The Bangladesh Today (23-01-2018)

EDITORIAL
TuESdAy,
JAnuAry 23, 2018
4
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
Telephone: +8802-9104683-84, Fax: 9127103
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Taxation: The other sides
Newspaper reports recently indicated that
government is about to launch a major
hunt to find out more taxpayers.
Theoretically, there can be no objection to this as
the total number of taxpayers in Bangladesh are
much lower compared to other countries and,
therefore, government can expect to increase
revenue collection from such a drive. But there
should be other considerations also, speciallyin
the backdrop of the current rather slowed down
pace of new private sector investments in the
economy.
A government needs resources to take up various
projects and programmes in the social and
developmental sectors. The resources in large
measures are supposed to be mobilised as taxes
given by people and organisations. But as everyone
concerned probably knows it in Bangladesh, the
taxes collected by the government in different
areas are pitiably low compared to the potential.
But citizens also have points to raise about
government not spending their tax money as
efficiently as it should or the hardships it may
create on sections of people from the move to
extend the net for taxation.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that the base of
taxation remains rather narrow and enlargement
of it is very important and would be justified to
augment tax collection. More significantly, the
augmentation requires revamping, modernisation
and reforms of the tax administration. No doubt
such upgrading and streamlining of the taxation
administration have been going on for the last
several years and positive results could be seen.
But these activities need to be broadened and
deepened further within a short time frame to
reach early the expected yet higher level in tax
collection.
But taking initiatives in taxation cannot be a one
way process of only adding to the physical
capacities of the National Board of Revenue
(NBR).It appears very necessary alsothat people
or institutions should be made aware of the need
to pay taxes. There are many people and
businesses who are able to pay taxes but do not
pay or pay in proportion as they feel no guilt
associated to non payment or insufficient
payment of taxes. Furthermore, the present
system has deliberately kept many gaps to
facilitate tax evasion. The culture is rather
ascendant that tax evasion is the smarter or
appropriate thing to do than its opposite. A truly
informative and persuasive campaign should
precede any move to impose new taxes or
purposefully increase the number of new
taxpayers. People must be convinced first of the
merit of paying taxes and they would also require
some assurance that their tax money would be
well spent. Only then their motivation to pay taxes
can rise.
The efficiency of the taxation machinery
depends considerably on retraining the taxmen
on modern lines. They can be trained in countries
where the tax administrations are efficient. But
there should be also recognition that without a
substantial follow up revamping of organisations,
procedures and methods of administration, much
of the training would be wasted. Specially, the tax
administration needs to acquire real capacity in
the intelligence and enforcement areas.
Besides, there has to be realisation also that
stepped up activities to collect more taxes can
prove to be successful in a setting where new
investment operations are taking place in the
economy, the established enterprises are running
well or the general health of the economy is a
sound one. In such a situation of
widespread,diverseandaccelerated economic
activities leading to wealth and income creation,
taxmen may not have difficulty in finding taxable
enterprises or individuals. Individuals and
organisation in such a setting are also found more
cooperative or willing to pay taxes from their
having the resources or abilities to pay more taxes.
But the Bangladesh economy for some years has
been suffering from investment stagnation
.Notwithstanding massive investments in mainly
public sector projects, a corresponding high tide in
private sector investments are note noted, how
can there be expectation to collect much greater
taxes in this scenario ? People can of course be arm
twisted into paying more taxes. But that would
mean a form of repression. Apart from sending out
taxmen to squeeze out more taxes from individuals
and institutions , government should alsoadopt
policies that would restore the confidence of
businesses leading to the invigoration of the real
economy. Collecting more taxes then would not
prove to be either an oppressive exercise or face
lack of cooperation from the potential taxpayers.
Till such further invigoration becomes possible,
government should aim to fill budget deficits from
static or less tax collection through receiving and
utilizing greater foreign aid.
A war with kurds will serve Erdogan's enemies
The Turkish government has started
shelling the city of Afrin, west of the
euphrates River deep in the Syrian
heartland, ahead of an upcoming invasion,
according to Defence Minister Nurettin
Cankli. The move is largely in response to
the newly-formed Kurdish army,
announced last week by the United Statesled
Coalition, called the Syrian Border
Forces (SBF). It will build on the already
powerful Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),
a coalition of Kurdish militias created two
years ago to fight Daesh (the selfproclaimed
Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant).
