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ECONOMIC TIMES

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STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

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CONTENTS

AGRICULTURE 3-4

BACKWARD CLASSES 5-6

CIVIL SERVICE 7-15

DEFENCE, NATIONAL 16

DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION 17

EDUCATION 18-22

GOVERNORS 23-24

HEALTH SERVICES 25-31

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 32-34

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 35-37

JUDICIARY 38-41

LABOUR 42-44

POLICE 45

POVERTY 46-48

PUBLIC FINANCE 49

RAILWAYS 50-58

TAXATION 59

TERRORISM 60-61

WATER SUPPLY 62-65

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AGRICULTURE

TIMES OF INDIA, SEP 19, 2016Now, post offices make testing soil easy for farmersSushant Ranjan

In a bid to make soil testingservice accessible to farmers, department of post, Pune region, has

launched a pilot initiative on Friday named Kisan Vigyan Doot (KVD) wherefarmers can submit

their soil samples at the nearest post offices. The samples will be tested at the agencies and a

report will be sent.

The project, announced at the postmaster general's office, is a facility spearheaded by the postal

department in collaboration with Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), Baramati. Sumitha Ayodhya,

director of postal services, Pune region, told Mirror, "This is a first-of-itskind initiative that has

been introduced in the state. Most farmers are either unaware of the importance of soil testing or

the agencies are inaccessible to them, which leads to unsuitable cropping and eventually

financial loss."

Pune region is spread over four districts — Pune, Satara, Solapur and Ahmednagar — consisting

of 2,161branches that operate in rural areas. "The rural post offices can collect soil samples from

farmers and send it to the KVKs. India Post will act as the farmers' messenger with KVKs

offering a perfect blend of its services. In the pilot stage, this initiative will be implemented at

the branch offices of Pune Mofussil (MFL) division," said F B Sayyed, assistant postmaster

general, Pune region.

Vivek Bhoite, subject matter specialist of soil testing, KVK, Baramati, stated that increasing

urbanisation has weakened soil health. "Most of the farmers are unaware about soil health thus

the fertility has worsened. Farmers have approached us for tests from Pune, Phaltan in Satara

district, Ahmednagar, Solapur and Bhor tehsil. Currently, the entire process of submitting the

samples to obtaining the results takes nearly eight days. With the implementation of the project,

the time taken for the tests will reduce considerably," he said.

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Farmers are also happy with the initiative undertaken by the postal department. Shyam Sunder

Jaigude, a farmer from Bhor tehsil, said, "If this project works, it will benefit those who are

forced to neglect their lands while the tests are being conducted."

KVK in Baramati is a Farm Science Centre at the district level that was established in August

1992 under the affiliation of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi .

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BACKWARD CLASSES

INDIAN EXPRESS, SEP 23, 2016Let O in OBC stand for orphans too, says NCBC panel

If implemented, this would be the first time that the central list of OBCs, which provides 27 per

cent reservation in government schools and jobs, includes a group based on a criteria other than

caste or community.

Written by Shalini Nair 

The NCBC had first considered the inclusion of orphans in the central OBC list in May 2015. (Representational image)

The National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) has passed a resolution stating that

destitute orphaned children should be included in the central list of Other Backward Classes

(OBC).

If implemented, this would be the first time that the central list of OBCs, which provides 27 per

cent reservation in government schools and jobs, includes a group based on a criteria other than

caste or community.

The decision was taken at a recent meeting chaired by NCBC head Justice V Eswaraiah. The

affirmative action has been proposed for children who have lost their parents before reaching the

age of 10, and are admitted to government-run or aided schools and orphanages, with no one to

take care of them “either by law or custom”.I’m Not That Sharp Shooter, Tweets Indian Cricketer Mohammad Kaif

“We have communicated the decision to the Union Ministry of Social Justice, which will have

to take the final call. This is in keeping with the recent Supreme Court judgement where the

court noted that caste alone cannot be the yardstick for determining backwardness,” NCBC

member Ashok Saini said.

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The NCBC had first considered the inclusion of orphans in the central OBC list in May 2015.

This was a couple of months after the Supreme Court, in the Ram Singh v/s Union of India case,

quashed the Centre’s move to include Jats in the central OBC list. The NCBC’s resolution issued

this week refers to that judgement, wherein the court held that “social groups which would be

most deserving must necessarily be a matter of continuous evolution. New practices, methods

and yardsticks have to be continuously evolved, moving away from caste centric definition of

backwardness”.

The NCBC had written to all states asking for their opinion on the matter. Following this, the

Telangana and Rajasthan governments included orphans in their state OBC list. In Madhya

Pradesh, the state Backward Classes Commission recommended the inclusion, but was turned

down by the state government.

“Tamil Nadu has been providing reservation for orphaned children under the state OBC list for

the last three years. We want it to be included in the central OBC list for all states,” said NCBC

member S K Kharventhan. It was Tamil Nadu that requested the Union government to consider

including orphans and destitute children in the central OBC list so that reservations are ensured

in central education institutions and civil posts and services.

The NCBC had earlier recommended that transgenders be given reservation under the existing

27 per cent quota meant for OBCs. The ministry’s initial draft transgender bill had recommended

reservation for transgenders under OBC, a provision which was dropped following protests from

existing OBC groups against such a move eating into their 27 per cent quota. When the Union

Ministry for Social Justice introduced its Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill in Lok

Sabhalast month, it made no mention of giving OBC status to transgenders.

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CIVIL SERVICE

STATESMAN, SEP 23, 2016When some are more equal than othersUdit Raj

Judiciary, politics and economy have undergone various changes, but the bureaucracy remains inert. The main reason is that a service which has been in dominant position doesn’t allow change, lest it lose its hegemony.

The 7th Central Pay Commission gave certain recommendations which questioned the hegemony and yet the content remained the same. The Commission recommended parity in pay, promotions and deputations to all services.

To do this, it recommended doing away with the disparity of giving two additional increments to IAS officers at each of the first three promotions, compared to other services, asked that cadre structure of each service be improved and stagnation reduced by the Secretary of the concerned Department, and not the Secretary, DOPT, and that all officers, irrespective of their service, be eligible for deputation to the post of Joint Secretaries after completion of 17 years of service.

 It was observed by the Chairman of the commission in his report that, “Over a period of time IAS has arrogated to itself all powers of governance and relegated all other services to secondary position. All posts covering majority of domains are today manned by IAS, be it technical or administrative which is the main cause of grievance. It is time that government take a call that subject domain should be the criteria to man the posts and not a generalist. If fair and equitable treatment is not given to all Services, then the gap between IAS and other services will widen and it may lead to a chaotic situation and it will not be good for the governance and country.”

As per practice, every Pay Commission report is studied by an implementation committee, also known as an Empowered Group of Secretaries. For studying the recommendations of the 7th CPC, an implementation committee of 13 members was formed, of which eight were serving IAS officers, one a scientist and four were members of services other than the IAS.

It was observed by the CPC that, “the examination of the Cadre Restructuring proposal should be undertaken at the Department level itself.” The report also stated that, “This Commission is of the view that the cadre review should be the responsibility of the concerned Secretary of the Department to which the cadre belongs and not the responsibility of Secretary, DOPT.”

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These observations were made by the CPC since the DOPT has failed in its mandate of carrying out cadre reviews of services every five years, due to which the plight of members of those services was even worse; however, this recommendation was ignored by the Empowered Group of Secretaries.

It is not an exaggeration to say that other things change, but hegemony of Administrative Services remains. To dilute the CPC recommendations a clever scheme was formulated in making of a task force by the DOPT vide its Office Memorandum dated 22 August 2016 so that it all again falls in the clutch of one service. The OM defeats the purpose of CPC and again authorised the Secretary, DOPT to conduct cadre review of all other services.

A task force was created under the Chairmanship of Mr T Jacob, Additional Secretary, DOPT. It is ironic that an officer of the HAG level in the IAS is asked to decide number of officers at HAG+ and Apex levels in other services. The Task Force was supposed to conduct a comprehensive study on the cadre structure of all organized Central Government services, but through a clever process of exclusion, the All India Services, viz IAS, IPS and IFoS were excluded, and only 34 Group ‘A’ services were deemed to be eligible for a review of cadre structure by the Task Force.The OM for setting up of the Task Force is by itself contradictory, as its Terms of Reference are to undertake a comprehensive study of all organized Group ‘A’ services and to suggest a way forward to mitigate the stagnation level in these services. Why then is the cadre structure of the IAS not examined – it is a fact that stagnation is the least in the IAS, and best practices in the IAS should be replicated in other services.

It is another irony that Cadre Controlling authorities are asked to submit their recommendations within 15 days of the issue of the OM on 22 August, whereas there is a delay of six days in issue of the OM from the decision of the Appointments Committee of Cabinet given on 16 August.

Also, another OM was issued on 1 September asking for service associations to submit their recommendations for cadre review by 6 September – a total of five days was given to service associations for this, out of which two were holidays. When the Task Force was given three months for coming up with recommendations, why should cadre controlling authorities and service associations not have been allowed to remain in the loop for the duration of the sittings of the Task Force?

The IAS officers’ lobby has used till now a multitude of underhand methods to delay promotions and opportunities in deputations to members of other services, thereby reducing them to second class citizens. For example, in the DOPT, nine of the top officers belong to the IAS – including the Secretary, two Additional Secretaries and six Joint Secretaries; one Additional Secretary,

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who is also designated as the ex-officio Secretary of the Appointments Committee of Cabinet, is also an IAS officer.

Other services are denied any say at the policy level in the DOPT, due to which the last empanelment of IRS officers at the Secretary level was for the 1978 batch, while empanelment has been completed for IAS officers up to the 1983 batch, leading to a gap of 5 years. The situation is even worse with empanelment to Joint Secretary posts where IAS officers of 1999 batch have been empanelled while for the Forest Service empanelment has been completed till 1990 batch, for IPS till 1994, IRS till 1990, Postal Service till 1993 and for Audit and Accounts Service till 1994 batches.

Politics and politicians have undergone many changes; however our bureaucracy has not kept in tune with the times. The UPA chose an economist to be Prime Minister, and one of the reasons was to address domestic and international economic challenges. Politics is managed by generalists and yet, in some respects, professionalism is prevailing. To meet the current challenges, Government services have to be more technical and professional.

The Prime Minister understands this and that is why he had asked that by 31 December 2015, officers of all services up to 1995 batch should be empanelled for Joint Secretary. Meanwhile, empanelment of IAS officers which had been completed for 1997 batch was stopped and the file for empanelment of IAS 98 batch was returned by the PMO. However, officers of only one service (IDAS) of 1995 batch were empanelled as Joint Secretaries on 29 February 2016 and in clear violation of instructions from the Prime Minister, IAS officers of the 1998 and 1999 batch were empanelled as Joint Secretaries, while other services continued to be ignored.

I don’t have any reservation about any service but now times have changed, so the best of all fields should be allowed to blossom and deliver. There was a time when IAS had to clear more papers in the entrance examination but that practice no longer exists. Moreover, all those who compete for any service are of the same mettle and it is a matter of chance that some secure a few marks more. When other major institutions like politics, judiciary and economy are more professionally driven, and then why not the bureaucracy?

The writer is a Member of the Lok Sabha from the North-West Delhi constituency.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, SEP 22, 2016Politician-bureaucrat ties far more complicated than perceivedSaksham Khosla and Milan Vaishnav

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Days after the 2014 general election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to revitalise India’s civil administration, an apparatus — to quote one journalist — marked by “the overwhelming perception [that] corrupt bureaucrats are despised but thrive; the honest are respected but do not rise; and idealists end up in the boondocks”. Indeed, many observers believe that the excesses of India’s political executive are in large part to blame for the troubled state of the Indian bureaucracy, not least its hobbled “steel frame” — the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS).

Over the years, widespread political meddling has fuelled the notion that malicious politicians stand in the way of honest, hardworking bureaucrats who seek to implement key government policies. A nascent scholarly literature, combining data on the career records of IAS officers with granular information on development outcomes and electoral dynamics, does not dispel this notion. But it finds that the relationship between politicians and the bureaucracy is far more complicated.

There is much truth to the idea that elected officials regularly abuse their executive authority to arbitrarily transfer civil servants and that this presents a serious obstacle to efficient bureaucratic functioning. According to historical data , the average tenure of an IAS officer in a given post is a mere 16 months; furthermore, the probability that an officer is transferred in a given year is a whopping 53%. There is suggestive evidence that this “Transfer-Posting Raj” has an adverse impact on policy outcomes: In districts with a higher incidence of transfers, poverty rates exhibit a much slower pace of decline — indicating lasting damage to policy outcomes.

But the bureaucracy is hardly a passive actor. Political allegiance — rather than professional qualifications — also represents a viable path to professional mobility. This might explain why junior IAS officers often under-invest in skill acquisition; loyalty to powerful politicians, as opposed to merit-based advancement, offers an alternative path to career success. Indeed, analyses of two north Indian states found that officers who belong to the same caste group as the core base of the ruling party significantly increase their chances obtaining important postings. The upshot is that IAS officers have two paths to moving up the career ladder: They can either invest in expertise or leverage their social networks to secure important positions.

But the impact of politics is not uniformly negative. The practice of democratic politics can, under certain circumstances and in counterintuitive ways, actually expedite bureaucratic

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functioning. Although more intense political competition is typically associated with better bureaucratic performance (since politicians will be out of a job if they do not deliver), some data   actually suggest the opposite: Bureaucrats are better incentivised to do their job when it is almost certain that the political incumbent will be brought back to power. Evidence from the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) shows that district collectors sanctioned projects much faster where incumbents could not stand for re-election (because their constituency changed reservation status).

Taken together, this new body of work shines a light into the black box of the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians. The evidence depicts a system deeply riddled with perverse incentives and unintended consequences. But it also points to at least two priority actions for reform.

