From The President

One of the seven social sins
as enunciated by Mahatma Gandhi was “Politics without Principles”. In good old
days, our political leaders led a principle centered or value based life. There
was a time when Union Minister Lal Bahadur Shashtri resigned from the cabinet
owning moral responsibility after a railway accident. Jai Prakash Narayan,
co-founder of Praja Socialist Party, quit the party in 1957 when he found that
tickets were distributed on the caste basis and forging ahead to pursue
Sarvodaya (good of all) and Lokniti (Polity of the people) as opposed to Rajniti
(Polity of the State).

Today, food inflation is
skyrocketing and our Agriculture Minister remains unperturbed. Farmers are
committing suicide and Ministers are busy in Rajniti. The head of the Vigilance
Commission (CVC) is under a cloud. Government is unable to declare names of the
holders of secret bank accounts overseas. Accountability is nowhere to be seen.
Punishment to culprits is illusory. Judiciary is our only ray of hope and the
Supreme Court’s pointed questions over 2G scam, secret bank accounts overseas,
CVC etc. have put the Government on the defensive. Despite the spate of scams
and corruption charges hurled about, none of the Ministers resigned voluntarily.

The law and order situation
has gone haywire. There is no safety for whistle blowers. RTI activists are
being killed without compunction. On 25th January 2011, Yashwant Sonawane,
Additional Collector Manmad region (Maharashtra) was burnt alive by the oil
mafia. If this be the fate of a Collector, what about the amm aadmi and what can
he expect at all?

An open letter written by 14
eminent citizens of India on 17th January 2011 aptly describes the present day
scenario. They have amongst other things, expressed grave concern over the
widespread “governance deficit” in every sphere of national activity, namely,
government, business and other institutions. They have alleged that misuse of
discretionary (decision making) power is widespread under extraneous influences.
They have demanded urgent steps to arrest the “malaise of corruption, which is
corroding the moral fabric of the nation”.

In Sanskrit there is a
saying that “Yatha Raja, Tatha Praja” (meaning as is the Ruler so is the Ruled).
Therefore, it is imperative that good governance should start from the top.
People in democratic set up today think it is the opposite – as are the people
so are its representatives e.g. the president/prime minister etc. forgetting
that the primary quality of a leader is his being a role model. The entire
Ramayana is written on this theme, and Rama consistently guarded his character
lest it be anything less than perfection (Maryada Purushottam) – a role model.
The Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitishkumar has set an illustration by first
declaring his assets and then demanding others, his ministers and bureaucrats to
follow suit.

We have a unique example of
Mr. Narayanamurthy, a great visionary, who created an empire which has not
touched him as the lotus remaining untouched by mud. His simplicity and
governance are worth emulating. On 7th and 8th January 2011, members of BCAS and
Karnataka State Chartered Accountants’ Association (KSCAA) visited the Campuses
of Wipro, Bangalore and Infosys, Bangalore and Mysore as part of a study tour.
The vastness of Mysore campus of Infosys and the world class training and other
facilities provided therein widened the horizons of participants. It was amazing
to see how one visionary with his enabling team could achieve in a single
lifetime and that, too, without any strings attached. No wonder, companies like
Infosys and Wipro have brought laurels to home. The participants of the study
tour also visited the manufacturing facilities of Toyota at Bangalore. Thanks to
CA. Padamchand Khincha who arranged these memorable events.

The results of CA Final are
out and as usual, there is more remorse than elation notwithstanding the fact
that the result percentage is now better than last time. The lack of formal
coaching may well be the reason for the poor performance. The ICAI’s initiative
to commence Live Virtual Classes at 25 centres in 22 cities across our country
is indeed laudable.

I think we need to reexamine
our present evaluation system which is more of a memory test. It does not matter
how much a student works hard for the entire year; what really matters is that
which he is able to reproduce at the examination hall. May be, the examinations
prepare us to keep our cool/equilibrium during the critical moments of our life.
What worries one is that a student scores 50 marks in a particular subject in
one attempt but gets five marks in the same subject in the subsequent attempt
–one is up against such an inexplicable result, naturally. Maybe, we need live
with the present system until we find a more balanced and rational way of
evaluation wherein performance of a student is reckoned over a period of time
and not just in three hours. This is true not only of CA examinations but also
of other examinations. As far as the CA curriculum is concerned, we all need to
conjoin our minds and help ICAI in evolving a better system of evaluation. The
problem has been identified and its solution cannot be late in arriving. I
appeal to readers to send their suggestions in this regard to president@bcasonline.org.

The much awaited Residential
Refresher Course (RRC) organised by BCAS was completed successfully at Matheran.
More than 200 members participated. The concept of two parallel sessions, one on
Service tax and the other on International tax elicited good participatory
response. RRC Nostalgia – an audio, visual and live programme, on one of the
evenings, kindled memories of the past RRCs. BCAS TV has been launched whereby
members from far off places would be able to benefit from recorded videos, for a
nominal subscription.

A number of activities have
been planned in the next two months. BCAS has designated February 2011 as an
“Internal Audit Month” wherein many programmes in the field of Internal Audit
are scheduled. The idea is to equip our members in this important and emerging
area of practice.

February is the month for
presentation of the Union Budget in Parliament. The winter session was a wash
out, with opposition demanding Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to
investigate the 2G spectrum scam. Let us hope that Parliament would function
meaningfully during the Budget session and transact various important businesses
listed on its agenda, God willing.

Every year the fifth day (Panchami) of the Indian month Magh (this year it is on 8th February), being the first day of spring is celebrated as Saraswati Pooja day. Hindus on this occasion worship Saraswati – the goddess of knowledge, music and art. I pray that Maa Saraswati gives wisdom to all of us to work for the progress and betterment of our nation and humanity at large.