For energy security’s sake

If the government wants to really help ramp up gas production in the country, it should quickly fix the pricing as well as taxation issues plaguing the sector, said former Oil Secretary Vivek Rae at a book discussion event in the Capital on Saturday.

He had a wacky idea to sort out the taxation controversies (mainly service tax issues) in the oil and gas sector. His idea goes like this: get two officers each from the Oil Ministry and the Finance Ministry and lock them in a room for a month! Let them thoroughly deliberate on all issues concerned and arrive at a consensus solution to the taxation issues. Even if that would mean bringing a particular activity to service taxation.

At least there would be clarity on the taxation position — unlike the current situation when even equity capital contribution is sought to be brought under service taxation and the matter is being litigated at various legal forums.

Later, a member of the audience at the event had an even better idea — for securing India’s energy security, a representative each of the Defence Ministry and the External Affairs too should be locked up in the same room.

Put simply, what everybody wants the government machinery to do is get into “brainstorming” session to quickly sort out taxation controversies, bring policy certainty and fix the pricing issue at the earliest.

Damage done

At a meeting with State Food Ministers last week, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal shocked everyone by asking them to increase the area under rice. This was in sharp contrast to what his Ministry officials had told the States — to diversify from rice to pulses and edible oils.

When it was pointed out to Goyal that his plea to the States ran counter to what his officials had said, he managed the issue deftly by saying he had actually wanted the States to increase production by improving yield.

By that time, the damage had been done, with some journalists flashing his statement online.

All about numbers

On July 18, Indian parliamentarians and legislators will vote to pick their next President. The BJP seems to be enjoying an advantage, thanks to the favourable verdict in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and the recent political changes, including in Maharashtra.

Though it looks like the Opposition has almost given up, it had actually mounted a serious effort to try and get its presidential candidate elected two years ago. The Opposition plan was to somehow win the Uttar Pradesh polls. That’s why the farmers’ protest against the reforms launched by the Modi government in 2020 took a serious turn. The Opposition fully backed the farmers’ protest eyeing gains in the State’s polls. If they could defeat the BJP, the parties knew they will gain an upper hand in the presidential elections.

This would not have come to light but for one of the prospective candidates, whose name did the rounds before Yashwant Sinha was nominated by the Opposition camp, visiting an astrologer in Kerala. A couple of visits by the candidate revealed the Opposition plans! The rest is history.

Dhoti clad mascot

The mascot for the forthcoming 44th Chess Olympiad to be held in Mamallapuram, near Chennai, later this month has an interesting mix of the chess coin — knight — and the State’s traditional attire — the dhoti. Named ‘Thambi’ (brother in Tamil), the mascot is clad in a white dhoti and a shirt with a salutation, and will be put up all across the city and at important places in the State.

The State government has sanctioned ₹92 crore for the event — the first ever in India — to be held from July 28 to August 10. In 2013, Chennai hosted the historic World Chess Championship match between then reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Magnus Carlsen in which the latter won.

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