1.Marriage through Matrimony Site/ Newspaper Advt ? --- say -- Never. Why ?

1.Marriage through Matrimony Site/ Newspaper Advt ? --- say -- Never. Why ? 

In and around Kolkata 70% of the marriages arranged through newspaper advt, are facing break down within 1 year. Wife lodges criminal cases under 498A. Police arrest the entire family of husband. Finally compromise is done for Rs 10 to 25 lakhs for withdrawing the case. If the marriage is not properly matched the entire family is affected. Many people are victim. 

If you are an unfortunate husband or his family member (like me), you will suffer the following cases by the wife. 

1. Section 498A of the IPC (arrest of entire husband-family, without bail) 

2. Domestic Violence Act 2005 (against male in-laws with maintenance and residence) 

3. Section 125 of Cr PC (endless maintenance) 

4. Civil suit with maintenance. (All the 4 cases may go simultaneously.) 

Therefore follow the following suggestion. 

GUIDELINES FOR ARRANGING MARRIAGE 

1. Avoid arranging marriage through Matrimony Site/ Newspaper advt, because a marriage without negotiation by responsible third party is risky. 

2. Avoid arranging marriage through marriage negotiation agency / bureau, because they do not take any responsibility (third party) of post-marital adjustment or problems. 

3. Marriage with unknown family, without social link is dangerously risky. 

4. Prefer arranging marriage through traditional matchmaker (ghatok). He is responsible to both the parties. His role is crucial in adjusting two families. 

5. Marriage within your distant relatives or wellknown family is less risky. Because, other relatives will take responsibility in time of problem/ crisis. 

6. Both groom and bride should be same political party. It is more important than caste. Arrange it only through responsible Third Party (ghatok). 

I am not against women. They also suffer a lot. So think about the suggestions and forward.

2.A Humanitarian Appeal 

The Indian government has been enacting peculiar and peculiar laws which are in contradiction with the Natural Justice. Many such laws are also contradictory with the existing laws and the legal system of the country. Find below a list of such inhumanitarian and irrational laws. 

1. Section 498A of Indian Penal Code (arrest of entire husband-family, without bail) 

2. Domestic Violence Act 2005 (against male in-laws with maintenance and residence) 

3. Section 125 of Cr PC (endless maintenance) 

(Wife may lodge all the 3 cases simultaneously. 

4. TADA, POTA, etc. 

Under section 498A the police arrest the entire family of husband without any cognizable (visible) evidence of crime. Husband-wife dispute is jurisdiction of Civil Court across the civilised world. Even women (myself) are also sufferer of these un-social Laws. 

In no other civilized country the state authority has converted familial (civil) disputes into cognizable crime and subject to police action. Such a law is result of irresponsible legislation of the state authority. 

Even Folk Laws of Tribal community or Muslim Shariyat Law (with due respect) is far less cruel than the modern secular law of India. 

Now marriage has become risky. Many women (in WB) ruined and destroyed their Husband by misuse of Section 498A. If any problem they are making full use of laws. 

As the former Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan has apprehended that in future there may occurr a revolution against the legal and judicial system of the country. 

NB--Send your opinion. Forward the matter to your friends. Join the campaign. 

Posted By : pritha ghosh Professional Aid at NGO Consulting

Scope of the Terms of Reference of the Expert Committee Headed by Dr. Parthasarathi Shome on Gaar Expanded to Include all Non-Resident Tax Payers Instead of Only FIIs

The Standing Committee on Finance has presented its report on Current Economic Situation and Policy Options to Parliament on August 30, 2012. The Committee has inter alia found that the investment climate in the country has suffered serious setback and investors confidence has been hit mainly because of the concerns over the impact of retrospective tax laws and new General Anti Avoidance Rules(GAAR). The Government had constituted an Expert Committee headed by Dr. Parthasarathi Shome on GAAR on July 13, 2012. The Committee has now submitted its draft report, which has been placed in public domain on September 1, 2012 for seeking suggestions/opinion of the various stakeholders. The Government had earlier on August 6, 2012 also requested the Expert Committee to examine the applicability of the amendment on taxation of non-resident transfer of assets where the underlying asset is in India, in the context of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) operating in India purely for portfolio investment. It has now been decided to expand the scope of the Terms of Reference of the Committee to include all non-resident tax payers instead of only FIIs.

Teacher's day is special at Hidesign!

