LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED

ASIAN AGE

BUSINESS LINE

BUSINESS STANDARD

DECCAN HERALD

ECONOMIC TIMES

HINDU

HINDUSTAN TIMES

INDIAN EXPRESS

PIONEER

STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

TRIBUNE

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CONTENTS

BLACK MONEY 3-5

CIVIL SERVICE 6-9

CULTURE 10-11

DISABLED PERSONS 12

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 13-15

EDUCATION 16

ENVIRONMENT 17-18

FINANCE 19-22

INSURANCE 23-24

INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIETIES 25-26

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 27-29

INTOLERANCE 30-33

JUDICIARY 34

LABOUR 35-36

LIBRARIES 37

PARLIAMENT 38-39

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 40-42

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 43-44

RURAL DEVELOPMENT 45

TAXATION 46-47

TERRORISM 48-53

TRANSPORT 54-55

WOMEN 56

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BLACK MONEY

TRIBUNE, DEC 2, 2015Arun KumarThe challenge of black economyIndia has been dragging its feet on banking secrecy

Being an amendment Bill, it has to be passed by a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

AT the G20 summit in Turkey, the PM talked about the need to address excessive banking secrecy and sought international cooperation for the return of illicit money to the country of origin. It is a plea for moderation and not ending of banking secrecy. Is this meaningful given that 90 tax havens exist which thrive on various degrees of banking secrecy and/or low tax rates? Further, many of them belong to advanced countries. Would the partial end of banking secrecy result in loopholes that would enable illicit funds to continue to flow? Is there a case for a complete transparency in banking?

Banks, especially those in tax havens, have often denied information about their clients on grounds of banking secrecy. This enables those who use illegal means to earn illicit incomes to escape detection by the authorities. Thus, secrecy in banking has encouraged the proliferation of illegality in the world — drug trafficking, illegal fishing, terrorist financing and so on. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has said looking for dirty money is like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are various electronic mechanisms to transfer money across nations like, SWIFT. Software devised from time to time to detect suspicious transactions has failed.

Trillions of dollars are moved daily in financial transactions in derivatives trade or stocks and bonds. Illegal money moving daily is not even 1 per cent of these amounts. Mechanisms are available to hide the trail of the flow of these funds, like ‘placement’ and ‘layering’. President Obama mentioned that from one house in a tax haven, thousands of companies operate. These are shell companies used to transfer money around the globe between various tax havens and finally to the destination where the money is parked. The PM has, therefore, rightly flagged the need to tackle the complex legal and regulatory frameworks in financial markets. 

Various banks have been caught helping individuals hide their dirty money or helping them evade taxes. There is also the case of Rudolf Elmer of Swiss Bank Julius Bar who stole bank data and passed it to Julian Assange. Elmer was arrested by the Swiss authorities and Assange did not make the list public.

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Stealing data from banks in secret jurisdictions has been an important source of getting information about entities that hold accounts there. This has been the case with the LGT Bank of Liechtenstein and HSBC in Switzerland. In the former case, Kleibe of LGT sold stolen data to the German government for 4 million euros in 2007. The Germans offered the names free of cost. While other governments took the lists and started prosecution, the Indian Government refused to take it. Later, under court pressure, it accepted the list and started investigation but the inordinate delay didn’t help. 

Hervé Falciani stole data from HSBC and offered it to the French government in 2008. Again, India refused to take this data till the court pressured it to do so. Initially, 627 names came. Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) was invoked to argue that secrecy prevented the lists from being made public. But this was an invalid argument.

In neither the LGT nor HSBC cases the DTAA is relevant since the data did not pertain to incomes in either of the two countries. LGT case was about accounts in Liechtenstein and not in Germany or India. HSBC case was about accounts in Switzerland and not in France or India. Further, it was not income in the countries concerned but assets held in a third country. Finally, it was about stolen data being offered by whistleblowers and not data that was obtained officially by Germany or France. Both the UPA and NDA governments stalled the revelation of names. The SIT was ordered by the Supreme Court in 2011 in the Jethmalani and others case but was not set up till May 2014. More than a year later, it is not clear what impact the SIT has had on the Indian black economy. 

Falciani kept mentioning that only 1 per cent of the names had been released but the government did not get further names. Journalists of the ICIJ revealed another list containing 500-odd names. The 1,150 names that India received from the two lists is just a teaser since lakhs of rich Indians hold funds abroad. As the Bank of Baroda case reveals, even Indian banks have been indulging in such practices. Clearly, the government has not been proactive in seeking names. On the contrary, the government has been seeking to dilute protection to whistleblowers by amending the relevant Bill in Parliament.

This is in contrast to the Birkenfeld UBS case in the US. Birkenfeld used to travel routinely between Switzerand and the US. He was tracked by the IRS of the US and information collected on his activities. He was found to be acting on behalf of UBS, enabling US citizens to defraud the income tax authorities. He was caught and both he and UBS were prosecuted in 2007. The Swiss government argued that action against UBS could lead to the collapse of the financial system of the world. They also characterised the demand of IRS for the revelation of 52,000

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names of US citizens holding accounts with UBS as a fishing expedition. The court rejected these arguments and threatened to order the US government to take over the bank. Immediately, UBS settled and agreed to pay $780 million fine and release names of 4,500 accounts. Thus, the US authorities succeeded because they were proactive. 

The Indian Government’s plea that DTAA and TIE will help in revealing names of those with accounts abroad does not hold water. The first DTAA was signed in 1990 but not one name has come under it till the stolen data came. It is also not expected because DTAA is about white incomes and not undeclared black incomes. Similarly, TIE can only be about declared incomes. 

Thus, while the PM’s statements on banking secrecy are welcome, they will carry little weight unless the government shows the will to tackle the problem in India head-on. It has been soft in tackling the black economy because of political considerations and essentially indulges in diverting public attention. No wonder the black economy has grown from 4-5 per cent of the GDP in 1955-56 to the present over 60 per cent. 

The HSBC case is an example of the government’s passivity. Evidence exists that HSBC indulged in havala operations in India but it has not been prosecuted. Instead it is now closing its operations in India. Other MNC and Indian banks also indulge in the same practice in the name of catering to their high net worth individuals. Recently, the strange case of SGFX Financials has surfaced. Its assets jumped in five months from 0.7 million pounds to 70 billion pounds. Pawar’s name has been dragged in but he has challenged it. 

There is need to end banking secrecy but India has not done so. UBS was found to be involved in the Hasan Ali case but it has escaped prosecution. Businesses can have secrecy about their business but not about incomes which is a public issue because of taxation. Similarly, banks should not be allowed secrecy about deposits and depositors. So, action is needed in India while expression of hope in G20 will yield little.

— The writer is a former professor of economics, JNU

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CIVIL SERVICE

HINDU, DEC 7, 015For Central staff, a shot at adventure

Union government employees can now go on paid trips for skiing in Gulmarg or abseiling in Manali, all on special casual leave.

To foster the spirit of risk-taking and team work, the Modi government has asked the 50-lakh Union government employees to participate in adventure sports.

The measure was aimed at tackling “the alarming situation of stress and impact of sedentary life” on them.

“It would create and foster a spirit of risk-taking, cooperative team work, capacity of readiness and vital response to challenging situations and endurance,” an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.

The department will sponsor programmes for five to seven days by various institutes.

An expense of up to Rs. 20,000 will be reimbursed, besides grant of special casual leave, the DoPT added. —PTI

BUSINESS LINE, DEC 2, 2015New facilities for NPS subscribers

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority has introduced new facilities for members of the National Pension System.

Now, subscribers will be able to transfer funds from their investment (Tier II) to pension (Tier I) accounts and points of presence will be able to process voluntary contributions made by any corporate subscriber. There is no limit on the amount and number of one way switches that can be requested by the subscriber.

“Recently, many new functionalities have been released by the Central Recordkeeping Agency (CRA) to provide the ease of operation for the benefit of subscribers and nodal offices,” said a Finance Ministry release on Tuesday.

Government employees who are members of the NPS will now also have the facility of opening investment accounts.

“The government sector nodal offices have now been provided with utility for activating the Tier II account and its operation for all Government employees,” it said.

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Further, government employees can now also approach their associated nodal office to make additional contributions over the mandatory limit in their pension accounts.

(This article was published on December 1, 2015)

BUSINESS STANDARD, DEC 2, 2015Subir Roy: End the pay commission businessSubir Roy 

Good the dog was there Anxiety in the hour of hope To save Delhi, first neglect it Where have all the nurses gone? Rummy affair, I tell you

A pay commission is appointed once in a decade and should look at the entire issue of output

expected of an employee and the compensation offered for it. As the role of the government

changes, so does this equation. The more market driven the economy becomes, the more its

government sector should function in its basics like the rest of the economy. The difference

between the public and private sectors in service delivery should not be in efficiency, but pricing

(subsidised delivery for the poor). Productivity in service delivery is often difficult to measure

and there is a lot of arbitrariness in the private sector as well (whimsical bosses). But there is no

question as to which way the system should move.

There being a tradition of selective implementation of recommendations, the latest exercise is

likely to take the country no nearer to the goal of having a more accountable government

workforce, where individual compensation varies according to performance. It is, therefore,

unsurprising that the quality of governance and delivery of public services is appalling and likely

to remain so. An accountable workforce under a well-designed management system can make

the same resources go a lot further.

Media comment on the recommendations till now has been fairly favourable, as the hike

proposed is not as large as the last one and will not undermine fiscal discipline. Therefore, the

best that can be said is that the short-term financial impact of the latest recommendations will not

be as harmful as the previous one. But that is about it.

Some commentators have said the impact is not much, not even one per cent of gross domestic

product (GDP). Now, one per cent of GDP is a lot of money, Rs 1.25 lakh crore for 2014-15 at

current prices. A better way of getting a measure of the staffing bill is to ask: How much of what

the government earns is spent on its own employees? Expenditure on pay, allowances and

pensions in 2012-13 accounted for 32 per cent of the central government’s revenue earnings.

There are competing claims to public funding. If you have a rupee more to spend, should it go to

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employees or should public spending on healthcare, which is appallingly low in India, go up?

Also, the full impact of a pay rise for central government employees will travel far beyond them.

Every state government will face pressure from their employees for similar hikes. Panchayat and

municipal employees will do likewise. There will also be demands from employees of public

sector enterprises for hikes so that they don’t feel worse off than earlier vis-à-vis government

employees.

In all this discussion, one section of government employees whose conditions figure very little is

temporary or contractual employees engaged in government operations.

In the overall government sector in 2013, out of 28.8 million employees, 57 per cent were

permanent/regular and 43 per cent temporary. In the central government, the share of permanent

regular civilian employees fell from 94 per cent in 2001 to 88 per cent in 2009. If the number and

proportion of temporary employees in government are burgeoning as work is getting increasingly

outsourced, then there should be a compensation commission for contractual employees.

