CONCERN, COMPASSION, CONSCIENCE

A LAB JOURNAL OF THE PG STUDENTS OF JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION

COMMUNIQUERs. 5/-

GST, mother of all taxes, is here to stay

People see Aadhaar as inconvenient,

dangerous

Page 2

When Jordan and India come

together:Jordindian

Page 7

Ban on cattle for slaughter affects the

Indian economy

Page 3

Clouds that led to Madhugiri Hills

Page 4

BENGALURU: A 17-year-old dream, the Goods and Services Tax (GST), finally became reality on July 1. The move, it is claimed, will be a great push for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reform for development.

The GST is said to be the mother of all taxes as it looks at replacing all the indirect taxes making possible a smooth economy. Before one seeks to understand this new system and its functionality, one needs to comprehend what is taxation and how it works.

A tax is a contribution by an individual or organisation to state revenue which is imposed by the government. There are two types of tax, direct and indirect. Direct tax something that a person pays directly from his pocket. For example, you earn some income and the government imposes a certain percentage to be deducted

directly from your salary. In case of indirect tax, this is

something an individual pays

through a medium or channel, which means taxes are imposed on goods and services here. For example, you go to a restaurant and you pay a certain amount of tax called, ‘service tax’, ‘VAT’, or ‘sales tax’. Here, the customer ends up paying the tax for the goods or service that has been rendered.

Income tax is the most known form of direct tax. This type

of tax is applicable to both an organization and an individual. There are various tax slabs that

the government decides for various groups. Anyone earning Rs 2,50,000 a year pays no tax, while an individual with an income between Rs 2,50,000-Rs 5,00,000 gets 5% tax imposed on the income and so on.

There is no need to get into direct tax as GST has been implemented for smooth functioning of indirect taxes. It is also expected that GST

will improve transparency in taxation and help build a corruption-free economy

The question arises, why was GST implemented or even thought of? The rational approach by the Central government to implement GST was to streamline the indirect tax regime which means the tax levied on goods (central and state level) will be streamlined creating a common market for all. So if you look at it, a certain tax is levied on value added goods and services at every stage (sale to purchase). Which means a consumer will bear the GST charged by the last service provider and will not pay anything that has to go to the manufacturer. GST here is breaking the barrier between states and it integrates one single rate throughout. Thus a great boost for Indian economy.

(Continued on page 3)

Yashashwini V Rathod

VOLUME-10; ISSUE - 1 ST JOSEPH’S COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS) JULY 2017

BENGALURU: With liquor and petroleum being the big-gest sources of revenue in al-most all the states in India, there have been several attempts to put restrictions on them from time to time by governments.

The recent alcohol ban comes from the Supreme Court’s or-der to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages within 500 metres of National and State Highways.

According to the Karna-taka State Wine Associa-tion, there are around 10,045 bars and wine shops in the state (mostly on highways) and with the recent SC ruling, around 3500 have been closed.

“One of the estimates suggests that almost 40% of the total liq-uor turn out (that is Rs 18,000 crores) of the state has been un-der loss. In order to overcome this loss, the state government is consulting the Law Department for legal opinion,” says Honna-GiriGowda, President of Kar-nataka State Wine Association.

“Though this judgment by the Supreme Court is well intended, it is not very well thought out. The Court has definitely not taken into consideration the already ex-

isting establishments. There are chances that certain influences will try to circumvent the order. Since National Highways come under concurrent list and excise duty under state list, I think both the state and the central gov-ernment should work together in this matter,” opined Tejaswi Surya, State President of the BJP Youth Wing and a practicing lawyer at Karnataka High Court.

The only unanimity of law, when it comes to liquor is an age limit to drinking.

(Continued on page 3)

From biggest revenue to sheer losses: Liquor policyKavya Rathor

Cow protection: A case of misplaced prioritiesRitika Raheja

BENGALURU:Worshipping cows as a motherly figure or ‘Gau maata’ dates back to several mil-lennia and today everything from

cow urine to cow dung is consid-ered holy. People bowing down before a cow in India wouldn’t come as a surprise to many.

Although the cows are wor-shipped by the majority Hindu population in the country, the real question is, why is so-called mod-ern India obsessed with cows?

Ammu Joseph, an independ-ent journalist and an author who

feels there is nothing wrong with cows being treated specially for religious purposes until and un-less they are not used to create

divisions among people. She says, “The fact that it’s no longer

the cow alone that is being used for this purpose but other types of cattle, makes it clear that cow vigilantism has little to do with cows per se. The same peo-ple, who beat up and kill others on the mere suspicion that they may be buying and transporting cattle for slaughter, don’t seem to care that cows in urban areas today are forced to eat garbage.”

(Continued on page 4)

A cow devotee WWW.MOHEET.COM

THE TAX SYSTEM

WHY GST?

2 COMMUNIQUE JULY 2017

People see Aadhaar as inconvenient, dangerousJanci Rani

BENGALURU: The implemen-tation of Aadhaar for every citizen of India by the government has created inconvenience and dif-ficulties for the common people.

Dr. Kshithij Urs, professor at the National Law School of In-dia University, Bengaluru, and the head of ‘Action Aid’ (NGO, working with the poorest com-munities) said “Aadhaar should give security to establish pub-lic hospitals, public schools and serve the people with equality by giving free health and free education. The insecurity and the disadvantage of Aadhaar is the misuse of finger prints. An innocent can be punished by law if his fingerprint is pro-duced in the court of Judiciary.”

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique number issued to every citi-zen to help identify and pro-vide the benefits of various schemes announced by cen-tral and state Governments.

Recently the Aadhaar act was amended. It provides for Aadhaar to be the primary identification tool for services that do not use funds from the consolidated fund of India, such as issue of SIM cards, KYC for opening bank accounts, pension accounts etc.

