SC open to liquor sale on city highways
‘Chandigarh administration’s move to de-notify certain roads does not violate orders’
•The Supreme Court on Tuesday prima facie observed that there may be nothing wrong in de-notifying particular stretches of highways running inside city limits as city roads and such de-classification does not violate its order that national and State highways across the country should be liquor-free zones.
•A Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud orally observed that the purpose of the December 15, 2016 prohibition on the sale of liquor within a distance of 500 metres from the outer edge of national and State highways was to prevent drunken driving on high-speed thoroughfares.
•The observations came during a preliminary hearing on a petition filed by NGO Arrive Safe Society challenging the Chandigarh administration’s move to de-notify certain roads in a bid to “circumvent” the December 15 ban.
•Chief Justice Khehar remarked that traffic inside city limits is usually slow and heavy, and stretches de-notified fall within the city limits.
•“Roads in question do not normally see high-speed traffic. The goal of the liquor ban was to prevent drunken driving in fast-moving traffic. The pace of traffic with the city is very different from traffic outside city limits. Purpose of the ban is to avoid drivers getting inebriated while driving on highways inter-linking cities,” Chief Justice Khehar said.
•The court has scheduled a detailed hearing for July 11.
•The indication from the court may spell future relief to hotels, pubs, especially in the metros, which were forced to shut down following the ban.
Widespread relief
•The relief is palpable among these establishments as the court had in March 2017 clarified that the ban was not restricted to just liquor shops alongside the highways but also to other larger establishments, including pubs and hotels.
•The court had said exempting establishments other than “shops involved in sale of liquor" — which include bar-attached hotels, wine and beer parlours dotting highways — would amount to dilution of its December 15 judgment's objective to prevent drunk driving, one of the major killers plaguing Indian roads.
•“The pernicious nature of the sale of liquor along the national and State highways cannot be ignored. Drunken driving is a potent source of fatalities and injuries in road accidents. The Constitution preserves and protects the right to life as an over-arching constitutional value,” the clarification order had observed.
Centre may partially lift AFSPA
•The Centre is considering partial removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, a senior Home Ministry official said. The Ministry has asked the two BJP-ruled States for their views on AFSPA withdrawal and said that it was open to reviewing the stringent law in other States like Manipur. There was no proposal to withdraw it in Jammu and Kashmir, the official said. “We are waiting for the State governments’ comments and will take the final decision once they reply. In Arunachal Pradesh, we are looking at complete withdrawal, except two districts in the east bordering Myanmar and Nagaland,” Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home told The Hindu .
•The AFSPA gives powers to the Army and Central forces deployed in “disturbed areas” to kill anyone acting in contravention of law, arrest and search any premises without a warrant and provides cover to forces from prosecution and legal suits without the Centre’s sanction. It is effective in the whole of Nagaland, Assam, Manipur (excluding the seven Assembly constituencies of Imphal). In Arunachal Pradesh, it is in force in 16 police stations and in Tirap, Longding and Changlang districts bordering Assam. Tripura withdrew AFSPA in 2015. It is not in force in Meghalaya (except 20 kilometre area along Assam border) and Mizoram.
‘Make registration of marriages compulsory’
Law panel bats for women’s protection
•The Law Commission of India has recommended compulsory registration of marriages to protect gullible women who become victims of fake marriages.
•In a report submitted to the Centre, the commission headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice B.S. Chauhan, said the lack of provisions for compulsory registration of marriages had proven disastrous for women and deprived them of societal recognition and legal security.
•“Fraudulent marriages are on the rise especially among non-resident Indians. Compulsory registration can serve as a means to ensure that conditions of a valid marriage have been performed,” the commission recommended.
Minor amendment
•It said a minor amendment to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, including a provision for compulsory registration of marriage, would serve the purpose.
•The commission clarified that there was no need to amend any of the personal laws of religious communities.
SC ruling
•The commission pointed to a 2006 ruling of the Supreme Court in Seema vs Ashwani Kumar that said marriages of persons who are citizens of India belonging to various religions should be registered compulsorily in their States.