If pay commissions cannot bring about systemic changes, then why have them? None other than

the chairman of the latest commission himself says you don’t need them. Adjusting salaries for

inflation is being done. That leaves us with two issues – government pay vis-a-vis private pay

and differentials between different sections of government employees. Determining the former is

a matter of perception and even value judgment. I will happily vote for good pay for fire fighters

or men in battle, but will look askance at clear non-performers at various levels. It sounds

reasonable, as has been suggested, that at senior levels government pay should be 60 per cent of

private sector pay. At the driver or clerk level, where productivity is more measurable, it should

certainly not be more, as is the case now.

On the latter, the differences between the treatment of different groups of officers (cadres),

which is the cause of much acrimony, frustration, demotivation and suboptimal use of talent,

makes no sense and is best resolved by abolishing cadres. If a thousand odd are recruited from

several hundred thousand, then they must belong to the top half percentile and there cannot be

much difference in intelligence quotient between those selected. Besides, the civil service exams

are not good at testing what really matters – ability to solve problems and give imaginative

leadership. Allotting marks instead of grades is unscientific. Even if the exams were rightly

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structured, it is absurd to give a section an advantage for a lifetime on the basis of performances

in one set of exams. Let all who make it be put in one group and over time progress at different

speeds depending on their abilities. The Indian Administrative Service, which has the ear of

decision-makers, will not allow this to happen. But the point still needs to be made.

CULTURE

STATESMAN, DEC 2, 2015Acceptance, assimilation defines Indian civilisation'

President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said that the Indian civilization has been known worldwide for its "ethos of acceptance and assimilation", urging people to preserve the "richness and diversity" of its culture.

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Inaugurating beach festival 'Festa De Diu' here, he said India is known world over for the richness and diversity of its culture and each part of India has a district cultural milieu which has evolved over centuries." 

Historically, Diu holds a special significance for the Parsi community as it was this part of India where they first landed.

Even today, the Agyari (Parsi fire temple)and Dakhma (Parsi funeray tower) bear testimony to the historical journey of the Parsi Community in India.

"This ethos of acceptance and assimilation has defined the Indian civilization and made it a melting pot of the world. We must nurture and preserve this spirit which has made our country a rich amalgam of rainbow emotions," Mukherjee said.

Various cultural programmes, including tribal 'Siddi Dhamal' dance, performance by renowned classical singer Shubha Mudgal, laser show and firework were the main attraction during the function.

The President, who is on his first visit to Diu, said the Union Territory holds immense possibilities to draw tourists from all parts of India and the world.

The journey of the people of Daman & Diu in the last five decades has seen progress and development.

It's advancement in the infrastructure and industrialization is noteworthy, he said.

"Being a small island territory which is blessed with such enrapturing beauty, tourism has to be a key driver of the economy and a source of livelihood. I am happy to note the concrete measures taken by the administration to give a boost the tourism," he said."The enhanced air connectivity with Air India commencing operations will give a major boost to tourism opportunities in the territory. I feel that Diu can become the tourism gateway for southern Gujarat and Diu-Somnath-Gir are a natural tourism circuit.

"Better connectivity and collaboration with Gujarat tourism will provide a greater fillip to the immense opportunities in this sector," Mukherjee said.

Nearly 17 lakh tourists had visited Diu and the figure for this year is likely to go up to 25 lakh.

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DISABLED PERSONS

DECCAN HERALD, DEC 7, 2015Disabled are all, treat them equals

Another International Day of Persons with Disabilities has passed with the holding of many official and other functions to highlight the need to give equal treatment and opportunities for differently abled persons. There has also been a reiteration of promises and pledges and reviews of past records of action. The day is commemorated under the auspices of the UN since 1992 to increase public awareness of issues relating to full inclusion of people with disabilities in society.

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The sub-themes of this year’s day were making cities inclusive for all, improving disability data and discovery of and attention to invisible disabilities. It is true that there is better awareness of the rights of differently abled persons in recent years but entrenched attitudes of discrimination continue to be strong. There may be about a billion people the world over who may be suffering from some form of disability or the other. India has over 2 per cent of the population suffering from disabilities. This is, however, considered to be an underestimate. The percentage of disabled persons increased during the last census period.

India launched an Accessible India programme on the day this year which aims to make a large number of government buildings, railway stations and airports accessible to persons with disabilities by next year. It is proposed to increase the number of such buildings every year. Urban design and building architecture are mandated to be inclusive for disabled persons in many parts of the world. But in India they are neglected. Entering a building or crossing a road is very difficult for disabled persons. The provisions of the Disabilities Act are often violated with impunity. There are many schemes for the welfare of persons with disabilities. But these are not implemented sincerely and effectively. The reservation norms for education and employment are not always adhered to.Lack of empathy, ridicule and even cruelty are often found in the attitudes to and treatment of 

disabled persons. It is necessary to first remove the notion that disabled persons are less equal and then root out the discriminatory attitudes and practices against them. Increased awareness and sensitisation are needed for this. Most people are disabled in 

some way, and only the degrees of disability differ. All those who are considered to be disabled are talented and accomplished in many ways. They should be given the opportunities to develop these talents and live their lives and contribute to society as equal citizens. Denial of adequate facilities for them amounts to violation of basic human and constitutional rights. 

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

BUSINESS STANDARD, DEC 1, 2015Martin Feldstein: China's latest five-year planSo the five-year plan is no longer a detailed blueprint for industrial expansion; rather, it provides a picture of what the Chinese leadership hopes will be achieved under the government's general guidanceMartin Feldstein 

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Chile's uncertain future Chinese economy and Fed policy Will Americans become poorer? US middle-class incomes stagnating? What is full employment?

I was in Beijing last month when the Chinese government released a preliminary summary of its

13th Five-Year Plan. This is an important document for understanding where China is headed in

the 2016-2020 period. And yet, China's five-year plans just aren't what they used to be.

The Chinese economy is no longer the state-owned and managed system that it was when I first

visited more than 30 years ago. In those days, there was no private enterprise, and it was illegal

for anyone but the government or a state-owned enterprise (SOE) to hire an employee. Today,

only 20 per cent of employees in China work for SOEs. The rest of the economy is dynamic,

decentralised, and privately owned. American multinational companies and other foreign firms

are an important part of the economic scene.

So the five-year plan is no longer a detailed blueprint for industrial expansion; rather, it provides

a picture of what the Chinese leadership hopes will be achieved under the government's general

guidance. The aim is to improve the overall standard of living - achieving moderately strong

growth, raising the share of consumption in gross domestic product (GDP), and improving air

and water quality - through a combination of Western-style monetary and fiscal policies, state-

financed infrastructure development, and changes in environmental and other regulations.

One of the key goals was set back in 2010: Doubling real GDP and real personal incomes by

2020. The government now officially estimates that achieving this target will require average

annual GDP growth of 6.5 per cent over the next five years. Given that China is still a relatively

poor country, with per capita GDP only about 25 per cent of the level in the United States,

maintaining such a rapid pace of growth certainly is not impossible.

But, many observers are skeptical about China's official GDP data and dubious of its ability to

sustain 6.5 per cent growth. That skepticism reflects recent news indicating weak output in parts

of the Chinese economy - for example, headlines about reduced industrial production, declines in

manufacturing exports, and shutdowns in particular industries.

Although I cannot claim to be an expert on Chinese economic statistics, I think these headlines

are a natural, but misleading, consequence of the authorities' intentional effort to shift China's

economic structure away from industrial expansion and exports towards greater reliance on

services and household consumption. Chinese economic experts say the output of the service

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sector is growing fast enough to offset growth in industrial output of five per cent or even less,

thereby achieving the current overall growth rate of about seven per cent.

But, even if annual growth really is now at about seven per cent, achieving a 6.5 per cent rate for

the next five years will be a challenge, for at least four reasons.

For starters, China's shift from heavy industry to services implies less output per worker and less

control by the central government. At the same time, the environmental policies that are urgently

needed to improve air and water quality absorb resources and impede growth. And President Xi

Jinping's crackdown on corruption has had the side effect of delaying decision-making and

inhibiting new projects.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the population of working-age individuals is no longer

growing, a result of the 35-year-long policy of restricting most families to one child. Although

the government recently replaced the one-child limit with a two-child limit, it will be nearly two

decades before that change can increase the size of the working population. Until then,

increasing the growth rate of the effective labour force requires shifting workers from low-

productivity employment in agriculture to the urban labour force.

The Chinese government is, therefore, considering several policies to increase the pace of

urbanisation, including the creation of several new large cities to accommodate some of the 600

million individuals who still live in rural China. Similarly, the government will phase out the

hukou system of residency permits that now prevents migrants to cities from obtaining full

healthcare and education benefits.

A third policy aimed at promoting urbanisation will be to allow Chinese farmers to sell their land

rights at realistic market prices, thereby increasing their incentive to cash out and move. And the

introduction of a Western-style rental market will allow families without substantial cash or

parental support to move to cities (where families currently must purchase their apartments).

Not all of these policies have to succeed in order to keep the urban labour force expanding in the

next five years. If enough of them succeed, 6.5 per cent growth over the next few years might not

be out of reach.

China also has a variety of short-run problems. There is excess capacity in some heavy industries

and in residential real estate markets in some second and third-tier cities. Local governments

have significant debts that were incurred at the request of the central government in 2007 and

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2008 in order to avoid an economic downturn. And there is a large volume of bad loans in some

state-owned banks and in the shadow banking system.

Fortunately, the authorities recognise these problems and have strategies and the resources to

deal with them. China's economy will not grow as strongly over the next five years as it did in

past decades. But, if the goals set out in the 13th Five-Year Plan are realised, the Chinese people

can look forward to a period of rising consumer spending and improving standard of living.

Martin Feldstein, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and President Emeritus of the

National Bureau of Economic Research, chaired President Ronald Reagan's Council of

Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984

EDUCATION

BUSINESS STANDARD, DEC 3, 2015J&K Cabinet approves Cluster Universities Bill, creation of

J-K CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed meets Vasundhara Raje Mufti Mohammad Sayeed invites filmmakers to shoot in J&K Sayeed for dewatering of water-logged areas in Kashmir Connectivity top priority of J-K government: Sayeed Drug abuse: Sayeed seeks support from all sections

In a bid to give fiscal autonomy to universities and make them self-reliant, the State Cabinet

today approved introduction of Kashmir and Jammu Cluster Universities Bill 2015 and proposal

for creation of 124 posts of different categories for the varsities. 

The Bill proposes to establish two cluster universities in the state, one each at Jammu and

Srinagar, under centrally sponsored scheme Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) for

addressing the critical gaps in distribution of higher educational institutions across the state. 

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Taking to reporters here, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed   said the Bill "will provide

freedom to the universities to generate their own resources so that these are professionally run." 

The Cluster Universities will provide opportunity to a large number of students to pursue various

post graduate, under graduate and diploma courses in different streams and subjects through

regular mode, he said. 

