LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED

ASIAN AGE

BUSINESS STANDARD

DECCAN HERALD

ECONOMIC TIMES

HINDU

INDIAN EXPRESS

PIONEER

STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

TIMES OF INDIA

TRIBUNE

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CONTENTS

CIVIL AVIATION 3-4

CIVIL SERVICE 5-9

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENN 10

EDUCATION 11-18

EMPOYMENT 19-22

FEDERALISM 23

GOVERNORS 24

HEALTH SERVICES 25

INCOME 26-28

JUDICIARY 29-30

PRISONS 31-33

PROHIBITION 34-36

RAILWAYS 37

SPORTS 38-39

TRANSPORT 40

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CIVIL AVIATION

STATESMAN, JUL 18, 2016Airlines to pay huge compensation for flight cancellation

Cancelling a flight or denying boarding to a flier is going to cost heavily to domestic airlines as the new guidelines by the aviation regulator DGCA provides for massive compensation in such cases.

As per the revised compensation norms, which are effective from August 1, an airline will have to pay up to Rs.10,000 to a flier in the case of cancelling/delaying a flight beyond two hours, while the compensation for not allowing a passenger to board the flight stands at up to Rs.20,000.

As of now airlines offer a meagre amount of up to Rs.4,000 for both denied boarding and cancelling a flight.

The revised compensation has been arrived at after extensive consultations with all stakeholders including the airlines.

Fliers body, Air Passengers Association of India (APAI) founder and president D Sudhakara Reddy, however, has said that the new norms leave certain grey areas which need to be addressed.

Airlines shall pay a compensation of Rs.5,000 or booked one-way basic fare plus fuel charge, whichever is less for cancelled/ delayed flights having a block time of up to one hour in addition to refund of ticket, in case a flier has not been informed by the carrier as per the DGCA norms.In the case of an airline cancelling/delaying its flight over one hour but up to two hours the compensation amount will be Rs.7,500 or booked one-way basic fare plus fuel charge, whichever is less, besides the refund amount, according to the revised norms.

An amount of Rs.10,000 or booked one-way basic fare plus airline fuel charge, whichever is less, will be the compensation for flights having a block time of more than two hours, according to the new compensation norms.

Block hours refer to the period when an aircraft pushes back from its departure gate till the moment it reaches the arrival gate. These hours are used to calculate an airline s on-time performance (OTP) besides determining the compensation in the eventuality of a flight getting cancelled or delayed.

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In case of denied boarding, airline will have to pay an amount equal to 200 per cent of booked one-way basic fare plus airline fuel charge, subject to maximum of Rs.20,000, in case airline arranges alternate flight that is scheduled to depart within 24 hours of the booked scheduled departure, as per the revised norms. 

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CIVIL SERVICE

TIMES OF INDIA, JUL 22, 2016Private persons can now seek nod to prosecute IAS officialsBharti Jain

If a prima facie case against the IAS officer is made out, govt would have to prepare a detailed report and consider obtaining version of the said officer.

As per the proposed guidelines, a request for prosecution sanction may be routed through the govt or the central ministry/department where the civil servant is employed.

As per the proposed guidelines, a request for prosecution sanction may be routed through either the state gove... Read More

New Delhi: Empowering private persons to seek sanction for prosecution of IAS officers in

corruption cases, the Modi government has outlined the procedure for handling such requests and

set a three-month deadline for their disposal.

As per the proposed guidelines, a request for prosecution sanction may be routed through either

the state government or the central ministry/department where the civil servant is employed,

allowing them to conduct a preliminary probe before it is taken up by the department of

personnel and training for a decision

The guidelines - shared on Thursday by DoPT with all states/UTs and central

ministries/departments for their comments to be submitted by August 12 - are a first since the

Supreme Court, in a 2012 ruling in Dr Subramanian Swamy Vs Manmohan Singh case, held that

there is no provision in the PCA or CrPC that bars a citizen from filing a complaint for

prosecution of a public servant alleged to have committed an offence.

The court said it deemed proper to observe that in future every competent authority shall take

appropriate action on the representation made by a citizen for sanction of the prosecution of a

public servant, so as to identify and obviate the areas causing delays in processing of such

proposals.

Sharing that the SC verdict triggered a flow of such requests from private citizens, DoPT said

many, however, were in nature in complaints rather than a proper proposal.

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"Keeping in view the basic parameters and requirements for cases received from investigating

agencies, it has been decided that the procedure for handling the requests for prosecution

sanction received from private citizens may be streamlined," the DoPT said adding that such

proposals may now be routed through the concerned state government or central

department/ministry "as it is best placed to provide basic inputs as regards misconduct of

concerned public servant". Even where the proposal is directly received by DoPT, the same may

be sent first to the concerned state government or Central departments. for preliminary

examination.

Top Comment

When someone is enjoying departmental power and have money power as well how can you

expect this measure will give result. kavindrakothari4k

If a prima facie case against the IAS officer is made out, the state government or Central

department would have to prepare a detailed report and consider obtaining version of the said

officer. Such report along with relevant records and evidence should then be fowarded to DoPT

with approval of the competent authority. Where no prima facie case is warranted for misconduct

or corruption, the private citizen may be so informed and a copy shared with DoPT, say the

proposed guidelines.On receipt of a report and evidence backing a prima facie case, action may

be initiated for processing the matter for decision of the competent authority.

Importantly, the DoPT guidelines set a three-month time limit for disposing of prosecution

sanction requests from private persons, starting from the date of receipt of complete proposal

with all relevant material and aforesaid report from the concerned state government of central

department or ministry.

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUL 20, 2016No criticism of government by officials on social media: Proposed rules

NEW DELHI: The Centre plans to bar government officials from making any statement critical

of the government specifically now on television, social media or any other communication

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application, as part of amendments to the Conduct Rules. Right now, the conduct rules do bar

government officials from criticizing the government on a radio broadcast, communication over

any public media, in any document, in any communication to the press or in any public

utterance. However, to make the rules specific to social media given presence of many officials

on the same, a note is now proposed to be added to the All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968

saying: "The member of service shall also not make any such statement on television, social

media or any other communication application. The word 'Document' may also include a

caricature." This implies that any criticism of the government or its policies on social networking

sites like Twitter and Facebook or on social networking groups like WhatsApp or through the

officer drawing out a caricature will also attract disciplinary action under the Conduct Rules. The

step comes after a committee constituted to review All India Service Rules has proposed certain

amendments to the Conduct Rules. Under the rules, a statement by an official is considered

critical of the government if it has the effect of an adverse criticism of any current or recent

policy or action of the Central Government or a State Government, which is capable of

embarrassing the relations between the Central Government and any State Government or which

is capable of embarrassing the relations between the Central Government and the Government of

any Foreign State. All such statements by officials will not stand barred on social media. In the

context of social media, the government however wants to introduce a provision allowing

government officials to participate in any public media including social media websites without

the prior sanction of the government if the same is required by the officer as part of bonafide

discharge of his duties. Many officials have joined Twitter and Facebook to communicate

government decisions and the provision seems to be aimed at the same. The government also

plans to tweak an existing rule and plans to specify that government officials can take part in

"simple and inexpensive entertainment events arranged by public bodies or institutions". In

another tweak to the conduct rules, the government plans to introduce a provision whereby the

official will be required to intimate the government of the purchase of an asset like automobiles

or household equipment only if its value exceeds two months of his basic pay. Earlier, a

government official was supposed to intimate the government of purchase of every automobile,

refrigerator, radiogram or television set. The earlier rule even included horse

TRIBUNE, JUL 19, 2016Govt staff to book air ticket at lowest fare or face action

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The government here today finalised a draft of new guidelines for employees to avail Leave Travel Concession (LTC). According to these, employees who fail to buy air tickets at the lowest price available on the day will face severe penal action.

The government finalised the draft guidelines after it noticed a trend where some employees colluded with private travel agents to submit LTC claims showing “inflated airfare” and clandestinely obtained undue benefits such as free board and lodging, transport and also cash refunds. The Central Bureau of Investigation is already looking into cases of alleged irregularities in availing the LTC claims.