Reshma, working for the project on Aadhaar in Action Aid pointed out, “Protection for the right to live is denied by Aadhaar. Food and civil supply department of Karnataka has not received legal documents from the government authorizing it to provide the ben-efits that it is supposed to pro-vide to Aadhaar card holders.”

The Supreme Court in one of the orders in September 2013 had said that no person should suffer for not having an Aadhaar Card.

The Aadhaar Card consists of information which is sensitive including demographic (date of birth, place, address etc) and bio-metric (eye scan, finger print) in-formation of individuals So there is a concern over mass surveil-lance of the entire population. Aadhar has created a great amount of inconvenience for everyone, especially the poor. For instance, in Bawani slum, Philo (name changed) said, “It became difficult for us when the ration shops stopped the supply of kerosene and compelled us to apply for Aadhaar. In case the family has no Aadhaar it is dif-ficult even to get LPG. We suffer without fuel to cook in the houses. When my daughter applied for scholarship, she didn’t receive the scholarship because we did not

enroll for Aadhaar,” she added.Advocate Bindu working in Alternative Law Forum, said, “A lot of employed people are denied their benefits because they don’t have Aadhaar card.

Most of the sensitive informa-tion can be disclosed by Aad-haar which can lead to danger”.Advocate Mohammed Afeef, working for the project Aadhaar in ALF said, “Aadhaar was in-troduced as a money bill by the Lok Sabha to curtail the powers of Rajya Sabha. It should have been voluntary. The government is indirectly forcing the people to make Aadhaar as a citizen card.”“With regard to Aadhaar there is no security given by

the government of India to-wards privacy or deposit in the banks. It serves only the pur-pose of identity,” he added.Darshana Mitra, advocate in ALF, said, “We have not en-

tered into litigation with Aad-haar. We are working with a lot of trangenders. They are struggling to get Aadhaar. It is easy to get as a identity card but later on it can cause prob-lems. We are still studying its effects on the people of India.”The Center for Internet and so-ciety (CIS) Executive Director, Sunil Abraham, said, “Aadhaar is insecure because it is based on biometrics. It is becoming a remote technology. High reso-

lution cameras allow malicious actors to steal fingerprints and iris images from unsuspecting people. In a couple of years, government will be able to iden-tity citizens more accurately in a crowd with iris recognition than the current generation of facial recognition technology.”Pranesh Prakash , the policy di-rector of CIS, said, “ The idea of the governent to know about every citizen is important. But to know the citizen fingerprint is not necessary, it becomes unsafe to the UIDAI. The government should appoint special agencies to maintain logs to get informed about the citizens of the country.”“Aadhaar is not an evil, it is use-ful at present. But in the longer-run noone can predict how far people can accept it or how it will be used. The world is highly developed in science and tech-nology. Aadhaar machines can and should be placed in all gov-ernment companies and firms. The biggest problem is that such technology is not working prop-erly in all the places especially in rural areas. All things cannot work correctly until every citi-zen in our country has individ-ual internet connectivity. Only then can Aadhaar have its exist-ence as a document” he added.

People at Aadhaar registration cell WWW.OUTLOOK.COM

FEATURE

New Student Council takes charge in SJCDerrick Alex

CAMPUS : This year it all start-ed on July 3 when the students seeking election to posts on the Student Council of St Joseph’s College began their campaign-ing. The lunch breaks in col-lege resounded with drums, musical instruments and slogans raised by the supporters of the candidates. Posters and ban-ners were stuck or strung up across the college campus like decorations during festivals.

The elections to the Student Council finally took place on July 7. A day earlier, the candi-dates had pitched their prom-ises in speeches before huge gatherings of students in the quadrangles of both the PG and UG blocks amidst cheer-ing and shouting with vying groups of supporters trying to be louder than one another.

The results of the elections were announced on July 7 even-ing in the UG Quadrangle in the presence of Vice-principal of the PG Block, Dr. Fr. Melwyn D’Cunha, Dr. Fr. Richard Rego, Dr. Kiran Jeevan and Dr. Arul Mani who were part of a panel discussion on the results of an opinion poll among students on

the elections. The panel ana-lysed the incoming results even as the counting was going on in the presence of the candidates.

Aaron S. George was elect-ed as the President, Tejaswani M as Vice-President, Charles Joshua as General Secretary, Mayukh Sen as Treasurer and Libin Thomas as Joint Secretary.

Aaron S George, President of the Student Council said, “I am looking forward to work-ing for an inclusive council and for a better tomorrow, that is my goal. We will work together to achieve our goals. Democ-racy is not about taking the impossible and making them possible, it is taking the possi-ble and doing the impossible.”

Charles Joshua Sekar, General Secretary, said, “I have chosen the road less taken and I will not be shaken, to get back the fame which is broken and make the college as most spoken. We will walk as one, and I will fulfil what-ever I have committed myself to.”

On July 14, the elected Student Council members and the rep-resentatives of different classes, associations and sports took their oath in the auditorium in the pres-ence of Chief Guest Sanjay Sa-hay, IPS, who was accompanied

by Principal Fr. Dr. Victor Lobo, S.J and Dr. Joyce D’ Souza, the Student Council Governor. ,. The student council members of

Mount Carmel College, Rewa College, Jain College, Christ College and Maharani Col-lege were invited for the event.

Sanjay Sahay, in his speech, spoke about how people re-trieve things; how they collect data first, store it as informa-tion, then learn from it and gain knowledge and finally it is re-tained as wisdom. He said every

individual who lacks individu-ality is not fit for society. And one must be a good learner as learning is the skill to compre-

hend, assimilate, analyse and then find solutions to problems.

“Show your mettle to be a lead-er and be cumulative so that you will be able to give to the commu-nity. As part of the Student Coun-cil, prove yourself,” said Sahay.

