Towards a less-cash society

Daily Excelsior Op-Ed 10/12/2016

It was not even in the dreams of people in the era of barter system of transactions that a common paper currency would take over all kinds of transactions and would be recognised over a great span of area. Analogy finds perfect match considering the shift towards a cashless society from the current paper based currency and transaction. Many nations around the globe have mastered the art of cashless transactions with proper infrastructure, administrative will and societal acceptance. Scandinavian nations like Sweden and Denmark lead  the marathon. According to Riksbanken, Sweden’s central bank, cash in circulation has come down from 106 million kroner to 80 million kroner in last 7 years with further decline of 50% in next half a decade.  Furthermore, Sweden is also considering a plan to issue a national digital currency ‘e-krona’ in near future. Even developing countries such as Kenya is the one of the most cited success story.
India is undoubtedly moving towards a society which would be dealing in more cashless transactions owing to increasing mobile and internet penetrations. At present, more than one billion Indians are using mobile phones and more than 300 million Indians use their phones regularly for accessing the Internet. Slew of measures doled out to expedite the process of transforming India into a less-cash economy by the Government of India under the flagship campaign of Digital India to fulfill the goals, envisaged by PM Modi, of transforming India into a corruption-free, citizen-centric and a developed state in real sense.

An Independent Judicial Appointment Body

Daily Excelsior Readers Write 10/09/16

A petition filed by The National Lawyers Campaign for Judicial Transparency and Reforms, represented by advocates Mathew J. Nedumpara and A.C. Philip, can  indeed be an optimised solution to the Judicial appointments dilemma prevailing since long in India. The conundrum revolves around the central motif that whether the job of appointment in judiciary be bestowed upon judiciary itself for the adeptness and specialisation engrained in or legislature owing to the mandate they enjoy or executive which is responsible to the Lower House. The petition seeks to mull on genesis of a public, transparent and responsible body neither controlled by the government nor by the judiciary, for the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts of the country. Such innovative idea would curtail the chances of selections on the basis of patronage, nepotism and favouritism prevalent in the Collegium system in judicial hierarchical setup or sensitive Legislature susceptible to vote-bank politics. A Commission should be formed which select Judges by inviting applications from all eligible candidates, inoculating the advices of all stakeholders, the Bar Associations, the public at large and finally should uphold the sanctity of such a high profile job by keep it shielded from all the factors that may trigger its formation.