the bane of the ban!

I had a lively discussion with a friend on the issue of banning the sale of cigarettes. I am a smoker and he is not. His argument was that this was a fair law because people are still being allowed to smoke after paying taxes.

I had a different view. Firstly, alcohol is the bigger killer causing not only causing health issues to the person drinking it, but it causes social problems and domestic violence. Alcohol should therefore also be restricted and similar law be implemented, if the concern is for the health of the citizen. Focusing on issue of smoking itself, first question that comes to my mind is that, knowing the ill effects of cigarettes, why are we the only country in the world banning smoking? Is it because of the lobby groups in the countries? If thats the case, there are many eqaully small countries where lobbying groups dont have commercial interests. how come we are the only ones banning it? The answer is simple and straight forward. This infringes on individual rights, which sensible legislators will never dare delve into. Infringing on individual rights is nothing different that what the Taliban did in Afghanistan in requiring women to wear burkhas and men to keep beards.

I think the responsibility of the government is in educating the people about the ill effects of smoking and effects on others as a result of passive smoking. Citizens should have the right to decide on their own whether they want to smoke or not. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The extreme measure of banning smoking, although with a good intent, the danger is of setting a precedence, whereby the Government starts to look into the micro affairs of individual citizens, and curtailing their right to exercise their freedom.

I think the government can do a lot more on curtailing corruption, which is the biggest ill of any society, and will kill even the most vibrant society. This aspect, the government will not look into, because of the many linkages, and because of being possible beneficiaries themselves. Extreme measures, if at all necessary, but be on the bigger ills of the society and not on show pieces which affect the individuals. Think about it!

Update : 200 pieces of ciggrate a month, translating into les than 7 ciggrates a day with a receipt validity of one month. Beat this! is this anything less than saying dont smoke? Why not just explicitly say no smoking to everyone in Bhutan! this kind of tactics is very sad. Let see how the high ranking smoking officials are monitored and how will a tourism and aid dependent country entertain foreign dignitaries and tourists who smoke. C'mon, Lets get real!

The ability to fade away!

They say there is always a time and place for everything. Let me extend this reasoning to what I am trying to convey here. There are many well known faces here in our country, past and present, who have laudable achievements and hence are legends in their own rights. Well, thank you for what you all have done, and like it or not, its time for a new generation to take a shot at making history and casting their names on stone walls. Its time that the icons of their time know, they have had their time and now its time to fade away.

I write this inspired by His Majesty the fourth King, who has lead a very iconic life and whose contributions are many and now is leading the way in showing how to fade away. All of us have seen how little we see of him although we desire to see and hear more of him. His Majesty is showing that there is a new king and there is where all the focus should be. There are time like the Bumthang tragedy, where the present king was not in the country and his Majesty the fourth king has stood up to the call of a grieved nation. Our respect and love for the the Fourth king grows immensely everyday for his ability to do the right thing at the right time. He has not succumbed to the petty human need of recognition and public attention whether deserving or not.

There are many today in the public service who realize that their time has come and gone and yet they hang on. I wonder whether they realise that their selfishness is a cost the nation causing inefficiency and breeding negatives work cultures. Its time to move on and let the nation be served by people who should! Thank you but goodbye

Something different to what i do ususally!

I was recently invited to be in a panel to review some degrees in a college. This gave me a inside look into the higher education system of our country. I came out of the review appreciative of the hard work being put in by the college and more importantly surprised ( and a little scared) of how many of the futures of young children lay at stake for want of some decisions and because of the holy cows that had to be protected at any cost.

The first issue i saw was in whether we wanted to conform with the larger generally accepted understanding of degree brands or whether to invent a degree brand perception of our own. This was important especially between two degrees of almost similar course content but different names. Who would not like to be an inventor, a creator? The bigger question in my mind was, would creating a different brand perception not lead to confusion in the job market? The job market is being bombarded with graduates from different countries with the same degree name. I have no doubt in my mind that these graduates from different countries come with different levels of skill sets and competencies. God forgive me for this, but in the consideration of the holy cows, my vote went for creating our own country specific definition of the degrees being offered. This, in my opinion, was the best decision possible, given the situation. We would now have two degrees clearly differentiable for someone with deeper information on the degrees. For the sake of conveying this information to the job market, the specific majors on their degree certificates is expected to provide indicative information on a graduates skill sets.

The second issue was again of the need for differentiation. It is blasphemous to put it lightly, to give graduates the same degree for courses pursued diligently for differently periods of time. For the expected additional skill sets and competencies expected to be gained after spending additional year in college, there has to be a clear differentiation which the job market can easily know from the degree certificates. The job market has already become sensitive to differentiating between honours and non-honours courses. I am happy to say this issue has been resolved beautifully, with the additional recognition provided with an early exit option keeping in mind the duration of courses of other countries where our graduates come from.

