5 in the next two days, your favourite tomato dishes may end up leaving a more sour taste than usual.The rate chart from the Horticultural Producers’ Cooperative Marketing and Processing Society (Hopcoms) lists the cost of tomatoes asRs 58 per kg. However, it is being sold at prices going up to Rs 70 at retail stores. The price has gone up three times in the last few weeks, from Rs 20 per kg in the beginning of December. The cost in August was just Rs 3 per kg due to high yield.

“Normally, Bengaluru gets 500 tonnes of tomatoes every day, but this time it has come down to half. Since consumption remains the same, reduced supply has increased the price,’’ a horticulture official said.The crop has been damaged and the yield is expected to be half the usual produce due to powdery fungus and downy mildew on tomatoes brought about by drought and cold. “The price will remain the same or increase by another ‘5. We are hoping the price will come down by January end or February beginning,’’ Keshav, Procurement and Marketing Manager, Hopcoms, said.

Sunitha Mahesh, a resident of Hosakerehalli said tomatoes are needed for most preparations, including rasam or sambar, even though it may not be the main vegetable. “I got tomatoes for Rs 64 per kg at a shop near my house, while I bought it for Rs 18 last month. We cannot cook without onion or tomatoes, so even if the price shoots up, we will still have to buy it,’’ she said.

Besides tomatoes, other vegetables are getting more expensive too. Srilakshmi, a homemaker at Rajarajeshwarinagar, said that drumstick, which cost Rs 25 per kg till recently, is now available for Rs 140 per kg. “This comes to over Rs 10 for one drumstick.’’The price rise is affecting the business of restaurateurs too.

Agencies

The steel flyover project is an ugly manifestation of our unbridled urbanisation mindset. This is yet another myopic economic proposal to exacerbate urbanisation; it seems to us.

How this project will further endanger public health with no tangible benefits to the citizens at large.

The Hot Dome

Materials like concrete and steel absorb and hold heat significantly when compared to soil and vegetation. The urban built-up area with its impermeable layer of concrete is hotter than the surrounding rural areas. This creates an umbrella of hot air over the built-up area of the city and is called the ‘climatological dome’ or ‘urban heat-island’. Air pollutants, vehicular movements, loss of tree cover and other metabolic processes add to the heat increasing temperatures in the dome.

A mobile survey of air temperatures discovered heat islands in Bengaluru way back in 1977 as documented in the Bangalore Gazetteer of 1990, of Government of Karnataka. The built areas of Rajajinagar were found to be warmer than the vegetated Cubbon Park and Lalbagh. Another survey in 1985, which is also documented in the same Gazetteer, found the built-up areas to be 2.5oC to 3.2oC warmer than Lalbagh and Cubbon Park.

In 2016, a study by Harini Nagendra, a renowned ecologist from Azim Premji University, found persistent increase in temperatures with Northern and Eastern regions of Bengaluru showing higher temperature ranges. Heat conducting steel flyover with the cutting of 812 trees in the north and north-eastern parts will certainly render the dome hotter and un-breathable.

The health effects

The steel components of the steel bridge, insulated with rust proof paint will progressively release deadly particulate matter into the air. The increased vehicular movements, especially the diesel vehicles will not only intensify but also add to the particulate matter.

With raising temperatures, we have created perfect conditions for the more insidious ground-level ozone to form and amplify to fatal levels.

In 2017, Experts and Scientists from the Indian Council of Medical Research, Public Health Foundation of India and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation along with other Indian collaborators released the shocking data that ‘one in eight deaths in India is attributed to air pollution’. Tangibly, the death ratios for urban areas are even more freighting.

Again in 2017, Bengaluru’s disease burden study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Indian Council of Medical Research, Union health ministry and the World Bank was released – establishing the fact that ‘Coronary heart disease topped the list and beat the national average with a wide margin’. Now, what is connection between Coronary heart disease and air pollution especially particulate matter of 2.5 microns?