Bill tabled in 2012
•In 2012, a Bill was tabled in Parliament to amend the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, to provide for compulsory registration of marriages.
•The Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha in July 2013, but could not be taken up for consideration in the Lok Sabha.
•It lapsed on the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha in 2014.
Allow deposit of old notes, Supreme Court tells Centre
“It is harsh if you close all options for genuine persons”
•Cautioning the government against depriving genuine persons of their hard-earned money and property, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Centre cannot close all options for such persons.
•It should open a window for them to approach the authorities to prove that it is their money, the court said.
•“It is harsh if you close all options for genuine persons who were unable to deposit their [demonetised] notes within the stipulated period,” a Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and D.Y. Chandrachud told the government, represented by Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar. “If I am terminally ill and could not deposit my money, I should be given an opportunity now to approach you and establish my facts and prove that it is my money... You can’t just deprive me of my money because I am terminally ill,” Justice Khehar said, addressing Mr. Kumar.
•“You are taking away my money because I am terminally ill? Citizens are facing problems and you are there to solve them. If not, serious problems will arise,” Chief Justice Khehar orally observed.
Affidavit filed
•Mr. Kumar said the government had already filed an affidavit explaining why the period to deposit demonetised notes was restricted.
•The Centre restricted the grace period till March 31, 2017 only to Indian citizens who were abroad during the period between November 9 and December 30, 2016.
‘ASEAN seeks greater role by India’
Vietnam hopes India will support freedom of navigation in South China Sea
•Opening new possibilities in Southeast Asia, Vietnam on Tuesday asked India to play a greater role in ASEAN’s strategic and security affairs. Speaking at the Delhi Dialogue IX, a platform for discussion between ASEAN and India, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said that India should support freedom of navigation in the South China Sea on the basis of international law and conventions.
•“ASEAN supports India to play a greater role in the political and security domain, and create a regional rule-based region. We hope India will continue to partner our efforts for strategic security and freedom of navigation in South China Sea on the basis of international law and legal convention,” said the visiting leader.
•The Vietnamese leader who is on a two-day visit to Delhi, is also the Foreign Minister of his country and held talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. His comments in support of greater role for India in Southeast Asia came even as tension is building up between India and China across the Sikkim sector.
Common interests
•“India and Vietnam share political and economic interests. As the future unfolds we have reason to be optimistic. ASEAN will benefit from India’s experience of resolving maritime issues in a peaceful manner,” he said indicating at the dispute with China in the South China Sea region.
•In her speech, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that ties with ASEAN is at the centre of India’s Act East Policy. “We place ASEAN at heart of our ‘Act East Policy’ and centre of our dream of an Asian century. ASEAN and India are natural partners,” she said.
India talks tough with U.K. on terrorism
Concerned at rally plan in Birmingham for slain ultra Wani
•India has been speaking with greater candour in recent weeks about obstacles in its relationship with Britain, highlighting how efforts by the British government to take forward the relationship, particularly via a post-Brexit trade deal, could struggle.
•Just a week after the Indian High Commissioner warned that bilateral relations would struggle to progress without recognition from Britain that the centre of terrorism lay to India’s West, the High Commission here has expressed its concerns about plans for a rally to be held in the city of Birmingham to commemorate the first death anniversary of Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander, on July 8.
‘Note verbale’
•The office of the Deputy High Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik sent a “note verbale” on the matter to the British Foreign Office on Monday. “We are concerned that in Britain where such terrorist incidents are taking place, their authorities would allow for the celebration of the death of a terrorist,” said Mr. Patnaik on Tuesday.
•The move, seen as an unusually candid one by India, highlights the country’s increasing willingness to highlight issues of tension between the two countries, as debate in Britain focuses almost solely on the untapped potential to enhance the trade deal between the two countries.
Reflects frustration
•Gareth Price of Chatham House said that India’s increased frankness likely reflected frustration about the fact that its message that bilateral relations went well beyond the economic realm to issues such as security and terrorism were not being heeded in Britain, despite efforts by India over the past decades to make its views plain. “It is almost like two different conversations are happening in parallel.”