First, the central and state governments should pass and implement legislation to fix a minimum tenure for senior posts and protect bureaucrats from politically motivated transfers. Despite judicial prodding, most states have stalled such moves. Because there are instances in which transfers might be necessary for wholly legitimate reasons, one potential compromise is to develop a “stability index” for key posts such that the average length of tenures remains above a certain predetermined average.

Second, the advent of big data on tangible development outcomes that can be traced to a specific officer’s time in a given post opens up possibilities for performance-based evaluation and promotion. To be clear: Data should not be the only criterion on which officers are judged. IAS officers are mandated to do many things that are difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. Nevertheless, we must also recognise that seniority is a blunt instrument for deciding who gets promoted and who does not — especially when fine-grained metrics are readily available.

Although the IAS represents a small share of India’s civil administration, it serves as its de facto nerve centre. And for the first time there is rigorous data to help inform discussions on how to reform its operations. While the solutions implied by the data are not revolutionary, they have the virtue of being based on solid evidence.

Saksham Khosla is research analyst with Carnegie India and Milan Vaishnav is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This column is based on their study “The Indian Administrative Service Meets Big Data”

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ECONOMIC TIMES, SEP 19, 2016Alka Sirohi appointed as UPSC chairman

NEW DELHI: Former IAS officer Alka Sirohi has been appointed as chairman of Union Public

Service Commission (UPSC), in place of Deepak Gupta who demits office on Tuesday.

President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed Sirohi to perform the duties of the post of the

chairman, UPSC, with effect from September 21, an order issued by Department of Personnel

and Training said. She is presently member in the Commission. The appointment is till further

orders or till completion of her term as member on January 3, 2017, whichever is earlier, it said.

The post of chairman, UPSC, will fall vacant on Tuesday, consequent upon demitting of office

by Gupta on attaining 65 years of age of superannuation, the order said. Incidentally, the Centre

had in November 2014 appointed Gupta as the UPSC chief, breaking away from the tradition of

appointing the chief from the serving members of the commission. In 2014, the Centre had for

the first time appointed somebody (Gupta) from outside as the UPSC chairman. At that time,

Sirohi was the senior most member and could have been the chairman. Sirohi is a retired IAS

officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre. Before joining the Commission as a member in January 2012,

she was Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training. The UPSC conducts the prestigious

civil services examination to select officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian

Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others. The Commission is headed

by a chairman and can have a maximum of 10 members. Academicians David R Syiemlieh, Prof

Hem Chandra Gupta and Pradeep Kumar Joshi, former Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain

Bassi, former Railway Board Chairman Vinay Mittal, former IAS officer Chhatar Singh and the

then incharge of Aviation and Research Centre of external snooping agency RAW, Arvind

Saxena are other members of the Commission.

ASIAN AGE, SEP 18, 2016Babus under siegeDilip Cherian

It’s not often that IAS officers come together to take on their political masters over an issue. But the H.C. Gupta episode and now the suspension of G.K. Dwivedi, senior IAS officer in the home ministry, has united the “heaven-born” into an unusual move. As many as 15 joint secretaries working in the ministry met home minister Rajnath Singh to plead for revoking of Mr Dwivedi’s suspension for renewing the licence to controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation.

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Babus argued that Mr Dwivedi, a 1993-batch Andhra Pradesh cadre officer, was known to be honest and that his suspension has demoralised other officials in the ministry. They believe that Mr Dwivedi was being “wrongly punished”. Another set of officers also met home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi on Saturday to plead for Mr Dwivedi’s case, even as IAS officer Sanjay Bhoosreddy led a delegation of Central IAS Officers Association to meet minister of state Jitendra Singh in the PMO. It’s a different matter that the government has tactically leaked that the Dwivedi suspension actually bears the PM’s seal, an indication that any reversal is “complicated”. The group urged the government to go further and review some of the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 and the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 to ensure that “honest and sincere officers” are not made scapegoats for “bona fide” decisions taken in public interest.

Clearly, IAS officers are rattled by these developments.

A ‘turf’ problem

The green signal to the Goods and Service Tax may have gladdened many hearts but the Indian Revenue Service babus are unhappy. They have strongly opposed the Goods and Services Tax Network, a private company set up to create the necessary IT infrastructure for the GST. Recently the association of IRS officers met finance minister Arun Jaitley and sought his intervention in the matter.

Tax babus are insistent that since management of the company should be entrusted to the Directorate General of Systems of Central Board of Excise and Customs since only they have the domain knowledge in indirect tax laws. Sources say that the revenue officials are also opposed to the composition of the GST Council secretariat, which is headed by revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia, an IAS officer. They fear that this is another attempt by the IAS to intrude into their turf.

But will the revenue officials continue their resistance or fall in line with the government view remains to be seen. Mr Jaitley has promised to implement GST by April next year, and probably will not brook any delay due to a “turf” problem.

Bitter contest

As if the Karnataka government doesn’t have enough problems on its hands, with the flaring up of the Cauvery water-sharing dispute with neighbouring Tamil Nadu, the administration is roiled by the open tussle between rival lobbies to fill the upcoming vacancy in the chief secretary’s post. Arvind Jadhav, who recently got a clean chit in a land grab case and a three-month extension, is retiring at the end of the month after a controversy-ridden tenure.

According to sources, the race to succeed Mr Jadhav has split the IAS officers of Karnataka right down the middle with rival camps openly trying to run down each other. In this politicised atmosphere, there is a growing view that the next chief secretary should be a dalit. By this

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criterion, the contender who sees to enjoy the necessary political clout is Rathna Prabha, additional chief secretary. Senior officer V. Umesh, a Kannadiga, is believed to be another strong contender. Apparently, chief minister Siddaramaiah has “assured” Ms Prabha’s supporters that she will be considered after Mr Jadhav’s tenure. However, given the very public nature of the wrangling over the post, insiders say that the CM is trying to scout for a non-controversial senior IAS officer to replace Mr Jadhav. Watch this space for updates.

TELEGRAPH, SEP 16, 2016Query on IAS trio promotion

Ramashankar

Patna, Sept. 15: The office of the accountant-general, Bihar, has expressed dismay over the state government's reluctance to revert the promotion of three Bihar cadre IAS officers from the rank of principal secretary to that of secretary.

In a letter to the general administration department (GAD) of the state government, the office of the accountant-general, Bihar, has sought to know from the authorities concerned about the action taken against the officers in question - Chanchal Kumar, Deepak Kumar Singh and Harjot Kaur.

The accountant general also reminded the GAD of a similar note sent to the latter on August 10, 2016, following the recommendation of the department of personnel and training (DoPT), Government of India, in July this year.

"So far we have not received any communication from your side," the letter issued on September 8 this year, said.

The three officers of the 1992 batch were promoted from the secretary to the principal secretary rank in June this year and recommendations were sent to the Centre for its approval. The Centre, however, sent a note to the state recommending demotion of the officers, as they had not completed the requisite 25 years in service.

Chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh said he was not aware of any development on this front. "The principal secretary, GAD, will be able to update you on the issue," he told The Telegraph over phone.

The state government's dillydallying led to delay in deduction of excess money paid to the officers under the salary head.

"The government has failed to comply with the order even after two months of the Centre's directive," a senior official in the AG office said on Thursday.

IAS officer C.K. Anil had raised objections over the promotion granted to the three officers,

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who were junior to him, in violation of the Government of India guidelines. Anil of the 1990 batch is holding the post of officer-on-special-duty in the state staff selection commission.

Anil, sources said, has decided to move the high court against the promotions to Chanchal, Deepak and Harjot in violation of the rule. Chanchal is associated with chief minister Nitish Kumar since his tenure in the Union cabinet and also in the chief minister office.

According to the DoPT guidelines clause-V issued on March 28, 2000, the zone of consideration in this grade (principal secretary) may consist of the super-time scale level officers who have completed 25 years of service.

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DEFENCE, NATIONAL

DECCAN HERALD, SEP 16, 2016CAPT JOINS VETERANS’ MARCH AGAINST ANOMALIES IN 7TH PAY COMMISSION REPORT

Joining the veterans’ march to Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore, Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday submitted a memorandum supporting the stand taken by the three services chiefs against the alleged  bias against the defence services in the 7th Pay Commission. 

The march was led by Lt Gen (retried) SS Brar, the senior most amongst the veterans participating, and included among others senior retired army personnel including several Lieutenant Generals, Major Generals, Brigadiers, Colonels, JCOs and soldiers.

Senior Congress leaders including Ambika Soni, Asha Kumari and Harish Chaudhary also joined the veterans in their protest march.

The memorandum, addressed to the President, said: “The community of veterans across the country fully endorses the stand taken by the Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force with regard to the recommendations of the seventh Central Pay Commission.” Capt Amarinder and other veterans told reporters that it was the bias of the bureaucrats against the armed forces and the blind eye turned by the political parties which led to this situation.

He said that such repeated wrong steps on part of the government can only demoralize the defence forces. 

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DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION

HINDU, SEP 19, 2016Dadri to be Haryana’s 22nd district

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday announced to accord district status to

Dadri, which is the biggest sub-division in Bhiwani district of the State.With this, the number of

districts in the State will rise to 22.

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EDUCATION

TELEGRAPH, SEP 22, 2016New routes to learning- The problem with India's private universities

Shubhashis Gangopadhyay

According to some estimates, in 2019 there will be more private higher educational institutions than those funded by the government. And, with many more private than government colleges, by 2019 close to 90 per cent students doing higher studies will do so in private institutions. Of course, this is by using the broad definition of what a private educational institution is. For example, there are states where the salaries of teachers in private colleges come from the government even when the management, and ownership of the institution, are private. Nevertheless, privately funded and managed higher educational institutions are here to stay and grow.

One of our lasting colonial legacies is our lack of confidence in ourselves. So, whenever we need to do anything we try to find out what other countries have done rather than do the thinking ourselves. Since the United States of America is a good example of quality private institutions in the higher education space, I started looking at the histories of some of the better known private universities in that country. One of the first things that leap out of the records and archives of these great universities is the near complete separation of funding and management. People who funded these universities had little or no say in the curriculum, student admissions or faculty recruitment. The only connection the financiers had with the university they helped set up was in the names by which the universities are known. This is a major departure from what we see in private universities in India. The funders, or their relatives, being a part of the management is more the norm than an exception in the new Indian private universities.

The second major characteristic was the focus of the early management on the diversity of thought encouraged in these institutions. This was in spite of the fact that most of these universities were set up by people from the clergy or scholars on theology. For example, William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago and a biblical scholar from Yale University, had the following to say: "[T]he principle of complete freedom of speech on all subjects has from the beginning been regarded as fundamental in the University of Chicago." The current president, Robert J. Zimmer, in his inaugural convocation address, mentioned that from its very inception, the university "has been driven by a singular focus on inquiry - with a firm belief in the value of open, rigorous, and intense inquiry and a common understanding that this must be the defining feature of this university. Everything about the University of Chicago that we recognize as distinctive flows from this commitment..."

Stanford University, similarly, went against the wind. It started as co-educational at a time when most of the other universities were all-male. Like Chicago, they decided to be non-denominational, again when most were associated with a religious organization. It is important

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to understand why the separation of funding from management is necessary in an institution of higher learning. First, although most initial funders had amassed their wealth through business and commerce, they were not experts on education. Yes, they thought education was important enough for them to give up a part of their wealth for its cause. No, they did not think they were the best to manage institutions of higher learning. Indeed, the fact that I am concerned about the health of the nation does not mean that I will be a good doctor.

Second, by staying out of management the funders were actually protecting themselves. One serious problem some of our private institutions face is that their funders, who are also their founders, are successful business houses or businesses. There is a strong connection between government and commerce in India, starting from getting land for establishments to inquiries by tax authorities and other regulatory inspectors. And then, of course, the government is often a major procurer of their services. It is easier for the government (state and Central) to pressurize these businesses into being soft on their criticism of governments. There are instances of faculty members being reined in by the management and cajoled into toeing the government line. Indeed, one of the most important characteristic of a university has to be what the first president of the university of Chicago said when it was founded: "The question before us is how to become one in spirit, not necessarily in opinion."

The third characteristic of the great private universities was the focus on teaching everything. In other words, it was not restricted to the professional schools like business, engineering, medicine and law; nor was it restricted to the sciences alone. What students are willing to pay for was, of course, a concern; but, it was always a constraint, never an objective. It is, indeed, depressing to see how we continually forget this when planning on higher education. There is a lot of discussion in Indian education circles on STEM, a curriculum in colleges and universities to train students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It was developed in the US because the powers that be noticed a gradual decline in the desire among students to pursue these programmes. This was reflected in the increasing number of students applying for the arts and social sciences rather than science and engineering. I do not think this is an issue in India where everybody wants to be an engineer. This is not to say that subjects like mathematics are not important for India but to point out that focus on mathematics alone may make us like Ceausescu's Romania but will never make us realize our dream of being a knowledge-based society.

If one were to reflect on what we have been doing in education over the past many years since Independence, the thing that jumps up at us is the gradual decline of university life. Both as research and teaching institutions our publicly funded universities have gone down. But this is largely because of lack of funds. The government, supported by many of our intellectuals, has created specialized institutions of research and higher learning through generous funding obtained by drawing down the resources from universities. These institutions mostly support postgraduate students and do research in specific disciplines. Higher education has, thus, become a sophisticated skilling programme rather than a programme that develops the mind. I remember when I first started my career, I met a famous probabilist who remarked that studies in development should be stopped because they teach people to aspire and that is when society becomes restless and disturbs the delicate balance we have become used to. No, he did not say

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it in jest.