In another significant decision aimed at granting financial autonomy to the state's Universities

and ensure efficient utilisation of resources, the State Cabinet accorded approval to the grant of

block grant to the Universities which will fund salary, pension, pensionery benefits of the

sanctioned faculty and administrative staff. 

Along with this, there will be a provision for a maximum increase of up to 10 per cent every

year. 

The Universities will be free to decide how to spend the allocated money based on its own

internal allocation mechanism and according to what it intends to achieve.ENVIRONMENT

DECCAN HERALD, DEC 7, 2015Creating a legal frameworkYamuna Vijayagopal

The Paris Summit pursues an ambitious agenda to manage climate change by attempting to create a legal framework which binds the 196 member states and make them accountable for their carbon emissions. Clearly, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that has held 20 conferences and protocols has failed to make countries adopt innovative measures to curb carbon emissions.

The UNFCCC which was signed in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, acknowledged the social, political and economic ramifications of climate change on planet earth. The 18th Conference of Parties (COP) held at Doha in December 2012 fixed a three year deadline which is 2015 for a universal climate change treaty. Today, the US has evolved a proactive policy towards climate change following the Democrats’ assumption of power under President Barack Obama.

This has helped bridge the gap between Western industrial nations and the Afro-Asian Latin American countries. Fortunately, China, which has displaced the US as the world’s highest polluter, is now more inclined to cooperate with the developed countries owing to multiple instances of climate induced environmental disasters.

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Today, all member states have an obligation to preserve planet earth and each nation does so in tune with their resources. The Paris Summit therefore aims to bring all these member states on the same page through climate finance and technology transfer for which the UNFCCC has created an annual $100 billion corpus. The 2015 Summit therefore aims to transcend the existing commitments to combat climate change.

One of the main challenges at present is that if the existing carbon trading system is removed, it would destroy all the progress which has been made so far. The conference will only be effective if it is able to reduce the earth’s temperature from 2 degrees to 1.5 degrees since emissions have grown over the last 20 years.

The Paris Summit proposes to implement a policy of “intended nationally determined targets” over carbon emissions in lieu of mandatory targets for member countries. The argument is that it would be easier for developing countries to adapt to a new growth path other than the one followed by developed countries in the past since their economy has not been ‘locked-in’ into a traditional industrial economy.

It can be less energy intensive, less polluting and more resource-efficient. The new policy is voluntary in nature, but ambiguous in terms of quantitative output and therefore lacks an element of compliance. Moreover, the new policy demands participation from developing countries to manage carbon outputs and therefore constrains their economic activity. In this scenario, the developing countries would have to put a cap on their carbon emissions.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol evolved a practical solution to the problem of climate change through creation of mechanisms for carbon trading. This exercise was taken forward in 2009 at the Copenhagen Conference to promote the Protocol mechanisms which formally launched the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).  

The CDM is a carbon trading mechanism articulated under Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol wherein the developed countries with binding carbon targets evolved a mechanism to meet their commitments through purchase of carbon credits from developing countries.  In a sense, it was a well thought out free market-oriented mechanism to counter carbon emissions. The CDM enabled western industrial democracies to collaborate, fund and increase industrial production and successfully manage their carbon footprint and therefore remains relevant for effective environment management. 

The dominant view among climate policy makers namely scientists, bureaucrats, environmentalists, activists, lawyers and political leaders today is that carbon taxes are a viable alternative to the carbon trading mechanism. If implemented, taxes will replace CDM. If a tax is imposed on every extra unit of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, the rate of tax would be calculated based on the marginal external social cost caused by the last unit of pollution at the optimum allocation of resources.  

Social costs

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But for this, the social costs must be measured exactly and the resource allocation of diverse industrial units must be calculated perfectly. These decisions are difficult for governments to make and are best left to a carbon trading system. It would be more efficient to supplement carbon taxes with a carbon trading mechanism.

The Paris Summit may witness the rejection of the CDM in favour of direct climate finance in the form of climate funds. As a result, all the earlier efforts invested by the 200 member-states in terms of negotiations, expenditure and expertise gained in carbon output management is lost in the process.

Financing climate change costs is a long and taxing endeavour which will face a serious financial crunch in the future if it relies solely on climate funds. The CDM could be used to supplement climate funds since the carbon trading mechanism has great utilitarian value after being in force for over a decade.

As far as technology transfer is concerned, CDM is the most viable mechanism. Vertical technology transfer bet-ween developed and developing coun-tries, over the past 20 years is negligible. It points to the deep mistrust of the former and is bound to be continued in the climate finance oriented system as well.

The Paris Summit must strive to implement certain measures to incorporate climatic justice principles. This should be applicable not only at the national level but also across international bord-ers. It must be understood in the context of the unequal positions of various countries and the vulnerable population which live within them. If the Summit is successful in doing so, it will achieve what it had been trying for the past 20 years.

FINANCE

ASIAN AGE, DEC 3, 2015AAP tables 4th finance panel report

Under pressure from the Opposition, the Delhi government on Wednesday finally tabled the report of the Fourth Finance Commission in the Assembly. However, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said that the AAP government will implement the recommendations of the report only if the Centre too implements them.

The report suggests measures to improve the financial health of the civic bodies and recommends the Delhi government should distribute the funds collected from various tax levies among these bodies.The Opposition has been consistently demanding that the AAP government table the report and the three BJP legislators had not only met lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung in this regard, but had also taken the matter to court.

Due to mounting pressure, the deputy chief minister tabled the report in the House. The commission has given various recommendations to the Centre, the Delhi government and the

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civic bodies in the report. While tabling the report in the Delhi Assembly, Mr Sisodia said that until the Centre implements the recommendations it will impossible for the AAP government to implement them. He also urged the civic bodies to implement the said recommendations.

The recommendations for the Delhi government in the report include that 12.5 per cent of the collection from taxes and fees after the fiscal year 2012-13 should be kept for the dividable pool.

The Fourth Finance Commission report excludes the collection from the motor vehicles tax and from the entertainment and betting taxes to decide the percentage of share for the civic bodies. It also recommends that the formula for the fiscal division between the civic bodies should be changed to 70/30.For the distribution of funds from the divisible pool, the Fourth Finance Commission report has suggested that 50 per cent of the funds should be transferred to the MCDs according to the population and land area covered under each one and the rest according to the financial position of the body and its ability to provide four basic facilities to the people. It also suggested that the funds transfer to the northern and eastern Delhi areas should be more than the central MCD and South MCD.

BUSINESS STANDARD, DEC 2, 2015Sinha spells out four pillars of Budget '16'Cannot say in an unalloyed way that the economy is moving', cautions MoS Finance

Government confident of meeting fiscal targets Centre: OROP, pay panel won't hit fiscal math Govt hopeful of GST Bill passage: Jayant Sinha Seventh pay panel's term extended till December Subramanian panel to submit GST report by December 5

As the finance ministry   begins drafting the 2016-17 Union Budget   - to be presented in a mere 12

weeks - Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha told Business Standard on Tuesday that "three

or four themes" would guide the finance ministry through the lengthy and complex process.

The first, and major theme, he said, would be the expansion of universal social security, which

he hoped would be a historic accomplishment for the National Democratic Alliance government.

The roll-out of universal social security would be based on the direct benefits transfer platform,

which he said was already working effectively in the employment guarantee programme, for the

liquefied petroleum gas subsidy and for pensions and scholarships.

The second theme in the Budget would be agriculture, "an area where we can do much more".

The minister singled out crop health cards, agricultural credit, funding for state-led irrigation

schemes among others.

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The third theme, Sinha said, would be job creation and the various associated programmes -

'Make in India', 'Skill India', 'Start-up India', and so on. The Union government's much-

anticipated draft start-up policy, he indicated, would be finalised soon but probably not made

public till the end of the year or in the New Year.

The Budget's final theme would be "simplifying the tax structure… Let us see if the committee

we have formed has some suggestions by then that we can put in the Finance Bill".

The Budget drafting process would take place in the context of a recovery in economic growth

that Sinha cautioned was "patchy" - there were as yet "not enough data points" to determine if it

was broad-based and could be sustained. "The [recently-released] GDP numbers are good but I

want to see a real trend before we can say that the economy is really and seriously on an

upswing."

"You cannot say in an unalloyed way that the economy is moving", he added, adding that the

government was facing some significant headwinds: successive below-par monsoons, a

commodity meltdown that had hit sectors such as steel and metals, poor export demand and the

overhang of stressed assets. Given the headwinds, he said 7.4 per cent growth was "creditable".

He argued that "every time the Indian economy has done over eight per cent... it has been when

exports are strong". When both agriculture and exports were struggling, "to really power beyond

7.5 per cent is a tall task".

Nevertheless, he pointed to the government having turned around India's macro-economic

indicators, including the fiscal deficit, in just over a year as an important component towards

making a recovery possible. He added that there were several signs, including an increase in the

number of hotel rooms booked for business travel, that domestic demand had begun to revive

around Diwali. When asked if the government would meet its disinvestment targets - set at an

ambitious Rs 69,500 crore for the ongoing fiscal year - Sinha said simply that "fiscal deficit

targets would be met".

While granting that the quarterly growth numbers were partly driven by front-loaded government

spending, he insisted that high public investment could be sustained into the new fiscal year, in

spite of the Seventh Pay Commission   award and other fiscal stresses: "We have modelled the

extra expenditure burden for next year. We can continue to make public investments that are

necessary."

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On the prospects for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Constitution amendment Bill in this

session of Parliament, the minister said that the government had earlier managed to build

consensus - except for the Congress - in the Select Committee of Parliament, and was "in

consultation with colleagues of the Opposition" in order to rebuild that consensus.

Sinha did indicate that the government viewed the GST   as just one in a bouquet of broad

structural reforms that it intended to undertake, which would create both hard and soft

infrastructure, with the "right balance between regulation and market forces".

The finance ministry's legislative agenda for the winter session of Parliament extended beyond

the GST, he said. The number two priority was the new bankruptcy bill. "Number three on our

agenda is the legislative action required to form the Public Debt Management Agency and the

Monetary Policy Committee. Apart from that we are working on arbitration and conciliation

laws."

Discussing reform of state-controlled banks, Sinha said that each leadership position would be

dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and that they were still open to private sector candidates - if

the pipeline of executive directors within the public-sector banking system was not strong

enough.

The bank board bureau to advise public-sector banks was a first step towards a holding company,

but there were "several moving parts" to handle before a second step was taken, he indicated. It

would require legislative approval, and some banks might need to be changed into corporations,

which they at present were not.

Meanwhile, he stressed the government would continue to look at the non-performing asset

situation, which he said was under control in absolute terms and would be settled through

transparent processes.