To put a lid on such acts, the ministries concerned have been tasked with carrying out random checks with airlines to ensure that the tickets are booked at the lowest fare available on the date of purchase.

“It has now been decided that in accordance with the canons of financial propriety, government servants should purchase tickets at the lowest rate available at the time of booking for the date and time of scheduled journey. They will be required to submit printout of tickets showing date and time of booking in addition to the fare charged,” the DoPT draft guidelines said.

Any violation of the existing norms by authorised travel agents — Balmer Lawrie & Company and Ashok Travels & Tours and IRCTC — will invite their blacklisting, the guidelines added. A government employee gets reimbursement of tickets for to-and-fro journey, in addition to leave, on availing of LTC. There are about 50 lakh central government employees.

The proposed guidelines have also cited provisions of the service rules “which require the government employees to maintain absolute integrity at all times”. In addition, cheating and fraud also attract various sections of the Indian Penal Code, it added.

HINDU, JUL 18, 2016Officer shortage affecting governance’MARIA AKRAM

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal blamed the Centre for shortage of officers in the Capital, which, he said, was affecting governance in the city.

Transfer

Mr. Kejriwal accused Union Ministry of Home Affairs of not giving Delhi bureaucrats and transferring them to Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Arunachal Pradesh instead. Of the 39 Secretary-level posts in the Delhi government at present, 20 are lying vacant, he claimed.

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“Officers from my office have been transferred. Probably for the first time in Indian history, officers have been transferred from the CMO without permission. Your intention is to stall governance in Delhi,” said the Chief Minister during the “Talk to AK” session on Sunday. The outburst was in response to the Union MHA’s recent transfer order of 11 officials from Delhi.

Plan to hire experts

Now, the Delhi government is planning to fill these posts by hiring experts.

“They want to paralyse us, but we will go strong. Will bring out ads in few days inviting experts from across the country,” he said.

Already, two departments — Health and Public Works Department — are being headed by a doctor and an engineer respectively. The post of Principal Secretary is held by an IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officer.

DANICS officers

It was the transfer and posting of officials which snowballed into a war between the Centre and the Delhi government last year. Since then, it hasn’t stopped.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had stated earlier that Delhi has a sanctioned strength of 309 DANICS officers. With reserve force, this number should be above 400. However, it is working with just 157 officers at present.

Recently, as many as five officials asked the Chief Minister that they did not wish to take over any extra charge.

Of 39 Secretary-level posts in the Delhi government at present, 20 are lying vacant, CM claimed

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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUL 20, 2016Niti Aayog plans to ready 15Year Vision by December

NEW DELHI: Government think tank Niti Aayog plans to complete the preparation of the 15

Year Vision document by December as it wants the next general budget to be guided by the

longterm development strategy. "We have planned to complete work on the 15Year Vision

document by December before general budget. This is the terminal year of 12th Five Year Plan

(201217). Therefore, the next budget must be guided by this document," an official privy to the

development said. The official further said, "Besides the vision, Aayog would be ready with

sevenyear strategy and threeyear action plan on the basis of which funds allocations will be made

in the budget." The Aayog has been entrusted to prepare a 15Year Vision document beginning

201718, which will replace Nehruvian Five Year planning system followed for over six decades.

The official also confirmed that the NITI Aayog's Governing Council meeting, which was

scheduled on July 30, 2016, is likely to be convened after the Independence Day (August 15) in

view of ongoing Parliament session and recently held meeting of interstate council. However, the

Aayog has convened a meeting of all chief secretaries and planning secretaries of the states to

discuss the vision, strategy and action plan documents with them. During the meeting, the states

were asked to adopt outcome based target and monitoring of infrastructure projects as being done

by the central government. The NITI Aayog recently gave a detailed presentation to the Prime

Minister on outcome based targets and monitoring of infrastructure projects. The official said

that the states are required to be roped in because they would also work on the their 15Year

Vision which will eventually help the Centre to prepare its roadmap for development in the

country. The Aayog is determined to present an approach paper on 15 year vision document in

the next meeting of Governing Council headed by the Prime Minister with all chief ministers on

its board.

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EDUCATION

ASIAN AGE, JUL 22, 2016Delhi University set to build 3 new campuses SUSHMITA GHOSH 

Delhi University is all set to build three new campuses in southwest Delhi, east Delhi and west Delhi. The university, which has bought land in Dwarka, will start working on the new campus in the coming days. The School of Law will then be shifted to the new campus. The east Delhi campus will be set up in Karkardooma.

Attending his first academic council meeting, DU vice-chancellor Prof. Yogesh Tyagi revealed these details to the council members. The university will soon take steps to set up these three new campuses, he said. “At the academic council meeting, the vice-chancellor gave us information regarding the varsity’s three new campuses. DU already has land for the campus to be built in Karkardooma and preparation has already started to run some courses here. On the other hand, the task of finding land for the west Delhi campus has begun,” said academic council member Dr R.N. Dubey.

Safdarjung Hospital’s Vardhaman Mahavir Medical College and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital’s Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research have now been made a part of the Delhi University. The affiliation proposal has been approved by the university’s academic council. Both the medical colleges had been affiliated to the Delhi government’s Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University since 2008.

“Including these two colleges, the DU will now have total of six medical colleges affiliated to it. With the DU affiliation, only 15 per cent seats will be reserved for Delhi students and the remaining 85 per cent seats will be for students outside Delhi. So far, due to the IPU affiliation, 50 per cent of the seats were reserved for Delhi students. Since the DU is a Central university, new rules will be applied to these colleges,” Dr Dubey said.

As discussed in the academic council meeting, the university will also introduce reference books for history honours and programme courses in Hindi so that Hindi medium students don’t face difficulty while preparing notes.From the next session, colleges like Jesus and Mary, Kalindi and Ramanujan will launch undergraduate vocational courses in health care management, retail management, web designing and IT among others.

INDIAN EXPRESS, JUL 19, 2016240 KV school principals get showcause over poor Class XII performance

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There are 1,135 Kendriya Vidyalayas in the country which cater to the schooling needs of children of transferable Central government employees. Of these, 875 are up to Class XII.Written by Ritika Chopra 

The 240 schools under scanner have registered a decline between 1 and 42 per cent in their pass percentage.

The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), in an unprecedented step, has issued showcause

notices to 240 school principals over unsatisfactory performance in this year’s Class XII Board

examinations.

There are 1,135 Kendriya Vidyalayas in the country which cater to the schooling needs of

children of transferable Central government employees. Of these, 875 are up to Class XII.

This means about 27 per cent of the 875 school principals have been asked to explain the drop in

their Class XII pass percentage in comparison to 2015, and why action should not be initiated

against them. The 240 schools under scanner have registered a decline between 1 and 42 per cent

in their pass percentage.

In addition to the principals, KVS has also served similar notices to eight deputy commissioners

and nine assistant commissioners who are in-charge of zones covering the 240 KVs. The notices

were served last month.

The Delhi region has the largest number of school heads — 17, to be precise — who have

received notices. Of them, three KVs — Rangpuri, Keshavpuram and Babugarh Cantt — have

witnessed a decline of 12 per cent in their Class XII pass percentage as compared to 2015.

The worst performing KV is in Zakhama, Nagaland, where over 40 per cent of the students could

not clear Board examinations this year. This is followed by schools in Bathinda and Cooch

Behar, where pass percentage fell by 34 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively.

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KVS is currently studying the responses. If an explanation is not found to be convincing, the KV

chairman, sources said, could transfer the concerned principal or let him off with a warning. The

latter means no promotion for three years and a chance of the annual performance appraisal

being affected.

Explaining the move, a KVS source told The Indian Express, “We want learning outcomes to be

the focus. Class XII performance is just one of the many ways to measure this. Our effort will

not remain limited to only Board examination performance. KVS will soon roll out other

initiatives to ensure we can map learning outcomes from Class I onwards and make teachers and

principals more accountable to students.”

The total pass percentage of KVs in Class XII CBSE examinations this year was 95.46 per cent.