Dr. Arul Mani from the De-partment of English spoke to The Communique about the history of the Student Council elections

at SJC. “Till 1947 we did not have a elected union as the gov-ernment would not permit any unions. In 1947 we had the first elected union, M.Y. Ghorpade was first elected President and he later joined politics and became a Minister in Congress. We did not have elections during the Emergency period (1975-77). Till 2001, elections kept happen-ing we had a Union. In 2002 we had our last union and from 2003 it became a Council and it was a kind of indirect representation where in the class representa-tives had to elect the Council, this arrangement was in place till 2011. From 2011 we moved back to and elected council, and in the first couple of years it took a lit-tle while to start up again, there were no nominations for some of the posts. We have had girls who would stand for some of the posts in our history but, having said that, we really do not know why very few women come forward.”

Dr. Richard Rego, S.J said, “There was an electrifying at-mosphere in the college as what they see on the television chan-nels of the State Assembly and Parliament elections they were witnessing right in college.

The Students’ Council leaders WWW.FACEBOOK.COM

JULY 20173 COMMUNIQUE

Ban on cattle for slaughter a blow to the economyShiji Abraham

BENGALURU: The Central government ban on the sale of cattle for slaughter at animal markets across the

country has affected various sectors of the Indian economy.

Both the leather industry and the butchers suffer because the slaughter of cattle is not allowed.

Muhammad Rafi, Supervisor N& Z Leather Industries said, “We do not have much problem with the cow slaughter ban. We import leather from China.”

According to leather industry statistics, 2.5 million people are employed in the

industry. The annual revenue generated from Indian leather footwear is $300 million.

J. Sarvanan, Manager, Leather Hut, said, “I am a Hindu and it is uncomfortable for me to

sell leather items made from skin of the cows. It is true the ban has affected the industry and the prices have gone up.”

“We have not yet faced the difficulties due to the ban on cow slaughter. We are importing the leather from Italy. Quality wise Italian leather is superior but it is expensive,” said Varun Raj (name changed) Manager, Baron Leather.

According to the Department

of Animal Husbandry annual report for 2016-17, the share of cattle meat in the overall meat production is only five per cent. Buffalo meat constitutes 23 per cent of the total meat production. .

In Karnataka, Chief Minister K Siddaramaiah stated “It is not mandatory to follow every notification which comes from Centre as this is a state issue”.

G.M Riyaz has owned his own beef stall at Johnson Market for the past 52 years.“Lakhs of people are working in this industry and they will lose their jobs, if they make it mandatory for all the states.” The new definition of cattle will affect the share of buffalo meat in the market too.According to a 2016 US Department of Agriculture report, since the late 2000s, India’s exports of beef, water-buffalo meat, a cheaper, lower-quality meat—have expanded rapidly; making the country the world’s largest beef exporter. The meat industry employs over 22 lakh people in the country. “Two months ago, the chicken price was Rs 90 and it came up to Rs155 per kg ” said, Syed Muzammil Pacha, a poultry dealer at Shivaji Nagar.

Liquor bans cause greatlosses to State exchequerIshitaTripathi a student of biote chnology from Delhi, presently pursuing Master’s Degree in Zurich, Switzerland, says, “I had to sneak into bars or ask my guy friends to get me liquor when I was in India. In Zurich, I have seen people with a healthy attitude towards alcohol. I have even found people drinking in public transport and in my two years of stay I haven’t come across many cases of violence due to alcohol.”

Article 47 of the Indian Constitution states that the state

should ‘endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health’.

One of the greatest uprisings against liquor consumption was

seen in 1992 in Andhra Pradesh. when hundreds of women united to protest against sale of arrack, to which the menfolk were addicted.

The production and sale of alcohol is a state business. So, the excise department in different states have respective policies. Gujarat has strict prohibition under Gujarat Prohibition Law, 1949. Whereas, in Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) enjoys a monopoly over the sale of IMFL. .Likewise in Kerala, alcohol is sold only via the Kerala State Beverages Corporation. Last year, Bihar also made it to the list of dry states. “We were given the license to carry on the business (of bottling and supply of country liquor) for a period of 5 years, with an informal assurance that the license would be further renewed in next two years. Suddenly, the Government said that it was about to enforce a complete ban on liquor. It was a major blow to the business and the officials sealed the factory. We could not claim damages. We moved the honorable court for the release of the machinery and to get the site opened. The case is still pending. We still pay the rent for the site to its owner,” said Devesh Jaiswal, one of the partners with Gobus India, Patna.

(Continued from page 1)

G.M Riyaz at his beef stall, Johnson Market SHIJI

Liquor bottles crushed OUTLOOK.COM

(Continued from page 1)

Saurabh Jain, an entrepreneur in the finance industry said, “Initially state and central government used to charge different tax rates but now with the advent of GST the parliament session came to a conclusion that neither state nor central government should lose their revenue stream and hence that taxes are divided 9% each between CGST and SGST” .

With the introduction of GST, bills now carry ‘CGST’ and ‘SGST’ on our bills now. Here both the central and state government have been assigned with certain fiscal responsibilities and thus had their own tax rates that they levied, but now considering the Indian federalism both central and state government shall impose 9% tax under GST.

One needs to know what CGST and SGST currently means. ‘CGST’ would mean the tax levied on supply of any good and service which is the revenue for

the Central Government, the tax that comprise this structure are excise, service, additional tax. The collection of ‘SGST’ means

tax levied on supply of goods which is revenue for the State Government. Taxes like VAT, entertainment, luxury and entry tax are merged under this tax.

Tyagraj Sharma, a business journalist and professor at St Joseph’s College, Bengaluru, briefly explains IGST. He said, “CGST and SGST are intra-state movement tax under GST.

There is another tax, the ‘IGST; which means integrated goods and service tax. This tax is levied on supply of goods and

services that happen between two states which is levied at the same rate of 18 percent”.

The implementation of GST, it is claimed, will boost the Indian economy and create a common market for all taxpayers. Saurabh

Jain says, “As government has widened its base with GST collection, more and more goods are coming under GST, revenue

collection for government will go up, hence GDP of country is expected to grow by 2-2.5% in coming years which is definitely a good sign for Indian economy”.