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INSURANCE

PIONEER, DEC 1, 2015WORK-FREE WEEKENDS FOR LIC STAFF LIKELY, DECISION IN A MONTH

Now, the employees of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC)  the largest life insurer in the country have reasons to cheer as the Finance Ministry is mulling work-free weekends for them soon. The decision in this regard is expected to come in a month or so.

“In order to encourage and motivate the LIC employees for better and productive output in week days, the Government is planning to offer the work-free weekends to its staff shortly. We have received the draft from its employees’ representation, seeking five days working days a week for an approval. We hope the ministry will approve the draft soon and will send it to the law ministry for its further suggestion. The department of financial services of the ministry is looking into it and the final approval will come soon after a review meeting in this regard,” said source in the Finance Ministry on Sunday.

Once the new wage package for LIC employees is implemented, apart from the only existing holiday, ie Sunday, LIC offices across the country will remain closed on all Saturdays too as the LIC Wage Bill has been debating this issue for the benefit of LIC employees.

“Earlier, the corporation had to toil hard for six days a week, but now they need to work for only five days. We expect that the decision on this matter along with the new wage pact for LIC employees will be implemented in a month’s time,” the sources said.

Confirming the development, a senior LIC official said, “We have already sent draft of the revised wage pact to the Finance Ministry for its approval in which the five-days-a-week issue has been mentioned.”

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When contacted to All India LIC Employees Federation General Secretary AV Nachane on the issue, he said, “Unlike our peers such as bank employees and others, the LIC employees can now keep office work at bay and relax for two days in a week after five days’ hard work. It will boost their family ties and extend their support to them in many domestic issues as well.”

When asked about the LIC Wage Bill, Nachane said, “The unions and the management also agreed on a 15 per cent hike of wage. The wage package includes several innovations in LIC like PLLI (which will now be linked to revised basic current salary), meal coupon, mediclaim family floater scheme with annual risk cover of Rs20 lakh among others.”

In fact, the LIC management and the unions representing around 1 lakh employees of the insurance behemoth have agreed on a 15 per cent wage hike, which will be effective from August, 2012.

The new wage package, however, does not cap an increase in the basic salary unlike in the case of bank employees, who also sealed a wage hike package in May with a similar hike, while bank employees can have their basic pay revised upwards only to the tune of 2 per cent per annum.

The LIC management has been in discussions with the unions from September 2015, holding over 15 rounds of meetings before arriving at the final agreement. The new pact offers a 15 per cent hike in salary, which includes a 13.5 per cent increase in the basic pay and a 1.5 per cent raise in allowances like HRA, CCA (city compensation allowance) and daily commuting allowance.

“What is remarkable about the new wage pact is that there is no cap on annual increase in the basic pay at any stage unlike the bank employees who have a 2 per cent cap on the increase in basic pay at all pay scales,” Nachane said, adding that as a result, there is a steep rise in the basic pay that makes all the difference.

“The deal is likely to get the Finance Ministry’s nod shortly and I expect the new wages will be applicable from August 2012,” he added.

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INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIETIES

DECCAN HERALD, DEC 1, 2015ICHR stops financial aid to History CongresssAction after its criticism of PM's remarks on plastic surgery

Stoking a fresh controversy, the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) has stripped the Indian History Congress of its entitlement of Rs 5 lakh financial assistance granted every year for organising its annual session.

To give effect to its decision, the council recently amended the funding rules and withdrew the special status that the Indian History Congress enjoyed since the day of the ICHR’s established in 1972.

With this, the ICHR brought the country’s oldest body of the professional historians on a par with those set up at the regional level for all purpose including grant of funds. 

The Indian History Congress was set up in 1935 by a group of eminent historians including Mohammad Habib, R P Tripathi and Maheshwari Prasad during British rule. 

The action comes almost a year after the 80-year old historians body criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks on plastic surgery in ancient India and passed a resolution at its annual session here in Delhi, cautioning against “combining myth and history”.

The Indian History Congress is scheduled to hold its annual session from December 27- December 29 in West Bengal.

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The office-bearers of the historians’ body are wondering how to arrange funds to meet the expenditure as the ICHR was learnt to have sanctioned less than Rs 4 lakh grant for the upcoming event, according to sources. 

“Withdrawal of the special status through amendment to the rules effectively means that it is no more binding on the ICHR to release a maximum Rs 5 lakh grant to us for organising our annual session,” Aligarh Muslim University’s professor and secretary of the Indian History Congress Ishrat Alam told Deccan Herald.

The allocation of grant to the History Congress for organising its annual event will depend on the discretion of the ICHR, he added. The Indian History Congress had received Rs 5 lakh for organising its annual event last year.

“I don’t know how we will manage our expenditure this year. Let’s see. Our application for this years’ grant is under consideration of the ICHR,” Alam said. Y Sudershan Rao, who recently tendered his resignation from the post of the ICHR chairperson, refused to comment on the issue over phone and suggested to send an e-mail when contacted.

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

TELEGRAPH, DEC 2, 2015

Durable formula- Narendra Modi is not in complete control of India's foreign policy

DiplomacyK.P. Nayar

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi opted to engage Nawaz Sharif, his opposite number from Pakistan, on the margins of the climate summit in Paris, two things became obvious. First, the positive: it is not in Modi's nature to give up on something beneficial that he has started and is keen to take forward. Second, the negative: Modi, worryingly, is not in complete control of his foreign and security policies.

Modi had made up his mind before leaving home for Paris that he would meet Sharif this week. But he kept his counsel almost entirely to himself, according to the sequence of events pieced together from the dramatis personae at Le Bourget, the venue of the climate summit. Monday's animated - only on Modi's part - engagement with Sharif was not a chance meeting.

The Pakistanis were discreetly sounded out some 10 days ago. Once the two prime ministers landed in Paris, word was sent by the Indians to the Pakistani side that Modi wanted to break the ice. Sharif's aides responded that their prime minister would be happy to meet and exchange courtesies. The sit-down on the sofa at Le Bourget was, therefore, a slight variation of the famous "drop-ins" by American presidents in the Eisenhower Executive Office building near the White House when lesser mortals have meetings there.

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Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and a host of other Indians lower than heads of state or government have negotiated critical business directly with successive presidents of the United States of America through this route when formal meetings between such men at different levels of protocol lacking in parity cannot be scheduled for diplomatic reasons.

So such visitors from India - and other countries - go to the Executive Office building to meet, for example, the US national security adviser. There, while such a scheduled meeting is in full swing, the president drops in by prior arrangement but without it being announced on the head of state's schedule for the day. Hence the term: drop-in.

It is known only to a limited circle even within the government that Modi wanted a similar encounter with Sharif when both leaders were in New York in September for the United Nations general assembly session. Sharif did not respond then because of several reasons. The most important of these - from Islamabad's point of view - was that both the powerful Sharifs from Pakistan - the prime minister as well as general Raheel Sharif, the chief of army staff - were at that time scheduled to visit Washington in a few weeks.

Pakistan's civilian and military leadership were united in the view that a stalematedstatus quo with India would be to their country's advantage while these two high-level visits to Washington were on even as the Obama administration was putting pressure on both New Delhi and Islamabad to resume their bilateral talks. In order to appear not to be intransigent in American eyes, Sharif's team in New York agreed towards the end of Modi's US visit that Pakistan's prime minister was willing to meet the external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, in the Big Apple. But in the end, such a meeting did not take place because of scheduling problems.

So why did Sharif have a change of mind between September and now? How did a meeting with Modi, which was unacceptable for the Pakistani establishment in New York, become acceptable in Paris? The answer can be easily found in the outcomes of Sharif's visit to Washington from October 20 to 23 followed by the chief of army staff's talks with the US leadership a few weeks later. To be more specific, there are enough clues to this in the joint statement by Sharif and the US president, Barack Obama, on October 22.

Sharif ended his Washington visit with a windfall, which was triggered by making a convincing case with Obama and his aides that Pakistan had no option but to pull down the shutters on India since there was no prospect of any reasonable bilateral dialogue as long as Modi is in power in New Delhi. Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Rajya Sabha member, was recently pilloried for reflecting this view, which he obviously gathered from Pakistanis in the loop of decision-making.

Sharif subsequently went to Malta for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting last week and made out a similarly convincing case against Modi with the British prime minister, David Cameron. His statement on Friday that Pakistan was ready to have unconditional talks with India was part of putting on a pretence of reasonableness. Just as it was with Obama, the act has been convincing with Cameron too, according to those who have a sense of which way

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the winds were blowing in Valletta.

At any rate, Cameron had already discussed the India-Pakistan situation in great detail with Modi during the latter's stay at Chequers, the country residence of the British prime minister a few weeks ago. The Americans and the British almost always act in concert on South Asian issues and in their efforts to have India and Pakistan in continuous dialogue.

Modi decided after taking stock of his Pakistani counterpart's visit to Washington and in the light of his own talks with Cameron that he needed to redouble the efforts to get Sharif back on the path of dialogue. Sharif has been consistently rejecting Indian overtures since the disastrous aftermath of his meeting with Modi in Ufa. Monday's encounter in Paris must be viewed against this backdrop.

Modi has privately shared with more than one Indian outside the government who enjoys the prime minister's trust that Obama's recent endorsement of Islamabad's efforts to build the Diamer-Bhasha and Dasu dams in occupied Kashmir constitutes a fundamental setback for India. The prime minister privately blames his very senior aides for taking their eyes off the ball after Beijing included these projects in the much-touted China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, according to those outside the government that he has talked to.

For Modi, this situation is especially galling since the Manmohan Singh government had successfully prevented funding from the Asian Development Bank for one of the dams in occupied Kashmir on the ground that it is disputed territory. Now, to Modi's chagrin, his first- name friend 'Barack' has let him down. Sino-US support for projects in occupied Kashmir is Islamabad's biggest diplomatic victory against India in recent memory.

The Obama-Sharif joint statement of October 22, in a pointed reference to Kashmir, said: "The leaders emphasised the importance of a sustained and resilient dialogue process between the two neighbours aimed at resolving all outstanding territorial and other disputes, including Kashmir...." This, too, has put Modi in a spot after his senior aides spun the media into writing that Kashmir was not discussed at his Ufa meeting with Sharif.

Worse, the joint statement envisioned Modi and Sharif "working together to address mutual concerns of India and Pakistan regarding terrorism." This was tantamount to the US accepting Pakistan's allegations that India is involved in promoting terrorist acts within Pakistan. Until now, for well over a decade, only New Delhi's complaints against the army general headquarters in Rawalpindi on cross-border terrorism had found traction in successive US administrations.

Modi decided to reach out to Sharif in Paris because he believes that further diplomatic successes by Pakistan in other capitals - which affect Indian interests in Kashmir - can only be prevented if the international community takes note that the two countries are engaged in a dialogue. This is what every Indian prime minister since P.V. Narasimha Rao has done. Modi changed the rules for engaging Pakistan last year. The meeting in Le Bourget marks a return to the old, time-tested rules of this diplomatic game. Sharif decided to reciprocate because having got what he sought from China and the US for now, he wants to be seen as reasonable and

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accommodative of India.