Finally, a reading of the histories of the great institutions of higher learning, keeps pointing to the fact that these were set up to have an impact on society. They were not meant to be the refuge of the social elite but a place where thoughtful groups of people could discuss and debate on what is good for society, experiment with implementable ideas and, finally, play a role in the betterment of society around them. Institutes catering to careers abroad with little or no knowledge of what people around them are aspiring for is not exactly what higher educational institutions are meant to do. A final sobering thought. The University of Lund, in Sweden, was set up in 1666 for the precise purpose of making the citizens of Skåne, newly won over from the Danes, behave like the Swedes and, hence, to establish Swedish control in the region.

The author is Research Director, India Development Foundation

STATESMAN, SEP 22, 2016Quality of education is my main agenda: Javadekar

Noting that education is a very important aspect in sensitising the youth, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said his agenda is the quality of education.

"Education is very important in sensitising the youth of our nation. When somebody asks me about my agendas I say three things -- quality, quality and quality," the minister told the media here on Wednesday.

He was speaking at the "Young Makers Conclave" organized by SheThePeople in partnership with Dalmia Bharat Group to highlight India's need for innovation and revolutionJavadekar said that he was glad that today's youth are "informed and aware and are discovering new possibilities every day".

"Power of ideas belongs to the young generation as the young mind can break or make the country," he added.

The programme was organised on order to create an opportunity to change old mindsets and pre-conceived notions through knowledge sharing.

The platform also tied up with leading web portals like Scoop Whoop and Little Black Book which together reached out to their readers through a vigorous social media campaign.NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said that there is a need to deal with the complexities that exist in terms of opening startups in the nation.

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"There are a lot of complexities that include rules, regulations and acts in doing business. We need to make India esy and simple so that young generation can come up with good business ideas," he said. "India has a large domestic market and things need to be made simpler both at the state and the centre."

He also said, "India is the finest market as far as start-ups are concerned as these startups are doing some really nice and unique things. "

DECCAN HERALD, SEP 20, 2016UGC to bring all central varsities under e-governance platformPrakash Kumar

In an effort to bring more transparency and efficiency to their daily functioning, all Central Universities (CUs) will soon be brought under a single centralised e-governance system.

A move recently initiated by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to introduce a cloud-based integrated University Management System (UMS) connecting all central varsities is expected to help  ease the admission procedures and other student related matters.

Official sources told DH that UMS, which will help authorities in monitoring academics and examination related activities of the central universities, will also help in rapid handling of finance and administrative matters.

The UGC has set up a three-member panel made of vice- chancellors of the central universities of Kashmir, Haryana and South Bihar to implement the decision, while also exploring ways to make all CUs wi-fi enabled. 

“The committee has been asked to give bi-monthly report on the progress and fix a timeline for implementation of the plan,” sources added. About 30 higher educational institutions like Rajasthan University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Goa, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal and Bundelkhand University use a similar e-governance platform developed by a private vendor. 

“The system has learnt to have helped them improve their efficiency,” the sources said. The UGC committee has been authorised to float a tender to engage a suitable vendor to introduce the UMS in the central varsities. 

“It will prepare the tender documents, finalise the tender documents, call for tenders, make comparative statement, negotiate with companies/vendors and place orders on behalf of Central Universities,” sources said. 

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Besides having the liberty to co-opt representatives of the IT sector, the panel will also coordinate with all vice chancellors of the CUs to implements the UMS.  “The committee will also be responsible for all follow-up actions,” sources added.

STATESMAN, SEP 19, 2016Nonsense overload

The intelligence of anyone associated with school-level education would be insulted by a recent circular from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) spelling out measures to reduce the weight of the bags students are condemned to carry to school and back every day. That note assumes those who read it are blissfully ignorant of the report of the committee headed by the eminent Prof. Yashpal, and unaware of what triggered its appointment -- a passionate plea in the Rajya Sabha from the noted writer RK Narayan. Then a nominated member, the author of the celebrated Malgudi Days had brought tears to the eyes of many in the House of Elders when he painted a passionate word-picture of schoolchildren struggling to manage their overloaded satchels.

Alas, despite the emotions evoked and the recommendations of several expert groups -- not just Prof. Yashpal’s -- the grim reality persists. The latest circular from the CBSE inspires little confidence that it is not just one more bureaucratic exercise: for the record as it were. Another overload of the nonsense so favoured by those in authority: who care little about implementing what their predecessors had advocated. Over two decades have elapsed since Mr Narayan brought the issue centre-stage, the students’ sufferings have not eased.

In a bid to project itself as being scientifically astute the CBSE circular calculates the ideal weight of the satchel as ten per cent of the child’s weight -- so will schools decide the number of books each child is required to carry depending on the student’s physique? No less silly is the call to do away with hard bound text-books, as if flimsy “paper-backs” will endure the rigours of an entire term. Why not suggest the use of files instead of exercise books (copybooks) as is the practice at the college/university level? The furniture in most schools needs to re-designed and must return to yesteryear when each child was allotted a desk with a compartment that could be locked, books not required for homework or preparation could be left in school -- but that would add to the responsibility few schools would now be willing to accept. In some of the more affluent schools the students could be provided personal lockers. A revamp of the syllabus would also help: Indian school kids are required to study much more than their counterparts in other countries. Indeed, there is an unhealthy competition among the various examining boards to establish who conducts the most “advanced” courses -- never mind if it retards the growth of the child. However, there is one plus-point to the CBSE circular: it is one of few recent educational endeavours which does not have a distinct saffron tint.

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GOVERNORS

STATESMAN, SEP 23, 2016The insecure GovernorDN Sahaya

The Arunachal Pradesh Governor, JP Rajkhowa, who was indicted by the Supreme Court for ‘humiliating the government of the day’, has been removed from office. Earlier, the Centre had asked him to put in his papers on ‘health reasons’ but he declined, preferring ‘dismissal’ instead. Obviously, this was the upshot of his indictment. The episode raises the critical issue that concerns the mode of removal of Governors and the fragility of his rarefied office.

Some Governors were perceived to have erred while advancing their recomendation for the imposition of President’s rule. They have on occasion been unable to convince the judiciary or Parliament or the state legislature. While holding no brief for the ‘volunteers’, it was essential to identify the forces which have curbed the Governor’s freedom of expression. That right is generally weighed on the scale of an independent constitutional office, as the Supreme Court ruled in the Raghukul Tilak Case (1979). But there was a disconnect between theory and practice when it came to assessing a constitutional crisis or the formation of a government in the event of a hung Assembly. The Governor’s office was seemingly stifled as the powers that be started pulling the strings and compelled him to be on the same wavelength as the Centre. He was sandwiched between two alternatives -- to condescend to the wishes of the Centre or face removal from office if he did not. Why does a Governor often succumb to political pressure? It is human nature to cherish honour and power. And the Governor is no exception.

As often as not, Governors have not been sufficiently assertive to express their views. This is because of a constitutional lacuna. The Constitution does not provide any safeguard against his removal from office as the system can serve the political spectrum suitably. This was discussed in the Constituent Assembly where two of its veteran members, Prof KT Shah and Shibanlal Saxena, candidly observed that the Governor must not live entirely at the mercy and pleasure of the President. Furthermore, in the absence of the safeguard he will be a creature of the President, that is to say the Prime Minister and the party at the Centre.

A  Governor is appointed by the President (Article 156-3) and has a five-year term of office (Article 156-2). However, the tenure can end the moment the President withdraws his “pleasure” -- Article 156(1) - on the advice of the Council of Ministers, indeed the will of the Prime Minister that is driven in the main by political considerations. Governors are either removed en bloc or selectively. This coming and going reflects the change in the political dispensation at the Centre. This happened in 1977 (Janata Party), 1980 (Indira Gandhi-led government, 1990

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(Chandra Shekhar-led government), 1998 (NDA government), 2004 (Congress-led UPA dispensation) and in 2014 (the BJP-led NDA administration).

There is no constitutional security against the removal of the Governor. It can be peremptory unlike in the case of other constitutional offices or government functionaries. During the Constituent Assembly discussions, Shah and Saxena expressed concern over the fact that such removal was prompted by political considerations. In response, Law Minister Dr. B. R. Ambedkar said: “The power of removal, although apparently conditional, is subject to implied limitation that can be exercised in case of violation of the Constitution, acts of omission and commission which would render the Governor fit or unfit to hold gubernatorial office”. He expected ‘a healthy convention” to grow . This never happened. It has turned out to be a game that the Centre plays.

The Governor can face an intricate task if the political complexion of the governments at the Centre and in the state are different.  He has to effect a tightrope walk between the ruling party in the state and the opposing party/coalition holding power at the Centre. While the Governor is expected to be neutral while taking positive and constructive initiatives, the Opposition often wants him to function as its super leader. In case the Governor does not oblige, the Opposition opens a front against him and a concocted feedback is advanced to the Centre and its party high command demanding his removal. The Centre tends to abide by such reports.

This writer, who was the first Governor of fledgling Chattisgarh and later of Tripura, had to face an identical situation, most particularly in Raipur where a faction of the Opposition demanded his removal. I was asked to put in my papers citing ‘personal reasons’. I refused, preferring removal as I had done nothing wrong. My experience reafirms the fragility of the gubernatorial office. He does deserve a constitutional safeguard against arbitrary removal or a codification of what Dr Ambedkar envisioned so that he is free to express his views. It would be useful to recall the observation of the Supreme Court in the BP Singhal case (2010) -- “Removal of a Governor can be only for valid reasons and must not be arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable”.  Once again, this has never materialised. It would be honest for the political class to declare that the Governor is a political appointee and must resign with a political change at the Centre. The integrity and honesty of the Governor is essential to ensure the credibility of his office. An eminent leader BG Kher had rightly said that ‘a Governor can do a great deal of good if he is a good Governor. Similarly he can do a great deal of mischief’.

The writer is former Governor of Chhattisgarh and Tripura and former Chairman, AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna. 

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HEALTH SERVICES

TELEGRAPH, SEP 16, 2016Debilitated in Delhi - Chikungunya and the AAP

Mukul Kesavan

We succumbed without a fight - my wife, my sister-in-law, my daughter and I - to

chikungunya. It's an undignified affliction that sounds like a Haryanvi word for a chicken's

virtues and feels like a preview of old age. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, from

the end-user's perspective (since we are all consumers now), chikungunya is fever plus arthritis.

The fever goes away but the joint pains linger as the virus makes a leisured and seemingly

random tour of your moving parts.

This is the stage that doctors with their gift for detached understatement classify as 'sub-acute',

the weeks (months?) when you can't reverse your car because it hurts too much to swivel your

head, or hold anything because the joint that works your opposable thumb shrieks when you try,

when you learn not to casually slide off the sofa on to the floor because you mightn't be able to

get up again, when you get used to thinking of your body as a drained battery that doesn't fully

recharge any more.

I don't know if the incidence of chikungunya in Delhi qualifies as an 'epidemic' but the state of

my household, news reports and other anecdotal evidence certainly suggest an unprecedented

rate of infection. This, however, is not the view of the Delhi government. Addressing a press

conference on the thirteenth of this month, its health minister, Satyendar Jain, declared that

there was no 'outbreak' of chikungunya in the nation's capital and that the panic about the

disease had been created by the media. He cited the hundreds of vacant beds available in the

hospitals run by the Delhi government as a kind of proof that the scale of vector-borne

(mosquito relayed) infections had been greatly exaggerated by the press.

One explanation for the health minister's statements could be that he believes the figures put out

by the municipal corporation. The latest figure supplied by this source put the number of

chikungunya infections at just over a thousand. This is an absurdly low figure which tells us

nothing about the actual incidence of chikungunya. A report in the Hindupointed out that just

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three of Delhi's 45 government hospitals had reported more confirmed cases of the disease than

the total number reported by the civic bodies. The AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital and the Lok

Nayak Hospital had together recorded more than 1700 confirmed cases of chikungunya.

When you consider that this figure doesn't account for the cases registered by the other 42

government hospitals, or those tested and treated by private pathological laboratories, private

hospitals and general practitioners, it becomes apparent that the several jurisdictions that

allegedly govern Delhi - municipal, state and Central - either don't know what the scale of the

problem is or don't care.

The main reason why the incidence of chikungunya is grossly under-reported is that most

government hospitals don't have the facilities to do the necessary blood tests and the private

pathology labs that can test for it are too expensive for the vast majority of patients. Typically,

the chikungunya test costs between two to three thousand rupees. Many general practitioners

don't see the point of even recommending the test because testing positive for the disease makes

no difference to the course of treatment. Unlike malaria there are no specific drugs for

chikungunya: the best a doctor can do is prescribe paracetamol and plenty of fluids and he

doesn't need a test to do that.

A general practitioner treating feverish patients will often prescribe affordable procedures that

test for typhoid and malaria. If the tests turn out to be positive, he can administer the

appropriate drugs; if they don't, he can carry on prescribing Crocin and rehydration. This means

that most patients who suffer from chikungunya never have their condition confirmed and

consequently public health authorities don't have the figures to estimate the magnitude of the

problem.

In the absence of reliable data, reportage becomes crucial. Sarah Hafeez of the Indian

Express had a novel and illuminating take on the impact of mosquito-borne diseases on Delhi's

working class population. In an exemplary piece of reporting, she interviewed PWD project

managers, construction workers, factory workers in west Delhi's industrial townships, trade

union officials and sanitary workers to build a picture of how chikungunya had affected Delhi's

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labour force.

She discovered that there had been a 30 per cent drop in the availability of construction workers

on the PWD's construction sites because of viral fevers, nearly 20 per cent of Mayapuri's

factory workers were ill, which had seriously affected productivity and profits and finally,

thousands of safai karmacharis, forced to work in insanitary, mosquito-infested locations

without protective clothing, gloves or masks, were incapacitated by chikungunya and other

vector-borne diseases.

Delhi's health minister and its PWD minister are the same person, the aforementioned

Satyendar Jain. His political technique in defence of both portfolios is one of stout denial.

