DDT 2000 - An Unimaginable Miracle
I don't know if there is any other column which has been written non-stop for 2000 days. It took a little more than eight years to reach this milestone and every night had been a nightmare - as to how the next day's DDT was going to come out. And every day I was sure, the next DDT will not come out - but it did - without fail for 2000 days!
DDT 2000 - An Unimaginable Miracle — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.When I finished the 100th DDT on 25.04.2005, I was physically and mentally exhausted and I realised that I had embarked on a project far beyond my capabilities and this cannot continue for long. I suggested to my Managing Editor that we would rest the DDT idea for a few weeks and revive it later. But he said that DDT has already become a daily habit with many of our Netizens and we have no right to disappoint them. In normal English, it meant, "you better continue or else……." I got the message and today we are on DDT 2000!
DDT was started with the purpose of giving a daily capsule on the important happenings in the tax field, especially to explain the law in the notifications, circulars and various other forms by which countless laws are inflicted on the hapless taxpayers, with boring regularity. The idea was - spend fifteen minutes with DDT every day and your tax knowledge is updated.
I realised very early as the Supreme Court observed in Oswal Agro Mills Limited and Others Vs Collector of Central Excise and Others - , "language is at best an imperfect instrument for the expression of actual human thoughts. It is also idle to expect that the draftsman drafted with divine prescience and perfect and unequivocal clarity" .
Understanding and explaining this imperfect instrument coupled with absolute callousness and lack of clarity, became very difficult and often DDT had to resort to hard criticism which though not well taken in the beginning, came to be accepted as fair as we went along.
I am grateful to my Managing Editor Shailendra who was a solid source of support and inspiration.
I am deeply obliged to my two senior editors Sunil Achuthan and Raghavendra Rao, whose job every morning is to tear DDT to pieces and find out mistakes to the last comma. With absolutely no respect or regard for me, they do a perfect job of quality control.
I am grateful to Dr. Rishi whose cartoons have added immense value to DDT. I am deeply indebted to Dr. VS Gopal, a senior retired IAS officer (who calls me his friend) whose cartoons enlivened this column sometime back.
And 2000 editions of DDT were possible only because of the support from the Government and the patronage of our Netizens.
DDT 2000 - An Unimaginable Miracle — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.A Big Thank You!
And DDT goes on……………………………………………..