According to peer reviewed scientific research published by National Institute of Health (under the aegis of United States Government), ‘People exposed to high levels of particulate matter pollution resulted in an increased likelihood of coronary heart disease’.

Bengaluru-based paediatric pulmonologist Dr Paramesh has published several studies in peer-reviewed medical journals on ‘how people, especially children are suffering from chronic cough and respiratory ailments because of air pollution’.

Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers are out there on health impacts of bad air quality. Blockage of tear ducts, sleeping disorders, COPD, exercise intolerance, heart diseases, diabetes, stress, decreased cognitive function, autism, attention deficit disorder, strokes…. and the list is endless.

Escalating air pollution is not a rocket science for people to understand. To tell the truth, when our children are being compelled to depend on artificial inhalers, we as parents don’t need any peer reviewed papers or pollution control board notifications to inform us that air quality is deteriorating. Nonetheless, we are being compelled to live with its consequences every day.

Load shedding and other ironies

Higher air temperatures inside the deadly dome increase energy demand for cooling. As the temperature increases, the electricity demand also increases. Load shedding is already a common phenomenon in Bengaluru during peak hours in summer. Are our grids ready to provide for that extra load?

It has been a nightmare for frequent flyers with the smog-filled skyline of Bengaluru obscuring visibility. Flights delayed, re-routed. Last week, a member of our trust was forced to lie around tarmac for four hours in the morning waiting for the smog to clear. A few minutes saved during transit on the steel flyover is lost by the endless hours of waiting on the tarmac and the runways, for the smog to clear. It is the same smog for which the steel flyover contributes.

In an airtight silo

Our urbanisation and the resultant economic activities are operating in an airtight silo, ignoring realties like climate change, air pollution and urban heat islands. These are treated as supplementary issues and seldom incorporated in diacritical policies or pivotal projects. Cumulative impacts of any project on public health will not be understood when these elementary realities are ignored. Ignoring will not make the problem to disappear, but will massively fuel public health emergencies.

The case of Delhi and Beijing

The air quality in Delhi is at emergency level even with the so called drastic measures. According to the emission inventory, 40% of the pollution is attributed to automobiles. Restriction of private vehicles activity has started to make way into the discussion. What is in discussion in Delhi is a reality in Beijing. To combat air pollution, Beijing now sets a quota for new private vehicles. In 2017 the quota was 150,000 cars annually and in 2018 it was reduced to 100,000.

Leapfrog towards solution

In Bengaluru, the citizens are now more or less accustomed to wearing masks as the air is not fit for breathing directly. The pollutants need to be filtered and kept out. There are several experiments happening in the city to install gigantic German manufactured air purifiers. If what’s happening in the national capital Delhi, Beijing and in our own backyard is any lesson to us, then building steel flyovers for the privileged few to roam about freely in their flamboyant automobiles, is not at all the solution we should be thinking about.

As a matter of record, cities like San-Francisco, Milwaukee, Madrid, Seattle, Portland and Seoul are dismantling freeways, even as we discuss this. By doing that, these cities are  moving towards a smart and healthy future for its residents and economy. We can stay far behind and try to feign catch up or we can leapfrog to building a smart city.

For Bengaluru to be a smart city, embracing public transport is perhaps the smart thing to do. This is not the time to re-invent recipes on how to build roads, but to change the whole menu of transportation itself for the betterment of the citizens of Bengaluru, who are hoping against hope for a pollution free environment.

Agencies

Soon after Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara issued order to BBMP, the local civic body has shut 20 commercial establishments in residential areas in eight BBMP zones on Thursday. BBMP had closed six establishments on Wednesday in Sadashivanagar.

However, BBMP has realised that it has a long way to go to meet the deadline to shut all the commercial establishments in residential areas. According to BBMP, there are 10,000 such commercial establishments operating in residential areas.