Wearing his PWD hat, he denied that any construction projects had been delayed owing to a

shortage of workers during a special session of the Delhi assembly. This despite the fact that

sources in the PWD had confirmed to Hafeez that major repairs to flyovers, overbridges and

elevated roads had been postponed or delayed because ill construction workers had abandoned

worksites to return to their villages in search of cheaper care and treatment.

Historically, infectious diseases force political elites into constructive action if only because

they disrupt economic activity and don't discriminate between the poor and the rich. The

colonial State in India, for example, was notoriously frugal when it came to investment in

health infrastructure, but the economic consequences of epidemics and the vulnerability of

European civilians and soldiers to these diseases forced it to invest in preventive policies like

vaccination out of a sense of self-preservation.

The republican states that succeeded the raj, have had notable successes in this area. India

managed through concerted action and persistence to eradicate both small pox and polio. Most

people my age were vaccinated every year in school and I vividly remember the public camps

organized by the State to administer oral polio drops when my children were infants. More

recently, the World Health Organization declared Sri Lanka to be free of malaria. There hasn't

been a single case reported in Sri Lanka over the last three years, a remarkable achievement for

a country that used to report half a million cases a year. Given that Sri Lanka's population of 20

million is more or less the same as Delhi's, the contrast between the Sri Lankan government's

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systematic campaign against malaria and the Delhi government's willed blindness to

chikungunya isn't just embarrassing, it's grotesque.

Arvind Kejriwal and his colleagues have offered anyone who cares to listen a three part

defence. One, the Central government acting through the lieutenant governor of Delhi has made

it impossible for the AAP government to function. Two, sanitation and preventive public health

are operationally under the jurisdiction of the municipal corporations of Delhi which are run by

the Bharatiya Janata Party, so chikungunya is actually the BJP's baby. And three - this is the

Satyendar Jain gambit - the chikungunya epidemic has been invented by a panic-mongering

media.

This is not a persuasive argument. If the third assertion - that there has, in fact, been no notable

'outbreak' of chikungunya - is true, the first two claims are irrelevant. And as someone still

feeling his joints, I'm unsympathetic to the idea that my symptoms are a figment of some

journalist's overheated imagination. For a party that once touted mohallaclinics as its proudest

welfare achievement, Satyendar Jain's state of denial is symbolic of the purblind arrogance that

hollows out a populist movement, even one as original and disruptive as the Aam Aadmi Party,

once it achieves political office.

FINANCIAL EXPRESS, SEP 16, 2016India need a medical commission at central and state levels; Here’s whyThe country is in dire need of both national and state level medical commissionsBy: Ali Mehdi 

The National Medical Commission Bill, 2016 put out in the public domain for comments is one

of the bold expressions of the central government to own up and assert its democratic

responsibility for the health of citizens, and the regulatory responsibility that comes with it in the

context of our free market economy. (Source: PTI)

To be, or not to be: that is the question’ Central government policymakers have asked themselves

regarding the responsibility and regulation of health care in the country, given that health is

legally a state subject.

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This persistent ambivalence in centre-state relations is one of the biggest challenges and

probably the principal factor for the lack of accountability, efficiency and equity in the Indian

health care system. Who is responsible for the health of citizens and who should, therefore,

regulate health care, are not easy questions in our country and need to be part of the broader

public debate.

This is part of our transition process to a free market society, but the sooner we address questions

like these, the better it is for the health and wealth of the nation. We are already the world’s

largest contributor to all levels of premature deaths, not to talk of the losses that the burden of

disease and disability imposes on the economy at large, on both poor and middle-class

households in particular.

The National Medical Commission Bill, 2016 put out in the public domain for comments is one

of the bold expressions of the central government to own up and assert its democratic

responsibility for the health of citizens, and the regulatory responsibility that comes with it in the

context of our free market economy.

Doctors are drivers of health care systems and custodians of patients’ trust. If the state of our

health care system, health outcomes and patients’ trust can be taken as indicators, the central

government has done well to go after the Medical Council of India (MCI) and reassert its

authority in the regulatory space as far as medical education, services and ethics are concerned.

Given severe shortage of doctors in the country in the context of rising demand for health

services, doctors should focus, as many of them do, on compensating for this shortfall—which,

some argue, is of MCI’s making—than engage in the regulation and politics of medical

education and services.

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However, the issue of centre-state relations remains and clarity in this regard would determine

the degree to which this regulatory transition could potentially yield the desired results.

To begin with, the centre should be the leading player in the country’s health sector—in terms of

national vision and policies, financing and regulation—and, as such, establish the National

Medical Commission (NMC). State/UT governments should not merely be engaged in this setup,

but also have their own state-level commissions (SMCs) and affiliates that operate within the

broad ambit of the national commission.

The NMC and affiliate bodies should be multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary entities which

should develop, coordinate and monitor the implementation of a broad-based framework of

norms and guidelines in the context of evolving health needs of the country. The SMCs, on the

other side, should be concerned with official licensing of medical education and providers,

registry as well as issues of service delivery and medical ethics from the perspective of patients,

to whom they should be ultimately answerable.

Secondly, to ensure ‘adequate supply of high quality medical professionals’, as stated in the Bill,

in rural or underserved areas, both central and state governments should reserve their

institutional subsidies and individual scholarships for those who are ready to serve in such areas

for a specified period of time under a legal contract.

Public financing of medical education—not medical services though—should be strictly reserved

for publicly provisioned health care services. This is especially critical given rising burden of

chronic diseases, for the prevention, early detection and treatment of which a robust system of

primary health services is critical. India’s private health care providers have, by far, not ventured

here—as such, the onus of such provision lies squarely on governments. Even those who study in

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private medical colleges could be incentivised to serve in such areas with public scholarships or

public repayment of educational bank loans.

Thirdly, as a continuation of the above, the education of family physicians/general practitioners

as well as those who specialise in the priority disease areas should be incentivised through

various financial instruments. The regulators of medical education and services have to think in

the context of a free market economy, and an effective system of incentives and disincentives

should, therefore, be central to their plans. A similar set of signals should be developed for

private institutions who go in this direction. Such signals, again, could be the primary

responsibility of the central government, and it can help states in developing a set of local

incentives to attract the best talent. Doctors should be free to register or serve wherever they

want in the country—or outside of it. However, freedom comes with a price, and in such cases,

they should squarely pay the price of their education.

The author leads the Health Policy Initiative at ICRIER, New Delhi.Views are personal

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INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

DECCAN HERALD, SEP 21, 2016UN, a world body with declining powersSomini Sengupta:

Almost everybody has heard of the United Nations. But how many people know what it actually does? Or how it works? 

Or why, as world leaders gather to kick off the 71st session of the UN General Assembly, the institution has struggled to live up to the promise of its founders: making the world a better, more peaceful place? 

Birth of the United Nations – When, Where and Why: The UN Charter was signed at a conference in San Francisco in June 1945 led by four countries: Britain, China, the Soviet Union and the United States. When the charter went into effect on Oct 24 of that year, a global war had just ended. Much of Africa and Asia was still ruled by colonial powers. After fierce negotiations, 50 nations agreed to a charter that begins, “We the peoples of the United Nations.” 

Why is that opening line notable? Because today, the UN can, to some, seem to serve the narrow national interests of its 193 member countries – especially the most powerful ones – and not ordinary citizens. These parochial priorities can stand in the way of fulfilling the first two pledges of the charter: to end “the scourge of war” and to regain “faith in fundamental human rights.” 

High Ideals on Human Rights: In 1948, the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These include the right to not be enslaved, the right to free expression and the right to seek from other countries asylum from persecution. However, many of the rights expressed – to education, to equal pay for equal work, to nationality – remain unrealised. 

General Assembly – A Prominent Stage, Limited Powers: Each fall, the opening session of the UN General Assembly becomes the stage where presidents and prime ministers give speeches that can be soaring or cliched – or they can deliver long, incoherent tirades, such as the one given by Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan strongman, in 2009. The event offers plenty of star power, but critics contend that it is little more than a glorified gabfest. 

For the rest of the session, the General Assembly is the arena where largely symbolic diplomatic jousts are won and lost. Hundreds of resolutions are introduced annually. While some of them earn a great deal of attention – like one in 1975 that equated Zionism with racism – they are not legally binding. In principle, nations small and large, rich and poor, have equal voice in the assembly, with each country getting one vote. But the genuine power resides elsewhere. 

Security Council – Powerful but Often Paralysed: The 15-member Security Council is by far the most powerful arm of the United Nations. It can impose sanctions, as it did against Iran over its nuclear programme, and authorise military intervention, as it did against Libya in 2011. Critics say it is also the most anachronistic part of the organisation. Its five permanent members are the

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victors of World War II: the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia. The other 10 members are elected for two-year terms, with seats set aside for different regions of the world. 

Efforts to expand the permanent membership of the SC to include powers that have emerged since 1945 – such as India, Japan and Germany – have been stymied. For every country that vies for a seat, rivals seek to block it. Any member of the permanent five – or the P5, for short – can veto any measure, and each has regularly used this power to protect either itself or allies.  

Since 1990, the United States has cast a veto on council resolutions 16 times, many concerning Israeli-Palestinian relations. Russia has done so 13 times, including four times over Syria. The charter does allow the GA to act if, because of a veto, international peace and security are threatened. But in reality, it is rarely done. 

Problems keeping the peace

The SC’s job is to maintain international peace. Its ability to do so has been severely constrained in recent years, in large part because of bitter divisions between Russia and the West. The Council has been feckless in the face of major conflicts, particularly those in which permanent members have a stake. 

Most recently, its starkest failure has been the handling of the conflict in Syria, with Russia backing the government of President Bashar Assad, and the United States, Britain and France supporting some opposition groups. The council has not only failed to halt the fighting but has also been unable to ensure the delivery of food aid and the safety of medical workers. Also, North Korea, long an ally of China, has repeatedly ignored UN prohibitions against conducting nuclear tests. 

Secretary-General – Global Reach, Vague Role: The charter is vague in defining the duties of the secretary-general, the United Nations’ top official. He or she is expected to show no favouritism to any particular country, but the office is largely dependent on the funding and goodwill of the most powerful nations. 

The SC – notably the P5 – chooses the secretary-general, by secret ballot, to serve a maximum of two five-year terms. This process makes it difficult for the role to be independent of the P5’s influence. 

The secretary-general has no army to deploy, but what the position does enjoy is a bully pulpit. If the officeholder is perceived as being independent, he or she is often the only person in the world who can call warring parties to the peace table. The 10-year tenure of the current secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, has repeatedly revealed the limits of the office’s authority. 

For example, Ban had been persuaded for two years in a row to keep powerful countries off a list of those whose military forces had killed and maimed children. Since 1946, eight have held the position of secretary-general. All have been men. Ban’s successor will be chosen this fall. 

What’s next?

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There can be five questions for the UN’s future. No matter who takes over as secretary-general on Jan 1, he or she will inherit a body facing the unenviable task of demonstrating the United Nations’ relevance in a world confronting challenges that were inconceivable 70 years ago. Here are some of the questions that will determine whether the organisation’s influence diminishes or grows: 

a) Can the Security Council take action against countries that flout international humanitarian law? And can the P5 members of the council look beyond their own narrow interests to find ways to end the “scourge of war”? 

b) Can peacekeeping operations be repaired so the protection of civilians is ensured? 

c) Can the United Nations persuade countries to come up with new ways to handle the new reality of mass migration? 

d) Can the secretary-general persuade countries to keep their promise to curb carbon emissions – and to help those suffering from the consequences of climate change? 

e) Can the United Nations get closer to achieving its founding mandate, to make the world a better, more peaceful place? 

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

TELEGRAPH, SEP 21, 2016The power of balance- India's internationalization of the Kashmir issue after Uri

DiplomacyK.P. Nayar

The Uri attack poses a major challenge to the method in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government's strategy to counter the internationalization of the Kashmir issue on an intensified scale, which is clearly on the cards in the coming months.

In a generic sense, the steadily deteriorating conditions in the Valley since the death of Burhan Wani, the militant social media propagandist, have internationalized Kashmir and brought the issue back into global focus. The Narendra Modi government knows that unless it has a cogent strategy, further internationalization can compromise the core of its global agenda, which is focused on economic and social development. Well before the Uri attack, the government, therefore, crafted a plan that it has already put to work quietly without fanfare. In order to make this plan work effectively, the ministry of external affairs does not want to even acknowledge that it is engaged in an out-of-the-box diplomatic offensive with the aim of neutralizing Pakistan's efforts to take its relations with India to the global centre stage.

What the terrorist killings in Uri have necessitated is a fresh look at this strategy and a demand within closed doors during meetings of the top political leadership for a fine-tuning of how it is implemented. In part, the decision of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to skip the Non-Aligned Summit in Venezuela was integral to this carefully considered strategy even though the government deliberately fostered an impression that Modi was skipping the summit because he was disenchanted with the movement that was started by Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Josip Broz Tito. Modi's perceived ideological moorings also lent itself to that wrong impression.

In crafting its diplomatic strategy on Kashmir, the Modi government drew heavily on the experience of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government, which had its back to the wall both in the Valley and on the international stage in 1993-94. Because Modi did not travel to Isla de Margarita last weekend, the core of the Indian delegation to the 17th Non-Aligned Summit had an entirely Muslim persona. The leader of the Indian delegation was a Muslim - the vice president, Hamid Ansari. The first major Indian speech at the Venezuela summit was made by a Muslim, the minister of state for external affairs, M.J. Akbar. The key official coordinating Indian moves at the summit and doing the diplomatic troubleshooting was a Muslim, Syed Akbaruddin, the permanent representative of India to the United Nations in New York. After his courtesy meeting upon arrival with the host of the summit - the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro Moros - Ansari hurried off to his most important bilateral engagement in Isla de Margarita, which is at the core of the government's Kashmir strategy: a long session with Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani.