CHIEF OF THE ARMY STAFF TAKES OVER

AS THE HONORARY COLONEL OF RASHTRIYA RIFLES

New Delhi : Bhadrapada 10, 1934

Friday, September 01, 2012

General Bikram Singh, Chief of the Army Staff today took over as the Honorary Colonel of the Regiment of Rashtriya Rifles. On this momentous occasion, Lt Gen Rameshwar Yadav, Director General Rashtriya Rifles felicitated the Army Chief on behalf of the entire Rashtriya Rifles fraternity. In a brief ceremony, the DG RR presented the Rashtriya Rifles Banner, Colonel’s Baton and Regimental accoutrements to the Army Chief in his office.

Rashtriya Rifles was raised in 1990 as a special force to combat militancy in Jammu and Kashmir when the insurgency was on increase and the state govt requested for assistance from Army to control the emerging security situation. During their deployment for over two decades, the Rashtriya Rifles has brought about near normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir through their blood and sweat. More than 1500 Officers and Jawans have laid down their lives in the line of duty in order to ensure safety, security and integrity of the nation. Rashtriya Rifles Force has proved to be the cutting edge of the Indian Army and is known for its dedication, commitment and selfless service to the nation.

The Army Chief has served as a Sector Commander in Rashtriya Rifles in Kashmir Valley during the peak of insurgency and has number of operational successes to his credit. He was also severely wounded during one such operation. Subsequently, as a Corps Commander in Jammu & Kashmir, he had two divisions (Counter Insurgency Forces) of Rashtriya Rifles under his command.

The Director General Rashtriya Rifles assured the Army Chief that the Rashtriya Rifles would continue their endeavours to improve the situation in Jammu & Kashmir and ensure that the Rashtriya Rifles banner always flies high as a symbol of the indomitable Rashtriya Rifles spirit. 

Kolkata needs to plan its water future the right way – says study by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)

The city must think differently – ask its rich water-using population to pay, recharge its groundwater systems, and build on the strength of its tanks and lakes

· Excreta Matters, CSE’s 71-city study on water-sewage management in Indian cities released in Kolkata by West Bengal governor M K Narayanan and Union minister of state for urban development Saugata Roy

· Report says over-use of groundwater has resulted in a vacuum, drawing in pollutants and sea water. Already contaminated with arsenic and other heavy metals, so judicious use is called for

· East Kolkata Wetlands are the crucial kidneys and must be protected from ‘development’

Kolkata, September 1, 2012: Kolkata needs to do its utmost to protect the East Kolkata Wetlands. Without these amazing wetlands, the city will drown in its own sewage – says a report from the New Delhi-based research and advocacy body, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Titled Excreta Matters -- the 7^th State of India’s Environment Report – the study was released here today by the West Bengal governor, M K Narayanan and the Union minister of state for urban development, Saugata Roy.

Excreta Matters, which analyses water and sewage management in 71 Indian cities including Kolkata, says the East Kolkata Wetlands need to be protected from ‘development’ since they are Kolkata’s crucial waste disposal systems. The wetlands save the city an estimated Rs 400 crore a year in water treatment costs, handling 810 million litres a day (MLD) of wastewater.

They support nearly 40,000 people, helping them produce over 8,000 tonnes of fish annually and 150 tonnes of fresh vegetables every day. They are also important for Kolkata’s drainage through an intricate system of canals.

Swamped by sewage

Says Sunita Narain, director general, CSE: “Kolkata’s current sewage system is inadequate to deal with the wastewater production as well as the rainfall that the city receives. The system has been designed for a rainfall of 6 mm/hour, but it has been found that 60 per cent of the trunk sewers in the city’s core area are silted up. Most of these are more than 150 years old. The pumping system is in a similarly decrepit state as spares for older pumps are not available.”

There are just three sewage treatment plants (STPs) with a combined capacity of 125 MLD. What remains to be treated is really gargantuan – it has been estimated variously at 1,100 MLD (municipal corporation) and 734 MLD (Central Pollution Control Board).

To handle this sewage and reduce water-logging during monsoons, the Asian Development Bank and the Government of India have signed an agreement. As part of this, the city has prepared a sewage master plan for 2035 with a budget of Rs 9,152.3 crore. This covers a wide range of measures such as release of excess storm run-off load into surrounding water bodies, increase in pumping capacity of the main pumping stations, replacement of sewers etc.

Says Nitya Jacob, programme director-water, CSE: “The city sewage master plan recognises current limitations as it has used modeling to pinpoint problems and suggest solutions. However, it takes the tried and trusted approach of more pumps and pipes. We would have liked to see much more about wetland conservation in the plan as well as decentralised sewage treatment. This would ensure the wetlands are protected for the future and sewage is treated and used locally.”

