EU’s laudable move

The European Union’s decision to order probe on tech giants such as Apple and Alphabet for their non compliance with digital market law is a laudable measure to protect other competitors and to ensure end users from being victims of business cartels.

Fair trade practices are critical to development as they will reduce unemployment and increase purchasing power of end users

Vikram Sundaramurthy

Chennai

Terror threat again

Apropos ‘Moscow terror attack: How worried should we be?’ (March 26), the deadly terror attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, underscores the concerns that IS, whose main bases in Syria and Iraq were dismantled six years ago, is on a path to revival.

Surprisingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not leaving any stone unturned to name Ukraine and NATO behind the attack although the four detained persons are Tajikistan nationals.

France has threatened to send troops to Ukraine and Putin may be hinting at a possible devastating phase in the war. Afghanistan is once again slipping into anarchy under the present Taliban regime, and with militants making inroads there, none of the countries including India are free from the terror threat.

Gregory Fernandes

Mumbai

Taxing times

This is with reference to the Editorial ‘Tax tales’ (March 26). Despite the 20 per cent hike in tax collections/tax compliance as on FY23, there has been no corresponding matching increase in tax base since decades.

It is to be noted that almost all Central governments so far focussed only on taxing the already ‘tax paying citizens’ with few rupees here and there as reliefs and ignoring other “haves” who comfortably are evading tax. The rich and powerful are happily escaping the tax net.

There is no point in just extending the numbers of coverage transactions linking PAN number to book only the existing tax payers. The Tax Department should also explore ways to detect other tax evaders and by hiring personnel under “marketing tax surveyors” category in every town/city etc to bring tax evaders into the tax bracket.

Given the way most of the businesses have recovered from Covid, it is surprising to see the lower growth in corporate tax collections unlike the robust collections in personal tax collections.

Katuru Durga Prasad Rao

Hyderabad

BJP’s southern strategy

With reference to the Editorial ‘Southern push’, the BJP knows well that as far North India is concerned, it has almost reached a saturation point, while there is a huge scope of improvement in Southern States.

Barring Karnataka, it has nothing much to show for. So it makes sense for the Prime Minister to woo voters from Tamil Nadu and other Southern states in a systematic way.

Tamil Nadu’s BJP chief Annamalai’s padyatra and interaction with voters is slowly gaining traction, but whether this will result in votes and in turn seats is a million dollar question.

The BJP knows that it can not take on strong regional parties in other Southern zStates on its own, hence it is better to ride on along with someone who already has a strong base there, TDP, JDS etc are good examples for that. 130 seats is 24 per cent of the total number of seats and it can never be taken lightly.

Bal Govind

Noida

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