 Good morning everyone. It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to the debate competition organized by the PJ department, School of English and Political Studies to observe the Vigilance Awareness Week 2022 and initiative by the Central Vigilance Commission whom we would also like to thank for supporting this event. The goal of our debate is to give a platform to this young minds to engage in lively debate. Before I announce the guidelines for the debate I would like to introduce our guest for the event. First we have Sri Sashiva Panglano, IRS Additional Commissioner, CGSD Dimapur Commissionerate. Our next guest is Sri Thejaselu Yome, IRS Deputy Commissioner, CGSD Dimapur Commissionerate. Very good morning everyone. Respected guest, Mr. Moderator, the panel of judges, my co-debaters and the audience. I am here to propose the motion which asserts that corruption is the root cause for India's economic decline. So what is corruption? Transparency, international stats that corruption is abuse of interested power for private fund. Corruption, weakens democracy, hampers economic development, further intensify inequality, poverty, social division and economic crisis. So in the 2021 report of the transparency international rank, India has 85 among 180 countries in the corruption perception index report. So Sri Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, has once famously said that out of every rupee sent by the government over development, 85 Pesas are pocketed by middlemen and only 15 Pesas are actually spent for the purpose for which the amount was meant to be spent. So what does this imply? This means that if there had been no corruption, instead of one school existing now, there might have perhaps been six to seven schools. Instead of one hospital, there might have been six to seven hospitals and highways and so on. So it means that the quality of life might perhaps have been six to seven times better. So in support of my statement, I would like to talk about the tax evasion in India. Every year, a significant portion of population resorts to tax evasion. This leads to a massive loss of revenue for the government. Though the state of the tax justice 2020 report states that India showed a loss of $10.3 billion in tax due to global tax abuse. So the amount that has been gone wrong can be used in paying salaries of four crores to need three lakhs and 656 nurses annually. So these are the reasons are the main purpose and the main reasons of misuse of money and most probably the black money and irresponsible citizens leading to the India's economic decline and the main reason being corruption. So in the times of India, the capital expenditure during April to December 2020 stood at 3.17 lakh crore, 24% more higher than the total expenditure estimated. So this indicates that there is corruption in the management of money which hampers the growth of Indian economy. So my follow-up opponents may say that it is because of various incenses like malnutrition, no education or illiterature that is leading to the decline of Indian economy. But my statement here is that if the corrupted money is used to cover all this expenditure of malnutrition, no education, illiteracy, everything, this problem will not arise. So the opponents may give various reasons for the decline of Indian economy, but I say that corruption is the root cause of the decline of India's economy. Thank you. Respected judges, the moderator, intellectuals and everyone present here. A very good morning to you all and also to my co-debaters. Let me directly start and come to my point. How proud do you feel when you hear about India as a nation? Which is like rich in diversity. We have rich culture, traditions and heritage and talent. Yes, of course we have many diversity. There are enough reasons to feel proud about it. After everything about India is so big and has such a rich base, beat land mass population, the army and around like 1,600 languages in India itself. The highest crime rates, but India as it is the ranking top in corruption, which is the root cause of Indian economy degradation. Corruption is the main cause that is leading to the Indian economy degradation. Let me give greetings to each one of you. We are here today debating on the topic corruption, the root cause of Indian economy decline and it is definitely not the only root cause of Indian economy decline. Well, we are talking about corruption, but who is going to talk about the unemployment rises? What about the worsening US-China trade relations that is affecting Indian economy? It's such a red. Coming to the fact that we have all went through demonetization, the one-time cash curtailing exercise of the government that have a telling impact on Indian growth. Demonetization is not a short-time impact on economy as it is affecting India even now. As we are all aware that demonetization hit the farmers and the BPL the most. Their crop prices crushed during the year and exaggerated and already existing farm distress scenario. With no cash in hand, farmers sold farm profits at distressed sales. Within two weeks of the incident, 