Manoranjan Hegade, Chief Health Officer, BBMP, told media, “We have shut 26 commercial establishments so far. All the zonal officials have been asked to inspect the areas and shut all such establishments in residential areas. We still have to shut at least 10,000 establishments, which can be covered by February,” he said.

The BBMP has issued notices to 2,000 establishments that are operating in the basements of the building which will also be removed during the drive.

Nasheman News : In a further relief to the micro, small and medium (MSME) sector, the threshhold limit for eligibility under the GST Composition Scheme was raised to Rs 1.5 crore, from Rs 1 crore, by the GST Council on Thursday and will apply from the 2019-20 fiscal beginning April 1.

“We had raised the Composition Scheme limit to Rs 1.5 crore. The decision will be applicable from April 1, 2019,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters here after chairing the 32nd meeting of the GST Council.

Those opting for the Composition Scheme pay a minimal Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 1 per cent. 

In an easing of the compliance burden, the GST Council also decided that those opting for the scheme would need to file their returns only once a year, Jaitley said. The tax payment mode, however, would continue to be on a quarterly basis.

This facility will also be also applicable from April 1.

In a third decision, the GST Council also made small service providers, and those providing a mix of goods and services, with a turnover of up to 50 lakhs, eligible for the Composition Scheme. 

With Thursday’s decision, service and mixed goods and service providers will be entitled to avail the benefit on payment of GST at 6 per cent, Jaitley said. 

Nasheman News : Indian and Pakistani troops traded gunfire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch and Rajouri districts on Wednesday.

The first clash took place in Poonch district.

Pakistan troopers resorted to unprovoked firing at Indian positions in Gulpur and Khari Karmara areas at around 8.15 a.m., Defence Ministry sources said.

“They used automatics and mortars. Our troops retaliated strongly. No casualty or damage was reported on our side,” an official said.

Later, the Pakistan Army used mortars to target Indian positions in Kalal area of Rajouri district.

“Our troops are retaliating strongly. Firing exchanges are going on,” the official said.

Panic has again gripped people living close to the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri districts amid deafening sounds of mortar shell explosions. The winding LoC divides Jammu and Kashmir between Pakistan and India.

 Nasheman News : Continuing its efforts to improve the safety of card transactions, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday extended the use of tokenisation — hiding of actual card details with a unique token — in the wider payments ecosystem.

To date, the RBI had allowed card payment networks like Visa and MasterCard to use the tokenisation technology in card transactions. The technology is now allowed to be used by merchants holding the card credentials like online retailers.

“It has now been decided to permit authorised card payment networks to offer card tokenisation services to any token requestor (i.e., third party app provider),” the RBI said in a statement. For now, the facility will be offered through mobile phones and tablets only.

The permission extends to all use cases and channels like near field communication (NFC), magnetic secure transmission (MST)-based contactless transactions, in-app payments and QR (quick response) code-based payments, the bank said.

“The Reserve Bank has today (Tuesday) released guidelines on tokenisation for debit/ credit/ prepaid card transactions as a part of its continuous endeavour to enhance the safety and security of the payment systems in the country,” the statement said.

Tokenisation involves a process in which a unique token masks sensitive card details and thus, in lieu of actual card details, this token is used to perform card transactions. The token will be unique for a combination of card, token requestor and “identified device”. 

While all other instructions related to card transactions will be applicable for tokenised card transactions as well, the RBI stated: “The ultimate responsibility for the card tokenisation services rendered rests with the authorised card networks.”

Before providing card tokenisation services, card payment networks will have to put in place a mechanism for periodic system (including security) audit at frequent intervals, at least once a year, of all entities involved in providing card tokenisation services to customers.

“Tokenisation and de-tokenisation shall be performed only by the authorised card network, and recovery of original Primary Account Number (PAN) should be feasible for the authorised card network only. Adequate safeguards shall be put in place to ensure that PAN cannot be found out from the token and vice versa, by anyone except the card network,” the RBI said.

Registration of card on token requestor’s app will be done only with explicit customer consent and the customers will have the option to register/ de-register their card for a particular use cases like contactless and QR code-based.

