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TELEGRAPH

TIMES OF INDIA

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CONTENTS

AGRICULTURE 3-5

CIVIL SERVICE 6-14

CONSUMERS 15

EDUCATION 16-24

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS 25-26

FINANCIAL MARKETS 27

GOVERNMENT, CENTRAL 28

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 29

INTERNATIONAL TRADE 30-31

JUDICIARY 32-34

LABOUR 35

LIBRARIES 36

NATIONALISM 37-42

PARLIAMENT 43-44

POLICE 45

POLITICAL PARTIES 46-47

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 48-52

PUBLIC FINANCE 53

PUBLIC UTILITIES 54

VIOLENCE 55

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AGRICULTURE

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 16, 2016Farmer needs a new deal: Reform of agricultural markets and land lease laws must be a priority.Written by Ramesh Chand 

Agrarian distress emerged as the most disturbing problem during the 1990s. Its severity and

spread witnessed a sharp increase in the post-WTO period till 2004-05. Two common indicators

used to show the severity of agrarian distress are indebtedness of farm households and the

number of farmers’ suicides. Some people also cite the decline in the number of cultivators in the

country as a consequence of agrarian distress, which may be partly true, particularly in the

disadvantaged agricultural regions.

Evidence shows that the incidence of farmer suicides in India involves multiple causes. Falling

farm income is one of them. When the farmer’s income is chronically lower than his family

expenditure, he borrows money from some source to meet the gap. Expenditure on social

ceremonies and health expenses, which are not part of regular household expenditure, also force

the farmer to borrow, particularly from non-institutional sources. The accumulated debt becomes

so large that it becomes impossible to repay it from the household income. Some farmers are

forced to sell a part or whole of farm land and other family assets to repay loans and to meet

social expenditure. Some others undergo humiliation as loan defaulters. The loss of honour

pushes many to take the extreme step of ending their life.

A second cause of crisis results from a sudden income loss due to crop failure or price crash. In

the absence of crop insurance or adequate relief, crop failure can have a devastating effect on

farm income. Further, there is no mechanism to escape the effect of a price crash. Any loss of

income of a severe nature on account of crop failure or market failure becomes a source of

distress and frustration. This is more pertinent in the case of high value commercial crops. A year

or two of high prices influences many farmers to direct excessive resources towards risky

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commercial crops. The sudden increase in supply is often met with a violent price crash. Without

risk coverage, price volatility can have a killing effect on farm income.

What can be done to remove agrarian distress? The textbook answer is to raise farm incomes.

This can be done in three ways. One, enable farmers to get better prices for their produce and

encourage crop diversification. One acre of land under high value crops can generate more

income than five acres under cereals. However, better price realisation and the success of

diversification critically depend on a healthy and competitive market. Agricultural markets in

India have not moved towards competition and efficiency after the 1970s. Prices of farm

commodities often fall in the harvest season and skyrocket in the lean season. There are frequent

cases of cartelisation in agricultural markets working against producers. Unless state

governments initiate market reforms and take agriculture marketing to the next stage, farmers

will continue to suffer from excessive intermediaries, low scale and segmentation. Agrarian

distress can be mitigated to a large extent by an efficient and competitive agriculture market.

Mechanisms like the “deficiency price payment” and price insurance for different sets of crops

can protect farmers from market and price risk.

The second option for augmenting farmers’ income is to scale-up the farms. Average farm-size

in India is very small and shrinking. The latest available data from the agriculture census for

2010-11 shows that 47 per cent farm households operate on plots less than an acre, with an

average of 2,200 sq metres of agricultural land. Further, this small piece of land is fragmented

and about half of it has no access to irrigation. Obviously, many such farmers would like to shift

to non-agricultural activities and many would like to increase their farm-size by leasing land

from other farmers. However, present land lease laws discourage formal and transparent land

lease arrangements. The landowner fears any formal lease contract will make it difficult to get

the land back from the lessee while the tenant is unable to access credit and avail other benefits

available to a landowner. The liberalisation of the existing land lease laws will help both

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marginal and sub-marginal farmers. Those who leave farming can have secured ownership and

earn rent and those who stay in farming can increase the size of operational holdings and have

better access to credit and other facilities.

The third option is to provide alternative sources of livelihood to needy farm households. The

estimates of farm income prepared by this writer show that income from agriculture alone is not

enough to keep more than 50 per cent of farm households out of poverty. Any supply shock or

price shock pushes such households deeper into poverty and the many marginally-above-poverty

families into the poverty trap. However, many such farmers who earn an income from non-farm

sources are able to escape poverty. The landholdings of a majority of our farmers are so small

that these cannot generate income for decent living. Therefore, they need to be provided

alternative sources of employment and income.

The most common cause for crop failure is water stress. Irrigation is the best insurance against

crop failure. The area under public sources of irrigation has not expanded to reflect the huge

investment in irrigation made after the Tenth Plan. The thrust on irrigation envisioned under the

various components of the recently launched Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana offers

hope as well as the scope for reducing water stress in agriculture.

The writer is member, NITI Aayog. Views are personal

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CIVIL SERVICE

TIMES OF INDIA, MAR 23, 2016DANICS review casts shadow

New Delhi: The Centre has asked the Union territories to submit an "integrity certificate and

brief report" about the DANICS and DANIPS officers. While this is a routine procedure that the

Union home ministry follows to take measures to retire those who may be found to be lacking

against the set parametres after a certain period of service, Delhi's response is likely to be critical

due to the very public run-ins between the AAP government and its bureaucracy.

Last year, all the DANICS officers in Delhi went on a mass token leave on December 31 to

register their protest against suspension of two officers from the home department by minister

Satyendra Jain. When TOI spoke to Delhi government bureaucrats, it became apparent that

despite it being a routine procedure, the current exercise could actually trigger a deeper review as

CM Arvind Kejriwal has time and again asserted that he wants to bring in professionals

wherever the bureaucrats are failing to deliver.

The circular, addressed to the chief secretary, was sent by the department of services to all

department heads on March 8. The home ministry has provided a list of DANICS and DANIPS

officers who have completed or will complete 30 years of service by September 2016. There is

also a list of officers who entered service before the age of 35 years and have become 50 years

old or will be 50 by this September. The third list mentions the officers who have become 55

years old or will attain it by September.

The governments of the Union territories are "requested to provide the integrity certificate along

with a brief report in respect of DANICS officers working under your control immediately for

further transmission to the ministry", the services department circular noted. The circular states

that this is a "review of mechanism to ensure probity of government servants strengthening

periodical review under FR 56 J and rule 48 of CCS (Pension) Rule 1972".

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Once this bureaucratic assessment is carried out by the heads of departments, the report will be

sent to MHA which will take the final call in each case.

TIMES OF INDIA, MAR 23, 2016IAS officer Bahadur to join as World Bank advisor

Rakesh Bahadur, who is also the president of UP IAS Association, is posted at Investment

Commission in Delhi. Earlier, he was principal secretary to the CM.

Chosen by the World Bank to head its affordable housing section, Bahadur will take up the new

assignment in May. .

Confirming it to the TOI, Rakesh Bahadur said he would supervise construction of houses under

the affordable category in Brazil and Turkey, where the World Bank is working at a very large

scale.

Bahadur said that the low cost houses is the pressing need for majority of Indians, and if

Government of India coordinates with the World Bank, he would certainly like to contribute for

his country.

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 22, 2016All trainee IAS officers to have 3month Delhi stint

NEW DELHI: A threemonth stint in Delhi would become a permanent fixture for trainee IAS officers with the Centre impressing upon the need for them to attend conferences and seminars of various ministries to be addressed by the prime minister. IAS officers of the 2014 batch currently undergoing training at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussourie (LBSNAA) will arrive in New Delhi for the 3month stint on August 1 and will be posted as 'Assistant Secretaries' in various ministries. "The Assistant Secretaries of 2014 batch will be expected to join the seminars organised by various ministries or departments to be attended by the PM, subject to space, utility, etc. of conference/seminars to Assistant Secretaries," as per minutes of a meeting chaired by the Secretary (Personnel) Sanjay Kothari last month. Incidentally, it was the PM's idea of getting the trainee officers first to Delhi and not send them straightaway to their respective state cadres following which officers of 2013 batch did a three-month stint in Delhi for the first time last year. PM had also chaired a session with the 2013 batch officers at the end of the training where some of them gave presentations on how to

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improve key schemes of the Modi government. "Listening to the PM's speeches would be a great learning experience for the officers. The 2013 batch officers attended some last year too and had found them enlightening," a senior official told ET. The Centre has got requests from LBSNAA for special sessions to be arranged for the 2014 batch officers in the first week of their training from the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change and Ministry of Disability Affairs all areas which are close to the PM's heart. The Centre has, meanwhile, informed all the state governments about the "continuance of the scheme" of posting the trainee IAS officers in Government of India as Assistant Secretaries on deputation basis for the 2014 Batch of IAS also and has sought their comments, if any, by March 31.

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 22, 2016Big reform: Modi government plans to redeploy bureaucrats and reduce patronage postings

NEW DELHI: Modi Sarkar is radically reorganising the bureaucracy, and the two signature reforms will be, first, one out of every five bureaucrats in the Centre will work on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's top priority schemes — Make in India, Jan Dhan Yojana, Swachh Bharat, Digital India and Skill India —and, two, the longstanding practice of postretirement sinecures will come under serious scrutiny.

To start with, 1,800 bureaucrats in top ministries, excluding a few such as the defence, will be scrutinised in the first phase, of which at least 400 will be put to work on half a dozen key schemes championed by the PM— unprecedented in India's administrative history.

The reform may also kill several posts created to accommodate retired babus. Officials familiar with the reform plan told ET this redeployment will coincide with a broader plan to "rightsize" the government.

Recruiting highskilled professionals and dedicated and specialist technology/communications team in each department are also part of this reform. Officials, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, said a task force set up by the Prime Minister's Office ( PMO) and manned by "senior, trusted bureaucrats" will give its recommendations by Aprilend.

Officials from the cabinet secretariat, the department of personnel and training and the expenditure department are leading the task force and analysing manpower requirements and appointments in 600 departments, over 2,000 subordinate offices and over 10,000 aligned government organisations spread across the country.

The task force has been mandated to rationalise senior positions, review roles, and take a radical look at recruitment processes and numbers. Giving an example, an official said many ministries retain posts for schemes even after schemes have been discontinued or merged.

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"Across ministries there are officials deployed for the previous United Progressive Alliance government's flagship schemes that no longer exist...there is no work, but posts remain. And we need more people for the present government's programmes.

We are looking at ways to partly shift this workforce to priority areas of the government." The task force will identify "patronage postings" or postretirement postings created across ministries over many years and examine their utility. Five meetings with senior officials, with the PM present in two, have been already held on this issue. Reallocating work to states, since financial devolution to states has increased dramatically, is also a part of the plan.

"The government reduced the number of centrallysponsored schemes to 27 from 72 last year. Now, with 42% of the central funds going to states, the central bureaucracy must be refashioned," another official closely involved with the reform plan said.

Reducing the number of steps in making government appointments is also a major goal for the task force. Officials said if implemented thoroughly, the reform will reduce the number of ministries and departments, but added that this won't be the immediate effect.

