India’s Road Safety Month, launched on January 18 as an extended form of the annual Road Safety Week for greater impact, has concluded with a bus accident in Madhya Pradesh that has claimed 51 lives. The victims, including many young people reportedly travelling to Satna and Rewa to take a government recruitment examination, were trapped within the bus as it plunged into a swollen canal. One of many ghastly mishaps that have occurred after the COVID-19 lockdown, it lends grist to the view that the country, with the world’s worst record on road safety, cannot get its act together any time soon. India has, according to the just-released World Bank-commissioned report, Traffic Crash Injuries and Disabilities, 1% of the world’s vehicles but 11% of all road accident deaths; the Union Transport Ministry put the number of dead in 2019 at 1,51,113, and injured at 4,51,361. Those who suffer the most are from low income households, especially in rural areas, and women bear the long-term
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has stressed that Budget 2021-22 raises resources to push the economy without increased taxation. However, one change to the income tax law proposed in the Finance Bill, 2021, has triggered anxieties for the salaried class: withdrawing tax exemption on interest income accrued into Provident Fund accounts arising out of employee contributions exceeding ₹2.5 lakh ‘in a previous year in that fund,’ on or after April 1, 2021. The rationale — some employees are contributing huge amounts into their PF accounts and getting tax-free incomes. Subsequently, the Revenue Department has pointed out the tax will only affect a small group of ‘high net-worth individuals’ (HNIs); the 100 largest employees’ PF (EPF) accounts had a combined balance of over ₹2,000 crore. It can be no one’s case that a social security scheme for formal sector workers should become an investment haven for the well-heeled corporate top brass. However, the threshold proposed to exclude the