•“These are things that India has been saying quite explicitly but no one seems to have listened to it on the British side. It hasn’t had the recognition India wants. We are back where we were in the 1980s where the issue of Sikh militants was one of the biggest impediments to stronger relations.”
‘Undue focus’
•Speaking at an event on post-Brexit opportunities between India and Britain last week, High Commissioner Y.K. Sinha told delegates that there was an “undue focus” on the free trade agreement with India, and with the few FTAs India had signed globally, expecting one in the immediate aftermath of Brexit might be “expecting too much.” Other issues on terrorism, security and beyond also had to be confronted, he said, highlighting the issue of terrorism. “We’ve been facing terrorist attacks for decades…you were sceptical in the past about terrorist attacks we faced….all I can say is we must confront this.”
•He also raised the issue of Vijay Mallya, stating that Britain had become a “haven for fugitives from justice” as well as Britain’s willingness to tolerate “anti-India activity.” He said the argument that Britain was an open society that had to allow such activity to take place didn’t work, as India was a “robust democracy” but didn’t interfere in internal affairs of friends and allies.
•Wani, 22, was killed with two other militants in Anantnag district on July 8 last year, triggering protests across the Kashmir Valley, following a mission that security agencies described as the “biggest ever success” in recent times. Public support has also been expressed for him by some in Britain. During the India-Pakistan match in Edgbaston last month, some protesters carried images of Wani, alongside other posters calling for a “free Kashmir.”
Drug-resistant TB higher among children than expected: report
Diagnosis is complicated due to challenges associated with sample collection
•While detection of tuberculosis (TB) in children remains a challenge, it has now emerged that Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) TB is higher among children than expected. This has been described as a “worrying trend” by the Union Health Ministry.
•As many as 5,500 of over 76,000 children tested in nine cities have been diagnosed with TB. Nine per cent of these paediatric TB cases have been diagnosed to have MDR TB, according to the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) that conducted the tests in collaboration with the Central TB Division under the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP).
Unique initiative
•FIND initially started a unique initiative for diagnosing paediatric TB in four cities of Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata from April 2014 with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It has now scaled up the project to include additional five cities —Nagpur, Surat, Visakhapatnam, Bengaluru and Guwahati. The project will start in Indore next week. The aim of the project is to provide rapid access to quality TB diagnosis for all presumptive paediatric TB patients in the project intervention areas.
•Sunil D Khaparde, Deputy Director General (TB) and Head of the Central TB Division, told The Hindu on Tuesday that the RNTCP is committed to providing increasing access to quality TB diagnostics for the paediatric population. In 2016, the proportion of children among new TB patients reported was 6%. Absence of appropriate samples coupled with decentralised capacity to get good samples from children to test for TB remains a challenge in paediatric TB case detection, he said.
•Admitting that paediatric MDR-TB cases had not been documented so far, he said children were more prone to primary MDR infection as they were in close contact with their parents and grandparents, who would have been infected.
•“A considerable number of the 9% diagnosed to have MDR-TB are primary infections. This is a worrying factor,” said Dr. Khaparde, who is also the Project Director of RNTCP.
Clinical outcomes
•“FIND’s collaboration with RNTCP is to enable rapid linkage to treatment with an overall aim of improving clinical outcomes in this vulnerable (paediatric) population. As of now the project is in nine cities and based on the success we will extend it to other cities,” he said.
•According to Sanjay Sarin, who heads FIND, India, TB diagnosis in children is complicated due to challenges associated with sample collection and poor sensitivity of tests like the Acid fast bacilli (AFB) smear. FIND, through this project, has collaborated with the Central TB Division to improve access to more sensitive diagnostic tools like the GeneXpert in the paediatric population, he said.
Free test
•The project was initially started to assess the feasibility of roll out of GeneXpert MTB/RIF, a cartridge-based test used with an automated molecular diagnostic platform that enables the diagnosis of TB and some drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) in less than two hours.
•The focus was on testing various types of paediatric specimens in routine programmatic settings.
•According to Debadutta Parija, Medical Officer, FIND, GeneXpert labs have been established within the reference labs of RNTCP in each of the project cities, catering to patients in both the public and private sectors.
