Jobs creat by small firms, not tycoons, says Rahul
Davangere: Blaming the note ban and a flawed GST for the country's economic slowdown, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said jobs were created by small and medium companies and not by the country's top industrial tycoons.
"The Congress believes that jobs are created by small and medium companies and not by top 15-20 firms run by tycoons, who have direct access to the country's Finance Minister and Prime Minister," he said at an interaction with traders and small businessmen in Karnataka's textile town here.
Gandhi is on a two-day visit to the southern state for participating in the fifth leg of the party's 'Jan Ashirvada Yatra' to seek the people's blessings for victory in the May 12 Karnataka assembly election.
Claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a very simplistic vision of the world, he said the former thought small traders were bad while income tax officials good.
Accusing the BJP-led NDA government of using the Goods and Services Tax (GST) scheme as an instrument of oppression than of freedom, Gandhi said the new indirect tax regime was envisioned to have one slab, exempting goods and services used by the poor from it.
"But the GST we have is completely different from what was envisioned."
Regretting that the Modi government viewed the informal sector as an evil, he said the country should utilise its strength, as the bulk of business in India was informal.
"Digital economy can harm or help the country, depending on how policies to utilise it are framed," he told the traders at the meeting.
Noting that the people's voices were not being heard by the present-day political system, Gandhi said top companies, however, had open access to it to change or tweak the law to suit their interests.
"When the Congress returns to power after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, I assure you that the people will have access to the system again, because we believe policies should be made in consultation with the people and not with an individual," he reiterated.
Recollecting that former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan had advised Modi not to demonetise higher currency notes, Gandhi said the Finance Minister, Chief Economic Adviser and the Union Cabinet were unaware of the sudden move to ban the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
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Rajasthan tanker fire: Death toll rises to 19 as man succumbs to burns
Jaipur (PTI): The death toll in a tanker-fire incident in Rajasthan has gone up to 19 with another man succumbing to his severe burn injuries at the Sawai Man Singh (SMS) hospital here on Thursday.
SMS hospital superintendent Dr Sushil Bhati informed that one more death was recorded on Thursday, taking the total number of fatalities in the horrific incident to 19. "Currently, 11 people are undergoing treatment at the hospital," he said, adding that two or three of them are likely to be discharged on Thursday.
Lalaram (28), who died on Thursday, had 60-per cent burn injuries and was on a ventilator. Three more patients are on ventilator support. The body has been shifted to the hospital's mortuary for post-mortem. Lalaram's friend Ramavtar said the victim was a security guard in an IT company at the Mahindra SEZ. He was on his way to work on a motorcycle when he got trapped in the fire.
"He had a morning shift that day. He was a resident of Sanganer but had shifted to the Kanota area on the Agra highway sometime ago. He was on a motorcycle when the incident happened," Ramavtar said.
The victim was unmarried. Three people, who sustained injuries in the incident, died on Wednesday. An LPG tanker collided with a truck on December 20, sparking a massive fireball that turned a stretch of the Jaipur-Ajmer highway into an inferno. Eleven people had died on the day of the incident and four had succumbed to their injuries subsequently.