Struck by scarcity and contamination

The city gets around 1,100 MLD of water from the Hooghly and groundwater, says the CSE report. The peripheral areas are dependent on groundwater since the water supply system covers about 85 per cent of the city -- but 35 per cent of this water is lost. A large chunk of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area is served by tubewells. An estimated 1,070 deep tubewells (as per official estimates) provide 603 MLD of water. Unofficial estimates place the number of tubewells at over 6,000.

However, groundwater is seriously contaminated with arsenic and has a high concentration of iron. Iron deposition reduces the carrying capacity of the pipelines. Since 1985, studies have indicated a steady fall in groundwater levels.

On top of this, points out Jacob, excessive groundwater withdrawals have drawn in polluted water and saline (sea) water in central and south-central Kolkata. Additionally, groundwater is getting polluted by industrial effluents and domestic sewage as the channels to convey sewage have silted up over time.

The way forward

The key, says Jacob, is to understand the geography of the city, which is located almost at sea level. The city’s challenge is, firstly, to ensure drainage of its water and to take measures so that stormwater does not get mixed with sewage. For this, it has to protect its wetlands and lakes as these are both the sponges of the city as well as its kidneys.

Secondly, in all this, instead of building capital-intensive STPs, which will require money for electricity to pump the sewage and to treat the waste, the city will do well to improve the effectiveness of its biological treatment zone through new innovations to provide oxidation of water and more flow.

Thirdly, the city should segregate its waste – sort out the domestic from the industrial and chemical discharges. This is because the wetlands can treat the biological contamination effectively, but will fail to get rid of its chemical and heavy metal wastes.

Fourthly, and most crucially, the city will have to improve its distribution of water and the systems to take back the waste. Kolkata wants to do this thoughtlessly. It believes it has funds from the ADB and this will buy it its water future. But nothing can be further from reality. The fact is that Kolkata has low (perhaps the lowest in all metros) cost of water delivery. It also has poor people who cannot afford much more. It needs to ensure that the systems of the future build on this strength.

Says Narain: “Today, Kolkata is not delivering to all. Even where it delivers, people dig deep into the ground and abstract more and more. The city must reform this. It must ask the rich and water-using population to pay, it must insist on recharge of its groundwater systems – it has enough rain – and it must build on the strength of its local tanks and lakes, which allowed it to recharge every monsoon. All in all, the city has the opportunity to showcase a different water-waste future. But this will require it to think differently and to dream differently.”

Billion-euro whistleblower

El País Madrid

Hervé Falciani is the 40-year-old computer technician who provided several European governments access to files listing the names of the thousands of their citizens evading taxes via bank accounts at HSBC's Swiss affiliate. Arrested in Barcelona in late July, he is awaiting extradition to Switzerland. Excerpts.

Manuel Altozano

He did not have to look far to find them. They were there, on his computer screen, the one he worked at for six years at HSBC's Geneva headquarters.

Hervé Falciani was responsible for upgrading client databases in one of the world's largest banks and the information to which he had access in October 2006 was priceless. The data, protected by Switzerland's sacrosanct secrecy laws, concerned millionaire depositers' accounts left to blossom over the course of years thanks to covert transfers and financial flows of doubtful, but untraceable, origins.

Then 34-years-old, the computer programmer had before him the list of thousands of bank deposits of foreign businesses and private citizens, placed safely in Switzerland to evade the tax authorities in their respective countries. It was one of the most significant tax evasion cases ever uncovered.

The following scene took place nearly six years later, in the port of Barcelona. On July 1, 2012, Hervé Falciani went to Spain by boat and an alarm bell went off during an identity check.

Branded a thief

An international arrest warrant was issued for Falciani, who is a citizen of Monaco with dual French and Italian citizenship, is married and has a child. Despite the fact his actions revealed thousands of cases of tax evasion all over Europe and some €10 billion in lost taxes were recovered, Bern considers him a criminal, a thief.

He has been arrested and, now, the Bellinzona Federal Tribunal eagerly awaits his return in order to prosecute him for theft of private data as well as for violation of the commercial secrets and banking secrecy laws. But first of all, Spain has to decide to extradite him.

Six intense years have passed between Falciani's incredible discovery and his arrest in Barcelona. During this time the computer programmer became a fugitive whose worth is measured by the value of the information he has at his disposal. He is a criminal who must be tried and incarcerated, according to those who want to destroy the data. But he is seen a sort of hero, a Robin Hood needing protection, according to those who would like to obtain it. Here is what happened in those six years.

After his October 2006 discovery, Falciani spent part of each work day downloading the suspicious data onto his laptop computer. He did this systematically for two years, without exception.