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The importance of this meeting lay in Ansari's institutional memory as a former diplomat. Of all the 53 countries at the former commission on human rights in Geneva, it was Iran that helped India most in avoiding an embarrassing censure by the UN on Kashmir in 1994. Two diplomats steered that successful effort. One of them was Ansari, then permanent representative of India to the UN in New York, the other was Prakash Shah, Ansari's counterpart in Geneva. Iran is a former chair of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. It moderated the OIC's reactions to Kashmir during the organization's summit in Tehran in December 1997 and during its three-year presidency of what was then known as the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Iran is the immediate past chair of NAM, and by virtue of that position it is part of the NAM troika - a key role since Venezuela is unlikely to pull its weight as the new chair of the movement as its president sags into a possible exit under the weight of Venezuela's current economic and political crisis.

Additionally, Ansari was one of India's two most successful ambassadors in Tehran since the Islamic revolution. He helped turn around the Islamic Republic's relations with India, prising Qom, the spiritual capital of the ayatollahs away from Pakistan for the first time. A similar effort by Indira Gandhi during the Shah's rule only met with limited success.

That is not all. After Barack Obama has left office, when the history of the nuclear deal with Iran is written, Ansari's intellectual and quasi-diplomatic role in facilitating the deal will become a matter of record. The Iranians know this and if Tehran is to be persuaded to play any role supportive of India at next month's 43rd session of the OICforeign ministers' meeting in Tashkent, the vice president was the best possible interlocutor with Rouhani in Isla de Margarita.

Within India's strategic community and in the public fora, there is a tendency to dismiss the OIC as completely inconsequential. Even the MEA spokesmen often tend to shrug off the organization with the attitude that it will, habitually, never have a good word for India. The threat to Indian diplomacy from the OIC in the coming months is, however, real. It now has 57 member states across four continents. Increasingly, candidacies for important international posts are being pushed through the forum of the OIC by its member states. Among the examples are Turkey's UN general assembly presidency in 2020, Pakistan's non-permanent seat in the UN security council in 2024 and, mostly recently, Qatar's membership of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency from next year. There are many more examples.

The OIC's "contact group" on Kashmir met in New York this week. It has mobilized Masood Khan, the so-called president of 'Azad' Kashmir since last month, to explore the possibility of a resolution in the general assembly's third committee, which deals with humanitarian issues, on the situation in Kashmir. Khan attended the contact group meeting. Since Khan was Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN in New York until last year, his contacts in the UN are still fresh. It is widely believed that Islamabad foisted Khan as 'president' on the parts of Kashmir it occupies with the sole intention of internationalizing the Kashmir dispute with India.

An assessment in South Block that attempts may be made in the general assembly, which began its "general debate" on Tuesday to revive the Kashmir issue in the form of a resolution,

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prompted some hasty changes in high-level government itineraries to fit in with the strategy put in place for NAM of recreating the Indian persona at the UN in a Muslim image.

So, the external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, who was to have originally reached New York on Monday was told by Modi to stay back in New Delhi. Instead, the prime minister directed M.J. Akbar to proceed to New York from Caracas and attend all general assembly events until Saturday when presidents, prime ministers, crown princes and princesses from across the globe finish speaking at the general debate. Swaraj will now reach New York only on Saturday after most heads of state and government have left the UN. Much of the crucial networking for the 71st general assembly session took place on Tuesday at a welcome reception in the morning in the Indonesian Lounge in the general assembly building and later at the state luncheon of the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, in the North Delegates Lounge of the conference building on Turtle Bay. Akbar attended both.

Although a new member of Modi's council of ministers, Akbar's reputation had travelled ahead of him from Isla de Margarita where he propounded to NAM the idea of "power of balance" to replace the age-old diplomatic concept known as "balance of power". He also urged NAM to "walk the talk and set up a NAM working group on terrorism". Next week, Akbar will travel to Tashkent only a few days before the OIC foreign ministers are to meet there to discuss Kashmir, among other subjects. Akbaruddin's mandate in Isla de Margarita and in New York went far beyond his official position as an additional secretary in the MEA because of the role he has played in NAM in the months preceding the summit: the anti-colonial, Third World movement that India founded along with newly-independent countries in Nehru's time has its coordinating bureau in New York.

As India's coordinator to the NAM bureau that runs concurrently with his job as ambassador to the UN, this Muslim diplomat's role in countering Pakistan's propaganda about persecution of Muslims by a Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi will be be critical during this general assembly session.

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JUDICIARY

STATESMAN, SEP 22, 2016Who’s the Judge?Sankar Sen

Justice J Chelameswar of the Supreme Court has made certain disturbing observations about the Collegium system of appointment of Supreme Court and High Court judges, saying that the existing system is opaque and marked by nepotism. Many well-known jurists and lawyers have decried the system of selection of judges by the Collegium. Amidst the controversy over the elevation of the Karnataka High Court Chief Justice, PV Dinakaran, to the Supreme Court, the Bar Associations of Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court, in a joint letter addressed to the Union Law Minister, sought the dissolution of the Collegium. The letter stated that the Collegium system has been a failure and it has encouraged lack of transparency and favouritism. Justice Krishna Iyer called the present arrangement “incestuous” because the judges only react and talk to one another of their flock.

Article 124 of the Constitution has vested the power of appointment of the Chief Justice and judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts in the President of India. The Constitution provides that the President shall make these appointments “after consultation” with judges of the High Courts and Supreme Court that he may deem necessary. The Constitutional provisions speak of “after consultation” and not “in consultation” in the case of appointment of judges other than the Chief Justice of India. 

 Since 1950, the appointment of judges has been based largely on the recommendations of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and High Courts, except during the Emergency. Appointments have seldom been made without the concurrence of the Chief Justice of India. The system of judicial appointments by the Executive (1953-93) was substituted by the judicial Collegium of five senior judges. It was a Supreme Court decision in the Second Judges case (1993). The Court ruled that the recommendation of the CJI, along with that of four senior-most colleagues, is “determinative” and binding on the President. This was almost an attempt by the judiciary to re-write the law through this judgment. The direction makes the Supreme Court and High Courts virtually undemocratic. 

In July 1999, the President sought the court’s opinion on certain issues relating to the appointment of Supreme Court judges and the transfer of High Court judges. A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court (Presidential references, AIR 1999, SC), reiterated that primacy should be given to the opinion of the Collegium as laid down in the 1993 judgment, but stipulated that the

38

Collegium should take the decision on the basis of consensus. ‘The Third Judges’ case further stipulated that in respect of the recommendations of the Collegium, the opinion of all its members should be given in writing and their views must be conveyed by the Chief Justice to the Government, with his recommendations.

Justice Chelameswar’s letter to the Chief Justice reveals that these stipulations are not being followed by the Collegium. He has asserted that its deliberations are kept under wraps. Though the National Judicial Accountability Judgment of the apex court in October 2015 emphasises the need for transparency, the Collegium continued with its own policy of deliberations as well as communication to the Centre. Justice Chelameswar was the sole dissenter in the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) judgment delivered by a five-judge Constitution Bench and held that the Collegium system has become a “euphemism for nepotism and where mediocrity or even less is promoted”. He disagreed with the contention that judicial primacy in the appointment of judges is a basic structure of the Constitution. 

Justice Ruma Pal, a former judge of the Supreme Court, had earlier described the process of appointment of judges to the superior courts as possibly “the best kept secret of this country.” According to her, “Consensus within the Collegium is sometimes resolved through a ‘trade-off’, resulting in dubious appointments, with disastrous consequences.” 

There is little doubt that the present system has encouraged nepotism and many unqualified judges, with poor records, have been elevated. One of the worst examples was the appointment of Soumitra Sen as a judge of Calcutta High Court in 2006, even as he faced allegations of having misappropriated Rs. 50 lakh while serving as a court-appointed lawyer in 1993 to settle a dispute between two public sector companies. The Collegium cleared him for the appointment without bothering to check his credentials although the entire record was available in the court. The Collegium often doesn’t have sufficient information about the candidates whom it considers for appointment. In every High Court, the Chief Justice is from another State, as per the policy of the Government. The senior most judges, who form the Collegium, are also often from outside the State. As a result, more often than not, appointments suffer from lack of adequate information. Indeed, to decide on judicial appointments is not a part-time job that members of the Collegium can perform after doing the judicial work of deciding cases. In no democratic country, are the judges allowed exclusive say in their own selection.

The Supreme Court struck down the Constitution 99th Amendment Act (2014) that enabled the setting up of a National Judicial Appointments Commission. The court held that the Collegium of judges will have exclusive authority to select candidates for appointment of judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts. But in his dissenting judgment, Justice Chelameswar

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criticized the Collegium system for being, “absolutely opaque and inaccessible, both to public and history, barring occasional leaks.” Further, quoting Justice Hughes, he said that, “It was an appeal to the brooding spirit of law and to the intelligence of the future days.”

Former Chief Justice Lodha has reportedly iterated that there must be consensus in the selection of judges and views of the members of the Collegium must be recorded in writing and communicated to the Government along with the recommendations of the Collegium. The closed and secretive method of selection must end. There cannot be two opinions on the point that selection of judges has to be fair and above board. Judicial probity is closely linked to proper appointment of judges in the higher courts. The health of the judiciary depends upon the quality of those serving as judges.

The Collegium asked the Government to draft a Memorandum of Procedure (MOP) for appointment of judges and this has now become the bone of contention between the Government and the Supreme Court. In consequence, many vacant posts of judges are not filled. In many of the High Courts, nearly 50 per cent of the posts are vacant. The data on pending cases is increasing exponentially. More than 62,000 cases are pending in the Supreme Court and 38 lakh cases in the High Courts. It might take years to clear the backlog. However, filling the vacancies will not alone reduce the pile-up. The judiciary will have to adopt several other strategies, including better court management . 

The standoff between the Government and the Collegium, led by the CJI, is unfortunate and is bound to affect the justice delivery system. The Memorandum of Procedure (MOP) should be drafted in conformity with the judgment of the Court in the NJAC Act case as well as the Supreme Court’s directives in the ‘Third Judges’ case. The functioning of the Collegium has to be fair and transparent and at the same time free from the pressures of the Executive. The present standoff can impede good governance. Judicial independence should be matched by judicial transparency and accountability. Judicial accountability is the best guarantee of judicial independence.

The writer is Senior Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences; former Director-General, National Human Rights Commission; and former Director, National Police Academy, Hyderabad.

ECONOMIC TIMES, SEP 22, 2016Supreme Court collegium likely to share files for judge selection

NEW DELHI: Chief justice of India TS Thakur's attempts to get justice Jasti Chelameswar to

end his boycott of collegium proceedings having failed, the Supreme Court collegium may move

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to select judges for the top court by circulating names of candidates among the body's members.

A highlevel source said Thakur was considering this option to push through urgent appointments

while addressing concerns raised by Chelameswar about the lack of transparency in the

collegium's functioning. "This time the names will be cleared by circulation," the person said on

condition of anonymity. This will allow collegium members to record their views on elevating a

high court chief justice or judge to the top court. "This will take care of Justice Jasti

Chelameswar's concerns," said the person. Thakur intends to initiate the process of appointing

some top court judges before he demits office in January. The judge strength in the top court is

28 against the sanctioned strength of 31. However, four judges will retire by the end of this year,

taking vacancies to at least seven. The move to clear elevations by circulation would be

unprecedented. It means the collegium comprising the CJI and the next four seniormost judges in

the hierarchy will not sit face to face and exchange views as is normally done. Instead, files

containing their names will go to one judge after the other for their views to be recorded.

Chelameswar is part of the top court collegium for appointments and for the transfer of high

court judges Help us understand your experience with economictimes.com. Share you

41

LABOUR

TELEGRAPH, SEP 20, 2016A poor job with sums- A case for doubling the official poverty line

Prabhat Patnaik

An important demand of the trade unions which had called for an all-India general strike on September 2 was that the minimum wage of unskilled workers should be raised to Rs 692 per day. This was not just a figure pulled out of thin air. On the contrary, it was in conformity with the criteria for fixing the minimum wage which have been arrived at after careful deliberations at the Indian Labour Conference, the apex-level tripartite body consisting of representatives of workers, employers and the government (including both Central and state governments), which takes major decisions in matters relating to labour.

The ILC in 1957 had laid down the following criteria for fixing the minimum wage. The wage-earner should be able to support a family of four, consisting of husband, wife and two children; since these two children were assumed to constitute one "consumption unit", this meant that the earner should be able to support three consumption units. This support should mean 2,700 calories per adult per day and 72 yards of cloth for the family as a whole per year. In addition, 10 per cent of the amount that would cover food and clothing should be added for house rent and 20 per cent for fuel, lighting and other miscellaneous expenditures.

In 1992, the Supreme Court in an important judgment added a further 25 per cent to the basic food and clothing expenditure, for children's education, medical expenditure and minimum recreational and social expenditure. The minimum wage criteria as they stand today therefore are as follows: if Rs X are required per year to cover food expenditure that would assure 2,700 calories per adult per day and 72 yards cloth per annum for the family of four, then the annual minimum wage should be Rs X plus 55 per cent of Rs X. The exact amount this translates into would depend, of course, on the prices prevailing in a particular year; but the criteria themselves are clear and approved by all.

Some may wonder why the ILC assumed only one earning member per family. The reason is obvious. If one adult in the family takes up wage-work, then the other will have to do the cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, and other household chores, which do not fetch any money-earnings. The entire family's need for food, clothing and the other items mentioned above has to be met out of the wage-income of only one member which, therefore, has to be sufficient for the purpose. If both the adults are assumed to work for money, then they have to employ somebody else to do the household chores that one of them would otherwise have done, which would accordingly raise the minimum wage (since the payment to such an employee would then have to be included as additional expenditure for the family). The criteria therefore are perfectly defensible; the only issue is the amount of the minimum wage into which they translate.

