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Apparently it struck too close to home. Unleashing tax officials on an organization painting a negative picture (well, not, Modi and accoplice paint it, the BB

Apparently it struck too close to home. Unleashing tax officials on an organization painting a negative picture (well, not, Modi and accoplice paint it, the BBC only presents it) is a failed attempt of masquerading an authoritarian government overstepping their limits of governance. If they were honest and not coward they would simply tell: 'Shouldn't uncover our dirty laundry, get out of here or will get hurt!' They only highlight not cover this way what we already suspect of India being an elective dictatorship (similar to Hungary).

miroljub 4y ago
> Unleashing tax officials on an organization painting a negative picture (well, not, Modi i and accoplice paint it, the BBC only presents it) is a failed attempt of masquerading an authoritarian government overstepping their limits of governance. Isn't that what every government do? Remember that Al Capone went to jail because of tax issues, the government couldn't prove anything he was accused to. If you look at Germany, Michael Ballweg is sitting in jail (without trial) for tax evasion accusations. The fact that the government didn't like his movement that protested against unconstitutional anti-covid measures was not enough reason to put him there. Almost every government has a history of unleashing a tax department on their political enemies. We call it a legal state when it happens in our country, and a state terror when it happens in another. A cynic in me would say that, in this case, India is learning from the best democracies in the world, US and Germany. EDIT: I'm not saying Al Capone did not do tax evasion, or that Ballweg had all his books 100% clean. In any remotely complex tax system, it's not even possible, since there is always enough place for interpretation. But the fact that some guys are prosecuted just because government doesn't like them, and the ones that government likes get away with it, is unfortunately properly of almost every legal system, democracies included. In the end, Modi's government may find a lakh or two of expenses not filled properly and punish BBC with 20 krores. My point is just that this is not unique to India, and one should not look down at India and call out on it for doing what everyone else is doing.
- aww_dang 4y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-conservative/justice-department-settles-with-conservative-groups-over-irs-scrutiny-idUSKBN1CV1TY https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-conservative/just... > The U.S. Justice Department has reached a settlement with dozens of conservative groups that claimed the Internal Revenue Service unfairly scrutinized them based on their political leanings when they sought a tax-exempt status, court documents showed.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Capone was guilty of tax fraud because the money laundering part of his criminal enterprise was the part that was the least well organised. Nothing wrong with that. Somehow I doubt the BBC is laundering billions in bootlegging money. I don't know anything about the German guy.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    The BBC office in Delhi at the Hindustan Times building employs 200+ people, including many UK staff on temporary attachment. It massively expanded in 2016 but it dates back far longer. I wouldn't be confident that every piece of equipment in that office was obtained legally in the country, let alone being able to prove it. For example someone whose mobile phone got lost/smashed/blownup last time they were in Kabul, so they bought a new one, then returned to their Delhi office. Or a piece of equipment that was legally imported back in 2012 but the paperwork has gone. Or a UK purchased harddrive that a passing cameraman left in the edit suite, or something bought locally but the receipt didn't list the serial number on it. I'm confident there will be an "irregularity" somewhere. I'm confident any office in any building in any city in the world will have similar problems irrefutably proving where any equipment came from.
    - KingOfCoders 4y ago
      "For example someone whose mobile phone got lost/smashed/blownup last time they were in Kabul, so they bought a new one" How is that related to the BBC?
      - blincoln 4y ago
        > How is that related to the BBC? I think iso1631 is saying that there may be enough red tape for imports into India that the BBC could technically be breaking the law for failing to declare/pay duties on some equipment they or their employees brought into the country. If you're in the US, my experience is that it's kind of an anomaly in terms of relatively light enforcement of import taxes for individual citizens. For example, most countries will look at the declared value on foreign parcels and force the recipient to pay import tax before releasing it to them.[1] If someone walked the same thing over the border, and the government wanted to make things hard on that person, they might accuse them of tax evasion, etc. [1] For those NOT in the US wondering how this is unusual, individuals generally don't have to pay before receiving the parcel here.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >Isn't that what every government do? Remember that Al Capone went to jail because of tax issues, the government couldn't prove anything he was accused to. Yes to varying extends and with varying frequencies. No government is perfectly clean in this regard though some are much better than others. Comfortably wealthy westerners who've never been harassed by any government or quasi-government institutions will happily write of their own governments small amount of it though because that's more comforting than realizing we do it too and having the tough discussion of where the line ought to be.
