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LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED BUSINESS STANDARD DECCAN HERALD ECONOMIC TIMES FINANCIAL EXPRESS HINDU HINDUSTAN TIMES INDIAN EXPRESS STATESMAN TELEGRAPH TIMES OF INDIA TRIBUNE 1
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Page 1: LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED - iipa.org.in 8-15, 2017.docx  · Web viewAt the core of this shift is the 360degree review or ... that is on the now all-important University Grants Commission

LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED

BUSINESS STANDARD

DECCAN HERALD

ECONOMIC TIMES

FINANCIAL EXPRESS

HINDU

HINDUSTAN TIMES

INDIAN EXPRESS

STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

TIMES OF INDIA

TRIBUNE

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CONTENTS

AVIATION 3-4

BACKWARD CLASSES 5-7

CIVIL SERVICE 8-13

EDUCATION 14-25

ELDERLY 26-27

ELECTIONS 28-30

HEALTH SERVICES 31-32

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 33-34

JUDICIARY 35-37

LIBRARIES 38-39

MANAGEMENT 40-41

PRESIDENTS 42-43

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 44-45

RAILWAYS 46-47

TAXATION 48-51

VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS 52-53

WOMEN 54

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AVIATION

HINDUSTAN TIMES, JUN 9, 2017Unique ID like Aadhaar or passport may soon be made mandatory for booking flight tickets

Once a passengers book their tickets, the unique ID, along with PNR, will provide all their information and will also serve as a digital boarding pass.

In the next three to four months air travellers in the country will have to mandatorily provide a

unique identification (UID) like an Aadhaar card, passport or PAN at the time of booking tickets.

The government has constituted a technical committee that will prepare a white paper on this

proposal in 30 days, said minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha at a press briefing.

“There are various ways of securing that unique identification. Clearly, the best way of doing it

is by using Aadhaar and other ways are by using a passport or PAN card,” said Sinha.

As an “incentive”, passengers will be able to avail a paperless and seamless travel experience.

Once a passengers book their tickets, the unique ID, along with PNR, will provide all their

information and will also serve as a digital boarding pass, explained Sinha.

Those who provide biometric identification through Aadhaar will have to do an iris or finger

scan at the airport, while those who share other forms of ID will be provided a QR code on their

mobile phones which can then be scanned at the airport.

However, passengers who wish to collect their boarding passes and skip the digital system will

still have the option to do so but won’t enjoy the benefit of hassle-free travel.

“If you are using the system, to potentially get through the entire airport you will be able to zip

through in 10-15 min versus 20-30 minutes. We think that this will create an incentive for

people,” Sinha told reporters.

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The ease of travel offered by opting for the digital system will serve as a “pull factor” for

passengers as opposed to a “push factor”, the minister hoped.

Once the technical committee presents its white paper, comments from stakeholders will be

invited for a period of 30 days. Thereafter, the government will finalise the rules in 30 to 60

days.

A new set of rules or Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) will be prepared by the government

which will state that a UID is a mandatory requirement at the time of booking a flight ticket,

Sinha said.

The minister added that the move will also help in executing its proposed no-fly list on unruly

passengers as it will help in tracking them.

The technical committee will also suggest a data-sharing protocol among travel portals, the

airlines, airports, security agencies as well as various concessionaires such as parking and

transportation providers.

The digital system of travelling will not be mandatory for airports to execute, according the

minister.

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BACKWARD CLASSES

TELEGRAPH, JUN 10, 2017Naming the reality- The rise and fall of the term 'Harijan'

PoliticsandPlayRamachandra Guha

In his 1984 book, The Untouchable as Himself, the anthropologist, R.S. Khare, speaks of the derision with which Dalits viewed the term, 'Harijan', popularized by Mahatma Gandhi. Khare quotes a Chamar reformer in Lucknow as telling him: "Harijan means what we can never be allowed to become by the caste Hindu, and what we may not want to be anyway. It was a superficial way for Gandhi to resolve his guilt..."

It is well known that Gandhi himself never used the term 'Dalit'. It is less well known that (at least in his English writings and speeches) B.R. Ambedkar did not use that term either. He preferred to call his people either 'Untouchables' or the 'Depressed Classes', the latter a legal category in British India. Although 'Dalit', meaning 'the oppressed', was used in parts of Northern India from the late 19th century, it only gained wider currency in the 1970s, following its adoption by a group of radical activists in Maharashtra who called themselves the Dalit Panthers. Now it is ubiquitously used across India, by Dalits and non-Dalits alike, whereas the Gandhian term Harijan has (perhaps deservedly) fallen out of favour.

