Boycott all ITC goods

Its been nearly a month since the announcement of the general budget of the government of India announcing hike in excise duty of cigarettes by 11 to 72%. As usual cigarettes were selling in black nearly a week before the budget expecting the hike and now almost 3 weeks after the budget the disgusting practice continues. The government washed its hands off (after displaying their lack of imagination by listing taxes on the cigarettes as the first item in the national budget for  generating revenues) after presenting the budget while there is no announcement from the company ITC Limited , a near monopoly in the cigarette market, about its intention to raise or not to raise the prices leaving its own supply-chain partners ( the wholesalers, dealers & retailers) to make merry while the smoker puffs. If the Supreme Court of India couldn't find Narendra Modi guilty for not doing anything for three days while marauding rioters enflamed lives and houses in Gujarat in 2002; ITC is surely more than an arm's length away from the long arms of the law for not doing anything to inform the consumers about its position and location of fair-price shops to stop black-marketing. Their website gives no information nor are there any ads in the paper leaving consumers to suspect ITC the same way as they had suspected Modi nearly a decade ago of intimate involvement in the fracas.

মুখপাত্রী

কত সখা আসে যায় বাড়ীতে

কত নারী সুন্দরী,শাড়ীতে

ঢেউ এসে মুছে দেয় বালিতে

ফুলদানি গেছে ভরে ডালিতে।

তবু তুমি এলে আশেপাশে

মনমেঘে নাও  ভাসে;

ক্লেদ, সে তো সবই আছে

বয়সের জমা গাছে;

একটুকু ভালো লাগা, ক্ষণিকের সুখ

মন আলো করে থাকে তোমারই মুখ।

ছড়া , আগের মতো

আগের মতো ,

ইচ্ছে করে গল্প করি বসে ;

আগের মতো ,

ইচ্ছে করে উড়িয়ে দিই হেসে

10 new things in Union Budget 2014

For a post-interim budget presented by the new finance minister of the new Indian government ; the speech may have been a tad lengthy bordering on being called 'dreary.' But the annual document has its own charm in communicating a sense of direction that the country's economy should charter carrying along with it the  political chatter from the minority opposition. Leaving it to the experts to make a sense of the large figures of receipts & expenditures , I intend to provide the readers ten new schemes & activities that the new government has earmarked in this year's budget even though the actual allocation in some of the schemes may have been paltry.