  - monetus 4y ago
    Please dont troll with generalizations.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      A little to close to home, eh? Twisting the law so you can jail a known criminal for a term that is unreasonable for the charges you can actually convict him on is surely a far cry from jailing political opponents over BS but it is on the same spectrum of odious government behavior and the fact of the matter is that HN types tend to draw the "here is where I stop looking the other way" line on that spectrum a lot closer to the "jailing dissidents" end than people who have adversarial contact with such institutions.
      - monetus 4y ago
        How does this help the point you are trying to make? > doesn't stop comfortably wealthy westerners who've never been harassed by any government or quasi-government institutions It comes across like a prejudiced assumption, and just hurts it. Flames others into an incendiary mess. Why are you so mad, who is it towards? Westerners? Dungeons and dragons of all things has been dealing with these ethics surrounding laws for years. Games. Your anger is misdirected at "hn types" because that is just a generalization. Regardless, your principle stands. The ends justifying the means as a principle is despised for good reasons even if some laud it as well.
- mihaaly 4y ago
  > Isn't that what every government do? The question should rather be: Is this a good thing or abusing the power? (Al Capone did tax fraud on a spectacular level, among other more serious offenses. BBC shown a documentary. Feel the difference?) Also: billion flies eating shit will not make it a good thing. :/ Bad habbit should be a repelling thing not something be repeated and brought forward as excuse for gods sake! (I cannot tell if the above examples for abuse are founded or not, except Al Capone, my response is for this 'other do so I will too' kind of derailed rhetoric or alibi that I hate so so much)
- luma 4y ago
  > Almost every government has a history of unleashing a tax department on their political enemies Financial crimes tend to be a lot harder to hide than bodies, and the witnesses (in the form of records) harder to bribe.
- notlukesky 4y ago
  FDR famously weaponized the IRS, as his daughter even remarked on it,against his enemies including politicians and political opponents like Huey Long and Mellon (the former Treasury secretary and potential future Presidential candidate and innovator of the “modern” IRS). “My father,” Elliott Roosevelt observed of his famous parent, “may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution.” https://www.hillsdale.edu/educational-outreach/free-market-forum/2006-archive/fdr-and-the-irs/ https://www.hillsdale.edu/educational-outreach/free-market-f... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > My point is just that this is not unique to India, and one should not look down at India and call out on it for doing what everyone else is doing. Nobody is claiming that India's corruption is unique or unprecedented, just that it is happening. Germany and the US have done a lot worse than selective prosecution, and it would be better if India did not do those other, worse things. "It's all right because the US and Germany did it" gives you slavery and death camps.
- justin66 4y ago
  Al Capone was not a "political enemy" of the state. He wasn't prosecuted "just because the government didn't like him." He was a mass-murdering crime boss.
- Nitramp 4y ago
  > If you look at Germany, Michael Ballweg is sitting in jail (without trial) for tax evasion accusations. The fact that the government didn't like his movement that protested against unconstitutional anti-covid measures was not enough reason to put him there. I think you have that backwards. Ballweg is in jail because allegedly he took in donations to support a cause, but then (ab)used them for himself personally, defrauding the donors and evading taxation. That's illegal, and thus he's in jail. Indeed protesting Covid is not enough to put you in jail, because that's not actually illegal. You're insinuating the government chose to persecute him for his political views. That's a pretty bold claim that I think would need substantiation.
dharmach 4y ago
Modi is scared of BBC otherwise he should have banned BBC like RT.com in the West.
- wavefunction 4y ago
  This is a terrible analogy. RT.com is a reliable purveyor of conspiracy theories and incendiary lies. The BBC's examination of Narendra Modi's well-documented behavior leading up to, during and after the Gujarat riots is well-supported by other media and academic sources.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - lenkite 4y ago
    Haha, a truly objective analysis of both media conglomerates with no a-priori biases would show that the BBC is just as reliable a purveyor as RT.
- rinka_singh 4y ago
  I don't think so, I don't think it is fear. I have watched BBC for a long time and they were uniformly critical/negative of everything in India. Other than one or two positive series, their news have been uniformly negative and so obviously biased that I've stopped watching them. Personally, given the amount of negativity that they have thrown around, I'm glad Modi gave them the shock treatment - I think they have earned it and in spades. And just in case this is seen as a pure BJP persective, Indira Gandhi had also done so long ago and that straightened them out for a while.