The new force hopes to reach an
ambitious 30,000 troops, trained and
armed by the Americans, charged with
protecting borders of the Kurdish enclave,
east of the euphrates River. Five American
military bases are already dotting the
Syrian north, and they will make sure that
the SBF is brought to life and formally
deployed on the euphrates River Valley.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip erdogan
has vowed to "strangle" the new army
"before it is born", and is threatening an allout
invasion, seemingly determined to
never let the Kurdish project see the light
anywhere close to his borders with Syria.
his artillery is threatening to attack Manbij
northeast of Aleppo, a city liberated by the
Kurds back in 2016, once through with
Afrin. The new US proxy army has taken all
regional stakeholders by surprise, but it
struck a particularly raw nerve in Ankara,
where erdogan has been fuming about US
President Donald Trump's honeymoon
with Kurdish militias. Since reaching the
White house a year ago, the US president
has turned down all Turkish requests to
distance himself from the SDF and the
People's Protection Units (PYD). erdogan
writes them off as "terrorists," due to their
The Internet connects people,
resources and activities. It facilitates
the exchange of information and
supports the cooperative work of writers,
editors, lawyers, doctors, educators/
teachers, managers, analysts, engineers and
others.
The adoption of a system based on the
decentralized knowledge discovery
framework would have significant and
positive social impacts. Consider the
following aspects: improved collaboration,
ease of knowing how the collaboration is
progressing, and security.
Thus a system for decentralized knowledge
discovery provides services for secure data
exchange, based on rigid access-control
policies, adopts cryptography techniques
when data is moved through the Internet, and
keeps track of all accesses to the data
performed by contributors. These are not
trivial legal and technical issues, but work as a
catalyst in the provision of effective
knowledge-sharing collaboration through a
decentralized knowledge database.
The term "knowledge economy" was
coined by the Organization for economic
Cooperation and Development (OeCD) in a
1996 report. The term describes the
emergence of economies based on the
production, distribution and use of
knowledge and information.
By comparison, the economy of the 20th
century relied predominantly on the sale of
raw resources, commodities and primary
processing to generate income and wealth.
The key commodity in the knowledge
economy, by contrast, is "knowledge" and
its use to create new products and services.
Characteristic of the knowledge economy
are "man-made brainpower industries"
where there is rapid development, and the
subsequent merging of new information
and communication technologies, creating
WheN in 1960 Mao Zedong sent off
General Gengbiao, his second
ambassador to Pakistan, he reportedly
advised him: "Look after Pakistan; it is China's
window to the West".
Mao's depiction may have been as much
metaphorical as geographical. During the 1960s,
Pakistan was China's diplomatic window to the
West, eventually brokering the normalisation of
China-US relations in 1971. Today, the physical
facet of Mao's depiction is becoming a reality in
the China-Pakistan economic Corridor.
Gen Gengbiao, who went on to become
China's defence minister and deputy prime
minister, played a vital role in building the
China-Pakistan strategic relationship. So did
Pakistan's prime minister Bogra and foreign
minister, and later prime minister, Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto.
Unfortunately, large swathes of the Pakistani
pub lic, especially the youth, are not fully
aware of the history, intensity and rationale of
the Pakistan-China relationship. Some
Western-oriented Pakis ta nis even
question China's desire for a strong Pakistan.
Pakistan and China must undertake serious
efforts to preserve, diversify and intensify their
relationship.
The Pakistan-China relationship has survived
the twists and turns of global politics and
affiliation to the outlawed PKK, while
Trump regards them as strategic allies in
the war on terror - friends that ought to be
both protected and empowered.
erdogan had pleaded him to let the
Turkish-backed euphrates Shield troops
have the honours of bringing down the
Daesh-capital in Al Raqqa, but Trump
persistently refused, letting the Kurds do
the job instead. Trump has cut topped
military aid to every other military group
on the Syrian battlefield, but kept them
flowing to Kurdish warriors. he doesn't
really seem to care what erdogan thinks or
says, and in return, the Turkish leader is
preparing to take matters into his own
hands, realising that relying on the US will
lead to nowhere.
Trump's alliance with the Kurds has
already inched erdogan closer to Iran
and Russia. Iranian President hassan
Rouhani is equally furious with the
Kurdish project, fearing that whatever
the Kurds get in Syria they will start
demanding in Iran, home to no less than
seven-eight million Kurds. In the
a global inter-connected economy.