TELEGRAPH, MAR 19, 2016UPSC agitation threat

Basant Kumar Mohanty

New Delhi, March 18: Civil service hopefuls whose month-long street protests over a "discriminatory" aptitude test had rocked Parliament in 2014 have again threatened an agitation on the same issue.

Hundreds of unsuccessful examinees have formed a "UPSC Aspirants Forum" to demand three additional chances for candidates who took the two-leg civil service exam under the "discriminatory" format between 2011 and 2014 and have exhausted their six chances.

A team from the forum met Union home minister Rajnath Singh yesterday and received an assurance that the government would consider giving them one more chance. But the forum is insistent on three more chances.

It argues that the aptitude test, introduced in the preliminary civil services exam in 2011, favours candidates with engineering or management backgrounds and those from urban, English-medium schools. Candidates are selected after the main exam that follows the preliminary exam.

According to the forum, the government last year made the civil services aptitude test (CSAT) a qualifying paper only because it realised that the paper discriminated against rural candidates.

Forum convener Anurag Nigam said the proportion of successful rural and vernacular-medium candidates, especially those who had studied in the regional languages, had fallen sharply since

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the aptitude test was introduced.

About 37 per cent of the candidates for the main exam were from rural areas in 2010, but their percentage declined to 17 in 2012 and 2.6 in 2014, Nigam said quoting annual reports prepared by the Union Public Service Commission, which conducts the exams.

The preliminary exam has a general studies paper and the aptitude test, each carrying 200 marks. The aptitude test consists of mathematics, reasoning, English-language comprehension and language skills.

The language skills section is based on passages in English and their translated versions in Hindi but not in the regional languages.

Thousands of civil services aspirants had taken to the streets in 2014 protesting the "discrimination".

After the matter was raised in both Houses of Parliament, the government made the aptitude test a qualifying paper with effect from last year's exam.

Candidates now need to score just 33 per cent in this paper to qualify, while their marks in the general studies paper alone determines selection for the main exam. Earlier, the aptitude test scores too counted.

As a further concession, the government allowed candidates who had exhausted their six chances between 2011 and 2014 one more attempt in 2015. "We are asking for three more chances," Nigam said.

Shivangi Rai, a civil services aspirant, said the rural candidates who had taken the exam between 2011 and 2014 had faced discriminatory criteria.

Last year, too, the changed rules were announced just three months before the exam, leaving little time for fresh preparation, she said.

"We lost five years. We don't want a job or reservations. We want permission to take the exam," she said.

If three extra chances are not given, the candidates plan nationwide protests, she said. The forum held two protests in front of Parliament during the recent session.

The forum plans to meet Rahul Gandhi soon. "We'll approach all political parties," Nigam said.

Last year, the department of personnel and training had set up a panel to suggest a complete revamp of the exam. The committee's tenure has been extended till August this year.

TIMES OF INDIA, MAR 17, 2016

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IAS officers face challenge to uphold glorious tradition

Lucknow: As the UP IAS association is going to observe the services week from Thursday, the

issue of image erosion dogs the cadre. Two of its senior most officers -- one serving and other

retired -- are already in jail and a third one is smarting under a court order upholding his sentence

in a corruption case.

"Will the UP IAS officers do some serious introspection during the services week over the

erosion of their image as it is being held at a time Neera Yadav and Pradip Shukla are in jail for

corruption and Rajiv Kumar is on bail," asks a commentator. When TOI asked UP IAS

Association secretary Bhuwanesh Kumar whether the issue of saving the cadre would be

discussed during the week, he said so far there was no such topic for discussion at the annual

general meeting. "But if any member raises it, a discussion and debate could follow," he added.

During the last year's services week, the chief minister himself had revealed that he had a video

clip of an IAS officer taking bribe in his office. "If you will act in such a brazen manner what

will happen to the state," he had said, cautioning that corruption mush be checked among officers

who are also called 'best of the brains' and the 'steel frame' of the administration. "Despite

increased number of arrest, raids and charge-sheets, the number of 'tainted' officers is going up,"

says another commentator.

"I feel that the services week should not end up in eat, drink and merry-making. We must do

some serious thinking over the continuous decline in the standard of officers and their

performance," a young DM told TOI. With more than 550 members in the UP cadre, it is not

only the largest contingent in the country, but has produced the brightest in the past. TSR

Subramanian, Prabhat Kumar, PK Kaul, Ajit Seth, PK Sinha from the cadre were elevated to the

post of the cabinet and a good number of officers from the state are occupying top posts in

secretariat and the PMO. The four-day services week is beginning with a photographic exhibition

at the CSI Club, Raj Bhawan Colony on Thursday. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav will address

the senior officers on March 18 at Tilak Hall and then host lunch for them the same day.

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The annual general meeting is slated for March 19 while the governor will host a dinner the same

evening at Raj Bhawan. The week would be concluded on Sunday with a cricket match between

the CM XI and the CS XI.

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 17, 2016Transfer row: Strange twists in Uttarakhand government, Centre order against IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi

NEW DELHI: After a yearlong tussle, the Modi government has turned down request by Sanjiv Chaturvedi, whistleblower Indian Forest Service officer to be posted as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), last month, has turned down the application(s) for intercadre deputation by the Magsaysay awardee officer who was removed from the post of Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences ( AIIMS) last year.

It is noteworthy here that the decision, as per the order passed by MoEF on February 15, was passed after the proposal (to deny intercadre deputation) was "seen" by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) which is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The order passed by MoEF further states that it's (MoEF) proposal was also "seen" by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

The decision has been taken by the Centre chiefly on the ground that the Congressled Uttarakhand government has withdrawn its no objection certificate (NOC) for deputation of Chaturvedi to Delhi government.

Interestingly, Harish Rawat led Uttarakhand government took a U turn within two months by withdrawing its own no objection certificate it had issued on November 3, 2015. The decision to withdraw its NOC came on January 6 this year by Uttarakhand government after it received two "queries" from the Central government.

One of the two queries pertained to "cooling off period" of the officer which came from the DoPT, on December 15, 2015 which was forwarded to the Uttarakhand government by Chaturvedi's cadre controlling Ministry, the MoEF. Second query was concerning the "deficit" of IFS officers in Uttarakhand.

For the second query, MoEF placed reliance on a letter sent by Uttarakhand government on October 12, 2015.

According to MoEF, Uttarakhand government vide the said letter said that since there was an increase in projects of Forestry and livelihood by the government, there would be "requirement" of IFS officers.

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Interestingly, this is what the October 12, 2015 of Uttarakhand government read: "The department is encouraging officers to proceed on Central deputation and officers are opting for it depending on the availability of opportunities. The onus of taking officers in Central deputation reserve rests with the Central government. However, the State will make more efforts in future to increase the Central deputation reserve".

The said letter further read that since the Uttarakhand government is implementing a number of projects having major components of livelihood. "In view of expertise IFS officers have been posted on state deputation.... It is because of the above mentioned facts that the excadre posts are exceeding the number of state deputation reserve posts. (SDR)".

Calling this a "deliberate distorted misinterpretation" of Uttarakhand government's letter by MoEF, Chaturvedi has petitioned the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) seeking action against the delinquent authorities.

For the first query, reliance was placed by DoPT upon a rule stating that there "shall be a mandatory cooling off requirement of three years after every period of deputation for officers at Joint Secretary level or below".

The DoPT maintained that Chaturvedi is required to complete the mandatory cooling off period for three years before he can be considered for next deputation under Rule 6(1) of IAS/IPS/IFS (cadre) Rules. After a reminder, to this effect, was sent by DoPT to Uttarakhand government on December 29, 2015, the Congress government withdrew its NOC on January 6 this year. Crying foul, Chaturvedi represented to the Uttarakhand government contending that the criteria of cooling off period is not applicable to the personal staff of CM as per DoPT instructions.

Now, on February 24 the Uttarakhand government has passed an order granting a "conditional NOC" to Chaturvedi. In the said order, the state said that the power to decide the issue of "cooling off period" vests with the Centre and that if the cooling off period is waived off by the Centre, the Uttarakhand government has no objection in Chaturvedi's deputation to Delhi government. Detailed questionnaire sent to DoPT and MoEF went unanswered.

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 17, 2016Over 1,500 crore spent on babus' foreign tours in past 3 years: Government

NEW DELHI: A whopping over Rs 1,500 crore was spent by various central government ministries on foreign travel during the last three years, the Lok Sabha was informed today. Of the total of 1,537 crore spent by ministries, a total of Rs 509.91 crore was during 2014 15, Rs 434.94 crore in 201314 and Rs 593.09 crore during 201213, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh said in a written reply. Among the 62 ministries which spent the amount, a highest of Rs 351.65 crore was spent alone by Ministry of Personnel in last fiscal and Rs 289.92 crore in 201314 and Rs 453.95 crore during 201213, he said. Home Ministry had spent Rs 30.24 crore in 201415 and Rs 14.13 crore during 201314. Commerce

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Ministry and Civil Aviation and Tourism Ministries spent Rs 6.95 crore and Rs 9.45 crore last fiscal on foreign travel, the Minister said. Singh said as many as 15 officers were on foreign deputation last year. Of them, seven were from Ministry of External Affairs, five from Department of Economic Affairs and one each from Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (which is now under foreign ministry), Civil Aviation Ministry and Department of Commerce, he said. As per the latest instructions issued by Department of Expenditure, not more than four official visits abroad in a calender year and such trips shall not exceed five working days. The size of delegation has to be kept to the absolute minimum and participation of officials in international fairs, exhibitions, workshops and conference shall be discouraged, it said.

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CONSUMERS

BUSINESS LINE, MAR 22, 2016Ministry bats for self-regulation to protect consumer rights

In an effort to protect consumers from misleading advertisements and fake products, the Department of Consumer Affairs is planning to sign an agreement with industry associations to implement a self-regulated code for fair business practices.

This will be part of the celebrations of World Consumer Rights Day on Tuesday.

“The MoU will broadly cover the collaborative programmes on developing and implementing a self-regulated code of fair business practices, establishing a Consumer Affairs division/vertical within the Industry Body, initiating advocacy action against unfair trade practices and preventing fake, counterfeit and sub-standard products and services and adoption of voluntary standards by industry members,” an official statement said.

The agreement will include earmarking of CSR funds for consumer awareness and protection activities, partnering with the National Consumer Helpline and State Consumer Helplines for grievance redressal, as well as launching joint consumer awareness, education and training programmes.

Implementation of the agenda will be monitored by a joint working group.

The Consumer Affairs Ministry and industry associations such as Assocham, CII, DICCI, FICCI and PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry have also formed partnerships on consumer advocacy.

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated March 22, 2016)

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EDUCATION

BUSINESS STANDARD, MAR 17, 2016Build 10-20 world-class institutes to boost higher education: NITI AayogSuggests that junior classes have a mandatory system of certification for headmasters; set up fund to provide annual project-based grant for projects

Govt developing framework for PPP in district hospitals: NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant appointed CEO of NITI Aayog NITI Aayog officials to learn from China story India deserves higher ratings, says Panagariya NITI Aayog calls for further easing of start-up norms

The Centre has to build 10-20 world-class institutes of education with adequate operational

autonomy to improve the education sector, the NITI Aayog told Prime Minister Narendra Modi

during a recent review of the sector

The review, conducted to assess gaps in education and health sectors despite huge public

expenditure over the years, also favoured expanding the online delivery of educational content

in a big way.

Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya and Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant

was present during the review, along with senior officials from the Prime Minister's Office

(PMO).

The Aayog suggested that junior classes have a mandatory system of certification for

headmasters. It also favoured the creation of a fund for providing annual project-based grants

for research. Around 30 per cent of the operating expense of any institute for higher education

should come from internal fund generation, it said, which could include raising the annual fees

charged from students.

For elementary education - Classes I to VIII - the Aayog advised that there be guidelines to

rationalise small schools. It also advised overhauling the teachers' training curriculum for

junior classes to ensure quality education at the grassroots. Vocational stream and vocational

education were vital to increase employability and to lower the dropout rates, it said.

For the health sector, the NITI Aayog suggested that dreaded diseases such as kala azar and

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microfilaria be eliminated by 2017 in a mission mode. It also pitched for public-private

partnership (PPP) projects to improve health services due to the dismal performance of public

hospitals at district level.

It has also stressed on the need for use of technology and asked the Prime Minister to track

hospital performance online.

Stressing on significant scaling up of medical education capacity in the country, the body also

batted for reforms of the Indian Medical Council, a statutory body with the responsibility of

establishing and maintaining high standards of medical education and recognition of medical

qualifications.

NITI AAYOG'S SUGGESTIONS

EDUCATION

Develop a system of certification of headmasters in junior classes

Set up fund to provide annual project-based grant for projects

Overhaul teachers' training programmes

HEALTH

Eliminate diseases like kala azar and microfilaria by 2017

Adopt public private partnership models to boost the country's health sector

Reform the Indian Medical Council

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 22, 2016India is an affordable destination for high quality education: Smriti Irani

Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani said the rankings of Indian institutes under the National

Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) will be out on April 4 and asked MEA officials to

leverage this data to reach out to foreign students  

Emphasising that “education diplomacy” will take the country forward, HRD Minister Smriti

Irani on Monday carried forward the call Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given when he

had announced 50,000 scholarships for African students in India over the next five years

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during the India-Africa Forum Summit last year.

Inaugurating the Indian Council of Cultural Relations’ (ICCR) conference on “Higher

Education in India for Foreign Students”, Irani focused on “affordable excellence” as the

“fulcrum” of “engagement” with foreign students. She urged for creation of “an environment

that goes beyond scholarships”.

Pointing out that 80 scholars from across the world have decided to teach in India, she said,

“For the first time, we have earmarked 10 goalposts for research — (varying) from defence to

sustainable living”.

ICCR offers around 3,350 scholarships to international students for courses ranging from

Indian classical dance, music and ayurveda to development studies. ICCR scholars are

enrolled in more than 120 institutions, including the IITs and NITs, across 18 states. Most

students are from SAARC and African countries. Under the Afghan Scholarship Scheme,

1,000 scholarships are offered every year.

Mongolian Ambassador Gonchig Ganbold, who spoke on the occasion in Hindi, had come to

study in India on an ICCR fellowship more than three decades ago.

TELEGRAPH, MAR 16, 2016Learn the hard way - Education in India needs to be privatized and regulated

CommentaraoS.L. Rao

In the early days of management education in India, it was said that management is value neutral and could be applied to all matters where resources were used to achieve stated objectives. It must be applied to government activities as well: stating objectives and outcomes, setting up a time frame for the completion of various activities, for formulating and implementing policies, achieving the objectives, determining and recruiting or training for the types of expertise required, setting up monitoring mechanisms and changing action plans when necessary. Sadly, this advice has been forgotten. Governments do not use management

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principles when formulating policies, allocating and spending budgets, or in their implementation. Administrative procedures dominate the process. Budgets are only about spending money, and that too without reviewing the achievement of objectives at each stage. Specialization is not sought. The boards have no accountability, nor do the administrators. Practically, no government activity is completed in time and with quality. Implementation is not an area for which governments set up systems and structures for efficiency and quality.

Education and research at all levels have had least attention paid to their management. (There are, however, exceptional institutions that have maintained high standards: Indian Institute of Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Delhi School of Economics, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, the Manipal group of educational institutions, some of the Indian Institutes of Technology and regional engineering colleges and Indian School of Business to name a few). Schools, colleges, universities, social science research institutions and professional education vary in quality. Most are of low quality.

Schools are of three types: government schools, aided schools and private schools. They vary in quality in the same order, from poor to unsatisfactory to below par. Schools are either 'recognized' (by government) or 'unrecognized'. They need to be registered but many are not and government statistics ignore them. Recognized schools are authorized to issue transfer certificates, but are subject to many onerous conditions, including that they have their own building. Many primary schools, especially in rural areas, remain unrecognized and outside government statistics. Recent data is unavailable. However, household surveys have shown that the number of children attending government schools in rural India is less than one-third of the actual number attending private schools. For example, a survey conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research for 1996 in Uttar Pradesh showed that 30.7 per cent of school enrolment was in private schools against less than the 10 per cent as per government data. Government data did not count unrecognized schools. Surveys show that the number of private schools declines as students move from primary to senior and high schools.

In the age group 5 to 10 and among below-poverty-line families, 14.8 per cent attend private schools; 8 per cent of them are from rural areas and more than 30 per cent from urban households. Various studies show that private schools are much more expensive than government schools (mostly free) and BPL families spend a disproportionate share of their incomes on education. Teachers are of relatively low quality in government schools, they miss classes, the learning outcome is consequently poorer and teacher accountability is low. A management approach to schools would start with acquiring comprehensive data on numbers, infrastructure, teacher quality, desired and achieved learning outcomes and cost to families among other data.

This data would then be used to set accountability parameters and aim to improve government schools. Various studies show that learning outcomes in government schools are poorer than that in private ones, though not by much. In the British era, school inspectors ensured that all schools kept a minimum standard. This is not the case now.

Many colleges in India also offer a superficial education. This is true of many that teach

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professional courses such as medicine and management. A result is the proliferation of private tuition centres, not only for school education but also beyond that. According to data collected by the National Sample Survey Organization, 20 per cent of Indians pursuing degree courses and 13 per cent of those pursuing postgraduate courses and above avail of private tuition. Though private coaching is prevalent all across India, it is more popular in eastern states (in West Bengal, 89 per cent of male secondary and higher secondary students resort to private tuition while the national average is 37.8 per cent). These numbers are much higher at the school level. The principal reason for this is the deterioration in the quality of classroom teaching while the examinations remain rigorous, demanding supplementary teaching.

India was once known for the quality of medical education. There has been much deterioration in this sector. The murky affairs of the Medical Council of India are known. There are huge under-the-table payments for many medical specialities. The Vyapam scandal in Madhya Pradesh revealed that many who get medical degrees have had others appear in the examinations on their behalf. It is rare for professional bodies in any field to take action for indiscipline or malpractice. (The lack of stringent punishment for PricewaterhouseCoopers, which was allegedly a participant in the Satyam scandal, is one example and can be found in all professions.)

We have read about pilot licenses being given to well-connected but unsuitable candidates, thereby clearly subverting the regulatory authority - the directorate general of civil aviation of India. There are hundreds of recognized (by All India Council for Technical Education) management schools and engineering colleges which have poor faculty, inadequate facilities (equipment, computers, library and classrooms). Our regulatory bodies in education (such as the University Grants Commission and AICTE) are poorly staffed and this starts at the top level of management. Many a time, the organizations are also corrupt. The weakness applies to self-regulated bodies with statutory powers (of lawyers, accountants, company secretaries, doctors, architects and others), as also to those regulated by government bodies (such as universities, management education, technical and computer education and mass communication). Since each of these bodies certifies a student to work in a well-paying profession, they have to be transparent, fair, independent, objective and courageous. Unfortunately, they are not.

Colleges are managed by principals and elected or nominated boards; universities by vice-chancellors appointed by governments, with the help of councils. The UGC has supremacy over all of them. But its regulation is largely ineffective. Similarly, social science research has the Indian Council of Social Science Research to regulate individual research institutions that have their own boards. Most of these boards play limited roles in approving what is put before them. The poor overall quality of colleges prevails in spite of such regulation. Nor is it possible to commend the overall quality of social science research in India despite a regulatory body that is also a provider of funds. There is little path-breaking research.

What are the ills that plague these institutions? There is practically no attempt to train faculty and keep them up to date. Selections are plagued by the country's quota system for certain castes and tribes without any attempt to upgrade the reserved candidate's suitability. Faculties in Indian institutions function as democracies, not meritocracies. Everyone is equal and there

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is no differentiation between the outstanding teacher or researcher and the poor ones. There is automatic promotion from one level to another after a few years, so that everyone can expect to become more than just a lecturer. There is rarely an attempt to evaluate teachers by students and if there is, it is a minor factor in evaluation. Performance evaluation of faculty is subjective and there are rarely stated parameters.

India needs massive faculty development and training programmes to cover all levels of education and subjects. Governance must be by committed boards that set objective parameters for performance of the institutions and faculty and rigorously and regularly review. Performance ought to be measured and rewarded or punished accordingly. Boards have to be accountable for the institution's performance.

The Constitution has made education a Concurrent subject but state governments indulge in vote bank populism. Appointments of top functionaries are on political grounds, not competence and capability. The way out is wholesale privatization with tough regulation.

The author is former director-general, National Council of Applied Economic Research

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 16, 2016Only 7 out of 111 govt schools in city have mid day meal kitchensA survey conducted by Ph.D fellows of Panjab University in June 2015 had also highlighted that mid day meals had contributed significantly in the increase in the enrollment of students at government schools.Written by Meghna Malik

Despite having made promises to establish mid day meal kitchens at city government schools for

the past three years, , the UT Education Department has failed to set up any new mid-day meal

kitchens in schools. Till date, only seven out of 111 government schools have set up kitchens for

mid day meals.

In 2013, the UT Education Department had taken up the task of setting up mid day meal kitchens

in 11 other government schools in the city, however, the project is yet to take off. Sources in the

Education Department have, however , stated that the delay in setting up of the kitchens is due to

lack of space in schools and shortage of funds.

“Many schools in the city currently lack proper infrastructure for setting up of mid day meal

kitchens. This year, the department is planning to improvise on the infrastructure at the existing

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government schools, to make the setting up of kitchens easier,” said an official in the Education

Department.

With only seven running kitchens at government schools, mid day meals for majority of the

government schools in the city are currently outsourced. “The food prepared at GMSSS-47 is

circulated to a few schools, but other than that the mid day meals are prepared by Chandigarh

Industrial and Tourism Development Corporation (CITCO) and Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Hotel

Management, Sector 42,” a mid day meal worker stated.

Over the years, there have also been complaints about the poor quality of the mid day meals

being given to the students. In a report prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)

for quality of mid day meals in city government schools from 2009 to 2014, it was highlighted

that poor quality food was being served to government schools by CITCO. The report also

pointed out that utensils were not being cleaned properly, and the meals were being prepared in

unhygienic conditions. The audit also revealed that not enough food inspections were being

conducted in the city to ensure good quality mid day meals for the students.