miroljub 4y ago

> Unleashing tax officials on an organization painting a negative picture (well, not, Modi i and accoplice paint it, the BBC only presents it) is a failed attempt of masquerading an authoritarian government overstepping their limits of governance. Isn't that what every government do? Remember that Al Capone went to jail because of tax issues, the government couldn't prove anything he was accused to. If you look at Germany, Michael Ballweg is sitting in jail (without trial) for tax evasion accusations. The fact that the government didn't like his movement that protested against unconstitutional anti-covid measures was not enough reason to put him there. Almost every government has a history of unleashing a tax department on their political enemies. We call it a legal state when it happens in our country, and a state terror when it happens in another. A cynic in me would say that, in this case, India is learning from the best democracies in the world, US and Germany. EDIT: I'm not saying Al Capone did not do tax evasion, or that Ballweg had all his books 100% clean. In any remotely complex tax system, it's not even possible, since there is always enough place for interpretation. But the fact that some guys are prosecuted just because government doesn't like them, and the ones that government likes get away with it, is unfortunately properly of almost every legal system, democracies included. In the end, Modi's government may find a lakh or two of expenses not filled properly and punish BBC with 20 krores. My point is just that this is not unique to India, and one should not look down at India and call out on it for doing what everyone else is doing.

aww_dang 4y ago
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-conservative/justice-department-settles-with-conservative-groups-over-irs-scrutiny-idUSKBN1CV1TY https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-conservative/just... > The U.S. Justice Department has reached a settlement with dozens of conservative groups that claimed the Internal Revenue Service unfairly scrutinized them based on their political leanings when they sought a tax-exempt status, court documents showed.
wkat4242 4y ago
Capone was guilty of tax fraud because the money laundering part of his criminal enterprise was the part that was the least well organised. Nothing wrong with that. Somehow I doubt the BBC is laundering billions in bootlegging money. I don't know anything about the German guy.
- iso1631 4y ago
  The BBC office in Delhi at the Hindustan Times building employs 200+ people, including many UK staff on temporary attachment. It massively expanded in 2016 but it dates back far longer. I wouldn't be confident that every piece of equipment in that office was obtained legally in the country, let alone being able to prove it. For example someone whose mobile phone got lost/smashed/blownup last time they were in Kabul, so they bought a new one, then returned to their Delhi office. Or a piece of equipment that was legally imported back in 2012 but the paperwork has gone. Or a UK purchased harddrive that a passing cameraman left in the edit suite, or something bought locally but the receipt didn't list the serial number on it. I'm confident there will be an "irregularity" somewhere. I'm confident any office in any building in any city in the world will have similar problems irrefutably proving where any equipment came from.
  - KingOfCoders 4y ago
    "For example someone whose mobile phone got lost/smashed/blownup last time they were in Kabul, so they bought a new one" How is that related to the BBC?
    - blincoln 4y ago
      > How is that related to the BBC? I think iso1631 is saying that there may be enough red tape for imports into India that the BBC could technically be breaking the law for failing to declare/pay duties on some equipment they or their employees brought into the country. If you're in the US, my experience is that it's kind of an anomaly in terms of relatively light enforcement of import taxes for individual citizens. For example, most countries will look at the declared value on foreign parcels and force the recipient to pay import tax before releasing it to them.[1] If someone walked the same thing over the border, and the government wanted to make things hard on that person, they might accuse them of tax evasion, etc. [1] For those NOT in the US wondering how this is unusual, individuals generally don't have to pay before receiving the parcel here.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>Isn't that what every government do? Remember that Al Capone went to jail because of tax issues, the government couldn't prove anything he was accused to. Yes to varying extends and with varying frequencies. No government is perfectly clean in this regard though some are much better than others. Comfortably wealthy westerners who've never been harassed by any government or quasi-government institutions will happily write of their own governments small amount of it though because that's more comforting than realizing we do it too and having the tough discussion of where the line ought to be.
- monetus 4y ago