“Card issuers shall ensure easy access to customers for reporting loss of ‘identified device’ or any other such event which may expose tokens to unauthorised usage. Card network, along with card issuers and token requestors, shall put in place a system to immediately de-activate such tokens and associated keys,” the bank added.

Nasheman News : Four women will dominate the global economic policy sphere with eminent academic Gita Gopinath becoming the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) chief economist.

In a sign of growing women power, she along with her boss and IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde, World Bank’s chief economist Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, and Kristalina Georgieva, the Bank’s CEO who will become its interim President next month, will have the leading role in guiding international financial policy as the world economy faces its severest stress in more than a decade.

They confront the confluence of a retreat from globalization, a trade war between China and the US, uncertainties in Europe over Brexit, weakening of several currencies against the dollar, shifts in foreign direct investments and the growing inequalities between nations and within countries.

Gopinath, who became the first woman to become the IMF’s chief economist, succeeded Maurice Obstfeld, who left the organization at the end of last year.

When Lagarde announced in October Gopinath’s appointment with the formal title of Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department, she called her “one of the world’s outstanding economists, with impeccable academic credentials, a proven track record of intellectual leadership and extensive international experience”.

“All this makes her exceptionally well-placed to lead our Research Department at this important juncture. I am delighted to name such a talented figure as our Chief Economist,” Lagarde said.

Before coming to the IMF, Gopinath was professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University.

She was concurrently appointed in 2016 as the economic adviser to the Kerala Chief Minister with the rank of principal secretary. She has also served as a member of the Eminent Persons Advisory Group on G-20 Matters for the Indian Ministry of Finance.

In addition to helping formulate policies for the IMF and set strategies and evaluate the performance of nations, Gopinath will oversee the World Economic Outlook Report that is considered a major survey of the global economy.

A significant aspect of her position will be helping set the conditions for countries seeking bailouts from the IMF. Often the terms call for stringent financial regulations and unpopular belt-tightening for the recipients.

A graduate of Lady Sri Ram College in New Delhi, Gopinath received her MA degree from the Delhi School of Economics.

She went on to Princeton University from where she got her Ph.D in economics in 2001 for her work on international macroeconomics and trade.

Gopinath was an assistant professor at the University of Chicago before moving to Harvard in 2005. She received the Bhagwati Prize for the best paper published in the Journal of International Economics in 2003 and 2004.

In 2014, she was named one of the top 25 economists under 45 by the IMF and was a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2011.

Her extensive research and writings include a critique of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetization in 2016. Writing in the Project Syndicate within days of the demonetization, she presciently said the government “seems to be causing collateral damage to India’s economy”.

 Nasheman News : The Income-Tax (I-T) department will soon hold a meeting with the Kannada film industry fraternity on the need for paying taxes and filing returns, a top official said on Monday.

“We will soon hold a meeting with the Karnataka film industry to convey that they (fraternity) should pay taxes and file returns,” said Karnataka Director-General Income -Tax (Investigation) B.R. Balakrishnan told reporters here.

The department’s sleuths found recently that many in the film industry like cameramen, make-up personnel and crew were not filing tax returns.

“Through the meeting, we want to appeal to the film fraternity to pay their taxes,” said Balakrishnan a day after his office on Sunday revealed that searches on 4 Kannada super stars and 3 producers resulted in seizure of undisclosed assets valued at Rs 11 crore, including Rs 2.85 crore in cash and 25 kg gold jewellery.

Incriminating evidence found during the searches from January 3-5 also resulted in the defaulters admitting to Rs 109 crore unaccounted income.

“Rs 109 crore concealed income was found so far in all the searches on actors and film producers. The searches are going on,” the DG said.

The I-T office issued search warrants under section 132 of the Income-Tax Act 1961 on those who were searched a day or two ahead of conducting the raids. 