A survey conducted by Ph.D fellows of Panjab University in June 2015 had also highlighted that

mid day meals had contributed significantly in the increase in the enrollment of students at

government schools. The survey also pointed out that the intake of the mid day meals was better

in schools where the kitchen was located in the school itself as compared to schools that

outsourced the meals.

Suggesting that setting up of mid day meal kitchens in all schools would help in improving the

food quality, principal of a government high school told the Chandigarh Newsline, “When food

is outsourced, it is difficult for us to keep an eye on its quality. There are times when the food

that the schools receive is not cooked properly, and all its nutritional value is lost. It is important

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that students get the right nutrition through these meals, which is why kitchens need to be set up

at all government schools.”

In addition to the lack of hygienic conditions, and dearth in the number of mid day meal kitchens

in the city, the mid day meal workers have also complained about the low salaries being

provided to them. “Currently, the mid day meal workers are given a monthly salary of only Rs

2,622 and are required to work for a minimum of three hours everyday. This issue of such low

salaries has been raised with the Education Department and we had demanded that the workers

be given a minimum salary of Rs. 8000 per month. The workers prepare food for over 1,200

students daily. For the amount of work that they do, they are being grossly underpaid,” Swarn

Singh Kamboj, President of the UT Cadre Educational Employees Union explained.

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 17, 2016Govt invites private firms to revamp Delhi schools

In its 70-point action plan, drawn up before the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections in February

2015, the Aam Aadmi Party had said that it will open 500 new schools in five years. MAYURA JANWALKAR 

The Delhi government has invited private architecture and engineering firms to come forward

with proposals to revamp the infrastructure in government schools.

The public works department (PWD), the tourism department and the Delhi Transport

Corporation have invited tenders from firms, with proposals for designs of international standard

for school buildings, ‘without escalation of cost’.

In its 70-point action plan, drawn up before the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections in February

2015, the Aam Aadmi Party had said that it will open 500 new schools in five years.

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Calling it a ‘golden opportunity’ to work with the Delhi government, the administration has

called for ‘modern ideas’ for the complete planning and designing of proposed school buildings.

“By providing your consultancy services, help the government realise its dream of providing

schools with improved facilities to children in the future,” the government had said while

inviting private players.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia Wednesday

inaugurated 17 new classrooms at the Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in Mayur Vihar. He said, “If

there are 150 children in one classroom, even if god decides to teach there, he can’t.”

“There is a dearth of classrooms in government schools… What will they learn in such

classrooms… they must feel like they are in a vegetable market,” he added.

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

BUSINESS STANDARD, MAR 16, 2016Pay interest on savings a/c quarterly, RBI tells banksWhile PSU banks offer 4% interest on savings deposits, private players offer as much as 6%

Top 5 implications of RBI's 50 bps rate cut FM for cautious cut in small savings rate Yes Bank cuts savings a/c interest rate by 1% to 6% Will review small savings schemes to enable rate cut transmission: Jaitley Financial savings rise

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks to pay interest on savings bank accounts on a

quarterly basis or shorter duration, a move which will benefit crores of savings account holders.

At present, the interest is credited in savings bank accounts on a half-yearly basis. The interest

rate on a savings bank account is calculated on a daily basis since April 1, 2010.

“Interest on savings deposits shall be credited at quarterly or shorter intervals (on domestic

savings deposits),” RBI said in a circular issued on March 3.

While public sector banks offer four per cent interest on savings deposits, private players offer as

much as six per cent. In 2011, the central bank had decided to give freedom to commercial banks

to fix savings bank deposit rates, the last bastion of the regulated interest-rate regime. While

giving banks this freedom, RBI had said a uniform rate would have to be offered on deposits of

up to Rs 1 lakh.

On higher amounts, banks are allowed to offer differential rates to depositors. According to

analysts, the lower the periodicity, the higher will be the benefit to savers.

Banks will have to shell out more for customers. According to estimates, the lower periodicity of

interest payments might put a burden of Rs 500 crore on banks.

Earlier, banks used to give interest of 3.5 per cent on savings accounts on the basis of the least

amount deposited in an account between the 10th and the last day of each month.

QUARTERLY AFFAIR

At present, interest is credited in savings a/c on a half-yearly basis

 

While PSU banks offer 4% interest on savings deposits, private players offer as much as

6%

 In 2011, RBI bank had decided to give freedom to commercial banks to fix savings bank

deposit rates

Lower periodicity of interest payments might put a burden of Rs 500 crore on banks

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FINANCIAL MARKETS

HINDUSTAN TIMES, MAR 21, 2016Govt withdraws recognition of Delhi Stock Exchange

The government has formally withdrawn the recognition of Delhi Stock Exchange, more than a year after capital market regulator Sebi derecognised the bourse citing “serious irregularities” in its functioning.

DSE was among the few bourses that were given permanent recognition by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), as per information available on the regulator’s website.

In a notification dated March 16, the finance ministry said the recognition granted to the Delhi Stock Exchange Ltd “stands withdrawn”.

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Under certain provisions of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, the recognition to a recognised stock exchange can be withdrawn if it “has not been corporatised and demutualised within the specified time”.

In August 2005, Sebi had notified DSE Ltd (Corporatisation and Demutualisation) Scheme, 2005. The bourse was to be demutualised on or before the August 28, 2007.Under demutualisation, management and trading at a stock exchange are separated while corporatisation refers to running a bourse like a company.

After finding “serious irregularities” in its functioning, Sebi had earlier decided to withdraw recognition granted to the exchange.

“I note that serious irregularities have been found in the functioning of Delhi Stock Exchange at the time when DSE was taking steps for demutualisation,” Sebi Whole Time Member Prashant Saran had said in an order dated November 19, 2014.

“It is seen that for completing the demutualisation process the erstwhile board of DSE had overlooked the due transfer of shares in demat accounts and receipt of funds by the appointed date,” the order had said.

GOVERNMENT, CENTRAL

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 21, 2016Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his mantris spent Rs 567 crore on foreign trips in 201516

NEW DELHI: The foreign trips of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet colleagues cost the exchequer Rs 567 crore in the last financial year (201516), an increase of more than 80% from the previous year, budget documents show. This is besides the over Rs 500 crore his bureaucrats spend on their travel each year on an average. The total tour expenses of the PM and his ministers went up from Rs 269 crore as estimated in the budget at the beginning of the 2015-16 fiscal to Rs 567 crore, as per the revised estimates towards the end of the year. In addition, the total tour expenditure of bureaucrats was over Rs 1,500 crore in the three years up to 201415. The UPA2 Cabinet and its PM spent almost Rs 1,500 crore on travel between 200910 and 2013-14. In comparison, the travel bill of the NDA government in three years (between 201415 and 201617) is estimated at Rs 1,140 crore. The PM, however, has pledged to slash his expenditure

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on foreign trips by over 54% in the next financial year which will restore it to the level of UPA's expenditure towards the end of its term in 2014.The travel bill of the Cabinet and the PM includes expenditure on travel by ministers, ministers of state and exPMs and the aircraft used by VVIPs — the PM, President and VicePresident. Though Modi flaunts a leaner Cabinet, with 64 members compared to UPA's 75 members, the salary bill of his ministers went up by more than 25% last year compared to 201314, the UPA's last year in office. The allowances of his ministers also shot up to Rs 10.20 crore, which shows an increase of 8% over the expenditure made by theUPA Cabinet. The cabinet secretariat, which assists the PM, has added a strength of at least 300 since 2015. The strength of the cabinet secretariat as on March 1, 2015 was 900 which increased to 1,201 in 2016, according to the budget. The travel bills of successive governments have not been impacted by the downturn in the economy since 200809. Every year, the finance ministry comes out with a press note announcing a 10% cut in nonplan expenditure that imposes restriction on first class travel by bureaucrats and a cut on foreign delegations of Union ministers besides restrictions on conferences in fivestar hotels. Interestingly, the curb on first class travel by senior bureaucrats is lifted in the second half of the fiscal every year.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

STATESMAN, MAR 16, 2016Russian pullout

As the ceasefire, concluded by the USA and Russia, mercifully holds in Syria, the Kremlin has announced a critical shift in strategy. Vladimir Putin’s declaration on Monday night that Russian troops would begin a partial withdrawal from Syria is without question a surprise move that could mark a major shift in the conflict. On closer reflection, the Russian President’s signal of intent was only very logical in the aftermath of the truce in the troubled land, one that he had brokered with Barack Obama. The pullout does coincide with the cessation of hostilities and resumption of peace talks in Geneva. Yet misgivings are bound to persist, most particularly within the Syrian opposition which has accorded a cautious welcome to the sudden announcement.

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President Putin has let it be known that his five-month military campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad had “achieved its aims”, and has ordered his Foreign Minister to “intensify” Moscow’s role in peace talks that have resumed in Geneva. He has been less than explicit though on whether the ISIS has been reined in, let alone the continuance of the repressive dictator.

 He has reaffirmed what the world had known since the start of the air strikes with the statement that his five-month military campaign in support of Assad had “achieved its aims” . If one major “aim” was to protect the Syrian President, Mr Putin’s strategy has scored a dubious success; if the other was to exterminate ISIS, the objective is easier imagined than accomplished. To that must be added the largest displacement of people since World War II. Syria is one country at the root of the migrant crisis that has jolted Europe to its foundations. There has clearly been a dichotomy in Russia’s policy towards Syria, one that is scarcely addressed by the pullout, however welcome the announcement on Monday. Mr Putin’s assurance would suggest that while the “main part of our military contingent” will be withdrawn, a Russian airbase and naval facility will continue to operate, recalling the Anglo-American strategy in Iraq and that of NATO in Afghanistan.

The announcement coincides with the fifth anniversary of the uprising against Assad . Moscow has been one of the staunchest allies of Damascus, and the Russian military intervention at the end of September had shifted the momentum in the conflict in its favour. While Assad is said to have agreed with the Russian decision, it shall not be easy to concur with his perception that the collaboration between Russian and Syrian forces has secured “victories against terrorism and returned security to the country”. In the Kremlin’s reckoning, any opponent of Assad is a potential terrorist.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 23, 2016India to host 8th BRICS Summit in October in Goa

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made the announcement today during a function where she also unveiled a logo and a website of the Summit.

NEW DELHI: India will host the eighth annual Summit of BRICS from October 15-16 in Goa in

its capacity as chair of the influential bloc comprising five countries with 42 per cent of the

world population and combined GDP of over $16 trillion.

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made the announcement today during a function where

she also unveiled a logo and a website of the Summit.

India assumed chairmanship of BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India- China-South Africa) from Russia

on February 15 and it will last till December 31.

"I congratulate the Russian Federation for steering the BRICS process commendably that

culminated with the 7th BRICS Summit in the beautiful city of Ufa in July 2015. I am happy to

share that the 8th BRICS Summit will be hosted in Goa from October 15-16," Swaraj said.

The External Affairs Minister said India's core-theme during BRICS chairmanship will be

building responsive, inclusive and collective solutions for the grouping.