In this global economy, time and distance
are compressed through advances in
information communication technologies
and travel, leading to the intertwining of the
world's economic and cultural systems, in a
process known as globalization.
Globalization has been defined as "a set of
economic, social, technological, political as
well as cultural structures and processes
arising from the changing character of the
production, consumption and trade of
goods and assets that comprise the base of
the international political economy."
Globalization is one of many phenomena
within the knowledge economy, and is the
result of a larger building process of a world
markets that started when mankind first
began exploring the world by land and sea
expeditions. An effect of globalization is an
increasing structural differentiation of such
goods and assets, having spread across
traditional political borders and economic
sectors, resulting in a greater influence of
political and economic changes.
Technological advancement will certainly
destroy many jobs, but at the same time will
domestic changes in both countries because it is
based on a strong and lasting alignment of their
national interests. Over the last five decades,
Pakistan has boldly defended China's unity and
territorial integrity; worked assiduously to
secure China's legitimate seat in the United
Nations; resisted attempts to censure China on
human rights and to denigrate its
socioeconomic achievements. In 1965, China
moved its troops to its disputed border with
India, preventing India from redeploying
additional forces to the battlefield against
Pakistan;
In 1971, as India invaded east Pakistan, China
defended Pakistan's territorial integrity and was
prepared to respond to Pakistan's call to
SAMi MoubAyEd
summer of 2016, he reached a deal with
Russian President Vladimir Putin,
letting Russian and Syrian troops regain
control of Aleppo in exchange for letting
erdogan's troops carve out an enclave on
the Syrian-Turkish border, at the cities of
Jarablus and Azaz, and Al Bab that runs
deeper within Syrian territory. The idea
was to create a multi-purpose buffer to
keep out Kurdish separatists from these
three towns and eventually use as a safe
haven for millions of Syrian refugees
Trump's alliance with the kurds has already inched Erdogan
closer to iran and russia. iranian President Hassan rouhani
is equally furious with the kurdish project, fearing that
whatever the kurds get in Syria they will start demanding in
iran, home to no less than seven-eight million kurds. in the
summer of 2016, he reached a deal with russian President
Vladimir Putin, letting russian and Syrian troops regain
control of Aleppo in exchange for letting Erdogan's troops
carve out an enclave on the Syrian-Turkish border.
residing in Turkey since 2011.
This time, however, as erdogan strikes at
Afrin (which falls within Russia's sphere of
influence), Moscow is doing nothing to
prevent erdogan from amassing troops on
the Syrian borders. Some believe that they
are actually nudging him to push further,
saying that they will not object, if erdogan
agrees to leave the city of Idlib in the Syrian
northwest, which his troops had entered
last October as part of the "de-conflict
zones" agreement of the Astana process.
he is reportedly willing to comply if they let
him march forward to attack the SBF,
HAkiMi AbduL JAbAr
create many new and as yet unknown
employment opportunities, changing
dramatically the balance of skill requirements
The characteristics of the average worker
in Western economies, for example, and the
nature of work itself have changed
enormously over the past few decades. Parttime,
temporary and casual work, coupled
with an upward trend in unemployment and
the widening earning dispersion has become
the norm in the job market, while
privatization, deregulation and downsizing
of public services, and more and more
pressure on business to increase productivity
has been characteristic of the workplace.
Advances in various technologies have
had and will continue to have an impact on
the labor market. Thus technological
advancement will certainly destroy many
jobs, but at the same time will create many
new and as yet unknown employment
opportunities, changing dramatically the
balance of skill requirements.
The skill elements referred to are those
that place great importance on the diffusion
and use of information and knowledge as
well as its creation. This skill-base, it is
intervene militarily but was prevented from
doing so by an explicit Soviet nuclear threat;
In 1972, at Pakistan's request, China vetoed
the admission of Bangladesh into the United
Nations until Dhaka and Delhi agreed to release
the 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war;
China built Pakistan's heavy industrial
complex at Taxila and other manufacturing
capabilities virtually on a grant basis;
Despite US pressure and sanctions, China
supplied Pakistan with its first ballistic missiles
and enabled it to develop its now formidable
missile capabilities;
For over three decades, new Chinese military
equipment was made available to Pakistan
almost simultaneously with its induction in the
which has now become his high priority.
