In the column Rajat Kanta Ray (December 21) "Ten men of the millennium", I found his list of al time greats more attractive than thelist for the millennium. However, I would have preferred to see a slightly modified list of all time greats which include the following: (1) Buddha) (2) Valmiki (3) Vyasa (4) Ashoka (5) Shankaracharya (6) Akbar and (7) Gandhi (all included in R K Ray's list plus (8) Aryabhatta (9) Chanakya (10) Nehru (not included). - P V Rajeev, New Delhi
India at WTO
APROPOS THE letter "Battle in Seattle" by G D Jasuja (December 15), I am sure most of the readers would fully endorse the views expressed by him. His two observations are very pertinent. The first one is regarding Inda taking a deeper look into the US-China WTO Agreement and he other is regarding India to eb cautious in relying only on the so called knowledge based industry in promoting economy and paying due attention to the manufacturing sector.
In our country there is a tendency to join the band wagon without giving any serious though to the pros and cons of any enterprise. It is perhaps due to lack of opportunities. Ours is a country where the Government is by the people for the VIPs only. - P C Sharma, Bhopal
Tax interests
It refers to the much-awaited decision of Union and State governments to have common rates of Sales Tax throughout the country - eliminating all types of unhealthy tax-concessions given by some sates to attract extra trade! But while implementing the policy, the procedure of impositioonof sales tx may be rectified in such manner that assessed tax may be calculated on basis of net price paid by the consumer instead of levying the tax separately in the invoices. Consumers' psychologyis to avoid `extra' of any tax on price of a commodity, which results in unaccounted sales which means loss of revenue! For nstance, an items priced at say Rs 100 with Sales Tax rate of 4 per cent will be sold at Rs 104, all the thre figures ae separately mentioned on the invoices. But my is sugestion is that only onefigure of the net price, here Rs 104, be printed on the invoices. Assessing authorities may assess Sales Tax to be collected as 4 per cent of Rs 104. Then only the consumer will not pay extra in the name of `local taxes extra! States will get extra revenue through Sales Tax. States must not discourage use of credit-cards by imposing extra tax on purchases makde through credit-cards which Maharashtra has wrongly done. Rather purchases made through credit-cards, cheques etc. should be encouraged to avoid unaccounted sales. - Madhu Agrawal, Delhi "description" content="">