“The searches are an evidence gathering exercise. We will continue the searches and investigation. The evidence will be sent to a senior officer to assess the income earned and tax payable. In a few exceptional cases, we will file prosecution straight away as well,” Balakrishnan told IANS on the margins of an event.

The tax office will adjust the money found (seized) against the tax demand or penalty demand.

In a related development, the tax department celebrated “Investigation Day” and felicitated officers and staff of its investigation wing for detecting a whopping Rs 12,268 crore concealed income across the Karnataka and Goa region during the fiscal 2017-18.

“Of the concealed income, Rs 5,339 crore was confessed by the tax payers. Rs 78-crore unaccounted income was seized in the last fiscal,” said Balakrishnan on the occasion.

During this fiscal (2018-19) the Investigation Directorate conducted searches resulting in admission of undisclosed income of Rs 4,038 crore and detection of Rs 6,134 crore unaccounted income.

Searches were conducted on assessees spanning politicians, bureaucrats, breweries, multinationals, mining barons, diagnostic centres, trusts, educational institutions, medical colleges, real estate, fisheries and film industry.

“The searches have resulted in collecting evidence on tax evasion. In many cases, searches exposed complex web of overseas entities floated by assessees for laundering money abroad and investments made in foreign assets having ramifications under the Black Money Act,” recalled Balakrishnan.

The department has issued notice in many cases under the BMA to the assesses and initiated prosecution.

Under the new Benami Prohibition Units in Bengaluru and Panaji, 84 properties valued at Rs 563 crore were attached, while 91 benamidars and 19 beneficial owners were identified.

Nasheman News :  Assuring adequate liquidity measures whenever the need arises RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday noted that liquidity should not become “loose money” and the apex bank would excercise the measures with caution.

The Reserve Bank of India has “a sense” of the current liquidity situaiton and after his appointment as its Governor has announced additional infusion of liquidity via open market operations (OMOs) of Rs 60,000 crore, Das said here on Monday after meeting the representatives of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

“While dealing with the issue of liquidity, I would also like to say that it is something which the RBI is constantlyy monitoring and will take steps whenever there is a need to deal with the liquidity deficit, if it is noticed.

“… At the same time I must also add the RBI would not like a situation where liquidity becomes a kind of a loose money. Any infusion of liqidity will have to be very carefully considered and has to be need-based. So, the caution and care has to be excercised by the RBI, that excess liquidity which sometimes has adverse consequences that is not created,” he added. 

Das further said that he will meet the representatives of Non-banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) on Tuesday in Mumbai.

New Delhi, A parliamentary panel has asked the Reserve Bank of India to address the problem of perpetually dysfunctional ATMs so as to avoid a situation of a forced cash crunch.

The Standing Committee on Finance has also asked banks to install an adequate number of ATMs. The panel tabled its report in Parliament last week.

As per RBI data, there were 2,21,492 Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in the country as at September-end 2018.

These include 1,43,844 ATMs of public sector banks, 59,645 ATMs of private banks and 18,003 of foreign banks, payments banks, small finance banks and White Label ATMs (WLAs), which are owned and operated by non-bank entities.

“As digital transactions have not become anywhere near universal, the committee would urge upon RBI to pursue the lingering problem of dysfunctionality as well as shortage of ATMs vigorously with banks, while ensuring the economic viability of ATMs for all stakeholders, so that a forced cash crunch is not imposed on the public,” the report said.

The panel headed by senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily also noted that the RBI’s remonetisation drive has not resolved the cash supply to ATMs in rural or semi-urban areas, forcing the shutdown of many ATMs.

The committee has expressed concern that “there are just not enough” ATMs being installed or added to cater to the rising demand for cash in an expanding economy, even as more and more debit cards are being issued and large number of Jan Dhan accounts opened by banks.

ATMs have become an important channel for withdrawing money even after the close of banking hours. Digital transactions are also catching up.

Besides ATMs, basic banking services are provided by business correspondents through their micro ATMs.

PTI