The logo for the Summit is a lotus having colours from all the five member countries and a

traditional 'namaste' in the centre.

"We will adopt a five-pronged approach during our Chairmanship. It will comprise Institution

Building, Implementation, Integration, Innovation, and Continuity with Consolidation (IIIIC or

I4C)," she said speaking on the occasion.

She said India's emphasis would be on institution building, implementation of previous

commitments flowing from the past Summits, and exploring synergies among the existing

mechanisms.

The grouping has been pushing for greater economic growth among the member countries and

reform of global financial institutions.

It has set up a the New Development Bank headquartered in Shanghai, with India's K V Kamath

at present serving as its chief.

Swaraj said during India's chairmanship, "over 50 sectoral meetings will be organised at the

ministerial, official, technical, and track II levels."

The minister further said that enhancing "greater people- to-people participation" will be among

the top priorities during the BRICS events which would be held "throughout the year across the

country".

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"We have planned a series of events including - the BRICS Under-17 Football Tournament,

BRICS Film Festival, BRICS Wellness Forum, BRICS Youth Forum, Young Diplomat's Forum,

BRICS Trade Fair, BRICS Friendship Cities Conclave besides the think-tank and academic

forums," she said.

"This will give people a greater opportunity to enrich the BRICS process. It would also be an

occasion for our BRICS partners to visit different cities and states of India," she added.

JUDICIARY

STATESMAN, MAR 16, 2016Legal profession requires standing up for justice: CJI

The legal profession involves public responsibility and requires standing up for justice, Chief Justice of India TS Thakur on Tuesday said.

Speaking at the fourth convocation of Indian Law Institute (ILI) here, the CJI, who is also the President of ILI, said law degree of this institute "puts you (students) into the future market of probably the most valuable commodity in India today".

Referring to various ethics of legal profession, he said, "one of them is an ethic of public responsibility... This ethic requires to stand up for justice in whatever you do."

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Giving a piece of advice to the young professionals, the CJI said "no matter what the work is, give it your best and do it with your heart and soul".

Union Law Minister D V Sadanand Gowda, delivering the convocation address, said "law is the critical instrumentality, both for preservation of society and its evolution to higher level of existence... Therefore, it is imperative that we dedicate ourselves to the rule of law in letter and spirit. It is the spirit not the form of law that keeps justice alive."

Praising the institute, he said ILI is empowering the young minds with the socially relevant legal education, skill and ability and inculcates the values of professionalism in them.

The Institute awarded PhD in Law, Master of Laws (LLM) and Post-Graduate Diplomas in fields like alternative dispute resolution, corporate laws and management, cyber law, drafting of legislation treaties and agreements and environmental law, human rights law, intellectual property rights law, international trade law, labour law, securities and banking laws and tax law.Supreme Court judges Justices A R Dave, J S Khehar and Dipak Misra, ILI vice-president and senior advocate Rakesh Munjal and ILI director Manoj Kumar Sinha were also present on the occasion.

ASIAN AGE, MAR 22, 2016Judges’ appointment: Govt proposes Centre, state say in selection

The NDA government is understood to have recommended that both the Centre and state governments should have a say in recommending candidates for appointment to the higher judiciary. A draft memorandum of procedure laying down the broad framework to facilitate the appointment of Supreme Court and high court judges by the collegium has been sent to the Prime Minister’s Office by the Union law and justice ministry for clearance.

The revised draft, which was recently approved by an inter-ministerial group, is soon expected to be handed over to the Chief Justice of India for his final approval, sources said. The MoP aims to guide the collegium in the appointment of judges.

The apex court had asked the government to rework the MoP in consultation with the states and high courts while delivering its verdict on ways to make the collegium system more transparent.The draft MoP suggests that the attorney-general at the Centre and advocates-general in the states should have a say in recommending candidates for appointment and elevation of judges of the Supreme Court and high courts.

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If the Supreme Court accepts the draft, then effectively the government can also suggest candidates as the AG is the top law officer appointed by the government.

In the appointment of judges to the high court, all high court judges as well as the respective state AGs will be free to recommend their candidates, it says.

While the draft MoP has been finalised by an inter-ministerial group headed by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, sources said that it is likely to undergo changes before being sent to the CJI for approval.

The draft also states that any dissent note to a recommendation of the collegium to appoint or elevate a judge should be mandatorily shared with the executive. It also recommends that up to three judges in the Supreme Court should be from the bar.

As reported by this newspaper earlier, the government has decided not to bring the collegium appointments under the RTI ambit as it apprehends it could lead to a flood of applications from aspirants and “interested parties” seeking details.

The draft also proposes evaluation of judgments delivered by a high court judge during the last five years and initiatives undertaken for the improvement of judicial administration should be the yardstick for promotion as chief justice, while suggesting that seniority should also be kept in mind.

The document stresses the need for merit as a major yardstick for the appointment of judges. Another suggestion is that a high court should not remain without a chief justice for more than three months.Some of the issues highlighted by the draft MoP are transparency in the appointment process, eligibility criteria, a permanent secretariat for the collegium and a process to evaluate and deal with complaints against candidates.

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LABOUR

DECCAN HERALD, MAR 17, 2016Now, only partial PF withdrawal allowed

Employees will only be allowed to withdraw their contributions to the Provident Fund with interest, while the employer’s contribution will be locked away until their superannuation at 58.

A new rule notified last month by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will not allow employees to make full withdrawal of their PF account in the wake of joblessness for more than two months.

Women, however, will be exempt from the rules, especially if they quit their jobs for marriage, pregnancy or childbirth.

“The Labour Ministry is finalising procedures for withdrawals from the PF account,” an EPFO official said.

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“Many rules, particularly related to taking advances, need to be addressed. In some cases, employees can take a non-refundable advance.”

EPFO rules allow an employee to withdraw 100 percent from his PF account in advance while buying a house. In other cases, only a portion of the PF can be taken as advance.

In other circumstances, they will be allowed withdrawal of a portion of the amount. Trade unions have fiercely objected to altering EPFO rules saying providence fund is part of wages and employees are free to withdraw it whenever they wanted.

LIBRARIES

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 16, 2016Indian Library Association wants government to give impetus to public library system

VADODARA: The Indian Library Association would approach Centre seeking thrust on the public library system under 'Digital India' mission and to select libraries as partners in the digitisation of knowledge and heritage. This was one of the recommendations made during the threeday international conference on sustaining excellence, transforming libraries through technology, innovation and value added services in the 'Google era', held in Rajkot, ILA president Prof Ashu Shokeen said. The other resolutions adopted at the conference included those on ILA reviving its vision to initiate professional skill development programme with stakeholders in academic and public libraries, filling up of vacancies of librarians in schools, colleges and universities and recruiting more professional librarians to provide services to one and all. Besides, another resolution was adopted to launch a nationallevel programme to inculcate and promote reading habits among people. Shokeen highlighted ILA's contributions and achievements for the library and information science profession in the country since its

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inception in 1933. It was pointed out at the conference that libraries are not equipped well to reach people in villages and need to be revamped in terms of infrastructure and human resources with more allocation of funds. It emphasised that provisions under library legislation be given due attention to develop a network of libraries to serve people in need of information, knowledge and cultural heritage. Over 110 delegates from various parts of country, and from countries like Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Bhutan attended the conference

NATIONALISM

STATESMAN, MAR 21, 2016Pop nationalismPrasenjit Chowdhury

An ideological war is on in India amidst a marked degreeof paranoia. The BJP claims that it is a party of nationalists and that all Leftists are anti-nationals. Almost on a parity of reasoning, those who support Kanhaiya Kumar are ‘anti-nationals’ and those who assault the media at Patiala House court are nationalists. People are made to accept these simplistic tropes, and accordingly, made to take sides. Some say Smriti Irani did the right thing by cracking down on the bastions of left-wing ideologies like the JNU and some are trashing her for doing the same, because, if anything, she catapulted Kanhaiya from anonymity to martyrdom and in the process managed to resuscitate the moribund Left.

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While some consider raising oversized national flags and such tokenisms are proof of nationalism and patriotism, others want more hospitals and schools.One cannot but sniff a thick partisanship in the air, and a dangerous one at that. If the Left could be accused of ideological indoctrination, another insidious danger is the rise of pop nationalism. People are asked not to raise difficult questions about the state. Is this McCarthyism -- the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence -- the new bulwark against rising dissent or political criticism?

The problem with nationalism is that what is sauce for the goose may not be the sauce for the gander. After India defeated Australia in a cricket match earlier this year, a certain Umar Daraz, a fan of India’s star player Virat Kohli, decided to celebrate by hoisting an Indian flag on his rooftop. And he did it on the outskirts of the eastern Pakistani city of Okara, some 200 miles south of Islamabad. He was arrested for acting against Pakistan’s sovereignty and disrupting public order. If convicted, he can be imprisoned for up to ten years. Umar’s act was clearly anti-national in the post-partition context of the narrative, a friend of India but a traitor to Pakistan. Compare him to Sudhir Kumar Chaudhary, the itinerant and ardently nationalist fan of the Indian cricket team, widely recognised for attending ever home match the Indian team has played since 2003. He can be seen abroad as well, with his body painted in the national colours of India, waving the national flag in the live telecast of the matches. 

By the beginning of the 20th century, during the British raj, internal security acquired a new urgency as the government became more concerned about the increasing spread of nationalist sentiment, which the British usually referred to as “sedition” or even “terrorism.” As a result, in 1904 Criminal Intelligence Departments were set up to maintain stricter vigil over the nationalists. Censorship of the press was intensified after 1857, with the government monitoring all Indian-language papers as well as those printed in English. The Indian press, nevertheless, was usually left free to criticize the government, though publishers might be treated with suspicion as “seditious agents” and might face the loss of their deposits or their presses. One notices a similar sense of paranoia within the NDA government led by Modi, though the needle of suspicion had been trained this time on the (pseudo) secularists?

Fareed Zakaria warned that without a background in constitutional liberalism, democracy in divided societies can lead to fierce nationalism, ethnic conflict, and even war. In his tract, Nationalism (1918) Tagore wrote that nationalism is “a cruel epidemic of evil sweeping over the human world of the present age and eating into its moral fibre.” For him, worship of the nation above all else leads to a kind of “othering” that incites h tred and even war between countries. He saw a parallel between imperialism and nationalism, perhaps drawing on British colonisation that

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sought to disingenuously justify the dominance of the colonisers over underdeveloped regions not powerful enough to express their resistance. 

How does the ‘othering’ work? In the debate between nationalists and secularists, secularists are often dubbed as clones of the Anglicised native who, having imbibed western values, are ‘elitist’, out of touch with the real India, and always ashamed to assert his or her own religious demands, and averse to shedding their anti-Hindu rhetoric. The chestthumpin  nationalists are the true patriots, and those engaged in securing us from foreign aggressors are almost always prized over million others engaged in nation-making. Pop nationalism is thus quite a heady mix, which when played out in the metaphor of matriarchy (Bharatmata) suffuses us with a degree of sentimentalism that we tend to forget asking uneasy questions, lest that should appear seditious or anti-national. 