Also, the bright side of GST is that luxury cars will be cheaper, and so too movie tickets.GST has made its impact in many sectors in India. Nishant Rathore, CA at Bell Ceramic Ltd

said, “The idea behind GST was to boost the economy. There were different tax rates in each state making it impossible for foreign investments, because money matters to the investors. Now with uniform rates, a foreign company can trade or supply with any manufacturing state in India.”Petrol, diesel and alcohol were few of the components that the states agreed not to add under the bill of GST because they generate close to 40% revenue for the state. With the implementation of GST, which means no entry tax, the state saw a steep fall in the price of petrol by Rs 3 right after the bill was passed (prices varied from state to state).Nishant added, “Petrol has been a cash cow, whether the state wanted it or not, GST has slashed entry prices everywhere.” “If you look at it, any legislation will have its pros and cons. When you compare the pros and the cons in GST, the pros are higher than the cons. We say that it’s a beneficial taxation because ultimately the prices are going to go down. Definitely not now, but after six or nine months, we will feel the impact”, added Nishant.

The pros and cons of GST as a ‘boost’ to the economy

CGST, SGST. IGST IMPACT ON ECONOMY

FEATURE

Impact of GST WWW.WIONEWS.COM

4 COMMUNIQUE JULY 2017FEATURE / EDITORIAL / TRAVELOGUE

Protecting cows by attacking humans(Continued from page 1)

The initial cattle slaughter ban clearly defined ‘cattle’ to include cow, calf, bull, bullock, buffalo, heifer, camel and steer. Majority attention was given only to cows, even though the ban included other animals. Media too played a role by instigating and in turning the ‘cattle slaughter ban’ into a ‘cow slaughter ban’. This led to violence, lynching and vigilantism particularly against Muslims and Dalits. Mahalakshmi Parthasarthy from Citizen Action Forum says, “This is a law and order problem. It is a clear sign of political hegemony and groups like Bajrang dal and other Gaurakshaks think that they can get away. Every religion has its own vigilante groups but this issue needs to be tackled with strong political muscle if it has to end. Media should focus on the actual issue and understand that its not always about deadlines or getting bites.” There have been many vigilante groups seeking to enforce bans on cow slaughter by violent means under the covert protection by the BJP. Ammu Joseph says, “Analyses of recent cases have shown that the primary victims are from Muslim communities, while some Dalits have also been targeted. There isn’t any mystery

over why these communities are being singled out. Apart from caste and creed based animosity, there is an economic angle as well, an effort to make it impossible for them to continue

with trades that they have traditionally been associated with and in which some of them are well-established.”According to a research conducted by IndiaSpend, 2017 is forecasted to be the worst year for cow-related violence with Muslims and Dalits being prime targets. The cow vigilante attacks have risen since the BJP has taken over because they are in favour of the majority Hindu population of the country. The times are such that cow vigilantes don’t give a second thought before killing another human often falsely accused

being related to any cow related issue. Today, cows’ days have an Adhaar card like unique identification number and special ambulances at their disposal

whereas hundreds of people in India die due to lack of facilities under the health sector.Mrs. Priyanca M Velath, HOD, Political science, SJC says, “The fundamentalist attitude of the ruling political elite has led to a dangerous overlap between religion and personal spheres. We are living in an absurd time where human beings are being valued less and animals are being valued more. How else can we explain utter terror of living in a time when man kills man for an animal like a cow, when the penalty for not respecting an animal is death?”

Centre-State relations hit by language divideRitika Raheja

BENGALURU: After the 1947 freedom struggle, India became the union of states. The demand for having different states on linguistic basis began even before Independence and in the post-Independence period political movements gave rise to the creation of linguistic states.

States which were divided on the basis of ethnicity and languages was a strategicmove. Off late, regionalism is making its way to the top of the list taking over the idea of one nation one identity or ‘Akhand Bharat’. It has emerged from the clash between modern and medieval ideas.

Considering the diversity in cultures and practices across the country, uplifting and protecting one’s own ethnicity or linguistic identity, reflected in the state one belongs to, is not wrong. But the question is, it fair for the state government to use regionalism as a political tool by imposing it on almost every area? And the counter is, whether it is fair on the centre to impose a language north of the vindhyas in the south?

Although Hindi is sought to be imposed by the BJP-led government, the Karnataka government is backing primacy for the vernacular, which is Kannada.

A huge and aggressive debate has come to the fore around the issue of Hindi being the national language. Hindi and English are only the official languages of the Government of India according to the Official Languages Act of 1963. Does this allow the government to impose the language on state governments?

As the BJP expands, many states like Karnataka are viewing this as strong centralisation of power and, in response, state regional parties are using state and linguistic identity to push back Hindutva and its Hindi agenda. The Karnataka Government is currently under pressure from the various quarters to give Kannada the prime status and is well on its way for doing so.

For example, the Kannada Development Authority has exerted influence over the BMRCL to ensure that no Hindi signs are displayed at Metro stations. The BMRCL decision was taken following public protests to get rid of Hindi signage in the Metro. Those who support Kannada as the primary language are now demanding that Hindi be driven out of use in the railways stations, banks, hospitals and other such spaces.

Karnataka has also mooted the notion of a separate state flag. This is a reaction to the forces of Hindutva imposing Hindi in the south but the greater danger is that the Hindutva linked idea of nationalism is seen as a threat to state identity.

Identity was never the prime concerns of states because it was understood that it is protected via the Constitution and it shouldn’t even be at present, because India has a thousand other issues to deal with rather than playing political cards.

The Siddaramaiah led government has made Kannada mandatory from class 1 to 10 in all CBSE and ICSE schools. In Karnataka, languages were never compulsory in schools but there was always a choice to take it up as an optional course. This move is an unpractical one as students who have never learnt the language will find it extremely hard during their board exams.