15 farmers reportedly committed suicide. When farmers are affected, our agricultural products is affected and when agriculture is affected, our GDP decreases. That's affecting our economy. See? No corruption being mentioned. Demonetization eventually leads to consumer demand slump, which slowed the rural economy and of all things hurt the Indian GDP as it slowed down in the real estate and construction sector have had the worst impact of all. Now coming to investment, investment level have bottomed out in the last two years at FII, foreign institutional investors marked an exit from the Indian stock market. It is said that 15,000 crore have been redrawn from Indian market in 2018 to 2019. So how can we only focus on corruption? Because Indian economy is flooded in many aspects. Are we forgetting about our overpopulated country in day's reddit second for being overpopulated? Just to remind you all. So when our country is overpopulated, the average production becomes way too less for everyone. A respected director, that's a college, faculty, participants, students, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the office of the commissioner, central GST, we are happy to have been given the opportunity to conduct this program here. I stand here just to say two things. One, I will just briefly introduce who we are as a department and secondly I'll give you a broad idea why we are doing this. What is this event a part of as a bigger picture in the whole country? You know Benjamin Franklin once said that nothing in the world is certain except for two things, death and taxes. Right? So today you're in a program being conducted by tax men yet many of us in Nagaland we have this misconception that Nagas don't pay tax, at least to the government. So yes, Nagas don't pay income tax. That is also partially true only. When a Naga working in Nagaland, a tribal in a tribal area, you don't have to pay tax, but a tribal working in a non-tribal area, tribal working in Calcutta, I pay income tax, right? So even the statement that Nagas don't have to pay income tax, that itself is partially true. But the bigger picture, there are many other taxes which people sitting in this room, everyone in Nagaland is paying and yet we are of the concept that Nagas don't pay tax, right? So what kind of taxes am I talking about? GST, customs, these are what you call indirect taxes. Why indirect? Because the tax is collected indirectly from the person who finally pays them, right? So I'll give you very basic two, three examples to explain what kind of taxes these are, right? Let's start with customs, you know. In Nagaland all of us are, we love anything Korean, right? So let's take the example of your favorite kimchi noodles, a packet of Korean noodles, right? So in the market when you buy it, you buy it for 100 bucks or 150, whatever the cost is, right? But the person who buys it from Korea in bulk, he has to pay some, a tax called customs duty. Customs duty is basically something that any goods coming into India from a foreign country, you have to suffer that tax. So the person who buys those Korean noodles in bulk pays an import duty for those noodles and then at the shop level, when you're buying that at the MRP, that customs duty is already adjusted for, right? So you and me, when you're buying that packet of noodles indirectly, you are paying customs duty, right? So we are paying customs tax. Let's take a look at GST, you know. Let's say you take your friends out for a treat to a restaurant, you went to KFC and you ate whatever burgers, chicken. So next time you do that, take a look at the bill. So you'll have the price of the items that you ate, burger, chicken, Pepsi, whatever, but below that you will find something called CGST as GST, right? So that portion is over and above the cost of the items that you have bought from the restaurant. And why you're paying this is because you enjoyed the service that environment inside a restaurant for which 5% GST is being deducted, right? So you and me, each time you do that, we are also paying GST without knowing that you're paying GST, right? Just another example, let's say you're buying a mobile phone also. The MRP says 5,000 rupees. Next time take a look at the breakup properly. The actual cost of the mobile will be something like 4,200, 300 and there'll be an 18% GST which is taxed on mobile phones. So my point basically is without knowing all of us are paying taxes here in Nagaland, yet we think Nagas don't pay taxes, right? So we are from that department, the indirect taxes, the central board of indirect taxes and customs, CBIC, under which the GST department comes in. And in all states in the country, including Nagaland, we have two authorities. We have the central GST and the state GST which run side by side and we implement the GST laws across the country for GST, right? For Nagaland here. So that is an introduction to who we are. As an introduction, they have mentioned the Central Vigilance Commission. Yes, that is the overall commission that is conducting this Vigilance Awareness Week. But we are from the central GST office also