Bangkok: India has stopped working in a routine, bureaucratic manner as the country is undergoing transformative changes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a group of influential business leaders while hard-selling his government's economic reform initiatives.
Inviting Thai business leaders to invest in India, the prime minister particularly talked about initiatives to reform India's tax regime and said his government is now starting face-less tax assessment so that there is no scope for discretion or harassment.
The prime minister was speaking at an event to mark golden jubilee of the Aditya Birla Group's presence in Thailand.
In today's India, the contribution of the hard working tax payer is cherished. One area where we have done significant work is taxation. I am happy that India is one of the most people friendly tax regimes. We are committed to further improving it even more, he said.
The prime minister said it was the best time to be in India and that many things such as foreign direct investment, ease of doing business, ease of living and productivity are rising while tax rates, red tapism, corruption, cronyism are on a decline.
All of what I have said just now makes India one of the world's most attractive economies for investment. India received 286 billion US dollar FDI in the last five years. This is almost half of the total FDI in India in the last twenty years, Modi said.
The prime minister also referred to India's dream to become a five trillion dollar economy.
When my government took over in 2014, India's GDP was about 2 trillion dollars. In 65 years, 2 trillion. But in just 5 years, we increased it to nearly 3 trillion dollars, he said.
The prime minister arrived here on a three-day visit on Saturday to attend ASEAN-India, the East Asia and the RCEP summits.
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Bhatkal: The Karnataka unit of the All India Ideal Teachers Association (AIITA) has welcomed the Karnataka government’s decision to strictly ban school children from dancing to obscene songs during educational and cultural programmes in government, aided, and private schools across the state.
AIITA Karnataka State President M. R. Manvi congratulated the government for taking what he termed an important step to preserve the sanctity of education.
“Such decisions to safeguard the dignity of school children and uphold the values of education are the need of the hour. This rule should not be limited to government schools alone but must be strictly implemented in all private educational institutions as well,” he said.
He further urged the government to address other concerns within school programmes.
“The government should not only prohibit obscene dances in the name of school anniversaries, but also ensure that plays and dialogues that incite religious hatred are avoided. Schools should be centres of harmony, not platforms for spreading hatred,” he added.
According to a recent circular issued by the Department of School Education and Literacy, obscene dances are adversely affecting the mental health and moral values of students.
In this regard, schools have been advised to use songs that promote nationalism, positive thinking, the greatness of Kannada culture, and value-based traditions instead of inappropriate content during programmes.
The circular also emphasises that students should be dressed in decent attire.
AIITA also backed the department’s warning that disciplinary action would be taken against head teachers if such guidelines are violated. The association has further demanded that district Deputy Directors of Public Instruction strictly monitor the implementation of these rules.