So far, on national security issues, Modi has been forced repeatedly to veer away from his stated objectives and vision articulated during the Lok Sabha election campaign and during his initial months as prime minister. This is true of not only Pakistan - where Modi reached out to Sharif even before being formally sworn into office - but also of Indian policy on China, Nepal, Myanmar, even on tiny Maldives. For at least a year, the norm in his government has been that Modi proposes foreign policy, but others in his close circle dispose of it to their liking and deep prejudices. If his outreach to Sharif in Paris produces results, Modi can regain control of his own foreign policy.

INTOLERANCE

STATESMAN, DEC 1, 2015Intolerance over intoleranceLungsanliu Asanna Gonmei/ thestatesman.com

What is the noise all about? It seems to be getting louder and unbearable. Is that intolerance — intolerance of the high decibel over “intolerance”. So, intolerance is on the rise, says everyone. But, why the intolerance and why talk about it when tolerance is what matters?

The intolerance over intolerance only got louder and it reverberated in the lower house of democracy — the Lok Sabha, and brought the house down on Monday. As expected, the good move (If it may be said) to discuss and debate the issue just turned bad and ugly. Complete chaos, logjam and repeated adjournments marked the session in the house, as the opposition went all out to attack the government, with all due intolerance.

Initiating the debate on the issue in the house, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Mohd Salim attributed a controversial comment to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who denied it. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) naturally could not tolerate it. And, the intolerance triggered a storm over intolerance, leading to a logjam. The house was adjourned four times.

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The CPI-M and the Congress also alleged that intolerance increased since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government came to power. Unable to tolerate the remark, the BJP hit back, saying that incidents, which were being projected by the opposition as examples of 'intolerance', had been taking place in the country for decades. And, the blame-game continued.Political blame-game, however, is just a thing of politics if one may say. It comes easy, because it works like a magic wand to survive in politics. So, most politicians and parties are heavily armed with it. And, this time too, the ball of intolerance is ping-ponged back and forth between the ruling and the opposition. Rumblings outside the ring may be heard, but political parties have taken it seriously and now they have made it their wont.

Of course, they feel the pain or did they not? A Samajwadi Party (SP) leader did say that “intolerance” is hurting the nation. "The more the matter of intolerance is being debated, the more it is hurting (the nation). India is the most intolerant nation in the world. Blowing certain issues out of proportion is not right," SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav said.

Many spoke and much was said, and more will be heard. Hopefully, all parties will come around and the nation may hear one voice over intolerance or tolerance would persist. But…The days are getting colder and darker. December is here and winter is set to stay. Where will the wind blow this winter session? Will the voice of intolerance sweep through the winter session and blow up the house to nothing? Or, is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

HINDU, DEC 4, 2015Intolerance fuels radicalisationNARAYAN LAKSHMANHateful vitriol was spewed upon actor Aamir Khan recently, for expressing concern over the rising anti-minority attitude.

Unless there is a concerted effort to neutralise the impunity of extremist elements that regularly engage in anti-Muslim violence, there may be little to halt the drift of a few members of a moderate community into the arms of IS radicals.

India is awash with Islamophobia and there could not be a more dangerous time for this pernicious slant in our national politics.

Hateful vitriol was spewed upon actor Aamir Khan recently, for expressing concern over the rising anti-minority attitude, just as black ink was literally spilled on the Observer Research Foundation’s Sudheendra Kulkarni last month for organising a book release event for a former Pakistani foreign Minister.

Even more violent and disquieting were September’s mob lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, over rumours that he had stored beef in his home, and August’s murder of

30

notable rationalist M.M. Kalburgi, who was shot dead after being threatened for his criticism of idolatry in Hinduism.

There will no doubt be more such displays of bigotry in the months ahead, as fringe elements of the Hindutva brigade, emboldened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s description of the Dadri lynching as “unfortunate” and “undesirable”, go on the rampage to correct what they perceive to be injuries to the sentiments of the majority.

The most compelling reasons for Mr. Modi to decisively stymie this rising tide of hatred are quite obvious: respect for India’s constitutionally protected secular credentials, and the maintenance of broader societal peace and harmony between communities.

Yet there is a third feature of the Indian political firmament that makes it urgent, nay imperative, that the country’s leadership effectively tamp down on the flames of extremism — the alarming proliferation of support for Islamic State (IS), the jihadist terror outfit that controls parts of Syria and Iraq.

The discovery of these IS-sympathisers has had a creeping quality, starting late last year with a handful of youth travelling to West Asia from Kalyan, near Mumbai, but more recently has been gathering momentum with a much larger cohort being pulled into the net by intelligence operations.

The fact that this trend has been coterminous with the surge in anti-minority violence ought to be a red flag for the Modi government, for there is a risk that the two developments may begin to feed off one another, leading to a perfect storm linking an ongoing foreign policy crisis to a community under siege on Indian soil.

Consider the speed and pattern of IS proliferation on Indian soil over the past year.

Back in January The Hindu received a response on a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Department of Defence asking what information it had on Indian nationals discovered to be fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq.

Their answer was simple: none. Clearly the few Indians that had made it into the ranks of IS at that point were either relegated to menial tasks or used as cannon fodder on the frontlines as they have generally been considered “inferior” fighters.

Yet, as outlined in a series of reports in The Hindu (“The IS Files”), the last past year has witnessed a slew of intelligence operations that have flushed out a number of potential IS recruits, and they hail from across the breadth of India.

For example, Haja Fakkrudeen and Gul Mohamed Maracachi Maraicar both grew up in Cuddalore district in Tamil Nadu, and while Maraicar is now lodged in an Indian prison,

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Fakkrudeen, who may have been radicalised by Maraicar, is likely to be fighting alongside IS in Syria.

The case of Muhammed Abdul Ahad, a U.S.-educated computer professional from Bengaluru, reflects the diversity of backgrounds from which IS has managed to woo supporters in India. Ahad was intercepted by Turkish authorities last year on the Syrian border and deported earlier this year after authorities suspected him of seeking to enter the Syrian battlefield.

At the opposite end of the nation, in the Kashmir Valley, Kamil Wada spoke to The Hindu about how his older brother Adil had travelled to Syria, with authorities noting that he may have got radicalised by an Australian Islamic group after a visit to that country.

As Indian intelligence agencies continue to grapple with the “foreign fighter” question, an issue that has long been front and centre for the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, it behoves the government of Mr. Modi to more effectively address societal forces that make the isolation, demonisation and ultimate radicalisation of minority communities more likely.

Unless there is a concerted effort to neutralise the impunity of extremist elements that regularly engage in anti-Muslim violence, there may be little to halt the drift of a few members of an overwhelmingly moderate community into the arms of IS radicals.

In the present climate of hostility, a vicious cycle is likely, as there are groups that would happily seize upon the insidious presence of the IS in India to paint the entire Muslim community with the broad brush of negative propaganda or worse.

To have any hope of success in this context, anti-radicalisation strategies of the government must foster a sense of physical security, democratic space and cultural sensitivity towards traditions of minority communities while adopting a no-nonsense, intelligence-based crackdown on the shadowy menace of the IS.

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JUDICIARY

DECCAN HERALD, DEC 4, 2015Justice Thakur assumes charge as CJI A soft-spoken but tough judge, Justice Tirath Singh Thakur on Thursday assumed office as Chief Justice of India after being sworn in by President Pranab Mukherjee. 

Justice Thakur’s term as 43 rd CJI would last for 13 months and he would retire on January 4, 2017. Well-versed in Urdu poetry, Justice Thakur, who passed several signficant orders in IPL spot fixing scandal, Subrata Roy Sahara case, NRHM and Saradha and other chit fund scams, never misses an opportunity to recide couplets to mollify the frayed tempers in the court.

Son of former Judge of Jammu and Kashmir HC and Assam Governor Devi Das Thakur, Justice Thakur started his practice as pleader in 1972. 

Justice Thakur became the additional judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on February 16, 1994. He was transferred to the Karnataka High Court in March 1994. He became the permanent judge in September 1995. He was transferred to the Delhi High Court in July 2004.

Justice Thakur became the acting chief justice of the Delhi High Court on April 9, 2008 and the chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court on August 11, 2008 and continued to serve in that capacity till he was elevated as the judge of the apex court. 

The brief oath-taking ceremony in the Durbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan was attended by Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues and former chief

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justices, among others. His mother Saraswati Thakur and other family members were present at the function.

Cabinet Ministers Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, D V Sadananda Gowda, Harsh Vardhan, Smriti Irani, and senior BJP leader L K Advani among others attended the ceremony.

Former Chief Justices H L Dattu, K G Balakrishnan, S H Kapadia, Rajendra Mal Lodha besides chief justices of various high courts, and other SC judges, leading jurist F S Nariman, Soli Sorabjee, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi were also present.

LABOUR

BUSINESS STANDARD, DEC 7, 2015FinMin wants EPFO rate to remain 8.75%The EPFO has provided 8.75 per cent rate of interest on PF deposits for previous two financial years - 2013-14 and 2014-15

After EPFO, Sebi pitches for more pension funds in market EPFO panel approves raising insurance cover to Rs 5.5 lakh EPFO mulls further reduction in admin fee charged from firms Govt likely to decide on small savings rate by Dec-end Labour Ministry to push for 6 bills in Winter Session

The finance ministry   wants Employees' Provident FundOrganisation (EPFO) to retain 8.75 per

cent  rate of interest on provident fund (PF) deposits for 2015-16 although the retirement fund

body is in a position to give better returns to its over 50 million subscribers.

The  EPFO   has provided 8.75 per cent rate of interest on PF deposits for previous two financial

years — 2013-14 and 2014-15.

“During a recent meeting of finance ministry and labour ministry   top officials, of the former

urged the latter that the EPFO should retain its 8.75 per cent interest on deposits for the current

fiscal as well in view of the government's intention to reduce rate of returns on small saving

schemes and PPF," a source said.

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The source further said, “EPFO has already worked out the income projection for the current

fiscal, on the basis of which it can provide higher rate of returns than 8.75 per cent provided in

the previous two financial years.”

However, the source said that it is unlikely that the proposal for fixing interest rate will come up

in the next meeting of EPFO trustees' scheduled on December 9 in view of the ongoing winter

session of Parliament.

The finance Ministry has indicated that it may revise downwards the interest rates on savings

schemes to nudge banks to bring down lending rates.

The Reserve Bank of India has cut interest rates by a total of 1.25 per cent this year, but banks

have passed on less than that to borrowers, citing higher cost of funds as bank deposits have to

compete with small savings schemes.

After RBI cut interest rate by 0.50 per cent in September end, the Finance Ministry had said that

it will review rate of interest on small savings scheme.