TIMES OF INDIA, JUL 18, 2016PMO tasked Smriti Irani with 39-point list for schoolsAnubhuti Vishnoi

A 39-point to-do list for school education was identified and monitored closely by the PMO

To-do list identified with focus on improving learning levels, teachers training and vocationalisation

HRD ministry and PMO had run into differences on most of these.

Smriti Irani

NEW DELHI: It wasn't just non-delivery or slow movement on the PMO to-do list for higher

education that may have cost Smriti Irani her job, the school education sector was being just as

closely scrutinised by the Prime Minister's Office.

While there were just five key stuck issues with PMO on the higher education side, including the

autonomy of IIMs and world class institutes, a 39-point to-do list for school education was

identified and monitored closely by the PMO with focus on improving learning levels, teacher

training and vocationalisation.

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The implementation of these identified actions to be taken was reviewed by Prime Minister Modi

himself at a meeting held on March 10.

For each of the point, actionable targets and specific timelines were given with deadlines ranging

from June 2016 up to financial year 2017.

For example, it was expected of School Education Department to 'expedite decision' on the no-

detention clause of the Right to Education Act by September 2016.

While the ministry had been talking about addressing this aspect for more than a year,

substantive steps to amend/abolish the clause are yet to be taken. While some of the timelines

were adhered to, a large number of rather ambitious action points are still work in progress.

According to the timeline decided at the review meeting taken by the PM, nine actionable points

were identified to improve learning outcomes at elementary and secondary education levels.

As per these, Human Resource Development ministry was asked to frame minimum grade wise

learning goals from Classes 1 to 8 and put it on the notice board of all schools by June 2016.

By July, all schools were to identify grade wise weak students for remedial classes and organised

remedial instruction.

By September, a decision on RTE's no detention clause was to be taken and by financial year

2017, it was expected that national assessment surveys would be made into an annual feature,

grading of 100% government funded and aided schools would be done, and the Continuous and

Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) of all students in government and aided schools was planned

for implementation.

Eight-target points were outlined for teacher and headmaster performance. By September 2016,

student evaluation of teacher performance in government and aided schools was expected to be

put in place.

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Considerable PMO focus is on in service training, teacher assessment, technology enabled

remedial training for untrained teachers and even the plan finalization for a teacher training

university with 4 year integrated course by December 2016.

To address issue of teacher vacancies and requirements, a five point agenda was identified with

timelines for biometric and GPS based attendance system by December 2016, Aadhar card for all

teachers by March 2017 and mandating transfers of teachers who have spent 15 years in urban

area to rural areas by January 2017.

The eight action points for vocationalisation of school education called for a pilot student skill

aptitude test right at elementary level in 4-5 states by July 2016, roll out of courses on soft skills

like English training, grooming and computers at secondary level by January 2017, 800

identified skills based courses are to be adapted into school curriculum by the financial year

2017.

A three-point approach to improve access include expanding secondary schools in educationally

backward blocks by FY 2017-18, guidelines for rationalizing smalls schools across states by

October 2016 and standardisation of all data definitions and data collection systems by June

2016.

Top Comment

She was victim of mediaA Kumar

The five-action steps for higher education identified in the PM review were to expand

accreditation of higher education institutes, develop guidelines to allow internationally reputed

institutions to accredit higher education institutions, expand the knowledge network connectivity

to all universities, finalise regulations for the 20 world class institutes and recommendations for

improving AICTE and UGC regulatory frameworks.

HRD ministry and PMO had run into differences on most of these.

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STATESMAN, JUL 18, 2016Gender curriculumRudrashis Datta

The position paper on gender issues in education, 2006, compiled and published by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT)  begins with the observations of a group of school students. It states : ‘In my textbooks I learned that only men are kings and soldiers. Till I read a book in which famous queens ruled and fought against enemies. In my textbooks I learned that only men are doctors. When I went to a doctor I saw that she was a woman. In my textbook I learned that only men do farming in my country, until, on a train journey I saw women working in the fields. I have learned that I have a lot to learn by seeing.’The need to formulate a gender-sensitive curriculum has, surprisingly, been one of the last issues to be considered by those who frame the policy on education. Despite the concern over the  poor literacy level among girls,  it was only with the setting up of the National Committee on Women’s Education in 1959 under Durgabai Deshmukh that the first practical problems of ensuring a gender-neutral curricula was felt. Written at a time when literacy of the  girl child was in single-digit percentage across India, the report of the committee had the primary focus of recommending steps to extend the reach of education among girls through inducements of a material nature such as scholarships or setting up of separate schools for girls. While the committee examined such issues as uniform, gender-sensitive curriculum, practical socio-cultural considerations of the time induced the members to go in for a segregated curricula for boys and girls, influenced significantly by Mahatma Gandhi’s notion of a practicable and gender-distinctive curricula in his  concept of the nai talim, popularly known as ‘basic education’. It recommended that ‘girls as well as women should receive not only as good, varied and comprehensive a general education as boys and men but also suitable professional and vocational education that equip them fully for their duties both in the home as well as outside….’ However, little  guidance was provided by the commission in the matter of a uniform curricula for boys and girls. The next few decades saw the setting up of a number of initiatives to promote education among girls in terms of enrolment, retention and prevention of stagnation and drop-outs.

It was only with the landmark ‘Towards Equality - Report on the Status of Women in India’, 1974, piloted by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of India, that equality of sexes in the matter of curricula content was considered as a major influence on the promotion of women’s education in the country. Dr. Phulrenu Guha, the Chairperson of the Committee made the path-breaking recommendation of popularizing co-education as one of the means by which differentiation in the approach to the education of the girl child could be countered. Though the recommendation was far ahead of its times given the resistance it faced across the country, the basis of the recommendation was that there should be a need to go beyond mere enrolment numbers as indicators of the advancement of education of the girl-child and that a uniform

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curricula content would make the education meaningful by ensuring a decrease in stagnation and drop-outs. The committee stated that ‘the consideration of efficiency, economy, and equal opportunities require the acceptance of co-education as a long-term policy by removal of the ban on admission of girls to all-boys schools and acceptance of the principle of mixed staff as a condition of recognition of all mixed schools.’

While various subsequent initiatives, including the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) accepted the importance of a uniform curricula structure, the primary focus of all Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) reports and also that of the National Policy on Education (1986) and Programme of Action (PoA), 1992, was to extend the quantitative reach of education of the girl-child leaving out entirely the intricacies of a uniform, gender-sensitive curricula content.

Admittedly, in contemporary education, gender equality assumes several forms depending on the context and the immediate aims of the policy framers. While the chief focus in India in the last two decades has been to ensure access to education irrespective of gender, experiences with most developing nations across the world have revealed that merely ensuring access to education may not sustain the ultimate requirement of gender equality in the socio-economic and cultural contexts. In other words, the usual practice of incentivizing education of the girl child through scholarships, financial and vocational inducements would give diminishing returns in the medium to long term unless such measures are supported by a a gender sensitive curriculum wherein members of all genders would find the contexts of education relevant. As early as 1964, the specialized Committee on Differentiation of Curricula set up by the National Commission on Women’s Education attacked the practice of allotting certain subjects as domestic/home science, needle-work, etc. to girls’ schools and recommended a uniformly common curriculum at all levels of school education to counter the traditional attitude which considered certain tasks as ‘manly’ and others as ‘womanly’. Sadly, however, we are yet to collectively ensure that our children do not grow up with erroneous attitudes of gender differentiation in education, by failing to rise to the occasion of constructing a gender-sensitive curriculum.

The UNESCO sponsored International Conference on Girls’ and Women’s Education held in Beijing  in 2015 recommended for all member states a gender responsive curricula regime that shall not only ensure equal curricula content irrespective of gender, but shall pro-actively decide the content that would neutralize the long-standing bias generated in the context of a patriarchal social order. The National Position Paper on Gender Issues in Education, 2006, realized this nearly a decade back when it noted that initiatives to remove sexist bias in textbooks undertaken in the last decade or so are played yet again by the limited understanding of gender and equality. One strategy was to attempt quantitative equality by increasing visual representation of girls and women. Another was to facilitate ‘role reversals’, in order to depict equality amongst the sexes.