Along with the moves to get non-Kannadigas to learn Kannada language comes the demand to sing the state anthem. Does singing the state anthem or the national anthem actually arouse patriotism or love for one’s own state or country? And can love of state or nation be enforced? Can love for a language that determines identity also be enforced?

COMMUNIQUE

A LAB JOURNAL OF THE PG STUDENTS OF JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION

CONCERN, COMPASSION, CONSCIENCE

It pays to propitiate the cow with appropriate rituals WWW.PATHEOS.COM

A vertical climb to Madhugiri HillsDerrick Alex

It was a day trip to Asia’s sec-ond largest monolithic hill lo-cated in Tumkur District and a town named Madhugiri where the single hill stands with a fort on top. Madhugiri hills in Tumkur district is about 110 kilometres from Bengal-uru and a nice place to trek in.

The name Madhugiri means Honeybee Hill because of the prevalence of bees in those times.

Sunday was cloudy with grey skies and we did not want to risk going on motorcycles and risk getting stuck in the rain.

After entering Tumkur dis-trict, we had to travel an-other 30 kilometres from the main highway to reach the hill which is located near the KSRTC bus station in Tumkur.

Driving closer to the hill, we experienced an optical illusion that the hill was moving far-ther away from us. It looked like a big rock which had no route to the top. As we entered the Madhugiri fort’s main en-trance we decided to have only four stops while climbing to the top of the hill with the fort. To start with, the path seemed level with a pavement laid with

stones that seemed like stairs and then it got much steeper. After we covered 10 per cent of the distance, we noticed the series of doorways were made of big stones, there were carv-ings on the natural stone walls.

There were large boulders and granite cubic stones that made the huge stairs. And there were spaces for weapon place-ment after every doorway cross-ing for the safety of the ruler of the Kingdom and his soldiers, the temples on the was fort are built by the Vijayanagara feu-datories in the Dravidian style.

There is a Hanuman temple towards the right of the Kaly-ani with circular dome-like structures on either side which were used to store oil, ghee and

honey. On the left was a huge structure where they used to hoist the flag of the Kingdom.

This was the point where the actual trek began where the path became almost verti-cal and there were rods in place

to hold on to and climb up.Small carvings had been made

in the rocks under your feet so you would not slip and fall. And then one reached the Kothigonda where lots of monkeys were seen resting and climbing the walls of the doorways. The higher we went the hill became steeper.

The whole trek took three an half hours as we stopped to talk to people learn more about the place and take some pictures.Madhugiri Hill was a place worth discovering and conquering.

Madhugiri Hill DERRICK

5 COMMUNIQUE JULY 2017

GST through the eyes of the tradersArthuha Talukdar

BENGALURU: People are confused about the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).The tax has been divided into 4 parts, which is 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. The highest rated tax, i.e. 28% will be applied white goods such as washing machine, air conditioner, refrigerators, etc. The implementation of these taxes will be same across the nation and is supposed to benefit everyone - manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and inter-state traders. Different types of traders and shopkeepers had different views. Some are holding back from commenting while waiting for the new rate lists to come, some are already upset about getting less income and some are nonchalant.According to a mobile recharge shop owner, “Customers are not coming to shops so much. The customers are coming and wanting to pay bill according to new tax. But they are refusing to understand that the new rate list hasn’t come yet and the implementation

of it has not started.”Prakash Choudhary, owner of a

general store, said “If we see the rate list, plastic has been charged with 28% tax. Perhaps, selling

plastic products will not get us profit like before, as with every product we are losing 20 to 30 rupees unlike before. Even the production of the product in the factory has reduced due to which, we are not getting enough stock.”

Prakash Kothari, owner of an electrical appliance shop said customers are coming and purchasing products like before. He too is still waiting for the

new rate list of their products to arrive by the end of July.

According to a medical shop owner, Amarnath, “In the beginning, the availability of

the products was quite less, but now it is fine. The rate list has not come yet. So I am not facing trouble as everything is fine for me,” he said.

Pradeep Das, President of Contemporary Brokers Pvt. Ltd, in Guwahati said “There are lots of problems that are occurring as we have to do a lot of documentation. Before we used to directly buy tea from

the tea gardens and bring it to the factory, but now even while they are sending it, they need to issue a challan for it. The issuing itself takes a lot of time,” he said.

“There are certain parts such as Kachar, which is in Assam, but when the supply has to come to Guwahati, it has to come through Meghalaya. Therefore, while crossing the state border also there are various documentations to be done, and to look into the process of documentation work, the company had to hire a few people,” he added.

Nitin Sethi, senior associate

editor at Scroll, said “The retailer now has to find the right requirement monthly. For larger retailers it may be easy, but for shopkeepers, it may be difficult. All these are short term disadvantages, which may get resolved later. Principally, the cost of the commodities should have gone down but the retailers will not agree to that and eventually the customer might end up paying more than what they were paying before. If we look back into history, when other country had introduced the GST, for a year or two, the prices in the market had gone up a little bit but later it was fine.”

“Products like petrol and diesel are out of taxation as the rates keep on changing. Companies are saving a lot when it comes on paying the toll charges and as it has been taken off, it benefits them when they have to transport goods to other states. Previously a lot of money used to be invested there,” he added.

The situation at the ground level seems very complicated at the moment but everyone is keeping their fingers crossed that things will get better as GST is implemented properly.

FEATURE

Kavya Rathor

BENGALURU: Indians are a‘forgive and forget’ type of society. Forgiveness is good. If resentments and hatreds are harbored, it can lead to self-damage. But, the past should not be forgotten. If the roots are overlooked, the future can never be appreciated in true sense.These were the views of Dr Shashi Tharoor, MP, Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He was speaking at Mount Carmel College on the topic, ‘Colonialism has left our shores, but not our imaginations: Where are we heading?’ on July 22. The British should atone for what they have done to Indians by acknowledging and accepting their wrongdoings, and their expression in lieu of their wrongs could come in the form of a simple apology as ‘sorry’, a word, which they left behind without saying it, he insisted.

