Raiding federalism

This refers to the report, “CBI raid on Kejriwal aide triggers political slugfest” (December 16). Whether the Delhi Chief Minister has matched provocation (the raid) with overreaction (calling the Prime Minister ‘a coward and a psychopath’) is a matter of opinion. However, immense harm has been done to what is called “co-operative federalism” by the unprecedented swoop on a State secretariat by an agency of the Centre.

To say that the raid was carried out by the CBI on its own without any prompting by the Centre, as if the “caged parrot” under UPA had become a “freed parrot” under NDA, is to mock our intelligence. It is universally known that the CBI is not an independent agency, but a tool of the government.

The dramatic raid cannot be seen in isolation from the recent successful rally of AAP in Gujarat, the Delhi government’s preliminary enquiry into the DDCA scam involving Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, AAP’s scathing attack on the Modi government for the Delhi slum demolition resulting in an infant’s death and Kejriwal positioning himself as a foil and an alternative to Modi.

That the probe agency was looking for documents relating to the award of contracts by Rajender Kumar from 2007 to 2014 in the Delhi CM’s office instead of offices of VAT and IT, central government wings is not only mystifying, but lends credence to Kejriwal’s charge that the raid was meant to spirit away files relating to DDCA scam. The perception that the BJP undermines and subverts democracy could prove to be suicidal for the party, if it is not reversed.

G David Milton

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

It appears the CBI is conducting searches not on its own but at the behest of the ruling government. The CBI should function in a manner, totally independent of the government. Eyebrows would definitely rise if biased and selective approach is adopted by the CBI. Vazhatur Raghavan

Bengaluru

Air fare scare

This has reference to the news item “Steep fare scare: blame it on the market” (December 16). Airline companies fix charges for domestic and international flights on their whims and fancies, which is explained away merely as ‘competitive rates’. During the festive and rush seasons it has become a routine practise of the airline companies to increase the fare steeply without reason.

During Onam and Christmas, these companies fleece employees in Gulf countries who celebrate festivals with their family. They say they charge competitive rates.

Yet, in the same flight, a person might have paid, say, Rs 4,000 for Kochi-Mumbai and another Rs 9,000-12,000. Indian Railways is starting ‘dynamic pricing’ of tickets. The worst affected will be the common man. Oil prices have fallen drastically and yet the government has not passed on the benefit to the people. They keep increasing excise duties.

N Krishnan

Poonithura, Kerala

IPL big bucks

India’s limited overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and star one-day player Suresh Raina emerging as the pick of the players in the IPL auction was on expected lines. Ajinkya Rahane and Ravindra Jadeja have also done well to pick up big purses.

However, the current season of the IPL will be robbed of its charm with the absence of top sides, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals who are serving a two year ban. Let’s hope the two new sides Pune and Rajkot rise to the occasion and entertain the crazy and fun loving cricket fans.

NJ Ravi Chander

Bengaluru

Taxing issues

On August 11 and October 3, your paper reported Alphabet Inc will replace Google as the publicly traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all the same rights. Now on December 16 your report says this conversion will attract capital gains tax under the Indian tax laws. This is absurd. Google shareholders had no option to continue to hold Google shares neither an option to reject the Alphabet shares in lieu of Google shares.

BS Iyer

Bangalore

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