These schemes include Post Office Monthly Income Scheme (MIS), Public Provident Fund

(PPF), Post Office Time Deposit Scheme, Senior Citizen’s Savings Scheme, Post Office Savings

Account, and Sukanya Samriddhi Account.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had recently said that the government will bring down interest

rates on small savings "cautiously" so as to protect the interest of weaker and vulnerable

sections.

Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme currently gives the highest interest rate of 9.2 per cent to incentivise

the people investing in the name of girl child.

With small saving deposits commanding a rate of 8.7-9.3 per cent, banks have been reluctant to

transmit the entire policy rate reduction by the Reserve Bank to borrowers.

However, fixing the interest on EPF solely depends on the EPFO's apex decision making body

the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) headed by the Labour Minister as the body provides rate of

return from its own income.

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LIBRARIES

HINDUSTAN TIMES, DEC 4, 2015India’s National Digital Library will have a million free e-books

National Digital Library is a collaborative effort between the US and India to digitise a million books ranging from technical literature to art. (CC/David Orban)

The National Digital Library will roll out a collection of a million digitised books and journals, according to an official. The Library will also bring over 100 institutes under its fold.

“The first thing that will come in February is the National Digital Library (NDL) with one million books and journals that will be used by students across the country,” R. Subrahmanyam, additional secretary for technical education in the human resource development ministry told IANS during the launch of Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) scheme on Monday.

The NDL will ensure “uniform high standards” of e-content free of cost on a single platform.

The five-year-old National Digital Library is a collaborative effort between the US and India to digitise a million books ranging from technical literature to art. According to aMedianama report, the project has 13 nodal centers that are linked together through internet connections that are as slow as 512 kbps.

The NDL’s website   lists five institutes including the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Kerala Sahitya Akademi among others. You can search for books by author, title, subject or language can read them online -- if they download, that is.

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PARLIAMENT

INDIAN EXPRESS, DEC 4, 2015AAP govt in Delhi clears bill to effect 400 percent salary hike for MLAs

The basic monthly salary of Delhi MLAs and ministers is all set to go up by a whopping 400 per

cent besides significant hike in a slew of allowances with the assembly today approving a bill to

effect the increase considering rising cost of living.Written by Pragya Kaushika 

The Delhi Assembly Thursday approved a 400 per cent pay hike for MLAs and ministers, by

passing the Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Government of NCT of Delhi (Salaries,

Allowances, Pension) Amendment Bill 2015

.

The Bill will now be sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for final approval.

The House accepted the recommendations made by an independent committee of three experts,

constituted to look into the matter and compare the salary of MLAs from various states.

The monthly package of MLAs has been increased from Rs 88,000 to Rs 2.10 lakh per month,

while their annual travelling allowance has been increased from Rs 50,000 to Rs 3 lakh per year.

While the MLAs could earlier avail the allowance only for trips in India, now they can use it to

travel abroad as well.

While introducing the Bill, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia enumerated the reasons

behind the hike and claimed that it was needed to “serve the people”.

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“…. Rather than MLAs or MPs deciding their own salaries, which has been the tradition so far,

an independent committee has recommended this raise. Plus, every MLA needs money to serve

the people. The recommendations are reasonable and scientific. We cannot deny the need for

money when it comes to serving the people,” he said.

Joining the discussion, some AAP MLAs claimed that with their current salaries, they could not

attend weddings as they didn’t have enough money to buy gifts. “This is an attempt to create an

environment for the MLAs, in which they do not have to look for an alternative source of income

to afford a cup of tea for a visitor,” said AAP MLA Praveen Kumar.

When BJP MLA and Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta sought a debate on the issue, Sisodia

said that each legislator had an “individual choice” about whether to accept the revised salary.

As per provisions of the Bill, Delhi MLAs will get a basic salary of Rs 50,000, constituency

allowance of Rs 50,000, conveyance allowance of Rs 30,000, communication allowance of up to

Rs 10,000 and secretarial allowance of Rs 70,000. The basic salary of ministers has been

increased from Rs 20,000 to Rs 80,000 and their constituency allowance has been increased from

Rs 18,000 to Rs 50,000.

Apart from a few special allowances, the Assembly Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, the Chief

Whip and Leader of Opposition would get salary and allowances at par with the ministers.

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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

TELEGRAPH, DEC 3, 2015

Too quiet for comfort- The looming political crisis in Bangladesh

Politics and Play - Ramachandra Guha

In the 1970s and 1980s, Bangladesh was widely regarded as a paradigm case of a nation whose poverty was a direct consequence of over-breeding. It was the proverbial 'basket-case', kept (barely) afloat by periodic shipments of wheat from the West. Influential biologists like Garrett Hardin urged that all aid be stopped, and the Bangladeshis be left to die, as perhaps they deserved to.

It is just as well that the aam admi (and aam aurat) of Bangladesh did not read the New York Times, still less the learned journals in which the biologists and ecologists issued their predictions. They just went about rebuilding their newly-won nation. As I argued in my last column (see The Telegraph, November 28), the Bangladeshis have shown a surprising resilience over the decades. They have made impressive strides in manufacturing, done far better than India with regard to health and women's rights, all the while renewing their literary and cultural traditions.

Given the inhospitable conditions (civil war, cyclones, and sectarianism) in which it came into being, the economic and social advances made by Bangladesh are noteworthy. What remains a worry, however, is the lack of progress on the political front. Bangladesh was created only because West Pakistan did not give adequate space to the major political party of East Pakistan, the Awami League. Now, in a bitterly ironic twist, the selfsame Awami League stands in the way of the development of a multi-party system in Bangladesh.

The political history of Bangladesh has always been rocky. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Awami League stalwart who led the movement against West Pakistani domination, headed the new nation's government from 1971 onwards. In early 1975, however, Mujib made a major push towards creating a one-party state. Many Opposition leaders were arrested. Popular disaffection grew, and ultimately the army stepped in, junior officers assassinating Mujib, while senior officers (led by Ziaur Rahman) took control of the government.

The regime led by Ziaur Rahman was in office till 1981, when Zia himself was assassinated and

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the pro-Islamist general, H.M. Ershad, took power. Ershad was in control for almost a decade. Then, after a prolonged period of unrest and protest, elections were finally held in 1991. The Bangladesh National Party, led by Zia's widow, Begum Khalida Zia, won the elections. Five years later, she lost power through the ballot box to the Awami League, now led by Mujib's daughter, Sheikh Hasina. In 2001, the BNP came back, ruling till 2006. A caretaker government then assumed office; elections were finally held in December 2008, with Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League winning power.

When the next general elections were due in 2013, the BNP demanded that the Awami League demit office beforehand so that the polls could be supervised by an administration of independent technocrats. The Awami League refused, whereupon the BNP and other Opposition parties boycotted the elections. Elected unopposed, Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League have since had untrammelled control of the government, the Parliament, and the administration.

In her most recent term in office, Sheikh Hasina has vigorously pursued the prosecution of those who supported Pakistan in 1971, and are alleged to have conducted war crimes against ordinary citizens. When I was in Dhaka in late November, two senior politicians had just been sent to the gallows. One was a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a religious grouping that had opposed the creation of Bangladesh. The other, the son of a prominent pro-Pakistan politician of the 1950s and 1960s, had himself been an adviser to Begum Khaleda Zia and the BNP.

I was in Dhaka when these two men were hanged. A day later, Begum Zia returned from a long spell abroad. A day later still, the Jamaat called for a countrywide strike. In past times, thousands of BNP supporters would have made a public display of solidarity with their leader, while the hartal called by the Jamaat would have led to empty streets and shuttered shops. This time, everyday life in Dhaka was largely unaffected by either event. On both days, I was travelling across the city, meeting friends, speaking to students, eating in restaurants. The Awami League government, aided by the police, paramilitary and army, appeared to be in complete control. No public dissent was permissible, or permitted.

There is no question that horrific crimes were committed by the Pakistani army in 1971, these aided by local collaborators. Nonetheless, there are serious reservations about how these recent trials have been conducted, and about the recourse to the death penalty. An even greater worry is the way in which Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League have used the war crimes tribunal to deepen their political and ideological control over State and society. They are helped, of course, by the fact that there is no Opposition in Parliament. Yet journalists who raise legitimate criticisms about due process have been harassed. Academics who worry about the larger implications for Bangladesh's democratic future have been abused.

In Bangladesh today, there is a halo around the nation's founding figure, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Whereas many Indians can (and do) refer to Gandhi as Gandhi, it is hard to find public references to Mujib as Mujib. He is invariably Bangabandhu, the friend of, and to, the Bangalees. That Mujib was imprisoned for long periods by the Pakistanis and then murdered while in office add to the aura around him. Sheikh Hasina's prosecution of war criminals is motivated partly and perhaps even largely by love and admiration for her father. Yet it must be

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said that the manner of her administration's present functioning is dangerously reminiscent of her father's most ignoble period, those early months of 1975 when he amended the Constitution to virtually outlaw dissent and consolidate power in himself.

The political opponents of the Awami League, the BNP and the Jamaat, are defeated and demoralized. Meanwhile, the administration has forged an alliance of mutual convenience with the army. Always an important player, the army has recently been awarded lucrative contracts in construction and road building. The army's growing power has assumed dangerous proportions - in one case, it forced telecom companies to stop advertising in a prestigious newspaper that had been critical of its actions.

Sheikh Hasina and her advisers would do well to acquaint themselves with the history of one-party regimes that originally came to power through the ballot box. The Nazis were in power a mere 12 years, not the thousand years they had promised themselves and their followers. Turning to South Asia, the Indian National Congress, the Pakistan Peoples Party, and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party all attempted to build one-party states - none lasted more than a few years.

One-party states are therefore fated to fail. But in the time they are in power they can wreak considerable havoc. Indira Gandhi and the Congress damaged the bureaucracy and the judiciary so badly that they have never since properly recovered their autonomy (or efficiency). The excesses of Bhutto and the PPP paved the way for the re-entry of the Pakistani army into politics and also enabled the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. Mahinda Rajapaksa and the SLFP gave a massive filip to Sinhala chauvinism, while undermining the universities, the press, and other institutions vital to democratic functioning.

Of Bangladesh's political future only one thing is certain - that the dominance of Sheikh Hasina and her party will end, and sooner than they themselves hope or expect. It may be that, with the existing avenues of dissent closed, sections of society shall turn to Islamic groups for succour. Or else the army may make a fresh bid for power. Either option will further delay the transition to a functioning multi-party democracy.

There is much to admire about Bangladesh today: the advancement of its women, the creativity of its entrepreneurial class, its superb civil society organizations, its many gifted artists and writers. But further progress, whether economic, social, or cultural, has now been put in peril by the arbitrary and sometimes vengeful conduct of its government.

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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

ECONOMIC TIMES, DEC 1, 2015Modi government plans toll-free phone number for MyGov by JanuaryBy Aman Sharma

NEW DELHI: Inspired by the recent success of a toll-free number which is inundated with calls for Prime Minister's Mann Ki Baat programme, the Narendra Modi government is planning to incorporate a phone number on its popular MyGov online platform by January to get suggestions from people for its various schemes such as Smart Cities project.