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‘If men can do it, so can women’. This  mode was used to justify changes in content such as showing or writing about men making tea, while women read the paper. Textbook writers made visible the achievements of women without any attempt to assess the very concept of writing accounts of great men’s lives.  In other words, approaching gender issues in the context of curriculum overhaul without taking into account different hierarchies existing both at home and in the society at large would merely result in superficial tinkering and token revisions.

This is an elaborately complex task. A decade has gone by since the publication of the Position Paper, and also little effective change has been introduced in the school curriculum from the gender viewpoint. Therefore, it is a long way off before we actually translate the vision of a gender responsive curriculum into reality. It is universally accepted that school curriculum has a multiplier effect in the overall context of national and social progress. With around 235 million children being educated in our schools, the importance of crafting a curriculum that is genuinely gender responsive can be hardly over emphasized since most of our conduct and outlook on life are shaped permanently as we negotiate the years of childhood and adolescence in the classrooms. The new National Policy on Education that is taking shape would do well to dwell on this critical area that has remained neglected in the history of modern education of the country.

The writer is Assistant Professor in English, Raiganj B. Ed. College in West Bengal.

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EMPLOYMENT

BUSINESS STANDARD, JUL 20, 2016Rajya Sabha passes Bill banning employment of children below 14Amendment Bills for 2 Labour Acts likely to be placed in Parliament Reforms have been slow because of unions, Oppn: Bandaru Dattatreya

Rajya Sabha   today passed a bill which prohibitsemployment of children   below 14 years in all

occupations or processes except where the child helps his family, with the provision for

imprisonment up to two years for any violation.

'The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill' makes employment of children

below 14 years as cognizable offence for employers and provides for penalty for parents.

The Bill, which was almost unanimously passed by voice vote, defines children between 14-18 years as adolescents and lays down that they should not be employed in any hazardous occupations and processes.

It provides for enhanced punishment for violators. The penalty for employing a child has been increased to imprisonment between 6 months and two years (from 3 months to one year) or a fine of Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 (from Rs 10,000-20,000) or both.

The second time offence will attract imprisonment of one year to three years from the earlier 6 months and two years.

According to provisions of the Bill, no child should be employed in any occupation or process except where he or she helps his family after school hours or helps his family in fields, home based work, forest gathering or attends technical institutions during vacations for the purpose of learning.

Hailing the development as a "historic" step, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya   said it is aimed at "total abolition of child labour".

Explaining the exception, Dattatreya said that 'family' has been exempted as the relationship between employer and employee does not exist and that a law should be framed keeping in mind the ground realities as well as ensuring that it is implementable.

Recalling his own childhood, he said even he used to help his family.Earlier, participating in the debate on the Child Labour

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Bill, Satyanarayan Jatia (BJP) stressed the need for proper coordination among three ministries responsible for formulating schemes for welfare of children.

Three ministries - Human Resources Development, Women and Child Development and Labour should come out with composite schemes for welfare of child labour and trade unions shluld be consulted while formulating these, Jatiya said.

Ravi Prakash Verma (SP) alleged, "India has become an organised system for exploitation of children" and "it is a matter of shame" that government is working in piecemeal.

He alleged that unfortunately the government is pressing for the Bill despite a Parliamentary Standing Committee saying that changes are not good.

Verma said it seems the government is doing this to promote "ease of doing business" and has surrendered before the industrial lobby instead of eliminating child labour.

Warning that "India is on the brink of a demographic disaster" he said one of the accused in Nirbhaya case was child labour and is an example of moral degradation.

A Navaneethakrishnan (AIADMK) rued that recommendations of parliamentary standing committee on Labour has not been incorporated in the Bill.

Vivek Gupta (Trinamool) said while agriculture has been put under non-hazardous category in the bill, it involves hazards like spray of pesticide. He added that family enterprises like carpet weaving, beedi making too were hazardous for the children.

Jharna Das Baidya (CPI-M) said her party strongly opposes the Bill as it is a move towards legalising child labour.

"We are opposing the bill as it is an exit road by the government to allow children to work," she said.

At the same time, she said five states - Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra -- accounted for more than 50 per cent of the child labour.

She added that Uttar Pradesh has the highest concentration of child labour with every fifth child labour belonging to UP.

Baidya demanded that government should immediately initiate steps for welfare of such children.

Sarojini Hembram (BJD), in her maiden speech, stressed the need for monitoring of child labour at district level for their welfare.

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There is a need for monitoring of child labour at district level and it may be done through the respective members of Parliament, she said. Shaadi Lal Batra (Cong) stressed on providing education to children so that they could earn money and support family, and do not get engaged anti-social activities.

He said 40 per cent families fall in the BPL category and they find it difficult to send their children for studies.

Batra said such families should be given some stipend to support study of their children.

Rajaram (BSP) said the nodal authority to monitor the application is the district magistrate, who already has a lot of duties and responsibilities. A separate authority should be appointed to check its implementation.

Nominated member Narendra Jadhav said the meaning of 'Hazardous Occupation' in the bill needs to be specified.

D Raja (CPI) said he has "very strong reservations" on the bill and wanted it to be referred to the Select Committee for further scrutiny.

He too asked the government to clarify the definition of 'Hazardous Occupation' as well as to elaborate on the definition of 'Family Enterprise'.

Renuka Chowdhury (Congress) said child labour is an "oxymoron" as associating child with labour is in itself destroying childhood.

"We need to address child labour in relation of all other sectors of development and progress. Poverty is a big element and it plays a major role in child labour," she added.

She too raised the issue of the definitions of 'Hazardous Occupation', adding that the government has cut down the number of hazardous occupation from 18 to 3 and asked the government to explain it.

R Ramakrishna (BJP) said there is a need to look into the issue where the children between 14 to 18 years can be employed even if they have not completed their elementary education.

He also said there should be guidelines for child actors who work in mega serials that run for long periods of time.

K Keshava Rao (TRS) said he is supporting the bill, but is "unhappy" with it. He too attacked the definition of hazardous occupation as well as the monitoring system.

Kanimozhi (DMK) questioned whether the members will accept that their children come from schools and go to work in their family enterprise.

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She added that inter-ministerial coordination is crucial for effective implementation of rehabilitation of children.

Madhusudan Mistry (Congress) said that the state labour department lacks infrastructure and questioned its ability to monitor the implementation of the bill.

FEDERALISM

DECCAN HERALD, JUL 22, 2016

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Federal structure, still fragile

The Inter State Council (ISC) meeting held in the backdrop of severe embarrassment to the Centre over restoration of the Arunachal Pradesh government by the Supreme Court, served as a reminder that the federal structure in the country remains very fragile and lacking in trust. The decision on Arunachal had followed Uttarakhand earlier this year, where another Congress government had been restored thanks to the apex court’s intervention. The use or misuse of Article 356 by the Centre naturally figured prominently at the ISC meeting and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar demanded that the post of the governor be abolished. Many others referred to the Punchchi Commission report, which was on the agenda of the meeting, recommending use of Articles 355 and 356 in “extreme and grave emergencies when all other options had been exhausted,” and sought framing of rules based on the S R Bommai verdict by the Supreme Court. 

The NDA government needs to be lauded for restoring the Inter State Council meeting, which was last held in 2006. In fact, the previous UPA government had called ISC only twice in its decade-long rule. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also made sure that unlike in the past, the Union ministers and the chief ministers were seated at the same level, removing the artificial hierarchy that existed before. But, apart from such symbolism, nothing much seemed to change. The prime minister’s speech was followed by the home minister’s and the chief ministers’, which were on predictable lines.

If the ISC meetings were to become more purposeful and result-oriented, it needs to change the structure of its deliberations. The zonal council meetings could perhaps throw up important topics for deliberations at the ISC, which, in turn, could prioritise one or two issues to be taken up at a particular meeting. The recent ISC meeting, for instance, had listed among other issues, “improving the quality of school education with focus on improving the learning outcomes” for discussion, but it hardly received any attention from any of the participants. School education across the country, especially the status of government schools is in crisis, affecting millions of students that it deserved a day long deliberation. Or for that matter, the question of internal security challenges which has assumed great importance in view of the unprecedented terror attacks even in most advanced and security-conscious countries. The prime minister did touch upon it, stressing on better coordination between the Centre and the states, intelligence sharing among different agencies and modernisation of the police force. But as several chief ministers pointed out, the much-discussed National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid) still remains a pipe dream and it merely turned out a rhetorical exercise.