  Please dont troll with generalizations.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    A little to close to home, eh? Twisting the law so you can jail a known criminal for a term that is unreasonable for the charges you can actually convict him on is surely a far cry from jailing political opponents over BS but it is on the same spectrum of odious government behavior and the fact of the matter is that HN types tend to draw the "here is where I stop looking the other way" line on that spectrum a lot closer to the "jailing dissidents" end than people who have adversarial contact with such institutions.
    - monetus 4y ago
      How does this help the point you are trying to make? > doesn't stop comfortably wealthy westerners who've never been harassed by any government or quasi-government institutions It comes across like a prejudiced assumption, and just hurts it. Flames others into an incendiary mess. Why are you so mad, who is it towards? Westerners? Dungeons and dragons of all things has been dealing with these ethics surrounding laws for years. Games. Your anger is misdirected at "hn types" because that is just a generalization. Regardless, your principle stands. The ends justifying the means as a principle is despised for good reasons even if some laud it as well.
mihaaly 4y ago
> Isn't that what every government do? The question should rather be: Is this a good thing or abusing the power? (Al Capone did tax fraud on a spectacular level, among other more serious offenses. BBC shown a documentary. Feel the difference?) Also: billion flies eating shit will not make it a good thing. :/ Bad habbit should be a repelling thing not something be repeated and brought forward as excuse for gods sake! (I cannot tell if the above examples for abuse are founded or not, except Al Capone, my response is for this 'other do so I will too' kind of derailed rhetoric or alibi that I hate so so much)
luma 4y ago
> Almost every government has a history of unleashing a tax department on their political enemies Financial crimes tend to be a lot harder to hide than bodies, and the witnesses (in the form of records) harder to bribe.
notlukesky 4y ago
FDR famously weaponized the IRS, as his daughter even remarked on it,against his enemies including politicians and political opponents like Huey Long and Mellon (the former Treasury secretary and potential future Presidential candidate and innovator of the “modern” IRS). “My father,” Elliott Roosevelt observed of his famous parent, “may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution.” https://www.hillsdale.edu/educational-outreach/free-market-forum/2006-archive/fdr-and-the-irs/ https://www.hillsdale.edu/educational-outreach/free-market-f... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon
pessimizer 4y ago
> My point is just that this is not unique to India, and one should not look down at India and call out on it for doing what everyone else is doing. Nobody is claiming that India's corruption is unique or unprecedented, just that it is happening. Germany and the US have done a lot worse than selective prosecution, and it would be better if India did not do those other, worse things. "It's all right because the US and Germany did it" gives you slavery and death camps.
justin66 4y ago
Al Capone was not a "political enemy" of the state. He wasn't prosecuted "just because the government didn't like him." He was a mass-murdering crime boss.
Nitramp 4y ago
> If you look at Germany, Michael Ballweg is sitting in jail (without trial) for tax evasion accusations. The fact that the government didn't like his movement that protested against unconstitutional anti-covid measures was not enough reason to put him there. I think you have that backwards. Ballweg is in jail because allegedly he took in donations to support a cause, but then (ab)used them for himself personally, defrauding the donors and evading taxation. That's illegal, and thus he's in jail. Indeed protesting Covid is not enough to put you in jail, because that's not actually illegal. You're insinuating the government chose to persecute him for his political views. That's a pretty bold claim that I think would need substantiation.

dharmach 4y ago

Modi is scared of BBC otherwise he should have banned BBC like RT.com in the West.

wavefunction 4y ago
This is a terrible analogy. RT.com is a reliable purveyor of conspiracy theories and incendiary lies. The BBC's examination of Narendra Modi's well-documented behavior leading up to, during and after the Gujarat riots is well-supported by other media and academic sources.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- lenkite 4y ago
  Haha, a truly objective analysis of both media conglomerates with no a-priori biases would show that the BBC is just as reliable a purveyor as RT.
rinka_singh 4y ago
I don't think so, I don't think it is fear. I have watched BBC for a long time and they were uniformly critical/negative of everything in India. Other than one or two positive series, their news have been uniformly negative and so obviously biased that I've stopped watching them. Personally, given the amount of negativity that they have thrown around, I'm glad Modi gave them the shock treatment - I think they have earned it and in spades. And just in case this is seen as a pure BJP persective, Indira Gandhi had also done so long ago and that straightened them out for a while.