•GeneXpert MTB/RIF testing was performed free of cost for all presumptive paediatric TB and drug-resistant TB patients (aged under 15 years).
•FIND’s Project Coordinator (Paediatric) Aakshi Kalra said both sputum and non-sputum specimens are being tested using GeneXpert except stool, urine and blood. This is as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations, Dr. Kalra said.
The terrorisms we overlook
The state’s association with terror — in mob lynchings or in extortion — is not compatible with freedom
•Over a century ago, an Indian subject living in London wrote a pamphlet that was to become a rallying point for India’s nationalists. Dadabhai Naoroji’s Poverty and un-British rule in India was not merely an indictment of economic imperialism but also served to call the bluff on the claim that the British Empire was necessary to ensure fairness in the governance of an India misgoverned by its native rulers.
•His suggestion was that British rule in India could hardly be deemed fair if it was associated with a drain of wealth engineered by the colonial state. Two sets of events that have taken place in India recently point to a state that continues to remain at odds with the aspirations of most Indians. Both involve death of our fellow citizens in which the state is implicated at least indirectly. That the state can be so placed leaves us to ponder the democracy we actually have. Only, unlike Naoroji’s salvo against the colonial state, today we would want to engage with ours in order to ensure that it is fit for a democracy.
Terror, within and without
•Most of us seem to have an idea of what we mean when we utter ‘the T-word’. It unambiguously refers to attempts to destabilise if not actually destroy India from the outside. It is this conception of terrorism that the Prime Minister employed when, on his most recent trip to the United States, he teamed up with its President to declare a commitment to fight global terrorism. We may query the wisdom of aligning India with a United States whose historical role vis-à-visterrorism is dubious. U.S. foreign policy incubated the Taliban, which spread terror in the name of Islam, and rained terror on Iraqi children in the name of keeping the world safe from weapons of mass destruction. However, it cannot be doubted that India faces the threat of terror from outside its borders. ‘26/11’ is only the most egregious instance of this. Then, armed thugs had gone about massacring innocent Indians in public spaces in Mumbai. To characterise, as some do, the horror this had evoked across the country as some reactionary nationalism is to miss the threat such terror holds out to the ‘Idea of India’, at its core a vision of diverse people living in harmony.
•India though is also besieged by terrorism emanating from within its borders, and this needs to be addressed with at least as much urgency as that which Prime Minister Narendra Modi brings to the issue of the external threat to India. Two forms of this may be earmarked, one more recent and highly visible and the other centuries old and honed to perfection. Ending both would require addressing how the machinery of government functions here.
•Over the past two years or so we have seen a rising tide of violence, mainly in northern India, against Dalits and Muslims. This has revolved around the treatment of the cow. Indians have been physically attacked by rampaging mobs accusing them of storing beef or transporting cows for slaughter. Upon this excuse, Dalits have been assaulted and Muslims actually killed. Finally, on June 28, aroused citizens across the country gathered to protest against this violence under the banner ‘Not In My Name’. It is the most significant protest against intolerance that we have witnessed so far and appears to have had success, for the very next day the Prime Minister remarked in a speech made at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad that individuals had no right to kill in the name of gau bhakti . He had gone on to add that Mahatma Gandhi would not have approved of their action.
A weak response
•Surely the latter is a little naïve in that the gau rakshaks represent a strand of thought that believes Gandhi emasculated Hinduism in whose name they themselves now act. The Prime Minister’s response to the terrorising of Dalits in Gujarat and the killing of Muslims across north India is far too weak in relation to the negation of democracy that this violence represents. It is expected of government to protect citizens from assault by fascist forces and he should mobilise the government machinery to do so. That law and order is a State subject is not an excuse and in any case most of this violence is taking place in States ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is clear that the civil administration code in India sufficiently empowers the district-governing authority to deal with the situations related to mob lynching. As vigilantism, often enacted while the police stand by watching, is completely unacceptable in a democracy, one would expect the government to outline in Parliament what it intends to do to eliminate it.