And here we have access to some new information now. The Central pay commission has just

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recommended that Rs 18,000 per month should be the minimum wage for Central government employees whose work requires no special skills; and the Central government has accepted this recommendation. Using the perfectly legitimate principle of "equal pay for equal work" the trade unions demanded that the same amount should be the minimum wage of unskilled workers in other occupations as well, which, assuming a 26-day working month, comes to Rs 692 per working day. The Central government, however, rejected this demand, which was one of the factors precipitating the strike.

This entire minimum wage discussion, however, has an important bearing on the question of the poverty line for the country. The poverty line in India is defined as that level of actual expenditure (on all items) at which a person just accesses 2,200 calories per day in rural areas and 2,100 calories per day in urban areas. These levels were calculated for the base year 1973-74 from the National Sample Survey data; and even though such data are available for large samples once every five years, and similar calculations could have been made at five-year intervals for the entire subsequent period, the government chose instead to follow a curious alternative method. It simply brought forward the 1973-74 poverty lines for all subsequent years by using consumer price indices.

This has had an unfortunate effect. The infirmities of the price-indices have meant that the official poverty lines have been much lower in the subsequent period than those employing the correct method, adopted in the base year, would have warranted, thus underestimating poverty. And what is more, the excess of the poverty lines given by the correct method over those given by the questionable method (which uses the price-indices), has kept increasingover time, because of which an entirely erroneous impression has been given that the headcount ratios of poverty in the country have been declining.

Since the poverty figure is not just a matter of academic interest but determines people's ability to access the many government schemes meant for the poor, the Planning Commission's ludicrously low poverty lines became the target of attack from several quarters some years ago, forcing the government to set up a number of committees to "revise" the poverty lines. The reports of these committees, doing arbitrary patchwork jobs, however, are dictated more by the need to find some "acceptable" way out rather than by any objective considerations. The Rangarajan committee has lowered the rural and urban daily calorie norms by 10 and 45 respectively.

This is in sharp contrast to the manner in which the minimum wage figure is arrived at. And what is more, even what I have called the "correct" method above, which was used only in the base year 1973-74, estimates the poverty line by looking at the household's own expenditure pattern, and not by objectively specifying the various amounts of goods and services that should be covered. Since the daily calorie norms 2,200 and 2,100 are objectively specified, there is no reason why such objective specification should not be extended to other expenditure items as well.

If we do so, however, then a curious situation confronts us. The expenditure basket covered by the minimum wage is supposed to provide 2,700 calories per adult per day, which, for three consumption units, comes to 8,100 calories. The new poverty line, in contrast, is supposed to

43

provide 2,155 calories in rural India and 2,090 calories in urban India per dayper capita (and not per consumption unit); these therefore amount to 8,620 calories in rural areas and 8,360 calories in urban areas for a family of four, and are higher than what the minimum wage provides. If other expenditures are added in the same proportion then it follows that the poverty lines must exceed the minimum wage. In other words, an objectively-postulated poverty line using the same logic that underlies the minimum wage calculation must place it above Rs 18,000 per month.

Let us, however, err on the conservative side and take Rs 18,000 per month as a uniform poverty line, ignoring differences between rural and urban areas. This would amount to Rs 600 per family per day and Rs 150 per capita per day, which is almost three times the figure that emerges if the suggestion of the Rangarajan committee (the last of the government committees asked to revise the poverty line) is brought forward to the current year by using a consumer price index.

The Chinese government almost doubled the daily poverty line for rural China in December 2011, from 3.5 yuan to 6.3 yuan. It did not provide any statistical reasons for doing so, but clearly the earlier poverty line was far too low and the idea was to include many more people among the beneficiaries of government schemes meant for the poor. In India, as I have just shown, a very clear case exists, based on the report of the government's own Central pay commission, for at least doubling the poverty line. Since being below the official poverty line provides access to several benefits, even a simple doubling of the poverty line will go a long way in ameliorating the conditions of vast numbers of destitute working people in the country. All those who take pride in the fact that India's current gross domestic product growth apparently exceeds that of China, should surely support such a doubling for it would show that India's concern for the poor too is no less than that of China.

The trade unions of late have also been including the demands of the peasantry in their charter of demands, as evidence of their desire to rise above a narrow, self-centred economism. This is laudable. But in the same spirit they should take an extra step and demand that the official poverty line should at least be doubled.

The author is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

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POLICE

DECCAN HERALD, SEP 21, 2016IPS officer shunted out of academy for quizzing guv

A senior IPS officer from Rajasthan, who was shunted out of mid-career training from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVPNPA) in Hyderabad on Monday, has failed to report for duty at the Police Headquarters in Jaipur. 

Additional Director General Indu Kumar Bhushan was forcibly put on board a Delhi-bound flight on Monday after he reportedly argued with Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Governor E S L Narasimhan during a question-and-answer session at the academy. 

Rajasthan Director General of Police Manoj Kumar Bhatt told DH: “I received a phone call from academy Director Aruna Bahuguna on Monday afternoon and she mentioned about Indu Kumar’s misbehaviour. The director informed me that they were sending him back to Jaipur. But so far I have not received any information from Indu Kumar and also he has not reported at the Police Headquarters in Jaipur till Tuesday evening.” 

“We have sought a detailed report from the academy and we will assess the nature of his misconduct. If he is found guilty, the department will take action against him,” Bhatt added. 

The mid-term programme is mandatory for all IPS officers. Indu Kumar, who was among 40-odd officers undergoing the training entered into a verbal duel with  Narasimhan, who was a former IB chief, regarding the misuse of Right to Information Act.  After Narasimhan completed his inaugural speech, Indu Kumar wanted to know why the governor during his speech called RTI activists as mafia. 

According to sources, the argument continued for almost eight minutes.  He did not relent even after the governor’s ADC tried to pacify him.

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POVERTY

TRIBUNE, SEP 16, 2016The arithmetic of counting the poorS. Subramanian

It seems reasonable to require that a measure of poverty should give some indication of the probability of encountering a poor person in a society. Unfortunately, that is not what happens always.

COUNTING HEADS: Measurement in economics is often subject to interpretation.

ECONOMICS  is a tricky subject, and economic measurement is just about the trickiest of its component elements. The judgements we make about the economy are (or should be) based on facts; and what we call ‘facts’ are overwhelmingly a product of measurement. This is true of our assessment – just by way of example – of the economy’s growth; of inflation; of population trends; of levels of unemployment; of the extent of economic inequality; of magnitudes of, and tendencies in, poverty; and indeed a host of other aspects of the economy’s functioning. What we make of the economy is thus hugely dependent on what we make of economic statistics. And what we can make of economic statistics, in turn, depends on the data which are available to us and on the basis of which the relevant statistics are constructed; on the quality and reliability of these data; and, importantly, on the interpretation which we do, and may, confer on the summary statistical measures we construct from the available data.

Concentrating only on the last-mentioned issue, it must be remarked that often enough there is a gap – which even (or perhaps especially) professional economists tend to miss – between how we ought to interpret economic indicators and how we actually end up interpreting them. Measurement is frequently perceived (or passed off) as being a routinely straightforward exercise which ought not to be burdened with the nuances of meaning and interpretation. The truth, unfortunately, is the very opposite of this disposition. Measurement, as it happens, is informed by a combination of common or garden ‘facts’, ethical values, ideological orientation, political perspective, and ambiguity of interpretation. This is what makes a seemingly simple and direct exercise an actually complex and challenging one. This also is why confident professional assessments of economic performance would benefit from a stance of uniformly greater humility in the pronouncement of these assessments – a humility that acknowledges the need for a clear

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statement of precisely what is being measured and how. A very simple example from the measurement of poverty should cast some light on this sentiment.

Suppose we observe that between two periods of time – let us call these period 1 and period 2 respectively – the proportion of the population with incomes less than a stipulated poverty line has declined from, say, 40 per cent to 30 per cent. Often, this finding is quite simply represented as ‘a decline in poverty over time’. Among various other things that are left out of this representation is the very simple one of why, even if poverty is to be measured by just counting the heads living in poverty, one must accept that the count is best captured by the proportion of the population in poverty. Why not, for instance, the absolute numbers of people in poverty? Why might this be important?

To see what is involved, let us consider some additional data on poverty and population counts for the hypothetical example I have just furnished. Suppose period 1 has 320 million poor people in a population of 800 million, and period 2 has 330 million poor people in a population of 1100 million. This is, of course, compatible (as noted earlier) with a decline in the headcount ratio (HCR) of poverty from 40 per cent in period 1 to 30 per cent in period 2. But notice also that the change described is compatible with an increase in the aggregate headcount (AH) of poverty from 320 million poor persons to 330 million poor persons over the two time periods under consideration. That is, there has been a decline in poverty according to one plausible measure of poverty (the HCR), and an increase, according to another (the AH). It appears that we cannot even be sure about the inter-temporal direction of change (leave alone the magnitude) of poverty, without further scrutiny.

At the least, and as the example just considered suggests, we must engage with the ‘meaning’ and the relative merits of the headcount ratio and the aggregate headcount. One difficulty with the HCR is the following. Suppose two out of four people are initially poor, so that the HCR in this situation is 50 per cent. Suppose further that two rich people now join this community, so that, with this change, we have two poor people in a population of six. Clearly, the HCR declines from 50 per cent to 33 per cent. By employing the HCR as our favoured poverty measure, we should diagnose a decline in poverty – even though nothing whatever has been done to alleviate the poverty of the two individuals initially in poverty! This amounts to a violation of what in the field of ‘population ethics’ is called the ‘Constituency Principle’ – a principle which requires that the ‘goodness’ of alternative states of affairs must be judged only from the standpoint of the interests of the relevant constituency in the two states. When we make poverty comparisons, the ‘relevant constituency’, presumably, is the community of poor persons. Yet, the HCR can

47

pronounce a decline in poverty (as we have just seen) with no change in the poverty status of the community of poor persons.

At the same time, it seems reasonable to require that a measure of poverty should give some indication of the probability of encountering a poor person in a society. Let me call this requirement the ‘Likelihood Principle’. The HCR eminently satisfies the Likelihood Principle, just as the aggregate headcount (AH) measure obviously violates it: in the simple numerical example considered above, the probability of encountering a poor person in the society declines from 1/2 to 1/3, but the AH remains constant at 2.

So, what do we have? The HCR attractively satisfies the Likelihood Principle while unattractively violating the Constituency Principle, while things are just the other way around with the AH. Each measure has some virtue to commend it, but also some vice that detracts from it. This makes it difficult to rely entirely on any one or the other of the two measures. A ‘compromise candidate’ is one which is intermediate between the HCR and the AH, and which may be called an Intermediate Headcount (IHC) measure. Such a measure is given by the product of the two quantities – or, as in some formulations, as the square-root of the product of the two quantities, that is, ICH is just the square-root of the product of  HCR and AH.

Is this just some esoteric issue? Let us consider some World Bank data on global poverty according to its own calculations and given a global poverty line of $2.50 (in 2005 purchasing power parity.) Between 1981 and 2005, the global HCR declines from 75 per cent to 58 per cent; the AH increases from 2739 million poor persons to 3140 million; and the ICH is nearly unchanging, going from 45.3 million to 42.5 million. We are enabled to see now that our sense of what is happening to poverty is intimately guided by protocols of measurement that must be sensitive to ‘facts’, logic, and values – a proposition that is often not treated with the seriousness it deserves.

The writer is a retired Professor of economics. 

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PUBLIC FINANCE

DECCAN HERALD, SEP 16, 2016Budget session likely to be advanced to January 24

The Budget session of Parliament may be advanced by a month and commence on January 24 and a combined Railway and General Budget may be presented on January 31.

The Cabinet is expected to give its stamp of approval next week to the proposal for merger of Railway and General Budgets and advancing the date of presentation to late January from late February.

To get the two GST legislations passed by Parliament for its roll out in April next year, the government may also advance the Winter Session of Parliament to mid-November from the third week of November, sources said.

Early presentation of the Budget will ensure that all legislative work is completed before the beginning of the new financial year.

Usually, the annual budget is presented by the end of February after which it is discussed, the details of the budget are scrutinised by a Parliamentary committee and it is finally passed by mid-May.

But the financial year ends on March 31 and the government needs funds for various routine expenditure between March and May. 

It is through vote on account that the government gets parliamentary approval to run the country’s routine financial business for a few months, using funds drawn from the Consolidated Fund of India.

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RAILWAYS

HINDU, SEP 22, 2016Railway Budget, a vanishing trick

K. BALAKESARI

The hurry to bury the standalone Budget points to obfuscation under the smokescreen of reforms

So finally, the almost century-old practice of presenting a separate Railway Budget ahead of the General Budget is to be dispensed with from the next financial year (2017-18), and the Railway Budget “merged” with the General Budget. The Union Cabinet has just cleared the proposal.

What are the reported reasons for this merger? According to earlier media reports, a separate Railway Budget is being dispensed with so that the Indian Railways need not pay the annual dividend to the Government of India on the budgetary support given each year, saving the financially stressed Railways about Rs.10,000 crore annually; over the years, the Budget has been misused by politicians as a populist platform to enhance their own image; no other Ministry has a separate budget and the practice exists in no other country today; the Bibek Debroy Committee has recommended discontinuance of a separate Rail Budget and it is part of the Prime Minister’s reform programme. Besides, it is a colonial legacy.

A point particularly stressed by the Finance Minister in the press conference announcing the Cabinet decision was that the Railways’ share in the General Budget has progressively reduced over the years, making a separate budget an anachronism.

Each of these “reasons” does not present the true or complete picture. It is necessary to separate fact from fiction.