observing this Vigilance Awareness Week, right? The second point, coming to this Vigilance Awareness Week. This is observed throughout India in all central government offices as well as public sector units and banks. And this is done coinciding with the birthday of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who is known as the Iron Man of India, because he was such a persuasive person, you know. So his birthday falls on 31st October. So generally the week that is coinciding with 31st October every year, we observe this week and this year's theme is corruption-free India for a developed nation. So thank you that Tetsuo College has given us this platform. Thank you to the participants. A round of applause to them once again, because as already mentioned by some of the speakers, the topic itself is something slightly skewed in favor. You know, it's easy for all of us to agree. And yet to come up with points against, that was difficult, but I think all of you have done well. One of the speakers mentioned the fact that how much Rajiv Gandhi and, you know, 1 rupee, how much paisa trickles down. I'll tell you from the other side, you know, how much is the tax department contributing to that 1 rupee, right? So from 1 rupee, this is what our honorable union finance minister has mentioned in a budget speech this year. Almost 60 paisa of that 1 rupee is contributed from the tax department, right? Around 35 paisa is from borrowings. And other five paisa comes from this investment and other kinds of ways to raise. So the tax department plays a very important role in building the economy, because on one hand you have people who are spending the money for development, but we are on the other hand gathering the money so that development and spending can happen, right? Once again, thank you to the director. You know, as he mentioned, we have known each other for some time, but this was a good opportunity to catch up. I call him on the phone and I asked him whether we can have this event. And he graciously has given us this opportunity. Thank you also to Dr. Rosy Tep, who was the contact point for the college and our officers have been keeping in touch with her, making the preliminary requirements for this program. Just to end, you know, we agree that corruption remains one of the main factors why there is slowness in our economic, social, political development, right? At the same time, just my concluding remarks would be what would be yours and my response to this kind of a program, you know. It is not only the government alone which has to take action when it comes to corruption, you know, all stakeholders, the private sector, the citizens at large, you know. So this morning I was just reading something on social media. Most of my news I get from social media. So I read the story and somehow that spoke to me and I'd like to share this with you regarding what our response to corruption could be, you know. It comes down to one word, you know, integrity. And this is a story about two Japanese men who were standing at a road crossing, you know. So one of the men, they were standing there waiting for the light to turn green so that they can cross the road. So the other man says, I don't see any car on the left side. I don't see any car coming from the right side, right? It says don't walk. There is no car coming. Why don't we just walk, right? And the response of the other man is that no, we will not walk. What if a child sees us doing this, right? So basically integrity is about doing the right thing when nobody else is looking at you. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. I hope our session has been a very productive session today. And it's good to see all of you present, especially the students present today. This, at this time, I want to thank our, our, sir. And also I want to thank our officials coming from the CGST Dimapur Commissioner. I thank Shri Sashi Wapan Lanu, IRS additional commissioner CGST Dimapur Commissioner. And also Shri Tejasel Hu Yomei IRS, IRS, the beauty commissioner CGST Dimapur Commissioner. Thank you so much. And also thank you so much to the official team from the CGST Dimapur for giving the student this platform to express themselves. And at the same time giving them a big platform where they can see, where they are learning, where they see that they can have a lot of critical thinking. And at the same time delivering or addressing their argument in place. And I would also thank the students here who have participated giving, with your critical thinking, your argument. But at the end of the day, we all understand, we all know that you are sharing your own viewpoint. And I'm sure there is no hard feelings among the students as well as you share your, your viewpoint on this. This, this debate has been specially organized for the PG level student this time. And we hope in the coming future we will have a lot of, as our director has already mentioned, we want, we want to have a lot of debate competition because we feel that this is fruitful, this is necessary for the students to understand how to present their ideas to the audience.