Dr Tharoor spoke about his latest book, ‘An Era of Darkness’, where he has mentioned the atrocities done by the British during their rule in India. To begin with, he referred to the loot gathered by Robert Clive after the Battle of Plassey. Clive gathered as much gold, jewels, money, or whatever he could find and won

himself the title of ‘Clive of India’. Many such acts led to an economic drain from the country.

Another aspect of brutality was how the British behaved during the famines. Instead of

the concept of charity, which was very commonly believed in and practiced, the British applied three arguments to deal with the situation – laws of free market, the Malthusian principle of nature decimating populations, and fiscal prudence.

The implementation of such principles led to the deaths of thousands of people. Eventually when the British reluctantly started to help in form of work camps, the conditions were

awful. The rations provided in the work camps were lower that what Hitler’s Nazis gave the Jews in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

“I gave you these two examples

out of dozens in order to illustrate the peculiar problem we have in coming to terms with the colonial legacy,” opined DrTharoor.

e made it evident that the main motive of the British in India was, no doubt, money, and as much economic gain as possible. But, in their defense, the British have always cited the example of the railways and how it has helped India. In reality, Railways was brought in quite deliberately with a motive to exploit

resources from the interiors and to send them to Britain. It was also used to transport soldiers. Everything else was incidental, Dr Tharoor said.

Tharoor led the session by

calling the departure of the British as the ‘shambolic Brexit’ of 1947. The British deliberately created communal consciousness as a part of their divide and rule policy, which culminated in the partition of 1947. At the eve of independence, the country was left with almost 90 per cent of its population at a level Below Poverty Line, with only 16 per cent literate and a life expectancy of 27 per cent.

“This was the colonial legacy

and we mustn’t forget it. We had been squeezed dry and left when they could no longer hold on to us. Now, from there we have built up a society, with many flaws, but with tremendous success and progress since 1947. This is something democratic India was able to do unlike colonial Britain,” pointed out Dr Tharoor.

But has colonialism left Indian imagination? “In a curious way it has, and in a curious way it hasn’t. It has in the sense that none of us, including me, is particularly bothered about British colonialism anymore. Of course, most Indians that I know harbor no resentments about the British. But at the same time, the colonial legacy does haunt us because a lot of what we are today is either a consequence of, or a reaction to, what the colonial period did to us,” said Dr Tharoor.

He noted that the relationship between India and Pakistan was a consequence of British policy.

“There is, in our contemporary life, a number of consequences that we are still living with and therefore, colonialism cannot exit our imaginations. Now, I don’t seek reparations because you can’t really quantify the value of damages done by Britain, the money drained from our economy,” claimed Dr Tharoor.

Tharoor wants Britain to atone for colonialism in India

Shashi Tharoor WWW.MENSXP.COM

GST rate infograph WWW.CLEARTAX.IN

6 COMMUNIQUE JULY 2017

Sisak: India’s first silent LGBTQ film speaks volumesDeepika Lobo

BENGALURU: Sisak, In-dia’s first silent LGBTQ Film, Written and Directed by Faraz Mariam Arif An-sari starring Dhruv Singal and Jithin Gulatiis set in the environment of Mumbai’s busy local train system. It shows the silent romance be-tween two men, experiencing a comfort at the end of the day in their train journeys.

The film starts with the scene of a man sitting in the train who waits for another man every evening whom he seems to like. It is later seen that both the men like each other but aren’t able to express it as ho-mosexuality is illegal in India.

Produced by Aparna Sud and Futterwacken films, sound design by the National Award Winner, Pritam Das and music by Dawal Tandon, the background score which adds to the plot of the film.

“Sisak is an Urdu word which means a cry that is stuck inside your chest that is unable to come out. My mother came up with the title. This was in December when

Supreme Court went back on section 377. I was in Nainital and was writing my first fea-ture film. It wasn’t a thought of process to make the India’s first silent LGBT movie. It took me three years to actu-ally make it. I wrote it in 2013 and shot it last year and took 9 months for the post produc-tion but the film was shot in only 6 hours.” Said Faraz Mar-iam addressing the audience.

When asked as to why he chose to make a Gay ori-ented film and not a Lesbian oriented film, Mariam said “I think the best person you know is yourself. It was a per-sonal film. I don’t know if I would have been able to make justice as I couldn’t get into their minds and make a film.”

“The film has won 9 in-ternational awards. Sonam Kapoor, Bollywood actress has launched the trailer. She lost three major advertise-ments from three well-known brands because she was looked as someone who’s supporting LGBT.” He added.

Sharing one of his person-al experiences Mariam said “There was an instance when

I was at Bombay Airport. A random man shows up with a glass of water in his hand and he throws the water in my face and said ‘tum gay log ko jail me dal dena chahiye’ (you Gay men should be jailed). That is why it is important to keep making cinema that goes out and starts a conversation because that is the only way to change this battle. This is not going to happen by sit-ting in a room and going on face book saying you are go-ing to change the world.”

Ansari is currently work-ing on a feature film named Surkh which is about an In-dian man who is a Lawyer and a Pakistani man who is associated with the army and struggle to get their visa. He is also planning a campaign called cinema on wheels where he would take Sisak to villages and around Pun-jab, western India, south India and east India if time permits.

He also runs a foundation called‘Gift a meal’ and all the children from this foun-dation have watched the film and Ansari believes now they are aware and have be-

come sensitive to issues like this. The film is going to go through the Censor Board in December as he would be try-

ing for the National Award. The film has already won sev-

eral awards in various interna-tional spaces like the Boston LGBT Film Festival, Best In-ternational Short Film, DIGO, Best International Screen-play, @DIGO, Festival inter-national de Diversidade, etc.

Knowing the fact that ho-mosexuality if not legal in a

country like India, it express-es how one is afraid to face the society. Going through this private experience in a

public transport like the train itself is depicted beautifully.