Terrorism of extortion
•Meanwhile in southern India, we have a glimpse of the Indian state in an avatar different from that of a passive observer of murder. It is one of those in charge of its levers using their position in ways that can cause the death of citizens. In Kerala in late June, a farmer was found hanging within the premises of a village office in Kozhikode district. Piecing together entries in a suicide note and the statements of relatives and neighbours, we know the following: For some time the farmer, Kavilpurayidathil Joy, had been trying to pay the taxes due on his land. The village office was refusing to accept it. For him, evidence of taxes paid was the proof required to either pledge or sell his land, which he needed to do quite urgently in order to repay debt.
•One version is that the village office was unable to accept the tax as the title to the land itself was under dispute, the property being forest land, thus rendering the private possession of it illegal. But this account makes a mockery of the fact that tax on the same property had been accepted earlier. An interpretation of the stance of the representatives of the state, who constitute the village office, is that the farmer was being harassed for a bribe in return for their registering the payment. This account gains credibility when considered along with the public’s perception that the Revenue Department in Kerala is among its most corrupt. Note that the farmer did not go quietly and in despair. He chose to hang himself in the premises of the village office to register his protest at the injustice meted out to him by the state. An almost similar incident had occurred only weeks before in the State’s south when a woman, frustrated in her attempts to have a property transfer acknowledged by the authorities, attempted to immolate herself in a government office.
•It is significant that these instances have been recorded in Kerala, a State praised for its record of human development and presently ruled by a communist party. When the government, with which the first point of contact for a farmer is the village office, causes mental agony for the citizen by denying him the opportunity to discharge his obligations, it is tantamount to terrorism. India cannot be deemed to be a democracy so long as the agents of state can generate insecurity among the people by the threat of punitive action if they are not extended gratification.
•In the seventieth year of India’s Independence, we must recognise that the machinery of government as we know it came into existence to ring-fence plunder by the East India Company. Its association with terrorism, indirectly in the case of the mob lynchings or directly in the case of extortion, is not compatible with freedom. India’s state needs to be governed. To paraphrase our President, we can’t be vigilant enough.
Signs of a Persian gulf
New Delhi needs to work with Tehran to resolve bilateral irritants affecting economic ties
•During his Id sermon delivered on June 26, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ended up equating the Kashmir conflict with those in Yemen and Bahrain. He is reported to have said: “Conflicts in Yemen, Bahrain, problems in all Islamic countries, are major wounds on the body of Islam. The world of Islam should explicitly support the people of Yemen, and express [its] disdain against the oppressors who’ve attacked the people in such horrible ways during the month of [Ramzan]... The same is true for the people of Bahrain and Kashmir: Our people can back this great movement within the world of Islam.”
•Though this took many observers by surprise, the Ayatollah has been talking of Kashmir for quite some time. In 2010, he had sermonised: “Helping the Palestinian nation and the besieged people of Gaza, sympathy toward and cooperation with the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Kashmir... safeguarding the unity of Muslims... and spreading awakening and [a] sense of commitment and responsibility among Muslim youth in all Islamic lands — these are great responsibilities that currently lie on the shoulders of prominent figures of the Islamic Ummah.”
Politics in the Arab world
•So there is nothing new in his recent statement, and New Delhi has done well not to give it too much weight. India’s relations with Iran are important and the reformist regime of Hassan Rouhani is looking for a wider global engagement. The Ayatollah’s statement probably reflects his country’s concerns about getting regionally isolated at a time when the Donald Trump administration’s hard line against Tehran seems to have emboldened Saudi Arabia and its allies to squeeze Iran out of the regional matrix. The de facto blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after cutting off diplomatic ties last month underscores this complex reality. Qatar has been issued a 13-point list of demands which includes curbing diplomatic ties with Iran, severing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and shuttering the Al-Jazeera news network. This has been rejected by Qatar. Riyadh has further warned that more punitive measures would follow if Qatar embraces Iran any further.
•Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in a range of proxy wars across the region — in Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, apart from their growing hostility in Iraq. Ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Riyadh and Tehran have struggled to shape the Gulf in consonance with their own interests, using religion instrumentally to hide their pursuit of power. An attack on Iran’s Parliament on June 7, for which it blames Saudi Arabia, has further heightened the tensions.