It is a review

There have been sporadic calls in the past for doing away with a separate Railway Budget for various reasons, but the matter was never pursued seriously. One of the more publicised reasons is that it will free the Railways of the obligation of paying the annual dividend, as mentioned earlier. This is only partly true. The dividend is paid not only on the budgetary support extended during a year but also on the total “capital at charge” which includes the gross budgetary support (GBS) of previous years. By this merger, a “loan-in-perpetuity” is converted to a grant. Shorn of officialese, it is a loan waiver; and loan waivers are granted to individuals or institutions in extreme financial distress — something not to go to town about.

In popular imagination, the Railway Budget was seen as a grand spectacle, with the Railway Minister using it as a platform for populism and political grandstanding. What is not appreciated is that the Budget is not merely a statement of allotment of funds to various projects and programmes, unlike other ministries, but comprises a fairly detailed performance review,

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physical and financial, of the previous year and prospects for the current (Budget) year. Perhaps nowhere in the world is a political functionary called upon to present a financial report card of the country’s largest public undertaking in the full glare of publicity. A separate post-Budget discussion in Parliament on the Railways, as indicated by the Finance Minister, is no substitute, as the focus most likely will be on allotments to various projects, not on financial performance.

Talking of populism, the recent announcement by the Finance Minister of the proposal to set up a new Railway zone to placate a State government as part of a “special package” is proof that it is possible to be “populist” outside a separate budget.

Why should there be a separate budget for the Railways? The fact is that the Railways is indeed unlike any other Central ministry in size and scope: It is an operational ministry; it earns as well as spends, unlike other ministries that only spend. Its gross earnings (Rs.1.68 lakh crore in 2015-16) are among the highest for any Indian organisation, public or private; it has a staff strength (13.2 lakh) that exceeds that of the Indian Army; it fully meets the pension liabilities of its retired employees (13.8 lakh) out of its own earnings unlike other ministries; it follows an accounting practice, though not up to the standards of a purely commercial establishment, that has a number of features of a commercially-run organisation. So, if the Railways is to be treated like other ministries, will the government also fund its pension liabilities which are estimated to be about Rs.45,500 crore in 2016-17? That should be some “savings” indeed!

Part of a package

Perhaps the most misquoted reason given for the merger is that the Bibek Debroy Committee has recommended it. That is being economical with the facts. The committee has recommended it not as a stand-alone step, but as part of a slew of measures such as: complete overhaul of the project financing architecture of the Railways involving ruthless weeding out of unviable/long-pending projects; comprehensive accounting reforms; separation of infrastructure and operations; and setting up of a rail regulatory authority. Pending these steps, each of which is a major project in itself (some politically sensitive), the move to give a hasty send-off to the Railway Budget is perplexing.

The Railway Budget is indeed a colonial legacy; but so are English, the Railways, Rashtrapati Bhavan and the sedition law. Enough said. All this is not to say that the Railway Budget is a holy cow that cannot be touched. Far from it. The question is not “why”, but “why such a hurry to bury it”?

The answer, in one word: Obfuscation. By all accounts, the Railways’ financial position is precarious due to the triple whammy of a fall in revenues, a sudden spike in expenditure due to implementation recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, and an increasingly unsustainable interest burden on market borrowings. A separate Budget would have meant having to openly declare an operating ratio in excess of 1.0 (in layman’s language, that means one is living beyond one’s means): not a very good advertisement for a system that aspires to have high-speed tilting Talgo trains shortly and Bullet trains in the not-too-distant future. So why not banish and “vanish” the Railway Budget into anonymity as one of the myriad annexures in the General Budget and earn a fat “bonus” of about Rs.10,000 crore in the bargain? A smart

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move indeed! It seems now the Budget is more valuable dead than alive. However, what should be a matter of serious concern to the aam aadmi is that the Railways’ finances are sought to be shored up, not by improving efficiency, increasing revenues and cutting costs, but through a dexterous bureaucratic sleight of hand, taking cover behind the smokescreen of “reforms”.

Finally, a suggestion to the government: Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater; table an annual “Indian Railways Report” in Parliament on the lines of the Reserve Bank of India’s Economic Survey. That will signal reforms with transparency.

K. Balakesari is former Member Staff, Railway Board.

What should be of concern is that the Railways’ finances are sought to be shored up, not by improving efficiency, but by taking cover behind ‘reforms’

HINDU, SEP 22, 2016Railways will stop paying dividend to Finance Ministry

SOMESH JHA

As the government decides to merge the Railway Budget and the General Budget, Union Cabinet on Wednesday scrapped the Railway Convention Committee (RCC) which determines the rate of dividend to be paid to the Finance Ministry, Railway Ministry sources said.

The Committee consisted of 18 members — 12 members from Lok Sabha and six members from Rajya Sabha. Both the Ministers of Railways and Finance are nominated members of the Committee. It was constituted in 1949 with the primary role of determining the rate of dividend, modalities of its payment and exemptions. It took on a wider role of examining various subjects related to working of the Railways and its finances since 1971.

The Union Cabinet decided on Wednesday that Railways will not pay dividend to the Finance Ministry for the capital invested in it beginning 2017-18. “Since dividend will no longer be paid, the RCC has been scrapped,” Railway Ministry officials said.

In 2016-17, the Railways is budgeted to pay Rs. 9,731 crore as dividend whereas the subsidy claimed by Railways towards loss-making routes is estimated at Rs. 4,301 crore. The net dividend payment to the Finance Ministry is estimated at Rs. 5,430 crore.

“The relief on this count will help us increase investments in track renewal, maintenance, station improvement and passenger amenities,” a top Railway Ministry official said.

However, pension will continue to be a liability of the Railways. In 2016-17, while the pension Bill is pegged at Rs. 45,500 crore, the wage Bill stands at Rs. 70,125 crore. The Railways will also bear the social commitment obligation by way of concessions or subsidised travel,” another official said.

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Union Cabinet scraps Railway Convention Committee that was constituted in 1949

HINDUSTAN TIMES, SEP 22, 2016RIP railway budget: Govt ends 92-year-old practice, only one budget from 2017Saubhadra  Chatterji

The government on Wednesday approved merger of the rail and general budgets from next year, ending a 92-year-old practice of a separate budget for the country’s largest transporter.

The common budget may be announced in the first week of February as the government has also “approved in-principle” advancing the budget schedule.

While the merger will help the cash-strapped Indian railways, an advance budget—in tandem with the targeted roll-out of the goods and services tax from April 1—will give the states and the Centre early access to funds for construction activities in summer.Financial experts said it will also help people to do better tax planning.

“While we are in favour of advancing the budget date and finishing the entire financial business before March 31, the actual dates (for budget presentation) will be decided after consultations and depending on calendar of the state elections,” Union finance minister Jaitley said after a cabinet meeting.

Five states, including Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand are scheduled to go to the polls early next year.

The previous NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had changed another British-era practice in 2001, advancing the time of presenting the budget to 11am from 5pm.The union cabinet also decided to do away with the demarcation of planned and non-planned expenses to keep the government accounts simpler and more transparent.Even as a separate rail budget will cease to exist, the railway will continue to enjoy its functional autonomy, railway minister Suresh Prabhu said.

The common budget will allow a seamless national transportation policy, insulating the railways from political pressures. The idea was first floated by Niti Aayog member Bibek Debroy.

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The Indian railways ferries around 23 million people daily, equivalent to the population of Australia and New Zealand put together, on its network of tracks running up to more than 64,000 km.

Railway unions which have been seeking government help to bail out the PSU reeling under fund crunch, welcomed the move.

“The railways will benefit if finance ministry handles its burden of subsidies and pensions and waives off the annual dividend,” Shiva Gopal Mishra, general secretary of All India Railwaymen’s Federation, said.

Every year, the railways spend Rs 8000 crore on pension and Rs 35,000 crore as subsidies. The Indian railway also pays Rs 10,000 crore as dividend in return of the government’s gross budgetary support.

However, the railways no longer constitute a major chunk of government revenues as annual outlays of several public-sector undertakings are far bigger than that of the railways.

While the Centre may not get the net dividends of Rs 4,100 crore from the railways, economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das said that since the rail budget will become a part of the general budget, “it is possible for us to absorb the amount.”

Jaitley said the cabinet did not discuss the dates of the winter session of Parliament. The practice of standing committee scrutinising the budget proposals will continue.Sources in the government said the budget session may start on January 24 and the budget could be presented on February 1, instead of the last week of the month.“The taxation process will be completed by April 1. For the states, the effective implementation of schemes will start from April instead of September,” Jaitley said.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, SEP 22, 2016Changes in budget are a move towards transparencySoumya Kanti Ghosh

 |  

In a major reform process, the government on Wednesday approved the merger of Railway budget with the General budget. It also announced the advancement of the date of budget

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presentation from the last day of February to the 1st of the month, and the merger of the Plan and Non-Plan classification in the budget and accounts.

Merging budgets

The most important fact is that after the merger, the Railways would not have to pay dividend to the central government, and its capital-at-charge (the government’s investment) stand to be wiped off; the Railways used to pay up to Rs 10,000 crore as dividend to the government. This move will also transition the Railways to better capital budgeting enhancing public accountability.

Removing distinction between expenditures

The removal of distinction between Plan and Non-Plan expenditure is also a welcome step. There will be more transparency in accounting as expenditures will get classified as revenue and capital, largely mirroring the commercial principles of current and capital expenditure.

In the backdrop of the abolition of the Planning Commission and setting up of the NITI Aayog, the classification of expenditure as Plan and non-Plan lost its relevance. The extension of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme also required removal of this classification as per the Expenditure Management Commission.

Advancing budget presentation

The government also approved advancing presentation of the Union budget by a month. This early presentation will mean that the entire exercise gets over by March 31, and expenditure as well as tax proposals come into effect right from the beginning of the new fiscal year, thereby ensuring better implementation.

On the flip side, this will lead to less expenditure by various ministries in the current fiscal which will be a deterrent for growth though the fiscal deficit management will get a positive boost.Estimates indicate that one month advancement of Union budget will have a positive impact of around Rs 1-1.5 lakh crore (1% of GDP) on gross tax revenue to the exchequer.With these steps, it could now be the right time that the central and state governments begin the shift to accrual accounting.

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(The author is Chief Economic Advisor, SBI. The views are personal)

 TRIBUNE, SEP 20, 2016Unified transport policy needed to move aheadSushma Ramachandran

The Railways push to emulate airlines by introducing flexible fares has brought focus on the fact that modernisation has not taken place and efficiency standards of a global level still do not exist in the rail and road sectors.

IN A JAM: Increasing rail fares have made road movement more attractive. But bulk haul should ideally be by rail. Tribune photo: Inderjeet Singh

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu’s decision to launch flexi-fares in certain elite trains has had ripple effects in the rest of the transport sector. The aviation industry sees it as an opportunity to offer traditional rail passengers a chance to travel by air. The competitiveness is being exuded even by a fellow government agency, Air India, which put out full-page newspaper advertisements saying it is now cheaper to travel by air than rail. The Railways, on its part, is insisting that its new policy is a success and that it is garnering more revenues than ever before. Be that as it may, it is clear that the Railways is losing clientele for trains with expensive fares to the aviation industry.

The problem is there is evidently little coordination in terms of policy between the various ministries in the transport sector, whether it is roads and highways, railways or aviation. This is at a time when there is a crying need for a coordinated ‘national transport policy’. Which is not to say that there should not be competition between the various transport segments. It is merely that policies need to be tailored so that each is able to attract the kind of traffic that is suitable for that mode of transport.

Road movement, for instance, has become more attractive over the years owing to rail freight fares going up. But many commodities should ideally be transported in bulk by rail. It is surely acceptable that railways should raise fares to cover costs but at the same time efficiency and productivity needs to be increased significantly. Transporters should be given sufficient incentives in terms of facilities to make it attractive for them to use the rail route rather than the road option.

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Similarly, as far as passenger traffic is concerned, railway has to focus more on providing better facilities for travellers along with raising revenues. The long-awaited chemical toilets need to be extended to all classes of trains. It cannot be meant only for the elite trains like the Rajdhanis and Shatabdis. This basic facility is provided worldwide on all trains and it should not have been neglected for so long in this country. At a time when toilet construction in rural areas and  the Swachh Bharat initiative is in full swing, the Railways too need to play their part in making it a reality. Installing proper toilets cannot be dismissed as simply being too expensive. This lacuna makes the Railways one of the biggest polluters in the country, and that too is equally expensive for an emerging economy. Besides, with a Prime Minister at the helm who has championed the cause of clean toilets in the country, there is no shortage of political resolve on this issue.

As for road transport, it needs to be monitored strictly to ensure that overloading and safety becomes an article of faith for transporters. Currently, overloaded trucks are still on the roads despite a Supreme Court order a few years ago directing penalties to be imposed on such vehicles. New norms also came into effect last year to prevent overloaded trucks from entering national highways but this is apparently difficult to implement as the entry points have to be checked. The net result is that safety becomes a casualty. Nearly 25 per cent of all road accidents were due to trucks in 2014. In addition, overloaded trucks damage roads which are not able to cope with the pressure.

Apart from commodities, passenger traffic on roads has always been a cheap alternative for short distances. The southern states, however, have made long-distance travel much more comfortable for the common man. This system has not yet been replicated in a big way in the northern states. But it is slowly growing due to the demand from rising domestic tourist traffic.

Travel by air is now becoming increasingly cheaper and the new aviation policy has given a push to regional connectivity. If passengers can travel on cheap fares for one-hour flights, it might lead to a revolution in the entire business of travel in the country. There are skeptics worried about the cross subsidisation involved in the cheap fare formula in the new policy but it is surely worth a try. Air freight will thus also become more affordable within the country.