GOVERNORS

STATESMAN, JUL 18, 2016

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Cleanse Raj Bhavans

The Congress has every reason to raise victory chants after a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court restored, albeit with conditions, the Nabam Tuki government in Arunachal. Coming so soon after a somewhat but not entirely similar situation in Uttarakhand, those judicial reverses add up to a serious setback for the Narendra Modi government: for only the village idiot, or someone living in a saffron-tinted world of make-believe, will not conclude that the split in the Congress members in both those states legislatures was not fuelled, or engineered by the loyal lieutenants of the Modi-Shah duo. After their election-winning spree lost momentum, the lust for power has manifested itself in “toppling games” of a most unsavoury kind. The credibility of Rajnath Singh as home minister has been hit, and the competence of the government’s legal advisors called into question. It would be premature, and unfair, to suggest that Modi’s appeal is dwindling, but who can deny that in his couple of years in office he has done little to indicate he wishes to elevate himself from astute politician to statesman. As Atal Bihari Vajpayee so elegantly did. That almost all Opposition parties have slammed the Arunachal misadventure points to a truly contentious monsoon session of Parliament.

All that, however, is politics. The real thrust of the apex court’s detailed verdict is that Governors are not political entities: those with political “origins” must shed them when they enter a Raj Bhavan. Without in any way endorsing the Congress’ demand for the resignation of the Arunachal Governor, his personal reputation has taken a hit. Actually, all Governors have been given a powerful lesson on duties, the role scripted for them in the Constitution, and that they must do nothing to lend authenticity to the charge of being “agents of the central government.” That, admittedly, is difficult with so many “senior” politicians being accommodated in Raj Bhavans -- a couple are presently waiting in the wings, having been axed by Modi’s yardstick that persons of 75 years of age must “retire” from ministerial office. If only he also laid down that henceforth they would only “report” to the President. And ensure that never again would the apex court have cause to observe that the Constitution had been given a “thrashing” and governance a “spanking”. The President would do well if he ordered a series of guidelines to be formulated on the basis of the apex court order and duly circulated to all Raj Bhavans. As well as make it mandatory for all new Governors to have read them before approving their appointments. That, of course, is no guarantee of upright and pristine conduct, but it might help in the larger effort to preserve the sanctity of the Constitution.

HEALTH SERVICES

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TRIBUNE, JUL 21, 2016Doctors WHO are notHealthcare in India needs to be revisited

Medical education and the healthcare sector are in news for all the wrong reasons. ‘The Health Workforce in India’, a WHO report, based on the 2001 census data claims that over 57 per cent allopathic doctors in the country have no medical qualifications. Some experts claim the data on which the WHO report has relied is flawed. Still, the findings may shock urban Indians but villagers heavily depend on quacks or unqualified doctors, who fill a void in India’s healthcare system. According to a report, about 25 lakh quacks practise medicine without acquiring formal training.

In contrast, the total number of registered doctors was a little above nine lakh in 2014. The WHO report only re-establishes a known fact. Since qualified doctors opt for lucrative careers in cities, a few NGOs are training quacks to upgrade their existing skills with a theoretical knowledge of medicine. In West Bengal the ‘Liver Foundation’ has been doing this work for years. The Indian Medical Association acknowledges the presence of quacks but appears helpless in checking them; their popularity remains steadfast in their communities and areas. Every year a few quacks are arrested, only to be released later due to public pressure. Instead of mocking and berating them, several NGOs are harnessing their skills across the country. 

Unfortunately, healthcare of a large segment of the population rests on these semi-qualified professionals. It is hoped the data based on the 2011 census would show better results, the gravity of the situation persists; only one doctor is available for 11,528 people in government hospitals. Figures released by the Union Health Ministry in 2015 show one primary healthcare centre serves 32,944 people in rural India, where 11.9 per cent positions of doctor lie vacant; and at community health centres 81.2 per cent specialist positions remain unfilled. Apart from upgrading the skills of nurses and ANM workers, as suggested by Union Health Minister JP Nadda, the government should also train this 57 per cent segment to utilise available resources, before balancing the skewed ratio of doctors, favouring urban India. 

INCOME

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TELEGRAPH, JUL 19, 2016

Livelihood programmes - Ways of improving income distribution

Writing on the wall - Ashok V. Desai

Economics can be good entertainment, as readers of this column might have realized. But it is also concerned with people's satisfaction; so, it would be legitimate to ask if it has made anyone happy, other than economists. They cannot go about making anyone happy on their own - unless they become performers and clowns. But they can and do study what would make people less poor.

Amongst the most interesting economists who do this is the team in Harvard. It is best known for the book, Poor Economics, by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, which has been translated into 17 languages in five years. They are known for their solid, reliable, unsentimental work on social issues. An example is a recent paper by Esther Duflo, which shows the uselessness of the Indian government's promotion of improved cooking stoves. She used a sample survey and showed that most women who were given these stoves stopped using them and went back to old smoke-rich ways of cooking within a few years. Apparently, improved stoves malfunction; unless there is a local, easily reached machinery for repairing them, they will go out of fashion pretty soon.

The earliest idea of idealists was that the government should take over all economic activity and use it to give everyone jobs and a generous wage. It was tried out in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and thence exported to China and Eastern Europe after World War II. It did not spread any further. Socialist economies did not succeed economically as much as capitalist economies. There is one exception, China, but though it calls itself People's Republic, its economy is a mixture of private and public enterprise.

Another approach, called the livelihood approach, was to turn poor people into businessmen by helping them start some profit-making activity. It started in Bangladesh, and has spread to many other countries. It was pioneered by Fazle Hasan Abed soon after the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. It sought to give the poor, especially women, a means of livelihood such as a cow or a goat, and to give them some training and capital to manage it. It has spread to 20 countries, and probably covers over half a million people; the number of beneficiaries would run into millions. Banerjee and his colleagues made randomized control trials (rcts) of programmes in six countries, and reported the results inNature last year. They measured parameters of the covered sample before the beginning of the programme, two years later, and one more year later, to give an estimate of how much difference the programme made to those whom it included. The comparisons over time gave an idea of the difference made to the chosen persons; in addition, the same parameters were measured for a sample not covered by the programme.

The programme comprised eight things. First, the eligible persons were chosen on a set of criteria. The most common one was what was called participatory wealth ranking; that is, the participant must be one of the poor in the village. Next, the chosen person was given a

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productive asset, such as a cow or chicken. Third, for some months, she was given some money or food. Fourth, she was trained in the skills required to keep the asset - for instance, feeding the cow. Fifth, volunteers kept visiting her frequently at home. Sixth, a bank account was opened for her to accumulate savings; in some instances, volunteers went and collected savings from her. Seventh, some education in looking after herself and her health was given. Finally, she was taken on visits to comparable programmes elsewhere.

The assets she was given were goats, cattle, chicken, pigs, guinea pigs, bees and shea nuts in descending order of frequency (shea nuts are nutritious nuts which grow on a tree in Africa). She got cash assistance in most countries; but in Ethiopia she got 15 kilos of wheat, 660 grams of chickpeas and 400 millilitres of oil. What she was given was a fraction of the total programme costs in most countries. In India, she got $700 out of the total $1,257 (purchasing power parity) spent. She got a third to a fifth of the total costs in other countries; in other words, costs were much higher than direct benefits. This is not necessarily bad, since the point of the six experiments was not to help the beneficiaries but to experiment; but comprehensive assistance such as these experiments sought to give is expensive or inefficient, depending on how you choose to look at it. If, however, benefits were defined as the rise in consumption and assets in four years, they exceeded costs in all countries except Honduras; but the benefits were less than 0.4 times the standard deviation of the control group - that is, quite small - except in two countries: Ethiopia saw larger increases in assets and in financial inclusion index, and India saw larger increases in asset value and in income and revenue.

