Pass the Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill without delay – every day wasted means many lives lost

By GK Pillai and Piyush Tewari

In February this year, Sumit Singhal and his family were returning home after attending a wedding in Gurgaon. His wife was sitting in the front and his mother and their three-year-old kid were tucked in the rear seat. An overloaded truck tried to overtake Sumit’s car unsuccessfully. It skidded and landed on Sumit’s car with impact. Sumit, his wife and mother were killed on the spot. The lone survivor in this tragic crash was the three-year-old kid, who lost his parents and grandmother in an instant. The distraught child was trapped inside the car for hours before he was rescued.

As tragic as this case was, unfortunately it’s by no means an exception. Annually, on average, 1.5 lakh people are killed and close to 10 lakh are injured in road crashes across India. As per ministry of road transport data, over 14% fatalities were due to overloading of vehicles. In 2017, 20,848 people were killed due to overloading of vehicles – an average of 57 deaths per day.

The election hustle has prompted the country to think about growth and what lies ahead. Yet, it is important to note that if drastic measures are not taken to curtail the menace of road crashes, the landscape of progress will remain marred by enormous loss of life that is largely preventable.

In the wake of the road crash in June 2014 that claimed the life of prominent leader and Union minister Gopinath Munde, there was a big surge in political attention towards the sorry state of road safety in India. The crash where Munde’s car was hit by another, causing him several serious injuries and a fatal cardiac arrest, raised all the right questions about everything that was wrong with our approach towards safety on roads, especially the fractured policy framework in which road safety is viewed.

As a tribute to him Nitin Gadkari, who took charge of the road transport ministry in the same Cabinet, promised to bring a strong law to make roads safer. The initial momentum however fizzled and all that now remains is, the lapsed Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill (MVAB). MVAB had several crucial road safety provisions. For instance, currently the fine for overloading – a rampant practice that killed Sumit and his family in a flash – is only Rs 2,000. This is hardly a deterrent for truck owners and consigners. MVAB proposed to increase it to Rs 20,000 to halt the practice. It also looked to address issues that have been completely unaddressed in the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, such as the safety of children during commute or the liability of road contractors and engineers for creating faulty, accident-prone roads.

The pandemic of road crashes needs to be on top of the priority list for the new government, not only because several top political leaders have been victims but because the issue also had a profound impact on our society and economy as the major cause of death of young, productive people in India. Tragically for India, the issue did not find mention in the election manifestos of any of the major national political parties. With a new government in place, all political formations must clarify their stand on road safety, especially protection of the most vulnerable road users such as children. The new government must address this “mass killer”, as Supreme Court has called it, in its first 100 days agenda.

Currently, India has no central legislation governing the protection of pedestrians. The penalties for irresponsible road behaviour that lead to serious injuries or fatalities have remained minimal for the last three decades and have consequently failed to deter violators. What is even more upsetting are the violations committed by juvenile drivers. A recent study by SaveLIFE Foundation shows that 63.3% of the children who admitted to underage driving shared that they started learning how to drive between the ages of 9 to 14.

With our country lagging behind in its basic road safety measures and regulations, it is even more imperative for us to now stand up for road safety and educate others to do the same. Through a common-sense road safety law and its implementation, we can ensure that no three-year-old is orphaned again merely because the government of the day failed to take a stand for the safety of his family.

GK Pillai is former Union Home Secretary and Piyush Tewari, Founder of SaveLIFE Foundation, a road safety non-profit

Up in the air: Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget pitches for large foreign investment. But details have to be fleshed out

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s first Budget is constructed with an overarching goal in mind: A $5 trillion economy by 2024-25. This requires an annual growth of 8% which will have to come on the back of a surge in investment. The Budget’s salient message is that the Narendra Modi government is going to roll out the red carpet for foreign investment in pursuit of its goal. Consequently, key sections of the speech focussed on plans for the capital market. They include debt market reform to encourage foreign and domestic investment, higher FDI limits and looser restrictions on FII investment. Crucially, Sitharaman announced that government will for the first time look at the option of foreign borrowing to bridge its deficit. Strategic disinvestment is also back on the agenda.

This path will increase RBI’s challenges. Its relationship with government seems to have improved as it has now been entrusted with greater regulatory power over NBFCs. Housing finance companies have again been brought into its supervisory control. Most of these ideas are still on the drawing board and much will depend on the regulatory fine print. A related development is that NBFCs, a crucial channel to fund consumption and investment, will get a fiscal boost to tide over their liquidity problems.