Right now, a user needs to log on to the MyGov website, register with an email address and submit a suggestion online or comment on various schemes or participate in a contest being run for the design of the upcoming mobile application of the Prime Minister's Office. MyGov website has almost 15.8 lakh members and nearly 15.5 lakh suggestions have been submitted on it on 370 topics. 

Officials said the PM recently pointed out that a substantial part of the country's population, which lives in rural areas with no internet connectivity or is not computer-savvy, remains outside ambit of MyGov platform. 

"A villager could well be talented, know the ground situation better and have a brilliant idea on a project but he or she is not able to reach the government with the same," an official told ET. A toll-free helpline could significantly increase the quantum of citizen interface with MyGov platform, he said. Gaurav Dwivedi, chief operating officer of MyGov said an interactive voice response system or IVRS solution will be rolled out soon to facilitate participation in My Gov activities by those who do not have access to internet connectivity.

"The success of the inbound calls facility for PM's Mann Ki Baat programme this September has inspired us to take the step. Similar facility for MyGov activities could be launched in a couple of months through which messages of people will be recorded and logged and a way found to send an acknowledgement to them of the same," said Dwivedi. 

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A toll-free helpline, 1800-3000-7800, launched for PM's Mann Ki Baat programme has been attracting over 50,000 calls for each episode since its launch two months ago. This is much more than the number of online suggestions sent for the programme on the MyGov platform. 

The PM, during his recent Mann ki Baat sessions, has been quoting examples of success stories of people living in remote areas who have been calling up the helpline to record their messages, hence attracting even more calls. In his address on Sunday, the PM spoke of the calls he got from a farmer in Jalandhar and an entrepreneur in Gorakhpur.

In a post on the MyGov website, Dwivedi also unveiled plans to initiate a monthly in-person MyGov interaction with a Union minister of regular MyGov contributors to present their ideas and suggestions. "This is an effort to give recognition to outstanding ideas," Dwivedi told ET. 

Besides, a MyGov merchandise store will be launched soon where merchandise promoting national integration will be available, with sale proceeds of the not-for-profit activity going to the PM Relief Fund. MyGov Swachh Bharat page is also being relaunched with a clearly outlined programme on how the Swachh Bharat activities can be made more citizen focused and led by citizens, he said. 

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RURAL DEVELOPMENT

ECONOMIC TIMES, DEC 2, 2015Government approves changes in rural programme to reduce poverty 

NEW DELHI: Centre today approved changes in some key rural development programmes on poverty reduction and employment creation by increasing flexibility in fund allocation and expanding benefits of interest subvention to 100 more districts under National Rural Livelihood Mission. 

The changes are expected to achieve a focussed and targeted intervention in poverty reduction. 

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today gave its nod for expanding benefits of interest subvention under NRLM to 100 more districts and flexibility in fund allocation to Himayat programme and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana for skilling and placing more youth from poorer sections. 

The Cabinet has also approved relaxation in the existing criteria for the allocation of funds to North Eastern states other than Assam to cover all vulnerable rural households by 2023-24. 

Changes in the implementation framework of NRLM include planning for targeted reduction of poverty using the Socio-Economic and Caste Census, SECC database and convergence with other social sector interventions. 

The use of SECC data would enable the government to introduce much need focussed and targeted intervention in poverty reduction in rural area programmes, a government release said. 

The NRLM will use the SECC data to undertake planning for poverty free Panchayats involving Panchayati Raj institutions and Self-Help Group (SHG) of households. 

Another significant change was extending interest subvention in 100 more districts. 

The interest subvention to all women Self Help Groups to avail loans up to Rs three lakh from

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banks at the interest rate of 7 per annum and also an additional subvention of 3 per cent for prompt repayment, bringing the effective rate of interest to 4 per cent is being extended to 100 more districts from the current financial year. 

TAXATION

BUSINESS STANDARD, DEC 7, 2015Govt orders quick issue of I-T refunds under Rs 50,000According to government data, over Rs 5,400 crore is locked in pending refunds, which has become a major grievance for taxpayers

All I-T refunds to be put directly in bank accounts: CBDT We don't withhold refunds or scrutinise small taxpayers: CBDT I-T officials threaten to go on strike Address taxpayers' grievances in time-bound manner: CBDT to I-T

In good news   for thousands of taxpayers awaiting their income tax  refunds, the government has

directed the taxman to “expeditiously” settle claims involving less than Rs 50,000.

According to government data,around Rs 5,400 crore is locked in pending refunds, which has

become a major grievance for taxpayers.

Officials said instructions in this regard were issued early this week after a review meeting was

held by Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia with senior Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT)

officials as part of finance ministry’s drive to ensure a taxpayer-friendly regime following a call

by Prime Minister Narendra Modi   for steps to address their grievances and cut down on

complaints.

The directive issued by the CBDT, the apex policy-making body of the Income Tax   department,

to all principal chief commissioners asks them to direct the assessing officers to expedite the

process and issue refunds of less than Rs 50,000 and not facing scrutiny “as early as possible.”

According to the order, as of November 1, refunds have to be made on 2.07 lakh IT returns

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involving Rs 659 crore for assessment year (AY) 2013-14 and another set of 12.90 lakh returns

pertaining to Rs 4,837 crore for AY 2014-15 which are pending.

The total amount involved is Rs 5,496 crore and a large number of refunds are for less than Rs

50,000 and constitute about 70-80 per cent of the total kitty of pending refunds for the two AYs,

a senior official said.

“An I-T refund is not only the right of the taxpayer but also cherished by them very dearly.

TheCBDT   gets to see the maximum number of grievances from taxpayers on this front and

hence it has been desired by the Finance Ministry   that these refunds be issued to their rightful

claimants as soon as possible.

“Only those cases which are chosen for scrutiny are not included under this drive. A number of

refunds have an amount of less than Rs 50,000 and it has been instructed that such cases shall be

issued refunds promptly and those exceeding this amount should also be issued as soon as

verification has been done,” the official said.

They said the refunds for AY 2013-14 and 2014-15 have already been “pushed” to the disbursing

authorities by the Central Processing Centre of I-T returns based in Bengaluru and the task has to

be accomplished much before the end of the current financial year.

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TERRORISM

TELEGRAPH, DEC 4, 2015

The muddle over Syria- Destruction of the ISIS would make way for something worse

Swapan Dasgupta

Any history of World War I is incomplete without a reference to the mass hysteria that greeted the declaration of war in August 1914. There were undoubtedly a few - like the British foreign secretary, Edward Grey - who recognized that the lights were going out all over Europe and signalling the death of the old Europe. However, for most people in both Great Britain and Germany, the beginning of the war -which most people expected to be over by Christmas - was the occasion for boisterous flag waving and displays of loyalty to the king or his cousin, the Kaiser.Viewed in hindsight, the mass enthusiasm for war was completely misplaced. Even a hundred years later, the scars of the four year war are still visible, not so much in Germany which was to undergo yet another traumatic experience just two decades later. But in the United Kingdom, monuments of the Great War are all pervasive. There is no small town in either England or Scotland that doesn't have a war memorial commemorating the scores or even hundreds of young men who marched to war so enthusiastically and died horrible deaths in the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele and Gallipoli. The Armistice Day, commemorated each November 11, is inevitably tinged with sadness for a lost generation.

Historians may proffer their own analysis but I cling to the belief that the Great War ended the British enthusiasm for empire and war. Yes, there was the valiant fight back against Hitler just two decades later. But in spite of the Churchillian doughtiness that was so much in evidence amid adversity, the last vestiges of militarism had been squeezed out of Albion by 1918. Neville Chamberlain wasn't a coward. His 'appeasement' of Hitler to prevent war wasn't a simple accommodation of tyranny; it reflected the popular weariness of a war that everyone knew would be long and horrible.

I was reminded of Britain's melancholy past when confronted with the war noises that have emanated all over Europe following the massacre in Paris on the night of November 13. As I write, the BBC has just announced a unanimous cabinet resolution that will be presented to the House of Commons for endorsement. The resolution, if passed with a sufficient majority and cross-party support, will commit the UK to a war with the fledgling but bestial Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in West Asia. France's President François Hollande, stung by the Paris attacks, has declared that his country is at war. France has joined the United States of America and Russia in bombing ISIS bases located in both Iraq and Syria. Now, if the members of parliament resoundingly oblige, the Royal Air Force will join the bombing missions.

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The fact that the British prime minister, David Cameron, has to go pleading to Parliament to join the solidarity offensive against ISIS is itself telling. Ever since Tony Blair committed British forces to a war against Saddam Hussein's yet undiscovered 'weapons of mass destruction', the right to wage war does not automatically vest with the executive. Constitutionally, this is a grey area and dependent on circumstances. However, following the non-productive outcome of interventions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, British prime ministers prefer the route of abundant caution. In 2013, Cameron tried to involve the UK in the war on ISIS but was rebuffed by Parliament - including Conservative MPs who were unconvinced of a direct British stake. This time there are indications that MPs will give a thumbs up but the prime minister has had to use every ounce of political persuasion to secure an approval - without which, he felt, Britain could not look France in the eye.

To some extent Cameron is right. The Mumbai-style attacks in Paris may have been masterminded from Belgium and involved young men and women of Algerian and Moroccan origin but it could just as well have happened in London or, for that matter, another European city. The UK, for example, has been absolutely horrified by the number of British Muslims - including women barely out of school - who have been motivated by ISIS evangelists into joining the struggle for a new Caliphate. The same set of people who were earlier inspired by al Qaida into bombing the London Underground and plotting (thwarted) attacks on Heathrow may well be now dreaming of waging the war for Islam and against Western 'sin' inside Europe.

In spite of its record of barbarity, ISIS has successfully linked itself to the wider narrative of Muslim victimhood. There may be some embarrassment over its record of decapitation and destruction of archaeological treasures, but the soft support for an assertion of Islam's power should not be underestimated. Certainly, there appears to be greater passive support for the Caliphate within Europe's Muslims than among Muslims in the areas where ISIS is either present or poses a threat to established regimes. The crowd hostility to a minute's silence in memory of the Paris victims at a football game in Turkey may well be an aberration, but it could also be indicative.Yet, in a bout of collective heart bleeding, Europe has opened its doors to a human flood that carries both dreams of a better life and unfamiliarity with Europe's common decencies.

The unanswered question is: how will the bombing of ISIS-held Syria alter this mindset? To my mind, more horror stories of civilian casualties will only harden Muslim opinion and even galvanize 'lone wolf' attacks in Europe. ISIS, it is agreed, has to be militarily destroyed. Can that be achieved by bombing from the air? None of the international powers want their soldiers on the ground, fighting on unfamiliar terrain and being exposed to IED bombs and sniper attacks. But destruction of ISIS, without an alternative to replace it, will only pave the way for something even more barbarous.