Sisak can make one feel the film without it having any rel-evance in their personal life. Here love is not expressed and left unspoken but Sisak strongly believes that love knows no bounds and true love doesn’t discriminate.

Music and cycling drive Zo Hass to successArtuha Talukdar

Zo Hass is the founder of the band Zo hass Experience. He gives opportunity to young talent to perform. He doesn’t have per-manent band members right now, but he tries giving opportunity to people whom he finds talented and helps them by providing them with a platform. This band prefers playing acoustic pops and is an uprising band at the moment. Zo Hass has experience for about 20 year in the field of music. He’s a guy with multiple talents. He sings, composes, goes on tours on cycles and even is working currently in Bangalore. Since when have you been into music and what inspired you?

When I was young and my dad gave me my first cassette. It was of Christmas carols and I was only three year old back then. My father was an inspira-tion for me because his choice of music was good, starting with the Beatles, all classic 60s and many more. Though, I didn’t play any instrument back then, his music was always a part of me and that inspired me. Now I play guitar, piano and bass. What inspired you to sing and

compose in different language?For a long time, I was play-

ing only English songs. Every-one says they like to travel and I am no exception. But I used to travel in my cycle. I use to go to small villages and towns and meet people there. Once, I was travelling to Sikkim and I was stuck in a place and it was a cold winter night in late Novem-ber- December. I didn’t know the language properly back then. There I was given shelter by a guy, who became my friend lat-er. The only common thing that I could talk to him about was music. He showed me his musi-cal collection, which was all in Nepali and some Bhutia songs also and I liked it a lot and re-alised that the language may be different but the music is same.

Where did you learn all these languages and how many lan-guages do you know?I speak in Assamese, which is my mother tongue, and other than that I speak Hindi, English. I don’t speak the other languages fluent-ly but I know little bit of Nepali, Garo, Naga, Mizo and Bengali. Actually I think that to learn a language I guess, learning songs of that language is a good way.

How long have you been here in Bangalore? How does the crowd here react to your multilingual music?I have been here since 2004. Back

in the day, when I was in college what happened was out of 10 bands 9 bands would be metal bands, so even if you played the worst music you get noticed. That’s what happened to me. I started playing in 2005 and only way to play back then was going to the college competition, where 9 out of 10 bands played metal, but somehow we used to get no-ticed. Our music was rock and roll. Now Bangalore has more open culture. A lot of bands are playing different types of music,

so I primarily played the Blues, Soul and Folk. But I tried to mix it up not only with English but other languages like Assamese, Hindi and Nepali. The crowd

actually gets intrigued when I sing in other regional languages. The last time I played in Blue Frog for the World Music Day, they came up to me and wanted to know about the songs that I sang. That is the type of general recep-tion that I get now a days. People are more open right now and they want to listen to music other lan-guage. So yes, it has been great. How did you get into cycling?When I was in my home town, there was a bike called Hero

Honda CBZ and it was all hype that time. There were not many superbikes or imported bikes in India then. When I passed 10th my father said “We will give you a bike.” I scored good marks in the boards and approached them for a bike, but they gave me a cycle. Then in 12th they said the same. I passed 12th also with pretty good marks and then again they gave me another cy-cle. So, it is not like I wanted cy-cle, they were just given to me. I started to do serious cycling a couple of years back. I got den-gue and wanted to do something better than just die in the bed, and I thought why not just cycle. Every weekend I try to do a trip. I do short trip as well as long distance trips too. Some of the memorable trips were Bangalore to Kolli hills, Sa-lem, Yercaud, and Goa. Banga-lore to Ooty and back was one of the most memorable trips.The most memorable trip was where I had to do 7 days of cy-cling. It was from Guwahati (Assam) to Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh). It is like 500 to 600 hundred Km, in the hilly mountaineer. It was the most memorable because we sur-vived two or three landslides.

Faraz Mariam Arif Ansari WWW.FACEBOOK.COM

MOVIE REVIEW / INTERVIEW

Zo Hass performing at Humming tree ARTUHA

7 COMMUNIQUE JULY 2017

Jordan and India come together as ‘Jordindian’Deepika Lobo

BENGALURU: Two friends, one from Jordan, Naser Al Azzeh and one from India, Bengaluru based, Vineeth Kumar, joined together to make some videos and thus the journey of Jordindian began. Naser Al Azzeh is a dancer, specialised in B Boying, an aspiring actor and film maker. Vineeth Kumar, also known by his stage name ‘Beep’ is an emcee, a beatboxer and a TV host. These twoYoutubers currently have 90,000 subscribers on Youtube.

So how did the Jordindian meet?

Naser: We first met back in college during our PUC in CMR National PU College. I was talking about Russel Peters to some classmates who had no idea who he was and Beep(Vineeth) was the only one there who knew him, so we connected. We have been friends ever since. We are also a part of the same dance/Beatbox crew called Black Ice Crew.

How did it all start?Naser: We consumed a lot of

online content and it was already a part of our lives. We kept having our own takes on public matters and things we saw around us but never put it on camera. We saw

something funny; we laughed about it and moved on. Until we started coming across pathetic content online with no taste whatsoever. What hit us the most was such videos had millions of views and people just consumed them blatantly. So one day we just decided to start a channel to make at the most 3 videos for just family and friends just to see if we could try and make them laugh. It’s been a year now and here we are 50k followers stronger.

How does it feel to have a verified account on Facebook?

Naser: Well, we never expected to get this far, so having a verified account does feel pretty good. But what’s better is the love and support that we get from all around us.

Where do you get the ideas from for your videos?

Vineeth: Both of us have been very observant as people. We pick things out which we see on a daily basis. Like for example let’s say we see a public bus, we pick 10 funny things about it. That’s how we have always been. Naser: India is an incredible place to get ideas from.

Do you’ll follow a particular script or go with the flow?