No, nationalism is not that risible. The ultimate decline of the Mughal empire began with Aurangzeb, whose harsh intolerance helped create a strongHindu nationalism and led to revolts by Marathas, Rajputs, and Sikhs, as well as others farther south. But for the national movements people would not have been liberated in ex-colonial Africa and Asia as elsewhere, from the clutches of imperialism-- political, economic and intellectual.

It has often been an extension of a particular historical conjuncture, albeit one that was fairly extended in time and played out very differently in different parts of the world between the 18th and the 20th centuries. Gyanendra Pandey says that nationalism everywhere has been the product of particular, distinctive histories. It has been as strong as its leading class or classes: visionaries as well as practical men and women, devoted to commerce and industry, education and culture, aspiring to rule, to unify peoples, mobilise resources and transform economic, social and political conditions in a new, progressive spirit. But the caveat is, as Pandey says, like every other major development in history, nationalism has been “shot through with its own contradictory impulses”.

These historical impulses might explain why we ask Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan to go back to Pakistan whenever they strike ‘discordant’ noises. The two-nation theory, specifically that the Hindus and Muslims of South Asia were potentially two separate nations, had contributed to Partition in 1947.

It has been fanning nationalist sentiment even today. Hindu nationalism or Hindutva is a constant in the political and social arena in India; it fulfills the criteria of ethnic nationalism akin to many

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other European nationalisms... based on religious identity, a common language, or even xenophobia. But can that hold India?

DECCAN HERALD, MAR 22, 2016Nationalism is not sloganeering

A new style and idiom of nationalism is being preached and forced upon the country in the past few months by people who are least qualified to represent and speak for this great and diverse nation. Through one shameful incident after another we are witnessing a relentless campaign and effort to shape every individual in the country into one who answers to the narrowest description of an Indian. This writ is run across the country in kitchens, dressing and reading rooms, theatres and on campuses, dictating what people should eat, wear, read and talk about. The spectre has entered the legislative assembly also which is the most democratic space in a constitutional society. An AIMIM MLA, Waris Pathan, was suspended from the Maharashtra assembly for refusing to chant Bharat Mata ki Jai. AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi had earlier said that he would not chant it, because RSS supremo Mohan Bhagawat had made it a test of a person’s nationalism.

Bharat Mata ki Jai is a popular and patriotic chant but no one has the duty to chant it. When flying the national flag is not a citizen’s duty, how is chanting these words so? It is also not a test of nationalism. Neither does the refusal to chant it make anyone a traitor, an anti-national or less national than others. Neither the RSS nor the Shiv Sena has the right to prescribe it as a test of nationalism. Every individual has the right to choose how he should express his allegiance to the nation. What the Maharashtra assembly speaker did and the assembly endorsed was wrong and illegal. A member cannot be suspended on the ground that he has offended the sentiments of other members. Suspension of Waris Pathan on such a pretext is equivalent to driving him out of the democratic space where he had a right to be in. It is not very different from the calls made by Hindutva hotheads to people to leave the country. 

The Congress and the NCP supported the speaker’s egregious action. It may be that the atmosphere being created in the country is influencing them also. This does not bode well for the country and its politics. This narrow, exclusive and violent version of nationalism violates the real idea of a diverse, tolerant and inclusive India. This hateful script being staged across the country by the Hindutva champions and bullies will polarise the country. The country faces a threat from them, not from those who challenge their writ. The silence over it in the highest quarters is also ominous.

TELEGRAPH, MAR 21, 2016The burden of proof - India seems to be in the middle of a counter-reformation

Mukul Kesavan

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Citizenship is a birthright; patriotism is an acquired attribute. None of us bawled "Bharat Mata ki jai" or "Jai Hind" in our cribs but we were, unconditionally, citizens of this country before we were continent and well before we learnt to think or act or walk or speak. This shouldn't need saying but in the present political climate, underlining the bl***ing obvious becomes a duty. Citizenship, in the jargon of medical insurance companies, is a pre-existing condition. Our rights as citizens cannot, should not, be taken away from us unless we break our republic's laws. It follows from this that citizenship and its attendant promise of life and liberty, cannot be subject to litmus tests of patriotism devised by political parties, celebrity nationalists, bureaucrats and gau rakshaks. But increasingly they are.

Just the past week produced four examples of the way in which this birthright is being challenged by people who would argue that being law-abiding is not enough; Indians have to demonstrate that they are good citizens. The implication in each case is that if we aren't able or willing to perform designated patriotic exercises (or distance ourselves from unpatriotic ones) our standing as citizens, our rights, our liberties can legitimately be taken away from us. Let's discuss these four challenges in ascending order of awfulness.

Anupam Kher, a distinguished actor who has recently acquired a reputation as the roving scourge of the politically correct, visited the Jawaharlal Nehru University's campus earlier this week to challenge the legitimacy of the post-bail political narrative first set out by Kanhaiya Kumar in his celebrated speech. In the question and answer session that followed Kher's speech, someone argued, in defence of JNU's student community, that the slogans shouted on that fateful evening, celebrating the imminent disintegration of India and denouncing those who had a hand in executing Afzal Guru, had been raised by outsiders. Kher's response was revealing. Did you, he asked, referring to JNU students in general, tear down the posters that celebrated Afzal Guru? No, you didn't. They remained stuck to the walls of university buildings for days.

It was for Kher, a 'gotcha' moment and it tells you everything that is important about thesarkari narrative on JNU. To be physically proximate to unpatriotic utterance calls your Indian bona fides into question. So the fact that JNU's students let those posters stay on JNU's walls was culpable in itself. For Kher, the university's students had been found wanting in Indianness. Instead of scraping the posters off the buildings as any passionate patriot would have done, they had lived with them. This inertness, was a kind of complicity. Citizens have to prove themselves. Citizenship, in Kher's view of the world, isn't a birthright; it's a kind of probation and you only truly belong when you learn to perform your patriotism.

But Kher, despite his proximity to the ruling dispensation, is a private citizen. His opinions don't formally represent the view of the State. It's a much more serious business when the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language circulates a form to writers in Urdu, asking them to certify that their books - novels, short stories, plays, poems, memoirs etc - contain nothing that is critical of the policies of the government or the interest of the nation.

The NCPUL encourages literary production in Urdu by buying books in bulk, and according to the Indian Express, this new form is meant to put Urdu writers on notice "...that in case of a

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breach, the NCPUL can take legal action against the author and take back the monetary assistance".

The NCPUL is a government organization and it answers to the ministry of human resource development. The decision to get Urdu writers to sign on to this form was taken last year. It is, on the face of it, extraordinary that the government of India should ask writers to guarantee that their books contain nothing that is against "the policies of the government" or "the interest of the nation" or that is likely to cause "disharmony of any sort between different classes of the country". It is bad enough that a government should ask writers to self-attest that their novels and poems and essays are utterly conformist and docile, but it is particularly worrying when writers in a particular language, Urdu, who happen to be overwhelmingly Muslim, are singled out to sign this humiliating undertaking.

The NCPUL director's justification is breathtaking in its candour. "Since we do not have the manpower to scrutinise every single line of each book, this form helps us place the onus on the authors." The onus for what? Are Urdu writers, in the opinion of the NCPUL and the HRD ministry, in the habit of cobbling anti-national and communally inflammatory material into their work? Curiously, the equivalent policy of the National Council for Promotion of Sindhi Language contains no such stipulation. The lesson to take away from this seems to be that some citizens are allowed to take their patriotism for granted while the patriotism of others (in this case, writers in Urdu) needs formal self-attestation.

This bullying enthusiasm for applying loyalty tests to law abiding citizens reached a new low when the Maharashtra assembly unanimously voted to suspend Waris Pathan, on the charge of disrespecting the country. Pathan's 'crime' was refusing to say "Bharat Mata ki jai" when a Bharatiya Janata Party member of parliament insisted that he recite this slogan. The Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress joined the BJP in asking for Pathan's suspension and the Speaker caved in to their demand despite the fact that Pathan had done nothing to warrant suspension in terms of the assembly's own rules. Pathan's willingness to say "Jai Hind" as an alternative invocation of the nation was disregarded.

Pathan was following the lead of his party leader, Asaduddin Owaisi, who had announced a few days earlier that nothing would make him say "Bharat Mata ki jai" It is one thing to criticize Owaisi's declaration as a form of political grandstanding (as Javed Akhtar did in Parliament); it is quite another to suspend a democratically elected member of the legislative assembly for refusing to jump through political hoops at the behest of hostile fellow legislators. In a country in which MLAs have been known to hold up proceedings, throw furniture about and even assault each other, to punish an MLA for not saying something, for refusing to mouth a slogan that he felt was contrary to his religious principles, is truly Kafkaesque. The rights of citizenship, the rules of representative government are being cynically bent to accommodate a bullying jingoism.

My last example is a hideous tragedy. A man and a 12-year-old boy taking oxen to a cattle market were lynched in a village in Jharkhand and hung from a tree. They happen to be Muslim. The five men arrested in connection with these murders happen to be Hindus. One of the five happens to be connected to a cow-protection society. The superintendent of police in charge of the case thinks that, prima facie, this is a case of cattle looting gone wrong, but he is also

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investigating other possibilities including ideological motives related to gau raksha. On social media some right-wing commentators favour 'personal enmity' as the likelier explanation.

They could be right but all of us should be deeply worried about the manner of this lynching. If this was a violent robbery that just happened to end in murder, why were the victims, one of them just a boy, left hanging on a tree? A hanging isn't just a murder, it is a kind of execution. When two Muslims in the cattle trade are lynched in this demonstrative way, it is reasonable to wonder if a message is intended.

Jharkhand is a state ruled by the BJP. Unlike the lynching in Dadri, this one happened on its watch. This doesn't mean that Mohammad Majloom and Inayatullah Khan are exhibits A and B in some indictment of the BJP's Jharkhand government. We don't have to argue complicity to point out that Narendra Modi's regime, which Arun Shourie mocked as the UPA plus a cow, has consistently dog-whistled about cow protection. Local party workers, MLAs, MPs, ministers, chief ministers said vile and temporising things after the Dadri lynching. The BJP has consistently equivocated in the aftermath of gau-rakshak violence; it should surprise no one if it turns out that Mohammad Majloom and Inayatullah Khan were lynched because their killers felt a sense of ideological impunity.

Majloom and Khan quite likely died because in contemporary India, Muslims herding cows or eating meat aren't always given the benefit of the doubt. As with Waris Pathan and Urdu writers and JNU's students, the burden of proof is sometimes reversed. We seem to be in the middle of a counter-reformation where new inquisitors refuse to take our citizenship, our innocence if you will, for granted. We - some more than others - are asked to prove our innocence and perform our Indianness to their satisfaction. We should refuse. There is no satisfying an Inquisition and as free citizens of a great republic we have nothing to prove.

PARLIAMENT

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 22, 2016Since 1999, 78% MLAs had suspensions revokedIn November 2014, five Congress MLAs were suspended for two years for allegedly manhandling and heckling Governor C Vidyasagar Rao. Their suspension was revoked in December 2014.

 ZEESHAN SHAIKH 

THE suspension of AIMIM MLA Waris Pathan from the Maharashtra Assembly for the entire

Budget session has brought to fore the debate on how effective suspension is to discipline

errant members.