Arrested

Then on March 20, 2008, the Swiss Association of Bankers, a lobby group for Swiss financial interests, sent out a warning. On February 4, a man calling himself Ruben El-Chidiak, had gone to the Audi Bank in Beirut to negotiate the sale of data containing the names of clients of various Swiss banks. According to the Association, this information was obtained through theft. Banking secrecy laws, the pillar of Swiss identity, was under threat.

The police discovered that Ruben El-Chidiak was really Hervé Falciani. On December 20, 2008, Falciani and a colleague were arrested and questioned. Quickly released, Falciani settled the next day in Castellar, a village on the French Riviera near the Italian border. He was thus poised between the two countries of which he is a citizen. In this way he escaped Bern's clutches because neither France nor Italy will extradite one of their own citizens. Switzerland continued to request his return because it wanted to recover the data downloaded by Falciani, who, according to the prosecutor and HSBC, is guilty of theft.

Switzerland then issued an international arrest warrant for him. Yet, during this desperate pursuit, the Swiss authorities committed a serious error. They asked the French authorities to search Falciani's house, to seize his laptop computer and to send them his archives.

Tax treasure trove

On January 20, 2009 the French Nice assistant prosecutor called for a search of Falciani's family home. The routine operation turned into a remarkable find when 130,000 accounts of alleged tax evaders were discovered. The prosecutor opened an investigation, which is not aimed at the programmer but at the holders of the said accounts.

Word of the Falciani case got out and sparked a diplomatic crisis between France and Switzerland. Bern accused France of illegally keeping the stolen data. The government of [then-president Nicolas] Sarkozy for its part, threatened to have Switzerland added to the OECD Tax Haven Black List.

The media got hold of the case in August 2009. The French Budget Minister, Eric Woerth, announced that he had a list of 3,000 holders of Swiss bank accounts but without revealing the origin of the data. He asked that account holders make themselves known to the tax authorities in order to legalise their situation. This prompted 4,200 people to come forward to the tax authorities and France recuperated €1.2 billion in unpaid taxes.

The few names revealed in the French press led to a series of scandals, in particular the case of Patrice de Maistre – financial manager for Liliane Bettencourt, the main shareholder in cosmetics giant l'Oréal – as well as the cases of the heiress of Nina Ricci perfumes and of Jean-Charles Marchiani, a close associate of a former French Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua. Meanwhile, Switzerland continued to pressure France into handing over Falciani's laptop computer.

Caring is sharing

Paris finally agreed to the request in February 2010. However, before doing so, the prosecutor sent copies of the files, if they requested them, to all the countries with which Paris has tax cooperation agreements.

On May 24, 2010, the information communicated by France was already being studied at the headquarters of the Spanish tax office. The officials asked suspected tax evaders to turn themselves in and to pay their due, plus a fine. The amounts recovered in Spain thanks to the information downloaded by Falciani currently represents the most significant tax recovery operation in the history of the tax office. According to unofficial sources, more than €6 billion were recovered. The list contains powerful people such as Emilio Botín, CEO of the Santander Bank.

Other great names appear on the list sent to Italy. That list of 6,963 people includes fashion designers Valentino and Renato Balestra. In all, the Italian Treasury recovered some €570 million thanks to HSBC's Swiss accounts.

Motive mystery

There is still one remaining mystery. What were Hervé Falciani's intentions in downloading the files to his laptop computer? Did he wish to see justice done and to blow the whistle on the fraudulent practices of his company, as he has claimed from the beginning, or did he simply want to sell the data for a considerable sum of money as the Swiss justice department maintains? One can also wonder if Falciani has additional information and if he can still be useful in investigating further wrong-doing.

Just two weeks after his arrest, the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations published a report on the lack of control at HSBC regarding money laundering.

The list of Hervé Falciani's enemies – which already includes the Swiss department of justice; HSBC, one of the most powerful banks in the world; and thousands of tax evaders – may have to be expanded to dangerous criminal groups such as Al-Qaeda and Mexican drug cartels. He is conscious of the value of the information he holds. He knows that a headlong rush is his only option. 

- Umesh Shanmugam

SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACH Europe GmbH – New Top Management

Susanne Peiricks takes over the function of CEO of SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACH Europe GmbH as from 1 September 2012. In this position she is responsible for all activities of the 18 European distribution companies of SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACH Europe GmbH.

After her training as a wholesale and export commercial employee and studies in business administration, Susanne Peiricks began her steel career with Klöckner as General Manager of two Italian subsidiaries. Since 2002 she has been with the SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACH Group as Director of Sales Controlling and Marketing. In addition, Ms Peiricks was already COO of SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACH Europe GmbH since 2009.