•The Ayatollah’s recent utterance on Kashmir might be a signal to India that its growing closeness to Saudi Arabia and the UAE is being watched closely in Tehran. It’s a reminder to India that Iran too has a role in the Islamic world which can’t be ignored.
•Yet, the emergence of Kashmir in India-Iran bilateral discourse is nothing new. India has always been wary of Iran’s support for Pakistan in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) regarding Kashmir. Iranian criticism of India’s position on Kashmir has repeatedly sparked protests within the Indian government against Iranian interference.
Economic ties turn tepid
•However, as regards bilateral relations, the recent decline in economic ties should be of greater concern to the two countries. Iran seems to be in no hurry to decide on awarding the contract for gas exploration in its Farzad B offshore field to ONGC Videsh. Pending a decision on the contract, India has decided to decrease the volume of Iranian crude oil it will be buying this year. There have been reports that Tehran has signed an initial agreement for the gas field with Russian giant Gazprom. For India, which stood by Iran during the height of its global isolation, this is certainly galling.
•Further, the slow pace of the Chabahar port project has irked the Iranians and they have indicated that despite India developing the project, it won’t be exclusive to the country. Pakistan and China might also be invited to get involved. For India, this undercuts the very strategic utility of the port — viewed as India’s answer to the Gwadar port that will allow it to circumvent Pakistan and open up a route to landlocked Afghanistan.
•While New Delhi has done well to ignore the Ayatollah’s provocation on Kashmir, it needs to work with the Rouhani government to ensure that the bilateral irritants in fostering economic ties are resolved soon. There are far too many issues, including the future of Afghanistan, that require closer coordination between the two countries.
Intermission
With higher taxes post-GST, Tamil Nadu must lift the price controls on cinema tickets
•Taxes are of two kinds. A progressive tax can be an instrument of state policy, yielding benefits for the many at the expense of a few. But a tax can also be debilitating. A higher rate can sometimes be counterproductive, restricting the growth of the sector, and eventually resulting in lower revenues. With the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, the Tamil Nadu film industry is squeezed on every side; in protest, cinema halls across the State have downed their shutters indefinitely. What is hurting is not the 28% GST on tickets priced above Rs. 100, or even the 30% levy imposed by local bodies as entertainment tax, but the fact that these come on top of the existing State government-imposed cap on ticket rates. The cap of Rs. 120 means that the exhibitors might earn more from their lease of cinema space to popcorn vendors than from screening the film. Indeed, given the differential rates, the exhibitor might not be able to earn much more from charging Rs. 120 for a ticket than he could from charging Rs. 99. Increasing tax rates while maintaining an overall price cap makes no sense at all. Governments are free to not incentivise certain services or forms of consumption. However, in this case, the end result of the squeeze on the margins of exhibitors and distributors is making the entire film industry unviable. The price cap on tickets was sought to be justified on the ground that otherwise there would be exploitative premiums charged on keenly awaited films during the early days of their release, when demand runs high. It was believed that this protected members of fan clubs of popular film stars, most of whom are from the lower social strata. But with the piling up of different taxes, it is the exhibitors who are at the wrong end of the exploitation.
•Although some Tamil films qualify for exemption from entertainment tax, on account of their ‘social messaging’, such certification depends all too often on pulling the right political strings. In an industry where politicians of every hue are involved, tax exemption has been open to widespread abuse. Local bodies have not earned much from entertainment tax, but what the government loses in terms of revenue, the party in power gains in terms of power and influence over the film industry. Given that the GST rates cannot be altered, being fixed nationally, the sensible solution is to give up the price cap on tickets and reduce the entertainment tax. Price caps on tickets have inhibited the building of new cinema halls in Tamil Nadu, even as old ones shut shop. Also, if the government’s true objective is to safeguard the interests of the filmgoer, then it must be ready to forego tax revenue. The lesson that Tamil Nadu needs to understand is that a high rate of taxation can be debilitating in a price-controlled situation.