Vineeth: In the beginning we

never really had a particular script. But now we kind of write stuff down so that we don’t forget

what we are about to shoot once we are on the set. Right now there is a team we have to work with so we can’t afford to not have a script but we do improvise the script on spot. We work with a production house called Do. Creative Labs, a film production company. They play with the visuals. Especially Sahith, who takes up the role of a DOP and helps us out with colour bleeding and stuff.

You’ll have currently taken this as your full time job. How

is it going?Naser: I think this is more than

a full time job for us. We have

way too much on our plate. We have quite a few meetings with clients. Scheduling the shoots takes a couple of days as we have to figure out the locations as well. Vineeth: We wouldn’t afford to do this if we currently had some other job as we keep working on ideas. This i a very conscious decision that both of us took because we had our own careers but we made this decision because we knew if we don’t give it a shot now we couldn’t give it a shot later as we

would have more responsibilities as time goes by. We just thought we’ll dedicate 6 months to it and now we are one more year down. The first six months we didn’t take it seriously but then we got serious. It takes a lot of time to understand what you’re dealing with. Unlike television where other people who do things for you, here you have to do everything and upload it by yourself and then wait for the response. We are more serious with our videos now and that’s a good thing for us.

You recently attended the YoutubeNextUp at Mumbai. How was your experience?

Naser: Twelve channels all around India were selected to come under one roof. It was a one week camp.Vineeth: It was more like a grooming process because at the end of the day, we are their clients and when they see potential, they want to make sure that we use it in the right way. Naser: We learnt a lot of things about Youtube. We met other Youtubers like Rishab, Larissa, Snake Charmers and so on. It was a Youtube space that shared the campus with Whistling Woods University. Some of the students actually recognised us and came up to us for a picture.

Jordindian WWW.FACEBOOK.COM

INTERVIEW / RESTAURANT REVIEW

First-ever garage-themed cafe a big draw in CityRitika Raheja

BENGALURU: If you’ve ever wanted to walk out of a place with a latte in one hand and keys of a Porsche in another, Driven Café is the place for you! This

new garage themed café has made its debut in the City and is hardly a month old.

Located at Residency Road, Driven Café is the first garage-themed café in the City and it also offers self- driven cars and bikes. The moment you enter the place, a whiff of freshly brewed coffee lingers around you with some old school rock music that’s not too loud.

At Driven, the interiors are decorated with top notch sports

bikes, street bikes and cruisers. The place is what a typical old school yet contemporary garage would look like.

The furniture is made of wood, comprising a variety of seating options like high chairs, vintage

car seats, sofas and round-mod-ern bar stools. They have also made use of a car chassis as a ta-ble which is located right in the centre of the spacious café.

None of the walls are left with-out details. While some have pic-tures of vintage cars, others have old wooden frames with quirky coffee quotes and biker pictures. Other stuff like tool boxes, tyres, metal chains, helmets and leather jackets have been used to add to the detail.

Ashwin Jain, Owner, Driven who wishes to offer an exclusive experience to their customer said, “We believe that Hyderabad and Bengaluru are twin cities where both encourage entrepreneur-ship. While Driven is still true to its existing business, with Driven Café we wish to create a young and lively atmosphere because people deserve more.”

The café begins functioning as early as 4 am and is open until 1 am, the renting happens throughout 24 hours. The menu offers a wide range of beverages like lattes, cappuccino, espresso, lemonades, milkshakes, black iced coffee, bubble teas, kettle teas, hot chocolate and hot cof-fees. Visitors can also have fla-vour add-ons to their choice of coffee like hazelnut, caramel, butterscotch, saffron or almond. An average visit for two people with coffee and snacks would cost approximately Rs 600. Their beverages are priced between Rs 60 to Rs 175.

With limited choice of snacks available, they are also planning to have a kitchen that offers other varieties of food items as well. Adarsh Devan, a customer who feels the quality of the beverages

could be improved said, “It’s a cool place for motor heads, as a car and bike enthusiast myself,

I enjoyed being in an ambience of super cars and classic bikes. They could plan on offering free rounds too.”Some of their special beverages include the lychee almond lem-onade which at first is a burst of fizz blended with lychee fla-vour with a mild after taste of al-mond. They also have something known as the Death Wish coffee with extremely high caffeine content that can keep you awake for really long! Other coffee spe-cialities include the Luwak and Burundi Kavazza. For someone who loves tea, there is the ev-ergreen masala chai and the Su-laimani chai which is famous in

Hyderabad. Driven is originally a self-drive car and bike rental start-up

based in Hyderabad that has also moved to Bengaluru four months ago and also launch a café with the same theme. Their fleet of rentals include cars, bikes and bicycles. Their car fleet includes hatchbacks, SUV and super cars that include Ford Mustang, Volvo S 60, and Volkswagen Polo etc. In the bike segment they offer street bikes, sports bikes, cruisers and tourers that include Aprilia SR 150, Har-ley Davidson, Triumph Thunder-bird Storm and the Himalayan. The charges range from Rs 799 to Rs 24,999 for a car for an hour and Rs 1,200 to Rs 4000 for a bike.

Ashwin Jain and Karan Ahmed Taher WWW.TEAM-BHO.COM

Car chassis used as a table at Driven Cafe WWW.ZOMATO.COM

Staff Editor: A.V. Varghese ; Student Editor: Ritika Raheja, Sub Editor: Yashashwini V Rathod;Reporters: Artuha Talukdar,Deepika Lobo,Derrick Alex, Janci Rani, Kavya Rathor, Ritika Raheja, Shiji Abraham, Yashaswini RathodPublished by the PG Department of Communication, St Joseph’s College (Autonomous), P.O. Box 27094, Lalbagh Road, Bangalore-27

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in Communique’ belongs to individuals and do not in any way reflect the opinions of the faculty or the managementWebsite: www.sjc.ac.in Feedback: communique@sjc.ac.in

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