The researchers asked whether the recipients' assets increased more over three years than the value of the assets that had been given to them. The answer was yes in all countries; but the increase in assets varied positively with the initial assets of the recipient. In other words, livelihood programmes increased income inequality.

The simplest way of making the poor less poor is to give them money. Another politically popular way is to give them foodgrains. A third is a livelihood programme of the kind discussed here - a package of resources and advice designed to make them become more productive and earn more. The first is the simplest; if every family is given a bank account, a computer entry is all that is needed to transfer cash to it. The second is popular in India, partly because rationing was started in 1939 by the British, became a lucratively corrupt programme after Independence and hence became a favourite of politicians. The third is the livelihood programme. How does it compare with the other two?

For one thing, it is expensive. It requires handholding of the poor by people who can teach them to do business; that costs money, and requires skilled bureaucrats. For another, it benefits the poorest much less than the less poor. Third, it does not benefit equally all those who are covered; some will be better at learning to look after themselves. So it is not suited to a country like India where bureaucracy in general is corrupt and inefficient.

Hence, after studying the results of the randomized control trials, I am confirmed in my preference for direct cash transfers. If they are combined with giving everyone a cell phone and using it as an instrument for storing and transferring a third kind of money other than cash and bank money, they can improve income distribution more effectively and at a lower cost than the

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various ways tried out by the last Congress government in its futile attempt to create a captive electorate. Its successor has not shown much courage and inclination to try out social innovations; but just in case it decides at some point to do better for the country, then here is an experiment waiting for it.

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JUDICIARY

STATESMAN, JUL 22, 2016Independence of judiciary is sacrosanct: PrasadNarendra Modi government and the top judiciary were at loggerheads, saying that judicial independence was sacrosanct and inviolable.

Stressing the government strongly believed in the independence of judiciary, he said: "This government has six ministers led by the Prime Minister who fought for the independence of judiciary" during the Emergency.Recounting the Emergency period when judges were superseded or reverted, and individual, media and judicial freedom gagged, Prasad said that the Prime Minister Modi, and Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu and he himself had then fought for cherished values and suffered persecution and jail.

During an informal and introductory interaction with media persons on Thursday at his office in Law Ministry, he said that despite long time that is consumed in vetting of the names, recommended by the top court collegium for the appointment of judges, by the Intelligence Bureau, and others including the Chief Ministers and Governors, since January this year, 52 new judges have been appointed and 89 additional judges confirmed. 

He said that people sought to be appointed as judges should be capable, men of integrity and reflect the geographical spread of the country.

Clarifying that so far the Union Home Ministry has not sought Law Ministry's views on what action that could be taken against Islamic preacher Zakir Naik for the kind of speeches he had made, he, describing it a "very sensitive issue", said that the matter would be examined by the Law Ministry as and when it is approached by the Union Home Ministry for an opinion."If the Home Ministry seeks any legal advice in a structured way, the Law Ministry will consider in an appropriate way," he said.

STATESMAN, JUL 22, 2016Court bifurcation

The Union government dragging its feet on bifurcation of the Hyderabad-based Andhra Pradesh High Court, mandated in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, has led to an unprecedented crisis and total indiscipline of the Telangana judiciary. Section 31 (1) of the Act states, “There shall be a separate High Court for the State of Andhra Pradesh (hereinafter referred to as the High Court of Andhra Pradesh) and the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad shall become the High Court

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for the State of Telangana (hereinafter referred to as the High Court at Hyderabad).” Article 214 of the Constitution says there shall be a High Court for each State. There is no confusion or controversy here. Yet former Union Law Minister Sadanand Gowda found it beyond his ken to implement it. Lawyers in Telangana have been on strike for more than a month. Almost all judicial officers working in the lower courts took casual leave on 28 June, paralysing work in courts across Telangana. KV Narasimhulu, Warangal additional judge, who refused to join the boycott, was assaulted while on duty. Agitated advocates locked up court complexes in all 10 districts of Telangana. Students of Telangana University Law College also joined the strike demanding bifurcation of the High Court. The High Court of Judicature in Hyderabad suspended 11 judges for taking part in the strike which added fuel to the fire. Only after Chief Justice of India TS Thakur gave an assurance that he would write to the Union Law Minister on appointing an advisory board to finalise the provisional allotment of judges to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh did judges of subordinate courts in Telangana join duty.

When Gowda was the Law Minister, he ruled out the Centre having any responsibility in the bifurcation even though the Reorganisation Act says clearly, “The principal seat of the High Court of (residual) Andhra Pradesh shall be at such a place as the President may, by notified order, appoint.” The President means the Union Cabinet. The Centre has indeed neglected its responsibility. The crux of the problem is the allocation of subordinate judicial officers to the two States. A provisional list issued by the High Court on 5 May contained 540 judicial officers allocated to Andhra Pradesh and 366 to Telangana. Of these, 142 officers allotted to Telangana are of Andhra origin, and 58 of them are district judges. Since district judges have a fair chance of becoming High Court judges, the legal fraternity in Telangana is not happy with the list. Besides, the High Court is not the authority to allocate judicial officers. Section 77 (2) of the Reorganisation Act states, “The Central government shall, by general or special order, determine the successor State to which every person shall be finally allotted for service after consideration of option received from the employees.” The Bar Council of Andhra Pradesh is also yet to be bifurcated. Had the High Court of composite Andhra Pradesh been bifurcated at the time of separation, as done in the case of other divided States like Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, the crisis in Telangana could have been avoided. Much is expected of Ravi Shankar Prasad, the new Union Minister for Law, to resolve the issue.

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PRISONS

STATESMAN, JUL 20, 2016Behind barsSaumitra Mohan

Prison administration is integral to the justice delivery system which, many feel, calls for urgent reflection. The system has been almost unchanged since its inception though a change in nomenclature has been effected over time. Our prisons are no longer called ‘jails’; they have been christened as correctional homes in keeping with the changed ethos.

Even though the prison infrastructure has improved considerably over the years, we still have a long way to go as far as treatment of the inmates ‘inside these correctional homes are concerned. The findings of a recent study titled the ‘Death Penalty Research Project’ are distressing. In this first-ever comprehensive study of the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death, researchers at Delhi’s National Law University (NLU) have found that by and large they belong to the economically vulnerable sections, backward communities and religious minority groups. This is important because a prisoner’s economic status and level of education directly affects his ability to effectively participate in the criminal justice system to secure a fair trial.

As it appears from the report, such prisoners have found it difficult to negotiate the burdens imposed by our criminal justice system. As a result, the death penalty often disproportionately affects those who have the least capabilities to negotiate our criminal justice system. The research team identified 385 prisoners and got access to 373 of them. Referring to the right to be present at one’s own trial, the study found that only one out of the four interviewed had attended all the hearings. Some prisoners would merely be taken to the court premises by the police and then confined to a court lock-up without ever being produced in the courtroom. Of 189 prisoners, 169 did not have a lawyer. Again, although the person arrested has to be informed about the reason for the arrest, 136 prisoners allegedly said that they were taken away to ‘sign papers’ and were never allowed to go home again. Besides, 166 prisoners were not produced before a Magistrate within 24 hours of the arrest... which is mandatory. Weeks and months passed before they were produced in court; sometimes the arrest was recorded only at that point of time.

The interim period was often spent in alleged torture. The researchers interviewed a majority of the 385 prisoners on death row, of whom one said he would be happy to be killed rather than being tortured every day. Out of 92 prisoners who had confessed in police custody, 72 had made statements allegedly under torture. Death-row prisoners were often kept locked while the trial proceeded, and at least two were not in a position to follow the proceedings of the trial.

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The report states that even when prisoners were present in court, “the very architecture of several trial courts often prevents any real chance of the accused participating in their own trial.” They were often confined at the rear of the courtroom while the interaction between the judge and the lawyers took place in the front. A person charged with a crime has the right to an interpreter if he does not understand the language used in court, and to translated documents. But this requirement is seldom complied with. Over half the prisoners interviewed said they did not understand the proceedings at all, either because of the obstructive court architecture or the language used (often English). Part of an accused’s right to a fair hearing is the right to challenge evidence produced against them. In India, trial courts can question the accused directly at any stage, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the persons must be questioned separately about every material circumstance to be used against them, and in a form they can understand.

