Tipping: Bane or boon?
The Supreme Court has clarified on the concept of service charges in restaurants. Service charges and tips do not go together. Therefore, it was expected that levy of service charges would lead to abolition of tips.
As observed by a journal on the industry: “Tipping at best is an inglorious free for all and at worst, an excuse for low wages. We consider tipping a curse and almost a sort of bribery. It is the cause of much nuisance to the management and, in many cases, to the customer.” Receiving tips is undignified and the system is being abused.
Whether tips reduce the profitability of a unit may be argued. It has even been alleged that the way in which the system is being practised in India scares some foreign tourists away or, at least, causes them annoyance. If the payment of tips had remained voluntary in form and spirit — as “reward” for personalised and efficient service — perhaps, not much would have been said against the system, although it would still be unfair to the employees working behind the scene.
Despite the levy of service charges, tipping has not stopped. Hence, the discarding of compulsory service is in the right direction. H L Kumar New Delhi should be sabotaged by his father is an irony. Given the strident attitudes of both the camps, chances of a lasting truce are remote. While the Bahujan Samaj Party is yet to strategise its poll plans, the Bharatiya Janata Party couldn’t have asked for anything better than this feud in the SP.
Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi has a lot to learn from Akhilesh Yadav on how to emerge as a leader in one’s own right. It would make political and electoral sense for the Congress to back Akhilesh Yadav and seal an electoral alliance with his outfit for the Assembly elections ahead. Fighting the elections with Sheila Dikshit as the Congress’ chief ministerial candidate would be political hara-kiri.
S K Choudhury Bengaluru the power tussle between Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the caste-dominated Samajwadi Party does not augur well for the party’s future.
The persistent act of washing dirty linen in public by the party’s divided leadership is an own goal; that apart, it is becoming the laughing stock for voters in the Assembly poll-bound state.
Mulayam Singh Yadav’s move to expel his son and Ram Gopal Yadav and subsequently revoking that order point to the SP patriarch’s indecisiveness. It also explains his unusual apprehensions about the likely impact thereof on the party’s vote bank.
As the family feud has reached the doors of the Election Commission, it is likely that the party symbol, a cycle, would be frozen and both camps would have to contend with a new and yet unknown symbol. It may be difficult to popularise this new symbol and woo voters.
Although Akhilesh Yadav seems electorally better placed because of his “development” image in the state, the fact remains that a divided SP could be a setback for him, too, in the polls. Let’s wait and watch for this electoral bout.
S Kumar New Delhi