If there are no credible answers to these questions, it lies in the naïve Western belief that the existing regimes in West Asia are all unworthy and should be uprooted. In private, I have heard Britons suggesting that the real target should be Iran and Saudi Arabia - the different 'roots' of the problem. Included in this chamber of horrors is President Bashar al-Assad, the original target of the West's derision whose destabilization created the ISIS problem.

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Assad may well be a nasty piece of work whose track record is dodgy. However, in encouraging a civil war against his regime, the West was guilty of believing that liberal democracy can be exported and replicated the world over, from Burma to Syria. Only Russia has desisted from attacking Assad, seeing him as the only guarantor of stability in Syria. But then, the West doesn't expect any enlightenment from President Vladimir Putin.

At its loftiest, 'Western intervention' is premised on the belief that bad dictators will give way - with some Western help - to good democrats, like the lady in Yangon. In the popular imagery, all the Muslim rulers are suspect even if, like Turkey's Erdogan, they have used democracy to win power. Assad is just doubly bad. Of course, some of the baddies are great for business and for inward investment to Britain but, at the same time, they can't be too explicitly endorsed without alluding to human rights.

This squeamishness didn't exist in the past - neither with Gordon 'Pasha' nor with T.E. Lawrence. That is why they were good imperialists. Today's liberal imperialists are blessed with attitude and political correctness but they don't want to really get their hands grubby. In seeking the best of all worlds, minus any personal discomfiture, Europe is gradually becoming incapable of defining national interest. The muddle over Syria has brought history and hypocrisy together in an awkward coalition.

THIS PIECE WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE CABINET RESOLUTION WAS PASSED BY THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON DECEMBER 3

STATESMAN, DEC 1, 2015A perfect swamp for terroristsJonathan Eyal

French President Francois Hollande deserves admiration. Since his capital city was hit by gunmen and suicide bombers that killed 130 in France’s worst atrocity for decades, Mr Hollande has travelled the globe, seeking to unite major powers behind a single strategy on Syria, one which aims to destroy the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organisation responsible for the Paris attacks.

The idea that, instead of confronting one another, countries should unite over the handling of Syria was pushed by Mr Hollande in frantic diplomatic shuttles between Washington and Moscow. He even made history by attending a summit of leaders of the Commonwealth, a grouping of countries mostly drawn from Britain’s former colonies, where he also sold his vision of a “grand alliance” to tackle Syria. Altogether, President Hollande personally spoke on the subject to no fewer than 60 different heads of states and governments during the past week alone.

Yet, despite this astonishing effort, Mr Hollande failed. For the civil war which has torn Syria apart since 2011 is now largely unstoppable; it has morphed into a proxy war between every

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Middle Eastern government as well as many powers outside the region, a conflict bewildering in its complexity, destined to last for many years and certain to give birth to many more terrorist organisations. Seldom before was the strategic map of the Middle East so confusing or its long-term implications so depressing.

It is wrong to suggest - as many commentators currently do - that Syria was always an “artificial state”, a country which sooner or later was bound to implode. For while it is true that Syria was largely the product of the territorial carve-up of the Middle East between Britain and France at the end of World War I, it is also a fact that the country has existed for almost a century, far longer than many other states around the world.

Syrians are divided along religious lines between Sunni, Shia and Christians, and along ethnic lines between Arabs, Kurds, Druze and a few other communities. But these divisions are not unique to Syria, and were certainly not the reason for the country’s current civil war, which was unleashed by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s determination to crack down on opponents to his track record of bad governance.

All evidence suggests that, with the exception of violent extremists who dream of establishing an “Islamic Caliphate”, the majority of the country’s population still remain loyal to the idea of a Syrian nation. A consensus thus exists over the need to maintain a functioning Syrian state.And an equally strong consensus also prevails in both the Middle East and the world at large that the ISIS terrorist organisation, which now has strong roots and presence in Syria, is a global menace and must be urgently eradicated. For ISIS is not only responsible for the gruesome murder of civilians of almost every conceivable nationality, but is also acting as the training ground for terrorism and religious extremism.

Paradoxically, however, the fundamental obstacle to forging a global alliance designed to bring the war in Syria to a conclusion is not the absence of an agreement about what the final objective should be but, rather, a fundamental disagreement between all the protagonists in the conflict about which objective takes first priority.

For the Syrian government of President Assad, the key priority is, of course, sheer survival. Mr Assad is no lover of ISIS and may not have been directly responsible for the creation of the terrorist organisation, as many of his critics claim.

Still, there is no question that Mr Assad established the terrorist smuggling routes now used by ISIS, when he allowed his territory to be used as transit for terrorists fighting United States forces in neighbouring Iraq a decade ago. And it’s equally beyond doubt that Mr Assad beefed

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up the ranks of terrorist organisations when he emptied his country’s jails of extremists and other misfits at the start of the current Syrian civil war.

Mr Assad did so because his best chance of survival lies in persuading the world that he is fighting religious fundamentalism, and that his current Syrian regime is preferable to anything which may follow. It is a claim which no longer carries credibility for, even if Mr Assad was allowed to remain in power and asked to help in crushing ISIS, all that would do is generate terrorism from other movements. Mr Assad has lived by institutionalising terrorism in his country; his regime is destined to die by it.

In all likelihood, Russia understands that Mr Assad is now part of the problem. Nevertheless, Russian President Vladimir Putin is clinging to Mr Assad as a bargaining chip with the West over a deal which acknowledges Russia’s importance and allows Mr Putin to maintain a sphere of influence both in Ukraine, where Russian troops are stationed, and in the Middle East. That’s why only an estimated six per cent of Russia’s airstrikes in Syria were conducted against ISIS this month; the Russians, who lost one of their civilian airliners to terrorism originating from ISIS, are nevertheless keener to turn their fire on other Syrian opposition forces.

Meanwhile, the Middle East’s other governments have their own games to play. Iran detests ISIS to the extent that many Iranian leaders believe that the terrorist organisation was actually “invented” by Israel and the US; in the bizarre world of the Middle East, such conspiracy theories are easily taken as granted. Still, the Iranians are more keen on propping up the Shia-leaning Assad regime against its domestic opponents. Iran sees ISIS as, at best, a diversion.So do the region’s Arab states, which are far keener on toppling Mr Assad. They fund and arm the Free Syrian Army, the various so-called Southern Front fighting groups, as well as the Ahrar al-Sham, which has its own radical Islamic elements. And they turn a blind eye to the Nusra Front, arguably the second most powerful military force in Syria, which owes its allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

And then there is Turkey, whose main interest is to prevent the Kurds of Syria from establishing their own state, as this may embolden ethnic Kurds inside Turkey to do the same. The Turks flatly deny any sympathies for ISIS. But it is a fact that some of the petrol smuggling which funds ISIS operations was conducted through Turkish territory, and most of the foreign volunteers who joined ISIS came via Turkey.

France, the US and Britain, to name but some of the key Western players in this drama, cannot be blamed for the Syrian mess. However, they do carry some responsibility for making grand statements and pronouncements while failing to follow them through with practical steps.

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All Western governments are demanding Mr Assad’s removal from power, without suggesting who or what should replace him. All criticise Arab states for failing to coordinate their efforts in Syria, without offering a clue on what such coordination should look like. The US has criticised Turkey for failing to take ISIS seriously. But Washington also relied on the Kurds of Syria to hit back at ISIS and at the Syrian regime, precisely the people Turkey fears most.

And if this is not enough, the US also expects Russia to cooperate on a joint strategy in Syria while maintaining that this cannot be part of a broader diplomatic deal over Ukraine. The Americans are right to uphold the principle that the interests of nations should not be bartered. Still, the US is also wrong in assuming that Mr Putin would render assistance in Syria while Russia is still subjected to Western economic sanctions over Ukraine.

Mr Hollande’s brave attempt to paper over all cracks has not been entirely in vain: negotiations between the key powers in the conflict are continuing behind the scenes. However, no coherent strategy or agreement on what needs be done is likely to emerge as long as all the actors in Syria care enough about the conflict to poke their fingers in it, but don’t care enough to commit their resources to a particular outcome or place their own soldiers in harm’s way.

The result is the worst possible outcome: a war which lingers on indefinitely because none of its protagonists have the necessary strength to bring it to a conclusion, while none of the outside proxy sponsors can agree on what they wish to achieve.A perfect swamp for terrorists.

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TRANSPORT

ASIAN AGE, DEC 7, 2015Delhi government outlines measures for car curbssteady stream of vehicles crowding an avenue during the evening rush hour in New Delhi. (Photo:AFP)Odd-numbered cars to be allowed to ply on Monday, Wednesday and Friday

A day after announcing curbs on private vehicles in the city from next year, the Delhi government on Sunday said that odd-numbered cars will be allowed to ply on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and even-numbered vehicles will run on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Delhi home minister Satyendar Jain said the AAP government will only allow emergency vehicles like PCR vans, fire tenders and ambulances on the roads without adhering to the new rules in the national capital.

Mr Jain, who is also PWD and health minister, said there is a need to take strict measures to clean the city’s toxic air and the even-odd formula will also be applicable to all ministers and bureaucrats in the national capital region.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had on Friday said that the AAP government would discontinue the move after 10 to 15 days if people faced problems. “On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, odd-numbered vehicles will be allowed on roads in a week. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday will have even numbered vehicles on roads, and we don’t care about which cars belong to whom,” Mr Jain said.

The minister said that the AAP government will only allow emergency vehicles like PCR vans, fire tenders and ambulances to run on roads without adhering to the new rule in the national capital. “Odd-even formula will also be applicable to all ministers and officers. I will also use my car on alternate days and will use carpooling service on other days,” Mr Jain said.

The minister has also sought people’s suggestions on the government’s odd-even formula. People can send their suggestions to pollutionfreedelhi @gmail.com, he said.

“Pollution level has gone up in winter in Delhi. Due to heavy smog, such a situation has emerged that people are being advised against going for exercise,” he said.

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Mr Jain also said that the government also will do something about rampant use of generators by companies in the national capital which also contribute to pollution.

“We will soon discuss this issue in a meeting,” Mr Jain said. On December 4, the AAP government had come out with a plan of restricting private vehicles bearing odd and even registration numbers to alternate days from January 1 in the national capital.

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WOMEN

STATESMAN, DEC 1, 2015President gives nod for Maha Act allowing women in night shifts

Maharashtra government's amended Factories Act, 1948, allowing women to work in factories in night shifts has received the President Pranab Mukherjee approval.

"The President  has approved the amendment to the Act," an official said, adding that a Central notification in this regard has been issued.

Earlier, section 66(1)(c) of the Factories Act provided that women cannot work at a factory between 7 pm and 6 am. Now that has been done away with.

The managements will have to ensure security of women working in the night shift, the amendment provides.

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