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Since 1999, suspension of nearly 78 per cent of the MLAs had been revoked before completing

their punishment.

As per rules of proceedings, the Speaker can suspend a member from the House for

disregarding the authority of the chair or abusing the rules of the house. Unlike certain states

such as Odisha which mandate that a member cannot be suspended for more than seven

working days, Maharashtra’s legislators can be suspended for an indefinite period.

In November 2014, five Congress MLAs were suspended for two years for allegedly

manhandling and heckling Governor C Vidyasagar Rao. Their suspension was revoked in

December 2014.

Since the setting up of the Maharashtra Assembly in 1960, the Speaker has suspended 298

legislators for misconduct. These ranged from suspension for a day to cancellation of

membership. The only legislator to see his membership being taken away was Forward Bloc’s

Jambuwantrao Dhote, whose membership was cancelled after he threw a paperweight while

being escorted out by security officers.

Other members of the Assembly have been luckier. Only 57 per cent of suspended legislators

ever served their full sentence with the Speaker revoking the punishment of 128 legislators.

Since 1999, a total of 102 legislators were suspended and 84 of these suspensions were later

revoked. However, pre-1999 the Speaker seemed to have wielded a firm hand in ensuring that

offending members were punished.

During the period 1960 till 1999, 196 MLAs were suspended of which the suspension of only

21 per cent (44 legislators) legislators was revoked.

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Political watchgroups like the Association for Democratic Reforms have questioned the

transparency in suspending and revoking the suspension of MLAs. It has also called for

legislators to improve their behaviour.

“There is a serious lack of transparency on why some members are suspended and why their

suspensions are revoked. Many a times the neutrality of a Speaker who generally hails from a

ruling party could be suspect. However, there is a serious need for our legislators to learn to

behave in the Assembly,” according to Anil Bairwal, National Coordinator of Association for

Democratic Reforms.

POLICE

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 21, 2016Over 900 posts of IPS officers lying vacant: MHA

As per the data, the highest number of IPS vacancies was in Uttar Pradesh at 114 of the

sanctioned strength of 517, followed by West Bengal with 88 posts vacant of a sanctioned

strength of 347.  

Of a sanctioned strength of 4,802 Indian Police Service (IPS) posts in the country, 908 posts were vacant as on January 1, data from the Home Ministry showed. There are currently 3,894 IPS officers in service and 140 probationers from the 2015 batch under training.

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As per the data, the highest number of IPS vacancies was in Uttar Pradesh at 114 of the

sanctioned strength of 517, followed by West Bengal with 88 posts vacant of a sanctioned

strength of 347.

Of 188 sanctioned IPS posts in Odisha, 79 posts were vacant, and 72 posts were vacant out of

215 sanctioned IPS posts in Karnataka.

In Maharashtra, there were 63 of 302 posts vacant, 56 of 305 in Madhya Pradesh, 56 of 147 in

Jammu and Kashmir, and 50 out of 295 IPS posts in Union Territories.

Attempts at filling the vacancies through Limited Competitive Examination were halted by

multiple litigations.

 

POLITICAL PARTIES

STATESMAN, MAR 21, 2016Left Front calls for secular democratic government

West Bengal's Left Front, which has gone for seat adjustment with the Congress, on Sunday released its election manifesto calling for the formation of a secular democratic government and urging the people to defeat the ruling Trinamool Congress to restore democracy in the state."Our aim is to restore democracy and rule of law. We will ensure freedom of expression for all. The police and the administration will have to work by following the multi-party democratic tradition," the 16-page manifesto promised.

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Left Front chairman Biman Bose told the media: "To achieve this, we have to defeat the Trinamool government. Towards that end, we want the people to unite and form a democratic secular government in the state."

The Left Front resolved to free all political prisoners, and withdrawal of false cases, besides ensuring that police and the administration work neutrally for securing a society free of fear by strictly dealing with anti-socials.

It promised to ensure that statutory bodies like the Women's Commission, Lokayukta, state Election Commission, state Human Rights Commission functioned with full authority.

The rights of the civil society would also be safeguarded, the document said.

It stressed pursuing a secular policy, and promised that the government would not be partial to any religious community or interfere in religious practices.

"We will take a neutral stand on all religions. We will take a strong stand against all types of communalism and extremism," it said, promising to safeguard the security of all religious minorities including Muslims.

The Left Front said "communal forces like the BJP" have to be weakened and towards that end, the Trinamool has to be defeated as it had been hand-in-glove with the BJP some time back.Dwelling at length on 'corruption' during the Trinamool regime, the manifesto said the top party leadership including members of parliament and ministers were involved in the chit fund scams."Entrepreneurs and industrialists leaving the state due to extortion demands is a regular feature," it said.

The Left Front alleged that there was a flight of industry out of the state during the five-year rule of the Trinamool, when the state has failed to draw investment.

It promised to ensure a universal public distribution system and stop deaths due to hunger."Workers of closed industries will be paid a monthly allowance of Rs.2,500 and given subsidised ration."

Regarding land acquisition for industries, which had emerged as a contentious issue during the last years of the Left Front government (2006-2011), the manifesto said it would take "cautious steps" and sincere efforts would be initiated to build up understanding between all stakeholders in the identified areas.

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"Families giving away their land will be given profitable value. Initiatives will be taken to give training and employment to one member of the affected families."

For the education system, the allocation will be 20 percent of the annual budget. The economically poor sections will be given subsidised power, the manifesto added.

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

TELEGRAPH, MAR 19, 2016A changing image - The mysterious makeover of Narendra Modi

Politics and play- Ramachandra Guha

As chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi was known to run a tight ship. He was in total command of his cabinet, and interacted regularly with senior civil servants. He had some special areas of focus, such as attracting new investment, building better roads, and assuring regular water and power supply to farmers. In these areas, he made a fetish of his accessibility, giving investors his cell number in case they had problems with babus on the ground.

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As prime minister, however, Narendra Modi is not remotely in control of the operations of the government of India. It is increasingly evident that ministers are at liberty to act as they wish and say what they want, even if their actions and words are antithetical to the best interests of the government or the country. Meanwhile, vacancies in key posts are held up for months on end, only because the prime minister has not found the time to see the relevant file and sign off on it.

What explains this discrepancy between how Narendra Modi once operated as chief minister and how he now conducts himself as prime minister? One obvious explanation has to do with scale. India is not Gujarat. A leader can, through force of personality, impose himself on the politics and administration of a medium-sized and culturally homogeneous state. One cannot do that so easily on a large country as a whole. The government of India has many more departments than a state government, including many departments and institutions that have no parallels in the states.

The transition from Gandhinagar to New Delhi may have been easier if, at some stage in his career, Narendra Modi had worked with the Central government. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a cabinet minister before he became prime minister; and he had been a member of parliament for almost two decades before he became a cabinet minister. On the other hand, Narendra Modi never previously held a cabinet post in Delhi; indeed, he was never even an MP. This must be one reason why Vajpayee managed his cabinet as well as the Opposition so much better than Modi has (at least so far). Indeed, it seems that at no stage in his preparations for the prime minister's job did Modi pay any attention to a crucial difference between his state and his nation; namely, that while Gujarat has no Upper House, India has a Rajya Sabha.

Questions of scale and past political experience (or lack thereof) help explain why Narendra Modi, such a strong and assertive head of government in Gujarat, has been so curiously ineffective, even at times inept, as prime minister in Delhi. But there is a third reason, which may in fact be more consequential than the others. This is that Narendra Modi appears to have had a change of personality. His focus has shifted from closely controlling the administration to closely controlling his own image.

While filing his nomination papers for the Gandhinagar seat for the last general elections, Lal Krishna Advani famously called Narendra Modi the best event manager he had known. There was an element of sour grapes here, since from managing events promoting Advani, Modi had advanced to promoting himself. To be sure, general elections had been personalized before. The polls of 1952 were all about Jawaharlal Nehru, the polls of 1971 centred around Indira Gandhi. Yet, because of the use of media forms not available to the likes of Nehru and Indira Gandhi, Narendra Modi's election campaign of 2014 was surely the greatest promotional event ever seen on Indian soil.

During the campaign, several journalists reported that the prime ministerial aspirant began his day by Googling himself - to see what was said about him in the English, Hindi, and Gujarati press, and on social media too. Much of this was doubtless comforting to his image. As chief minister, Narendra Modi had been a polarizing figure: for his mishandling of the 2002 riots, and for his vindictiveness towards those residents of Gujarat (including senior officers) who did not

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toe his line. However, as the campaign for the general election got under way, Modi began to get a more favourable press - because he was an excellent orator, and because the ruling Congress regime was so massively discredited. And once the contest was posited as presidential, Narendra Modi versus Rahul Gandhi, it was clear who would win.

After he became prime minister, Modi's sense of self was elevated a step further. This was evident in the careful, even obsessive, attention to his clothes, and to his appearance. Then he began to travel overseas. Modi had won an impressive, even spectacular, victory, and heads of government in countries big and small were keen to welcome him. This made him even more conscious of his importance. Somewhere, he appears to have forgotten the distinction between individual and State, seeing the attention paid to him as due to him personally, rather than to the important country whose government he represented. It was the wilful blurring of this distinction that led both to the wearing of that infamous suit and to the equally ill-judged remark about the alleged personal chemistry between "Barack" and himself.

In his first year in office, Narendra Modi visited some 30 different countries. When he was not overseas, he was not often in Delhi either. He spent a great deal of time campaigning in state elections. The crowds at his rallies were doubtless nourishing to the ego. However, the large stretches of time spent outside Delhi, whether elsewhere in India or abroad, meant that he was scarcely in touch with his ministers or his MPs, who, unchecked, spoke and acted as they pleased.

Even when he is in Delhi, Modi likes to be at the centre of spectacles of which he is the main, and sometimes the sole, star. Here are three (and representative) examples. In June 2015, there was International Yoga Day, where the prime minister sat on a mat in the centre of Lutyens' Delhi, directing thousands of others to follow him in his asanas. In January 2016, there was Netaji declassification day, when, for a whole morning, the capital's craven television channels followed the prime minister around the National Archives, punching buttons that opened files that were eventually revealed to reveal nothing at all. Most recently there was the World Culture Festival, which, in spite of the ecological ravages it caused, the prime minister chose to inaugurate, perhaps because - like International Yoga Day - the hope was that it would feature in that stoutly swadeshi enterprise, the Guinness Book of World Records, although what this (or the other events mentioned here) did to bring achche din to India or Indians is hard, if not impossible, to divine.

In the time he has been prime minister, Modi's major contribution to governance has been rhetorical. In Gujarat, if reports are to be believed, he took a direct interest in programme implementation. In Delhi, he coins slogan after slogan, these then left to wither on the vine. With great fanfare, the Planning Commission was dismantled and replaced by Niti Aayog. But what the new institution does or is meant to do is rather unclear. (Notably the Niti Aayog was not even consulted in the preparation of the Union budget.) The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched with even greater gusto, yet by the government's own admission, the showpiece city of Varanasi, the prime minister's own constituency, is one of the 10 dirtiest places in India. Surprisingly, rather than critically evaluate what has happened to the schemes launched so far, the prime minister carries on announcing new programmes and new acronyms regardless.