Some in Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus,
actually see the looming battle as a blessing
in disguise. It would ultimately rid them
either of erdogan or the Kurds - both of
which are a thorn in their flesh. That's what
former US president Ronald Reagan had
thought when he stood back and watched
the Iran-Iraq War unfold and drag
throughout his presidency, not lifting a
finger to stop it. his reasoning was that it
would either rid him of Ayatollah
Khomeini or Saddam hussain: A win-win
scenario for the US. Putin and Rouhani
think the same with regard to erdogan and
the Kurds. Both have been forced to deal
with the Turkish leader in recent months,
seeing him as the post powerful and
ambitious backer of the Syrian Opposition
who ought to be accommodated if a
political and military endgame were to be
reached.
Slowly they started luring him out of the
orbit, transforming erdogan from sworn
enemy into cherished ally, given that
nothing had succeeded in bringing him
down, neither Daesh nor a military coup in
the summer of 2016.
An open war with the Kurds - one fanned
secretly by the Russians and Iranians -
might eventually weaken him or at a bare
minimum, occupy him for years to come.
Ultimately, however, Iran and Russia
realise that the chances of his imminent
demise are low, and that in the long run, he
will succeed in crushing the Kurds. In the
process, however, he will also destroy his
relationship with Trump, and possibly
affect his membership in Nato. A
protracted war with the Kurds will serve
nobody but erdogan's long list of enemies,
who are all waiting to see his end.
Source : Gulf News
'People's Platform' connects global knowledge economy
The skill elements referred to are those that place great importance on
the diffusion and use of information and knowledge as well as its
creation. This skill-base, it is argued, will allow incumbents to gather
and utilize knowledge, where strategic know-how and competence are
developed interactively and shared within sub-groups and networks.
Continual creative innovation and knowledge-sharing contributions
will be driven by a decentralized knowledge database that rewards
contributors with monetary gains and compensation in the form of
tokens for peer-reviewing and contributing information.
Window to the West
Munir AkrAM
unfortunately, large swathes of the Pakistani pub lic,
especially the youth, are not fully aware of the history,
intensity and rationale of the Pakistan-China relationship.
Some Western-oriented Pakis ta nis even question
China's desire for a strong Pakistan. Pakistan and China
must undertake serious efforts to preserve, diversify
and intensify their relationship.
argued, will allow incumbents to gather and
utilize knowledge, where strategic knowhow
and competence are developed
interactively and shared within sub-groups
and networks.
Continual creative innovation and
knowledge-sharing contributions will be
driven by a decentralized knowledge
database that rewards contributors with
monetary gains and compensation in the
form of tokens for peer-reviewing and
contributing information. This system will
be the starting point of the Internet for
finding reliable, accurate information.
As a practicing international and fintech
(financial technology) lawyer, I sense the
global long-term vision to develop a
knowledge base application programming
interface (API) that developers can use to
create next generation decentralized
applications in artificial intelligence, virtual
reality, augmented reality and much more.
By reading the demands and vision of
Asian civil societies such as Suaram and
Asian statesmen such as Mahathir
Mohamed, anyone will sense that the
direction toward a decentralized
knowledge database and economy leads to
just, equitable and democratic knowledgesharing
solutions that reward contributors.
Many around the world are excited at the
existence of the Lunyr (pronounced like
Lunar) platform design that aligns each
individual's rational economic behavior
with benefits to the whole ecosystem and
its commitment toward ensuring the
security of its platform.
The Global Decentralization of
Knowledge Database and economy is truly
the People's Platform for a brighter future -
one that is just, equitable and democratic.
Source: Asia times
PLA;
China was the only country to agree to the coproduction
of advanced military aircraft and
other weapons systems with Pakistan;
As China's economic fortunes improved, it
quietly and repeatedly extended financial
support (loans, bank deposits, grants) to enable
Pakistan to meet economic emergencies and
bolster its failing finances;
- China decided to finance the CPeC projects
in Pakistan as the first leg of its ambitious Belt
and Road Initiative. No other country's
companies were prepared to invest or work in
Pakistan;
- Finally, as India pursues a global media and
diplomatic campaign to 'isolate' Pakistan and
threatens 'surgical strikes' and a 'limited war',
and as the US exerts pressure on Pakistan to
support its failed strategy in Afghanistan and
succumb to Indian diktat, it is China, with its veto
in the Security Council and influence in major
capitals, that stands in the way of negative
international decisions and actions against
Pakistan. In the currently unfolding Asian
drama, the power relationships in South Asia
and adjacent areas will depend on the structure
and content of Sino-US, Sino-India and
Pakistan-India relations.
Source : Dawn