The study found that these provisions were routinely dishonoured. Over 60 per cent of the prisoners interviewed said they were only asked to give “yes/no” responses during their trials, with no meaningful opportunity to explain themselves. Seven out of ten prisoners said their lawyers did not discuss case details with them. Almost 77 per cent never met their lawyers outside the court, and the interaction inside the court was perfunctory. Many of the prisoners preferred to engage private lawyers despite their economic vulnerability because of the putative incompetence of the underpaid legal aid lawyers. The higher the courts, lesser the information the prisoners have about their cases. As often as not, they ascertain the progress of the trial through the prison authorities or media reports though it is not just death-row prisoners who face such violations. The constitutionality of the death sentence was last upheld in May 1980 by the Supreme Court. It had ruled that the death penalty did not infringe the right to life as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution. However, it should be awarded only in the ‘rarest of the rare’ cases. Surprisingly, most prisoners sentenced to death in India are not eventually executed. Less than 5 per cent of those sentenced by trial courts have actually been executed. In most of the cases, their death sentences were commuted by the higher courts following appeals.

The NLU report makes it clear that its findings do not necessarily suggest that the state authorities intentionally discriminate against poor or less educated prisoners. But the report does allege that the system is so biased that there is a degree of indirect discrimination at work which worsens the chances of fair trial for prisoners from disadvantaged backgrounds. Yet issues pertaining to fair trial rights and treatment of prisoners on death row by the criminal justice system are almost never discussed with due seriousness. Indirect discrimination happens when a seemingly impartial and innocuous practice affects particular groups adversely, even if it is not deliberately directed at the groups. Given the irreversible nature of the death penalty, it is particularly important that fair trial rights are scrupulously safeguarded. Every death sentence imposed following an unfair trial violates the right to life. It has been suggested by some

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observers that the only way to end this injustice is to impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty as a first step towards abolition of the same. The Law Commission of India, in a report last year, recommended the abolition of the death penalty in phases, beginning with ending it for all offences except those related to terrorism.

The criminal justice system allegedly follows several practices which hurt the poor and the marginalised much more than others. What needs to be investigated is whether such practices are the result of entrenched socio-economic inequalities or whether indirect discrimination has been institutionalised. In its report last year on the death penalty, the Law Commission stated: “The vagaries of the system also operate disproportionately against the socially and economically marginalized who may lack the resources to effectively advocate their rights within an adversarial criminal justice system.”

For a vibrant liberal-democratic India, the Death Penalty India Report does come as a rude shock. Principles of custodial care remain theoretical, although it is obligatory for the police to take care of their well-being and health. Hopefully, the findings of the report will make policy makers and prison administrators sit up and take notice, indeed to make meaningful interventions to ensure the rights of the undertrials and put in place a humane justice delivery system.

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PROHIBITION

TELEGRAPH, JUL 18, 2016

Costs of prohibition - Imagining a healthy drinking culture for India

The Thin Edge - Ruchir Joshi

Just when you think you've seen the last of some archaic practice or legislation, someone or the other goes and revives the bizarre practice. Then, equally madly, others who you would think would know better, also begin to emulate this obsolete thinking and yet others then show signs of jumping on board for their own shady reasons. It was startling when the government in Kerala imposed prohibition a couple of years ago, unsurprising when they found it wasn't working and repealed the law, and doubly mind-boggling that the Nitish-Lalu government in Bihar decided to embark upon this ill-advised programme. It was as if someone was trying to bring back foot-binding in China or copying Saudi Arabia's stoning and flogging laws for adultery and blasphemy. Now, since life and history are the greatest clowns of them all, we now hear Mamata Banerjee is looking with interested eyes at the 'experiment' in Bihar.

Several myths have developed over the last hundred and fifty years, stereotypes and mis-labellings that either helped the British rule India or, in turn, helped the Congress and other nationalist elements to set up certain ideas of India and then to rule the country according to those fictitious ideas. One of these myths was that Hindus are largely not violent. Another was that India was largely a vegetarian society. A third notion, set in granite by MKG and certain sub-Gandhians, was that the drinking of alcohol was not part of India's culture. As we know, Hindus of all castes and classes, including the so-called 'non-martial races', like the Bengalis and Gujaratis, are pretty enthusiastic about maiming and murder, they just need the right context and the right excuses. India may have been largely vegetarian at one time, mainly because of large sections lacking proper regular access to meat, poultry and fish (just as most poor Pakistanis today cannot afford meat with any regularity) but there was nothing in our DNA per se that made us vegetarian; yes, certain areas of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan had a preponderance of Hindu vegetarians in certain castes, as did Tamil Nadu, but by and large we people of the subcontinent love to eat animals and fish whenever we can afford them.

The history of drinking in the sub-continent is uneven but no one can say that alcohol is alien to us or not part of our tradition. What we can say is that, yes, since both mainstream Islam and many branches of Hindu practice looked askance at alcohol, and since many middle-level worthies from these religions who ran society treated alcohol as taboo, the regular enjoyment of alcohol was kept alive at the two extreme ends of the social scale. Royalty, both Hindu and Muslim, always had access to the finest wines and spirits of the world, as well as to rich traditions of local brewing and distilling. Adivasis, Dalits and the labouring classes also maintained their relationships with intoxicating liquids. Into this mix entered the Europeans, especially the British, with their schizophrenic love-hate attachment to their indigenous fire-waters. The early traders, settlers and colonizers drank an enormous amount, day in and day out. They drank to celebrate the ongoing loot of the country they were ripping apart, they drank to alleviate their misery and homesickness during this hard task of economic rape they had

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taken upon themselves, they drank to mourn their losses to war and disease. They drank in their whites-only enclaves and they drank with their native compradors, they drank with their families and they drank with their native mistresses. The Europeans brought with them their own priests and social reformers who joined their frowns to the frowns of the pandits and mullahs and who started their temperance societies and programmes of alcohol reform.

Simultaneously, with advent of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, the production of intoxicating brew began to be seen as a profitable area for profit and taxation, and therefore for governmental control. Owners of factories were the ones who got licences for the large breweries and for the pubs just outside the factories where they could purloin back the wages they had just paid their workers. This model of control, codification and profiteering was imported wholesale into India, notably from rapidly urbanizing England to rural south Gujarat with its large adivasi population. Imagine the twinned forces of government and petty industrialists trampling into an environment and destroying an organic, family-based practice of daily nourishment and pleasure. Imagine a tax being levied on each toddy palm on the small piece of land you owned, a tax so high that all cultivation on that land would not yield enough money to pay it. Imagine that your tradition of light daily drinking and occasional ritual celebration with somewhat heavier imbibing was snatched away and then sold back to you by ruthless businessmen in cahoots with the sarkari administration. Imagine that suddenly you could only buy your toddy and mahua a) at an extortionate price and b) adulterated by extremely addictive and corrosive industrial alcohol (in order to 'preserve' the 'toddy' as it was transported hundreds of miles in the heat from centralized factories). Imagine then, the businessmen with the toddy licences becoming hugely rich, taking over chunks of land from booze-indebted adivasis, even as the alcoholicized drinkers themselves fell into a spiral of slavery, despair and domestic violence.

It is into this ersatz-toddy-shattered south Gujarat that Mohandas Gandhi arrives in the early 20th century. It is here that he formulates his anti-alcohol philosophy and decides to try and drape it over the whole country. Among MKG's many monumentally wrong-headed ideas this one ranks right up at the top. Gandhi doesn't say "we need to wean away this section of the rural poor from industrial drink", he doesn't ask for a 10-year moratorium on alcohol for a specific region, and nowhere does it occur to him to symbolically tap a farmer-owned toddy tree the same way he makes salt from the sea. No, as a central plank of fighting against Empire all of India must give up drink, forever.