All these three modes of transport need to be optimised and capacities need to be increased substantially as demand is increasing exponentially for movement of both goods and passengers within the country. An integrated policy can examine the relative importance of investments in various regions. For instance, the importance of expanding air connectivity in remote areas where it may take a long time for road and rail networks to penetrate easily.

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The Railways push to emulate airlines by introducing flexible fares based on demand has put the focus on the entire transport sector in the country. It has highlighted the fact that the Railways is a monopoly as compared to airlines where flexi-fares are used to compete against other airlines. It has also put a focus on the fact modernisation has not taken place and efficiency standards of a global level still do not exist in the rail and road sectors. In contrast, the domestic aviation industry has been marching ahead and is operating internationally by competing against the best airlines abroad.

A transport policy that coordinates all three modes of transport could provide inputs as to how to bring about this level of global efficiency and productivity in all areas. In the roads sector, for instance, there is a need for higher investment to produce buses and trucks of various types. In the absence of modern vehicles, it will not be possible to speed up movement of either freight or passengers. The benefits of the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) need to be optimised by introducing specialised vehicles that can  transport goods and people safely and rapidly from point to point.

A similar approach needs to be taken in all transport sectors. A beginning has been made with the new aviation policy. It needs to be followed up by a more comprehensive road, rail and air transport policy that will ultimately help the common man as well as give a big push to economic growth.

The writer is a Delhi-based economics and business columnist.

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TAXATION

PIONEER, SEP 19, 2016IRS ASSOCIATION PROTESTS ADMINISTRATIVE PATTERNS MOOTED FOR GST, GSTN

Indian Revenue Services Association has raised objections on the administrative patterns mooted for the GST and the private shareholding pattern of the GSTN. The  Association leaders are expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday to raise their concerns on the implementation patterns of the GST. The Association leaders have claimed that as many as 50 MPs including those from the ruling BJP have expressed support to their concerns.

Recently the IRS Association general secretary Shrawan Kumar Bansal issued a statement urging the Government to relieve the private companies holding 51 percent shareholding in GSTN, the IT platform created for the collection of GST. The Association leaders said they would appeal to Prime Minister and PMO officials to bring GSTN as a fully Government-controlled unit under Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).

The IRS Association, the body of officers in Customs and Central Excise, have also objected to the proposed pattern of GST Council, where the "IAS lobby" is trying to grab  all key posts. Urging for the total re-construction, the Association said the GSTN should be placed under DG (Systems) of CBEC.

"More than 100 countries have implemented GST till now, and everywhere it is administered by specialized tax officers, since tax collection and administration is a specialized work, especially more so, under the GST regime. The most contentious issue that needs to be resolved around the world in countries which have implemented GST till now is the GST rate.      

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TERRORISM

STATESMAN, SEP 20, 2016‘Not go unpunished’

It would be easy for millions of Indians to endorse those words of the Prime Minister, and indeed other strong comments from across the establishment - so thin has patience worn with Pakistan and its terror-sponsoring ways. What will be difficult is formulating the manner which the promised punishment is administered. A series of meetings to fine-tune that response were held, no game-plan immediately indicated. Statecraft is now on severe test, for notwithstanding all the tough talk there is no scope for myopic, knee-jerk reactions that may prove counter-productive in the long term. A response that harmonises the military, economic and diplomatic angles is critical -so too is a degree of political consensus, the customary sniping across party lines will have to be put on hold for the present. Informal consultation with Opposition leaders, enlightening them on the military’s thinking, and ensuring that none of them seeks cheap political points is advisable - certainly more preferable than an all-party meeting that only facilitates grandstanding.

It could be argued that the window for a military response is already closing. It would be a surprising shame if the armed forces did not have previous plans in place for surgical strikes across the frontier to deliver the message that a price would have to be paid - none was in place when terrorists struck the Parliament House, and the foray at Pathankot only re-emphasised the need for immediate counter-measures. With the subcontinent a nuclear flashpoint there will be international pressure that would prevent much counter-punching: the body-blow needed to be unleashed even before the “combing” operations at Uri concluded. It would be a poor reflection on the Army if it was incapable of “taking out” a couple of terrorist training camps within hours of the fidayeen attack. That the Army Chief and Defene Minister rushed to the affected area reconfirms how top-heavy and cumbersome the decision-making process has become - surely they could have performed more useful coordinating duties in the Capital, rather than “making a show”.

Criticising the Army would appear out of place at the present juncture, but questions of how the terrorists managed to breach the fence at the camp - just as they had done at Pathankot. In both places there had been intelligence “alerts”. Was security at the camp reduced because Army units were “rolling over”, as happened prior to the ambush of a convoy in the North-east? And if, as

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reported, many of the soldiers killed at Uri died of burn injuries, the DRDO/Ordnance Corps must be slammed for not issuing less fire-prone tenting when so many of our troops/paramilitary are required to live “under canvas”. These are “basics”, overlooked in the drive for hi-tech equipment. The inability of the state and central governments to quell the unrest in the Valley is also responsible for the massacre at Uri. Prolonged curfews have dismantled the intelligence-gathering network, infiltration of militants become increasingly common as good governance gives way to jingoism.

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WATER SUPPLY

DECCAN HERALD, SEP 20, 2016Karnataka ordered to release 3k cusecs per day to TNAjith Athrady

The Cauvery Supervisory Committee on Monday ordered Karnataka to release 3,000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu between September 21 and September 30.

During a marathon meeting headed by Committee Chairman Shashi Shekhar, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu failed to reach an agreement on the quantum of water to be released. So, Shekhar, also Union water resources secretary,  asked Karnataka to release 3,000 cusecs daily to Tamil Nadu from September 21 to 30.

“Both the states have not agreed. The two states are free to challenge this order in the Supreme Court when it takes up the matter on Tuesday, or they can agree with the order before the court,” Shekhar told reporters after the meeting.

The committee will meet sometime in October and take a call on the release of water to Tamil Nadu after the end of September.

In the meeting, Karnataka expressed its inability to release more water to the lower riparian states, saying the water available in its reservoirs was required for drinking purposes. Tamil Nadu has been demanding water as per the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal’s final order. Shekhar said he arrived at the 3,000 cusecs figure taking into account the average inflow in all the Cauvery basin reservoirs in Karnataka for the past 15 days. 

At present, the inflow in the basin reservoirs in the state is around 9,000 cusecs per day. It may vary depending on the rainfall, he said. Shekhar said he had also considered the ground realities, including inflow, outflow to reservoirs, drinking water requirement of Karnataka in the coming days, deficient rainfall in the Cauvery basin areas in the upper riparian states, water requirement for crops and natural evaporation.

The committee will meet every month from February next year to take stock of the situation till the Cauvery Management Board comes into being. The matter related to the proposed board is pending before the apex court, he said.

The committee also agreed to put in place a protocol for the proposed real-time transmission of river water flow data at the committee secretariat (in Delhi), Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry.

Karnataka Chief Secretary Arvind Jadhav, his counterparts from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry P

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Rama Mohana Rao and Manoj Parida, respectively, a representative from Kerala and officials from the Ministry of Water Resources attended the meeting.

DECCAN HERALD, SEP 20, 2016Karnataka ordered to release 3k cusecs per day to TNAjith Athrady

The Cauvery Supervisory Committee on Monday ordered Karnataka to release 3,000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu between September 21 and September 30.

During a marathon meeting headed by Committee Chairman Shashi Shekhar, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu failed to reach an agreement on the quantum of water to be released. So, Shekhar, also Union water resources secretary,  asked Karnataka to release 3,000 cusecs daily to Tamil Nadu from September 21 to 30.

“Both the states have not agreed. The two states are free to challenge this order in the Supreme Court when it takes up the matter on Tuesday, or they can agree with the order before the court,” Shekhar told reporters after the meeting.

The committee will meet sometime in October and take a call on the release of water to Tamil Nadu after the end of September.

In the meeting, Karnataka expressed its inability to release more water to the lower riparian states, saying the water available in its reservoirs was required for drinking purposes. Tamil Nadu has been demanding water as per the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal’s final order. Shekhar said he arrived at the 3,000 cusecs figure taking into account the average inflow in all the Cauvery basin reservoirs in Karnataka for the past 15 days. 

At present, the inflow in the basin reservoirs in the state is around 9,000 cusecs per day. It may vary depending on the rainfall, he said. Shekhar said he had also considered the ground realities, including inflow, outflow to reservoirs, drinking water requirement of Karnataka in the coming days, deficient rainfall in the Cauvery basin areas in the upper riparian states, water requirement for crops and natural evaporation.

The committee will meet every month from February next year to take stock of the situation till the Cauvery Management Board comes into being. The matter related to the proposed board is pending before the apex court, he said.

The committee also agreed to put in place a protocol for the proposed real-time transmission of river water flow data at the committee secretariat (in Delhi), Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry.

Karnataka Chief Secretary Arvind Jadhav, his counterparts from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry P Rama Mohana Rao and Manoj Parida, respectively, a representative from Kerala and officials from the Ministry of Water Resources attended the meeting.

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ECONOMIC TIMES, SEP 16, 2016Bengaluru wastes nearly 50% of the water it gets from Cauvery By Alison Saldanha

As Karnataka continues its legal battle over the Cauvery, the states capital almost entirely

dependent on the river wastes half the water it receives, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of

wateruse data. The only Indian city that wastes water at a greater rate is Kolkata. And the

situation in Bengaluru will only worsen. Every Bangalorean 8.5 million people live in India's

thirdmost populous city should get 150 litres of water per day. But what she gets is 65 litres, the

equivalent of four flushes of a toilet. Water is supplied, on average, thrice a week. Over the next

nine years, the city's water demand is predicted to be three times more than supply. Its population

density 13 times higher than Karnataka's average, Bengaluru consumes 50 per cent of Cauvery

water reserved for domestic use in Karnataka. As much as 49 per cent of this water supplied is

what is called "nonrevenue water" or "unaccounted for water" i.e., water lost in distribution

according to the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) data. "Inequitable

supply to different parts of the city ranging from onethird to three times the average per capita

daily supply makes this worse," Krishna Raj, associate professor at the Institute for Social and

Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru, and author of a 2013 paper on the city's water supply

system, told IndiaSpend. Bengaluru's water loss is the secondhighest among Indian metros:

Kolkata leads at 50 per cent. The wastage figure for Mumbai is 18 per cent, New Delhi, 26 per

cent and Chennai, 20 per cent. Across the world, cities lose only about 15 to 20 per cent of their

supply, said the ISEC study, which pegged Bengaluru's losses at 48 per cent three years ago.

Former BWSSB chairman, T.M. Vijaybhaskar, admitted to a loss of about 46 per cent water at a

conference in February 2016. "Of 1,400 MLD (million litres per day) of water pumped to the

city, 600 MLD goes to waste," he said. The ISEC paper attributed the wastage to two types of

distributional losses: First, damages and leakages in the water supply system and, second,

unauthorised water connections. "Water leakages largely take place at distribution mains, service

pipes and stand posts and together account for 88.5 per cent of water spillover, the rest being low

leakages at main valve, meter joint stop valve, ferrule, air valve and others," the paper said. "This

huge loss is directly attributed to the water seepage at various stages of supply." Of the 270

thousand million cubic ft (TMC) of Cauvery water allotted to Karnataka by the Cauvery Water

Disputes Tribunal, Raj estimated that, roughly, about 80 per cent is used for agriculture and

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industry (down from over 90 per cent in 2007). This leaves about 20 per cent for rural and urban

domestic use, of which Bengaluru records the highest demand. The city receives about 19 TMC

of Cauvery water. Recently, the Karnataka State Urban Development Department provisionally

raised supply by an additional 10 TMC to meet the needs of 110 villages added to the

metropolitan area in 2007. A formal proposal to raise the city's water supply to 30 TMC from the

Cauvery basin has been forwarded to the central government. Sourced from a distance of 100

km, up to a height of 540 m, the BWSSB spends nearly 60 per cent of its budget in pumping

water to the Bengaluru metropolitan region. With groundwater reserves overexploited and

polluted, and its other two ageing reservoirs the 120yearold Heseraghatta and 83yearold

Thippegondanahalli of Cauvery's Arkavathi tributary unreliable, Bengaluru is almost entirely

dependent on the disputed river. The large water losses, which ISEC has recorded for the last

five years at least, offset any efforts to augment water supply through various stages of Cauvery

river water supply projects. Thus, efforts to enhance per capita water availability to 150 litres per

capita per day (LPCD) to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) and Central Public Health

and Environmental Organisation (CPEEHO) standards remain unfulfilled. "After Stage IV Phase

II of the Cauvery Water Supply Scheme (CWSS) was commissioned recently, Bengaluru now

receives 1,350 MLD of water daily," said Raj. "For the city's population of 8.5 million (Census

2011), this quantity officially raises per capita water availability to 158.82 litres, which is more

than sufficient to meet the WHO and CPEEHO standards." If unaddressed, the situation is only

likely to worsen. In nine years, the city's demand (currently 1,575 MLD) is estimated to rise by

71 per cent, while the supply (currently 1,350 MLD) will rise only by a third, thereby tripling the

demandsupply gap, according to the ISEC study of water demand and availability. By 2031,

Bengaluru's water supply will reach its optimum level (2,070 MLD) and stay there while the

city's water demands rise further in the decades thereafter, widening the shortfall progressively,

showed BWSSB data. "Whenever the demand for water exceeds supply, urban water utilities

quickly design water supply strategies, giving little importance to demand control or

management. Failure of water supply authorities to incorporate demandside factors in their

policies leads to 'systemcollapse' or 'institutional failure'," the 2013 paper said. "As per the

Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award, Karnataka receives lesser water per sq km 1 TMC of

water is distributed over 134 sq km here, whereas in Tamil Nadu, it is supplied to 116 sq km,"

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Raj said. "Add to this, there is inefficiency and inequity in Bengaluru's supply which must be

addressed."

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