They Beg Hunting Dollars, Too
Pakistan’s wildlife conservation policy is as much a donkey-brainer as the country itself. It has made it illegal for locals to hunt wildlife, but foreign trophy hunters can pay thousands of dollars to kill 12 a year. The money is apparently used to bankroll conservation efforts. Besides, the hunting prevents overpopulation and gives the lawless country an image makeover (the trigger-happy millionaire foreigners tell the world that Pakistan is safe). But the world went tchk tchk tchk when a fat-cat American banker paid $100,000 to slaughter a rare Himalayan mountain goat, the screw-horned Astore Markhor, and boasted of his “easy and close shot” with a high-powered rifle. “I have hunted almost all animals here. I saved the markhors for the last,” bragged Bryan Kinsel Harlan after the hunt this February. He has gone into hiding since.
Cleared, The Scam Daddy of ’em All
When Mallya and Modis (Lalit and Nirav) are hogging the headlines, it is refreshing to find the ‘original’ finding space in the news—on his own, not as a cross-reference. Yes, the late Harshad Mehta, the stock broker who exploited loopholes in our system, manipulated the stock markets by issuing fake securities to banks and thrust upon us a word that became part of our everyday speech: Scam! After decades since the scam was exposed in 1992—shaking the country and changing Dalal Street’s rules of the game—the income tax tribunal has scrapped almost the entire tax demand (Rs 2,014 crore) on Mehta, wife Jyoti, and brother Ashwin. That means the Mehtas’ attached properties, worth crores of rupees, could now be freed.