The third issue. Ours is a small country. No publisher would see sense in comming out with text books specific to the syallabus prescribed for our degrees. For the development of the student, the course is made as rich as possible, which often means that a single available book in the market doesn't generally cover all the topics. This warrants heavy details in the syllabus, to ensure that courses don't change with change in lecturers, and different college don't approach the same course differently. Many topics taught remain implicit in the syllabus, which would not be covered by other lecturers of the same course. There seems to be elements of laziness and of defensiveness in getting detailed course outlines. I hope this gets done.

On a positive note, the course content seem very rich, and I have no doubts in my mind that, academically graduates from our local colleges would have superior or comparable skill set and competencies with the better colleges in the region.

Vehicle taxation policy

The increase in taxation on vehicles comes as no surprise. It is about time some drastic measures are taken to either limit the number of vehicles plying on the roads or increase the road network.

It is important to first understand that basic vehicles in this era is a utility and not a luxury. It is also important to consider the fact that although major towns like Thimphu and Phuntsholing are getting over crowded with vehicles, vehicles are still a rare sight in other areas in the country.

If the examples in other countries are anything to go by, a 15% to 20% will not at all effect the purchase of vehicles. It might cause a temporary reduction in consumption, after a short while when the increase in taxes is seen as inevitable, the consumption will come back to normal. This is light of the observation that taxation as high as 50% have failed to curtail demand on cars. This could be because vehicles are seen as a necessity especially when there are no reliable public transportation system.

The positive aspect of this increase in taxes might be increase in revenues for the government.

The increase in taxation being proposed is sensible enough to protect public transport and power tillers. However, it forgets the basics of taxation. Tax should be minimal on utility goods while it should be as high as possible for luxury goods. The proposed tax increase doesn't address that fact that some families own more than one car, especially the richer folks. A husband and a wife should be allowed only one car at the nominal tax as it is a necessity. The second car in the family should be subject to luxury tax.

The proposed taxation system does not differentiate between small cars and large cars. This gives a sense that the tax policy has elitist elements to it. Smaller cars are more fuel efficient and therefore will demand lesser fuel. Fuel is one of the highest consumer of Indian Rupee reserves. Small cars require lesser space too.

The large number of huge luxury cars on the road are mainly due to the tax exemption provided by the Government to the civil servants. To reduce the number of large luxury cars which have high fuel consumption, it might be advisable to do away with the tax exemption certificates to the civil servants. This is more so, because the civil servants and the corporate employees now have almost same salaries.

It is important to have a holistic and systemic perspective to change in taxation policies to ensure stable tax system. We would not like to see a change in tax policy today because of increase in number of cars, and a tax change policy tomorrow because the country is spending a major portion of rupee reserves on fuel or to accommodate more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly cars.

A committee consisting of members both from MoIC, Revenue and Customs, other stake holders would perhaps come out with a more holistic change in the vehicle taxation policy.

Friendly theory!

These day's I think I am exhibiting this subtle hints arrogance. I say this, because I have already used four 'I" in two short sentences. Hints of arrogance also because, I have this new drive to write theories, some might call it personal philosophies! Sharing and learning through my experiences! Well here I go! What makes good friends? I have this very special group of friends! The number is fast reducing as life brings takes us through new avenues of work and marriage. Many say that friends are generally people with common interests and outlook! Can good friends also be people who don't share commonalities in outlook and interest but be people who respect boundaries? Good walls make good neighbors, why cant good walls also make good friends? Well, some might say, with a wall, how can there be friends! As a very private person, I think my friendship is centered around people who can lead, respect and enjoy their own lives and still have the time to have a good time with other people!

I end with the theory that, my friend theory doesn't make sense and I stand clarified of my misconception before writing this.

De-motivation

There are many theories explaining motivation and de motivation. It is a science by it self. Interestingly, i realize how even very small and minute things can de motivate a person. I have work in hand and i know i can do it well. I just don't want to do it because of a very small reason. Human .....the most complicated of us all!

Helpnessness!

I am bored, i have grand visions for my self, for family, my company and my country. I bicker about how things could easily be done in a better and more effective manner. I then remind myself that those decision making people can't be so stupid. I then ask myself why are they making the decisions that they are making. Vested interests ? personal gains? family gains ? or is a long term gain which i am not able to understand? Whatever it is, I think the least that any one taking decisions which impacts many should be responsible and that there can be retractions. And, reasons like the infamous "typo" may not be acceptable again and again.

I think a institution or a yearly journal needs to be circulated to show the impact of decisions taken by our policy makes. The right and visionary decision makers need to be acknowledged while the others need to be shown that they need to be more careful