The tax proposals are underwhelming. A small step was taken to lower the headline corporate tax rate to 25%. Companies with a turnover of upto Rs 400 crore, representing 99.3% of base, have been brought into this category. These tentative steps are inconsistent with the goal of attracting large investments in manufacturing. The economy will be better off with a faster transition to lower rates and a phase out of exemptions. This will be a better bet to bring in global companies with the means to establish mega-manufacturing plants in high technology – the Budget instead opted for tax concessions under a special scheme. On the customs duty side, there were a series of tariff increases to promote domestic manufacturing. These tax policies lack coherence given the goal of integrating Indian manufacturing into global value chains. In addition Sitharaman went back to raising indirect taxes on petrol and diesel, likely to have an inflationary impact.

The two areas where direct tax policy had clear intent was the use of concessions in personal income tax to promote affordable housing and electric vehicles. Construction has a knock-on effect on many industries and this measure will help mitigate the economic slowdown. Government wants India to capitalise on the inevitable advent of EVs in the mass market. This is where the real challenge comes in. If a fiscal stimulus on the demand side is to also boost local manufacturing, states must work with the Centre to reform factor markets such as land and labour.

The Budget arithmetic rests on a forecast of a 12% growth of nominal GDP in 2019-20 to Rs 211 trillion. It’s expected to translate into a modest 9.5% growth in tax collections. The total expenditure is budgeted to increase by 13% to Rs 27.86 trillion. Given NDA’s willingness to borrow abroad, it’s time to take a closer look at the budgetary support coming through public sector enterprises. It’s an unhealthy trend that’s on the rise. Since overseas borrowing or a possible windfall through transfer of RBI reserves are not accounted, meeting the estimated fiscal deficit target of 3.3% is a foregone conclusion. However, the quality of fiscal consolidation does remain worrisome.

On balance, the Budget does show clearly that the way forward is to attract foreign savings and investment. However, there isn’t much by way of a coherent fiscal policy. Actualisation of these plans will depend on regulatory details and harmonious federalism.

Unnamed Nokia smartphone leaks with 3 rear cameras, could be new Nokia 8 series phone

There is a new Nokia phone on the horizon and it could be part of Nokia 8 series. The mystery Nokia phone has been leaked on several websites and its images show that it will come with 3 rear cameras.

Pavni Jain

New Delhi

July 6, 2019

UPDATED: July 6, 2019 18:13 IST

HIGHLIGHTS

• A mystery Nokia phone leaked on the web has 3 rear cameras placed inside a round camera module.
• It could be part of Nokia 8 series, possibly an update to the Nokia 8.1.
• The leaked images of the mystery Nokia phone shows that one of the cameras uses 48-megapixel sensor and F1.8 lens.

After a brief lull brand Nokia is in news again. We know from Nokia India tweets that the Nokia 9 PureView, with its five rear cameras, will be soon launching in India. But Nokia 9 PureView is not the only phone creating buzz. There is also a mystery Nokia phone that has leaked on the web, showing that Nokia is hoping to launch another camera-centric phone soon. This mystery Nokia phone has 3 rear cameras placed inside a round camera module. It could be part of Nokia 8 series, possibly an update to the Nokia 8.1.

How do we know this could be a phone part of Nokia 8 series? We know because the Nokia 9, which is a flagship phone, has five cameras. So a phone with 3 rear cameras is likely to be placed one notch below it in the product line-up. Also, the Nokia 8 series is due for an upgrade.

The leaked images of the mystery Nokia phone appeared first on Baidu and then were shared on Twitter by SlashLeaks. The images show three cameras and one LED flash module. There is also a fingerprint sensor placed below the cameras.

The images of the camera are accompanied by some images of the photo app, which clearly shows that one of the cameras in this mysterious Nokia phone uses 48-megapixel sensor and F1.8 lens. The leaked images also show that like other Nokia phones made by HMD Global, the new Nokia will also use Android One software without any custom user interface.

The new device doesn't have an official name yet but in the pictures, we can see that the phone will come with a water-drop notch on the front. In the photos we can see that the device features a USB-C port at the bottom, so obviously it is a premium phone. This unnamed device also features a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor.

The new Nokia leak includes only pictures and doesn't offer clues about the phone's specs and features. We only know that the main shooter has a 48-megapixel image sensor.

However, we do know lot more about the Nokia 9. This phone is coming to India soon, as revealed by Nokia India social media accounts. No specific launch date has been mentioned yet but HMD Global talks of bringing Nokia 9 to India within weeks, which means most likely by the end of this month. The Nokia 9 comes with a high-end camera setup as well as Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, 6-inch OLED screen, 128GB storage and 6GB RAM.