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In a recent speech in Odisha, Narendra Modi claimed there was a conspiracy to defame him, hatched by those who could not abide a former tea-seller becoming prime minister. Having read, during the campaign, so much admiration for himself, Modi's scouring of media references to his name was now revealing less flattering results. Since paranoia is the other side of vanity, his first instinct was to see this as motivated. But in fact the criticism is merely a consequence of the mismatch between his campaign promises and what his government has done so far, between the slogans and acronyms he coins and the everyday realities of life on the ground.

The sociologist, M.N. Srinivas, once told this writer that "media attention is the enemy of scholarship". To be sure, politicians need to be far more in the public eye than scholars. The trouble arises when the desire to be always in the news, and always spoken about positively, determines what a politician does. From Narendra Modi's conduct, ever since he moved from Gandhinagar to New Delhi, we can, I think, reasonably conclude that for powerful prime ministers, as much as for mere university professors, a craving for publicity can become the enemy of solid, sustained, work.

TELEGRAPH, MAR 17, 2016Symptomatic success- The rise and rise of Donald Trump

Mukul Kesavan

One of the consequences of the rise of Donald Trump is the global equalization of awfulness. Time was when desis would lament the loneliness of the long-distance liberal in India and gesture, by way of contrast, at the West where liberal virtues were institutionalized and where political differences were civilly expressed. If this was ever true, it isn't true any more.

I'm thinking about that delicious moment in one of the Republican debates when Marco Rubio suggested that Trump had abnormally small hands. Trump read this as a sexual slur and assured the Republican faithful, on television, that nothing about him was small. Reassured, they voted him to a landslide win in the Florida primary. Who would have thought that a state made up of rich, sun-wrinkled retirees was so invested in virility?

The idea that America is a nation of laws while third-world republics like ours are governed by overmighty States that are whimsical, corrupt and arbitrary, is, like most stereotypes, based on a half-truth. It's true that the US Constitution is a part of America's political culture in a way that the Indian Constitution isn't a part of ours. The First and Second Amendments and the rights they enshrine - the right to free speech and the weird right to own guns, especially semi-automatic assault rifles - are an everyday part of American political discourse. Thanks to novels, films and television, desis who have never been to America know that 'taking the Fifth' means invoking the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating yourself.

So when Nivedita Menon, a professor in Jawaharlal Nehru University has police complaints filed against her because of her views on Kashmir and Hinduism, or when Pushp Sharma, a journalist and RTI activist, is picked up and questioned by the Delhi Police for writing a

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sourced story on systematic sarkari discrimination against Muslims, Indians can be forgiven for looking enviously Westwards at free speech protections more robust than their own.

Then you hear Trump threatening newspapers with consequences should he become president, you see protesters at his rallies being manhandled and thrown out, and you watch his triumphal progress through the Republican primaries despite these assaults on ordinary liberal values and you begin to wonder how much protection constitutionalist safeguards actually afford against popular prejudice.

Donald Trump, like Narendra Modi, is important because his success is a symptom of widespread bigotry. He embarrasses conservative commentators and the Republican establishment because his success makes this darkness visible. Instead of dog-whistling or talking about 'states rights' or the 'southern strategy', euphemisms for the low tactics designed to consolidate the votes of disaffected white voters, Trump has chosen to be openly bigoted and he has been rewarded for it.

Trump's political appeal is based on explicit racism. As Ben Mathis-Lilley writes at Slate, "[as] a matter of accuracy, though, if someone who says Mexican immigrants in America are disproportionately likely to be rapists, argues that Muslims should not be allowed into the United States, and repeats sleazy urban legends about the behaviour of American Muslims and black people is not a racist, then the word has no meaning."

There is a reason why Trump equivocated about rejecting David Duke's endorsement. Duke used to be the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization well beyond the pale of political respectability. Trump doesn't think Duke's endorsement is toxic because he recognizes that a substantial part of his support base consists of older white men without a college education who, goaded beyond endurance by Barack Obama's time as president, want a white Restoration. Put plainly, racist whites are crucial to Trump's candidacy and he doesn't want to alienate them by disavowing Duke.

Actually, the truth is that racist working class whites and racist older white people are crucial to the electoral coalition of any viable Republican candidate. And while this is true for the presidency, it is equally true for Congressional elections. Despite a changing population and unfavourable demographics, Republicans have succeeded in winning more states and more legislative contests because they have been ruthless in gerrymandering electoral districts for the sake of creating white majorities or pluralities. The whiteness of the Republican base predates Trump's emergence by decades. It is important to point out that the party's alignment with an angry white rump didn't just happen; it was achieved by design.

Which is why the consternation of conservative commentators at the prospect of a Trump nomination is comical. It's funny because all ambushes are amusing from the point of view of the disinterested spectator. The spectacle of a party establishment and its tame ideologues being upended by a cheerful vulgarian is irresistible. The republican establishment wanted to harness the rage and anxiety of a resentful white rump for its own ends: neo-conservative interventionism abroad, Wall Street welfare and ever lower taxes for the very rich plus huge welfare cuts for the very poor at home, and an immigration policy that would turn immigrants

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into temporary guest workers for America's employers.

Trump saw that the straight road to the heart of this constituency was to pander to its prejudices explicitly. So he did. Immigrants, he declared, took both your jobs and your women. He saw that working class whites had no interest in a rational immigration policy so he promised them a brutally irrational one: he would deport all 12 million illegal immigrants including their children, he would build a border wall you could see from outer space and he would get the Mexicans to pay for it.

He saw that they liked Medicaid so he broke with conservative orthodoxy about welfare spending on health. He recognized that white evangelicals were white first and evangelical later and guessed, correctly, that his anti-immigrant, anti-free trade rhetoric would win them over. Conservative pundits like George Will, Ross Douthat, Charles Krauthammer and Jennifer Rubin felt robbed of their ideological respectability by Trump's cheerful bigotry. They preferred the deniability of dog-whistling to Trump's more 'direct' methods. Marco Rubio, the darling of this class of 'respectable' Republican thinker, lost his home state, Florida, by a landslide because the white Republican base never forgave his attempt to broker a bi-partisan immigration bill in 2013.

Sections of this Republican pundit class, blind-sided by the Trump phenomenon, are predicting a brokered convention. According to them there will be a political coup where the GOP's elders will name an establishment candidate not called Trump and edge Donald out. This is a case of sore losers whistling in the wind. It is almost certain Trump will win the nomination and when he does, the clients and time-servers who make up the bulk of every political establishment, will, like the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, embrace him. Deep in their hearts they recognize that the party's beating heart has been, for decades, its angry white base.

Seen this way, Trump's ascension represents not a rupture with the past, but the base coming into its own and there will be no shortage of re-purposed intellectuals and born again pundits to explain to everyone who cares to listen the Importance of being Trump. We in India will look on knowingly, having been here before.

PUBLIC FINANCE

HINDU, MAR 23, 2016Nod for Fifth Finance Commission

Though the recommendations of the Fourth Delhi Finance Commission are yet to be implemented, the Delhi government approved the constitution of the Fifth Finance Commission on Tuesday.

The Fourth Commission’s report, which includes recommendations that may result in a confrontation between the Centre and the AAP government, spells out measures needed to

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improve the financial situation of the civic bodies. The report has suggested that the civic bodies get more funds from the Delhi government’s coffers and a greater share for Delhi from the Central taxes.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had tabled the Fourth Finance Commission report during the last winter session of the Delhi Assembly, but refused to implement the recommendations. The AAP government had then said it would implement the report only after the Centre implements the recommendations in which it had been asked to ensure that the Union Urban Development Ministry does not deal with matters related to constitution and powers of the local bodies. Also it was said that the DDA, which is headed by the L-G, should share its development fund with the city government.

In June last year, the Delhi High Court had pulled up the city government saying it cannot wait for acceptance or implementation of the Fourth Commission’s findings before constituting the fifth one. The setting up of the Fifth Commission has to be done “independently” and every five years, it had observed.

The recommendations of the Fifth Commission are proposed to be effective from April 1.

Other decisions taken

Now, disabled persons will be able to travel free of cost in the DTC’s Air-Conditioned and Cluster (orange) buses. The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at the Delhi Secretariat on Tuesday evening. “The Cabinet has approved the extension of free travel facility in accordance with the Disabilities Act to persons suffering from any disability,” said a senior government official.

Of a total of 6,055 buses (4,555 DTC and 1,500 Cluster), 1,275 are AC buses, the official said. He added that the number of AC buses would increase substantially in the near future.

The proposal for strengthening the Enforcement Wing of the Transport Department was also cleared in the meeting.

PUBLIC UTILITIES

DECCAN HERALD, MAR 17, 2016Now, information on all govt services just a call away

Minister for IT, BT and S&T S R Patil launched ‘Pratispandana Helpline 1800 208 1237’ to provide information and services to the public here on Wednesday’.

The department of IT, BT has set up the centre through its IT service wing KEONICS and it is the first-of-its-kind in Karnataka. It provides all information related to government schemes

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under one roof, (on toll free number). The centre will be functional from 10 am to 6 pm on all week days (government working days). 

On the occasion, Minister Patil said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had announced the launch of a helpline in 2015-16 budget. If there is a good response to the people-friendly helpline, similar helplines would be launched in every district in the State. The helpline centre will also facilitate appointments with government officers of different departments in case of public demand. Public can also enquire about the APMC rates, he added.

Information about various hospitals, medical facilities, ration card, Aadhaar, RTI, permits and licences, students’ scholarships, soil cards, services related to education and RTE, will be a call away. The staffers for the service centre had been recruited from Vindhya E-Infomedia private limited, a Bengaluru-based BPO which recruits physically challenged candidates, who will run the helpline, the minister informed.

VIOLENCE

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 22, 2016IPS Association rejects Sahay Commission report on Muzaffarnagar riots

LUCKNOW: The Indian Police Service (IPS) Association of Uttar Pradesh has rejected Justic Vishnu Sahay's report on the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots that have blamed former SSP Subhash Dubey for the violence that killed 63 people and rendered over 55,000 homeless. Secretary of the Association, Inspector General Prakash D has confirmed that they did not agree with the Sahay Commission report as Dubey was in charge of the district for just 12 days and while he had given

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a 27page testimony, not a single line was included in the final report. Senior police officials also alleged the state government was trying to "find a scapegoat" in Dubey and hence he has been picked up while three other district police chiefs were spared where the riots had also taken place. Office bearers of the association told IANS that targeting a selected official for such large scale violence was not justified. The IPS Association has also defended the then Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) inspector Prabal Pratap Singh who was indicted for lapses that allegedly led to the riots. This is the second time in the past few days that police officials have resented some action of the state government. Recently, they pressurised the government for revoking the suspension of Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Lucknow D.K. Chowdhary. The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that this was a clear case of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's government trying to deflect its responsibility in the riots and trying to make an official a scapegoat. "Could such large scale violence be due to the failure of one person?" questioned BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak, adding that every attempt of the ruling Samajwadi Party government to shirk its role in the 2013 riots would not succeed.

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