What this disastrous notion helps spawn in the independent India of a few decades later is a sick, secretive and highly damaging drinking culture. Mind you, besides drink-inflicted rural devastation there are other stereotypes also feeding into the formation of this culture. Among the big clichés are the drunken Bengali babu, the sensitive dhuti-panjabied rich boy who Devdasofies himself to the demon bottle; the cruel, exploitative lecher of a Bangalizamindar, who morphs into the dastardly, drunken feudal overlord in other parts of the country; the Westernized corporate lush who is equally cruel and creepy; the inebriatedgora, of course, who whips and burns the freedom-fighting desi; the myriad 'bad' and 'fallen' women, from Lucknowi tawaifs to the cigarette-smoking sirens of Marine Drive, all enslaved by the shraap of sharaab.

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Unquestioned logics insert and install themselves. There can be no civilized drinking in mixed company. Only men drink (except for the aforementioned fallen women, who are worse than drunken men). These men only drink on an empty stomach, maybe with some snacks, but there is no question of eating and drinking at the same time - these are two separate activities, never to be mingled. The drinking Indian man gulps down only strong stuff, Scotch whisky, imitation Scotch, molasses-based hard liquor, or down the social ladder strong indigenous liquor such as santra, gulabi, bangla, chullu and arrack. Beer is an expensive luxury and whoever has heard of wine? The drinking must be done quickly, and copious amounts must be drunk to prove your manliness. Drink provides a pass to violent behaviour - if you drink, you must then be pushy and rude, you must hassle women, get into fights, crash your car - otherwise what's the point?

This 'culture' then neatly feeds into prejudices against drink, giving the fundamentalist prohibitionists like Morarji Desai and others a ready excuse: Look - this is what alcohol does. We must eradicate it from our midst. What the prohibition in western India does, as it has always done, is to fuel a huge illegal supply industry, allowing the booze-runners, bootleggers, bent cops and corrupt politicians to fatten themselves on the back of the puritanism of the prohibition- wallahs. What it also does is reproduce with sickening regularity the hooch tragedies among the poor. There is a reason why no political party has been able to lift prohibition in Gujarat and it has nothing to do with residual love for the principles espoused by Bapu. No venal Gujarati in his right mind is going to blow up a cash cow the size of the illegal booze trade in the state. For Kerala first and then Bihar to follow this failed, hollow model is akin to delusional lunacy but who's going to tell Nitishji and Laluji?

What we need is a nationwide acceptance that we are a country of largely young people, millions of whom (women and men both), like to drink. What we drink and how we drink, and how we behave during and after drinking is the issue. We need to simultaneously improve the quality and reduce the price of low-alcohol beverages such as wine and beer. We need to make hard liquor expensive and unfashionable. We need to be draconian but with our laws of excise, drunk-driving and alcohol-fuelled crime. The last thing we need, in this time of everyone trying to ban everything except the most poisonous pseudo-religious ideologies, is a rash of damaging prohibition spreading across the country.

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RAILWAYS

ASIAN AGE, JUL 18, 2016High-speed train between Amritsar, New Delhi soon: Suresh PrabhuThe Union minister also said railway stations of Amritsar and Ludhiana will be redeveloped with modern facilities.

Amritsar: Work on launching a high-speed train between Amritsar and New Delhi will be initiated soon following the successful trial run of Spanish-made Talgo which became the fastest train in the country by clocking a speed of 180 km/hr, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on July 18 said.

"We have already tested train to run at the speed of 180 km per hour which was successful and after watching its results, Amritsar will be linked with a high-speed train," he said after laying the foundation stone of one MW solar power plant here.

The Union minister also said railway stations of Amritsar and Ludhiana will be redeveloped with modern facilities.

"Punjab is the food bowl of the country and Union Government will leave no stone unturned to develop the railway stations in the state," Prabhu said.

The Minister regretted the delay in laying railway tracks on Amritsar-Patti route via Ferozpur but hoped that the work on this project will begin soon with the help of the state government. He said the Centre was focusing on producing solar energy from waste material that will help reduce railways' expenditure on purchase of electricity.

The savings, he said, could be used for creating additional facilities for the passengers. Railway ministry will install solar panels at all the railway buildings across the country in order to reduce expenditure on electricity, he said.

Later, Prabhu along with his wife paid obeisance at Golden Temple where he was honoured with a set of Sikh religious books, a replica of Golden Temple and woolen shawl. He also paid obeisance at Durgina Temple.

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SPORTS

PIONEER, JUL 19, 2016SC BARS MINISTERS, BABUS FROM CRICKETING BODIES

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Ministers and bureaucrats have no business to govern cricket, ruled the Supreme Court on Monday as it landed a major blow to the autonomy enjoyed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The court also asked the Centre and the Law Commission to consider bringing the BCCI within the ambit of the Right to Information Act.

The Bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice FM Ibrahim Kalifulla said, “The public at large has a right to know and demand information as to the activities and functions of the BCCI especially when it deals with funds collected in relation to those activities as a trustee of wherein the beneficiary happens to be the people of this country.”

The Bench went on to order surgical reforms in the administrative set-up of the Board by forming a nine-member Apex Council to take decisions with regard to cricketing affairs of the BCCI. The Bench approved almost every recommendation made by the court-appointed Committee headed by former CJI RM Lodha and comprising two former SC judges, Ashok Bhan and RV Raveendran. This Committee was asked to oversee setting up of the Apex Council in six months. This body will have five full members elected by the BCCI annually, along with two cricket players (one being a woman) and a nominee of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

The court decided it was time to end the political patronage enjoyed by cricket in the country and to make cricketing affairs accountable for a change as it held, “We do not think that the game (of cricket) flourishes in this country because any Minister or civil servants holds office in the State associations or BCCI.”

It further capped the age limit of office-bearers at 70 years with a three-year continuous tenure at the helm of the BCCI and State cricket associations. It also approved the finding by the Lodha panel that members cannot hold dual membership of a State cricket board and BCCI simultaneously.

This directly would affect the present BCCI president Anurag Thakur who also heads the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association.

The Board did not favour the recommendations made by Lodha Committee, particularly the one that made only one association from one State entitled for voting right in BCCI’s decision-making process. Regardless of these objections, the bench approved ‘One State One Vote’ policy. The states of Maharashtra and Gujarat stood to lose the most as each have three cricket associations, with every individual association enjoying full membership and voting right.

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The Bench while realising the historic role played by each such association in the development of cricket allowed one among the three associations in these states to become a full member on a rotational basis annually. During this period, the remaining two associations will be associate members. This holds significance as BCCI grants an annual fund of Rs 50 crore to full members and Rs 50 lakh to associate members for upkeep of stadia and payment of salary.

The court did not disturb the funding aspect of BCCI but ensured financial discipline and transparency by bringing a nominee of CAG in BCCI Apex Council and gave players a “sense of participation” in top level decisions. BCCI opposed to CAG nominee’s presence, citing the prospect of de-recognition by International Cricket Council (ICC) as amounting to Government’s interference.

On another contentious recommendation by Lodha panel requiring BCCI to ensure that broadcast of cricket matches is not interrupted by commercials when an over is in play, the bench left it to the BCCI’s discretion to work out suitable agreements with broadcasters to ensure the same. In the best interest of the game, the bench proposed to the Centre and Law Commission to consider framing a law to make betting in sports a legal activity in the country.

The Committee was tasked to undertake revision of one of its recommendations proposing a nominee of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchisees on IPL Governing Board apprehending conflict of interest. But the Committee has a major task ahead to supervise the smooth transition from BCCI’s existing regime to the proposed model latest by January next year. The Committee will be at liberty to approach the court in case of any impediment faced in implementing court’s directions. 

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TRANSPORT

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUL 18, 2016NGT directs Delhi RTO to ban all diesel vehicles over 10 years

NEW DELHI: National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed RTO DELHI to deregister all diesel

vehicles which are more than ten years old. The order is meant to be implemented immediately.

This comes at a time when Supreme Court has reserved its order on a petition by automaker

against the 7month old ban on diesel vehicles above 2000cc. The automakers in their petition had

asked for big diesel vehicles to be allowed again on payment of one percent of exshowroom

price as green cess. The recent call by NGT for banning of old diesel and petrol cars, if

implemented, is expected to inturn help increase the sales of automakers who have till now bore

the brunt on the diesel ban.

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