Monday, August 22, 2011

Imam Bukhari did you take money from Congress ???

I had anticipated this but was surprised that this view was not expressed for last 2 - 3 days. Actually I felt happy that Muslims have started identifying with the anti-curruption movement without bothering about these "small" issues. But I guess the happyness was short-lived :-(. Or Congress succeeded is BUYING Imam saheb.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bukhari-calls-stir-anti-Islam-tells-Muslims-to-stay-away/articleshow/9690525.cms

This is just WRONG. This is Mr. Bukhari's interpretation of Islamic text. How can any religion, for that matter anybody "condone" or not-allow worship of the "mother" ?

I would love to believe that all my Muslim friends say -- "enough Mr. Bukhari", we do not want to follow "your" interpretation of Islam because it is subjective based on who gave you money...

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

STOP "meal vouchers" like Ticket Restaurent, Sodexo, etc

Consider the cycle:

  • Employer has to buy these Meal Voucher from companies like Sodexo, by paying a commission.
  • Employee has to use it for food purchase. Many employees bring food from home. So these Meal Vouchers are being used to buy things from Malls / Shops.
  • By law these Meal Vouchers should be used only to buy food items but many Malls / Shops accept for buying soap, perfume, brooms, etc. I mean for almost everything.
  • Now the shop guy has to collect these Meal Vouchers & return it to the company like Sodexo to get his money back. Sodexo charges him commission.

Now think again ? Who benifited the above transaction ? Employer ? Employee ? Shop / Mall owner ?

  • No, only companies like Sodexo. They got comission for circulating the Meal Vouchers from end-to-end.

I was in Ranikhet, Uttarakhand last week. No IT company there. But I was shocked to see a few shops with the sticker that they accept Meal Voucher !

LIC has started a policy. Every employee who come to office before 10:30 AM gets a Meal Voucher of Rs. 150/- for that day. If an employee comes late, he / she looses the mean Voucher for that day.

  • Athey crazy ? There are some 3000+ branches of LIC all-over-india.
  • Is this a plan for companies like Sodexo to spread their business to all small towns ?

Mind it ! This has become a BIG BIG economy in all metro cities like: Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, etc.

  • Neighborhood "kirana" shops have started charging 6% comission if you have to use the Meal Voucher.
  • Or you have to go to the neareast Big Bazaar by spending Rs. 50/- for Auto to use the Meal Voucher.
  • Now Big Bazaar knows that you will be using Meal Voucher & has increased the price of the items to adjust for the comission that Big Bazaar has to pay to Sodexo.
  • You & me, we end up paying extra so that Sodexo makes money.

But the entire issue has a simple solution:

Income Tax India rule shoudl be amended saying Rs. 50/- per meal is tax exempted & thus every employee should get additional tax exemption of Rs. 3000/- per month or Rs. 36000/- per year.

  • Is this very difficult to calculate while we calculate our yearly tax ?
  • Same way, the employer also gets its 5% tax exemption in the yearly calculations.

THINK ! How much of paper will this country save ? How much of "waste" of money will we save ?

SUPPORT this & help me to spread the same. Pass this to ALL your friends.

Next -- an on-line petition to Finance Minister asking him to review this policy. If this does not work a PIL in Supreme Court of India.

Lets FIGHT & STOP this "waste" !!!