Dear Friends

The recently concluded Navaratri festival was one of healthy and sustainable food for me.  The first day started with one of my good friends dropping in, to handover a few saplings of a rare variety of delicious jack fruit from his farm. He said so many saplings have sprung up from the trees on his land that he felt it his responsibility to distribute them to people who care to nurture them. I gladly accepted and made sure I re-distributed to 3 others who had the required place to grow them (jack fruit roots go deep and impact the building foundation, so a large farm or a big garden is ideal).  I almost felt they were like children that needed to be housed under proper care and love.  In return I shared with my friend a few papayas, coconuts and beetle-leaves grown at home.  Over the next few days, we received tasty home grown chikoos/sapotas and home-made coconut oil from another friend in Mysore while we all sat down to a healthy, home-cooked meal for the festival. With yet another healthy-food-conscious friend we shared home grown pumpkin and papayas. I tell you the joy of receiving and giving homegrown produce is so different and precious as compared to carrying some sweets, namkeens & chocolates. Well, it matters to people who appreciate and care for simple things in life.

Having moved to healthy-living as a choice over the last few years, I got into a conversation with Anand in Mysore who shifted careers from a software engineer to a farm producer.  He grows coconut trees and extracts wooden-pressed oils, cold pressed oils (in his traditional chakki) and trades in unpolished rice, unprocessed salt, organic jaggery etc. While I picked up quite a few stuff for self and a few friends, he shared so many interesting things about what is organic, what is natural, what is chemical-free, why people are made to believe that a higher price tag means a better quality (while it need not be so), how a 200 rupee oil is sold in a fancy store in a city at 800 rupees, how the supply chain works etc.  He passionately spoke about coconut in its tender form, fruit form and dried form and how oil extracted at different stages (with and without roasting) impacts the nutrient value and the price.  Just like so many other sustainability-champions he emphasised on allowing natural growth, curing & ripening time and extracting without short-changing the process. Anand shared a lot and I realised  he is a fountain-head of traditional knowledge with genuine concern for Mother Earth and Sustainable Future.

This reminds me about 20th October which is celebrated as International Chef’s Day. Coincidentally the theme for 2020 is “Healthy & Sustainable Food for the Future”.  It was interesting to watch a panel discussion on this theme hosted by the Institute of Hotel Management, Bangalore (incidentally my son was the student-moderator) that had India’s top corporate chefs and entrepreneurs sharing their thoughts, experiences and trends in healthy food and what chefs are doing about this. The insightful takeaways were – Healthy food is no more a buzzword, it is REAL.  Hotels are offering responsible luxury and India Proud Food.  Customers are dictating what they want.  Chefs must be able to ‘create a story on the plate’ while being conscious of the Food miles, Fuel burn, Produce origin, Fair pricing for the farmers, Honest farming etc. One of them said we must be aware of what’s going into our body if we want to know what we are going to be in future. They talked about how chefs are rooting for local produce rather than imported ones which was the norm years ago, how the breakfast menu has shifted from processed cereals, bacon and sausages to fruits, veggie blends and freshly made local Indian cuisines. There was a piece of good advice – get children to read food labels and figure out the ingredients, their nutritional value, shelf life etc. before they make a choice to reach out to processed foods.  Another well-known chef declared ‘Poori bhaji with (mota atta) whole wheat flour is any day healthier than egg white omelette and brown bread !’  The unanimous vote was for locally produced ingredients, with shorter shelf life (which meant fresh), artisanal food (no additives, preservatives, artificial colours), ethical food (with no hormones), understanding the farmer, eliminating middle-men and celebrating Indian Food. The message was loud and clear – For health & sustainable food go BACK TO THE ROOTS.  WINDS OF CHANGE are surely blowing that way.  Thankfully !

Well, I cannot say in terms of regulatory changes, we are moving towards a rooted, grounded, sustainable framework. It is still fluid. Still changing. Sometimes radical. Sometimes logical. Sometimes responsive. Sometimes pre-emptive. Sometimes triggering.  Most times reactive and catching up. Keeping professionals as well as corporates and citizens on tenterhooks as we wait for the ‘blessed extension notifications’ to arrive on the last date.  It beats me to fathom why some of the deadline extensions / relaxations cannot be announced in advance so that businesses can better plan their operations, cash flows, work flow etc. This is not today’s story.  It has been so since years. I still remember my days in the corporate when I was heading a project to ensure smooth VAT implementation all across the company in 2004.  We had formed a team months in advance, drawn up processes including software changes required (it was state level VAT back then), recast systems, created awareness amongst finance, purchase, sales, manufacturing departments, vendors, customers, agents etc. without being sure if VAT would be notified or not. Keeping fingers crossed about how accounting and tax software would respond if VAT would be implemented.  This was not my experience alone but almost all the businesses’ across the country that waited for the GO / NO-GO action from the Government. When no notification was announced till late evening of 31st March, 2004, we knew we had to live with the old Sales Tax regime for the next financial year as well.  The whole drama started all over again in FY2004-05 until VAT became effective from 1st April, 2005.  In many ways this attitude of keeping us guessing until the nth moment still continues.  There may be several reasons that we don’t understand but clarity in law and planned changes announced with sufficient time on hand is a reasonable expectation for doing business I guess. 

In this 247th issue of Samhita, the pride of place is for the Taxation Amendment Act, 2020 which has effected several key changes. Right on top is the article by our associate R Krishnamurthy, Chartered Accountant who has tried his best to tabulate the provisions in an understandable manner – atleast for the professionals 😊 Do give it a read as also certain other changes from MCA, SEBI, GST, DGFT.  Balaji, our English language resource has contributed an interesting ‘couple-conversation’ that offers synonyms for the word ‘rarely’.   For any previous issues of Samhita and the readers’ feedback, please visit https://sharadasc.com/resource-center/.