When Gandhi first began to campaign intensively against untouchability, circa 1920, he did not refer to the lowest strata of Hindu society as 'Harijans'. Rather, when he spoke or wrote of them in Gujarati, he used the term 'Antyaja' (last-born); and when he spoke or wrote of them in English, he chose to call them the 'suppressed classes'.

In September 1932, Gandhi went on fast in Pune's Yerwada Jail in opposition to separate electorates for the Depressed Classes (which Ambedkar supported). When Gandhi's health began to fail, Ambedkar was made to yield, signing a compromise agreement increasing the number of seats in legislatures reserved for the Depressed Classes, but as part of a joint electorate of all Hindus. After the signing of this 'Poona Pact', Gandhi increasingly referred to the untouchables as 'Harijans', a term meaning 'Children of God'. He thought it less pejorative than 'Untouchable', less patronizing than the colonial coinage, 'Depressed Classes', and more indigenous-sounding than his own earlier alternative, 'suppressed classes'.

×The term 'Harijan' had first been used by the medieval poet-saint Narsinh Mehta, whom Gandhi had long admired (Mehta's " Vaishnava jana to" was one of his favourite hymns). In adopting this term for the Depressed Classes, Gandhi remarked: "Not that the change of name brings about any change of status, but one may at least be spared the use of a term which is itself one of reproach."

Gandhi edited a weekly newspaper named Young India. In 1933 he renamed this weekly Harijan, because he believed that the campaign to abolish untouchability was as vital as winning political freedom. India, young (or Young) and old, present and future, had to commit

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itself to this sacred cause. The name quickly gained currency; among the Hindu middle classes, and the nationalist press, the Untouchables were now regularly referred to as Harijans. However, the euphemism was rejected by B.R. Ambedkar, who never used the appellation to describe his people.

Shortly before he went on fast in September 1932, Gandhi had formed an 'Anti-Untouchability League', vesting the responsibility for running it in the hands of two of his close associates, the industrialist, G.D. Birla, and the social worker, A.V. Thakkar. After the fast had ended and the Poona Pact was signed, this organization was renamed the Harijan Sewak Sangh, which we may translate into English as the 'Servants of Untouchables Society'. Gandhi's colleague, C. Rajagopalachari (popularly known as 'Rajaji'), who had long been committed to the abolition of untouchability himself, objected to the new name. He pointed out that the existence of a Harijan Sewak Sangh "means a continued recognition of untouchables as such". He would rather this body be named the 'Untouchability Abolition League', since, as he put it, what they were striving for was "really abolition of a slave status and the phrase 'Abolition' would be suggestive and emphatic... Service to a group of men is not really the object and aim, if we think about it. It is really the doing away with the evil."

Rajaji wrote likewise to Birla and Thakkar, president and secretary of the Harijan Sewak Sangh respectively. Thakkar was a long-time member of the Servants of India Society, and had earlier founded a Bhil Seva Sangh. Rajaji thought both those names logical, since India was a nation and Bhils a tribe, and both would remain whether one served them or not. But here the purpose was to abolish the practice of untouchability. Hence he wished the new body to be called 'Untouchability Abolition League' or Society, the word abolition being the most prominent part of the name.

Gandhi was agnostic about Rajaji's idea. "The Sangh will not succeed or fail," he wrote, "because of the name. It will be judged by its work." However, since it came from a colleague he enormously respected, he asked Birla and Thakkar to consider Rajaji's suggestion. They rejected it, on the grounds that the name of the society had only very recently been changed from 'Anti-Untouchability League' to 'Harijan Sewak Sangh'. This was done because the respected Pune social worker, V.R. Shinde, was already running an Anti-Untouchability League.

This change of name, wrote Thakkar to Rajagopalachari, was approved by the organization's board, and announced in the press. Fresh stationery had also been printed incorporating the new name. Now, just as "all have got used to the changed name", wrote Thakkar, "comes your suggestion, endorsed by Bapu, that it should be changed a second time". Thakkar admitted that there was 'much logic' in the argument that the aim was not to keep untouchables as untouchables forever. However, he continued, "if we now suggest this second change to the Board, every one will ridicule us, and may not agree to this second change. Not only the members of the Board, but the public at large and the Press will justifiably ridicule the proposal, if it is put into effect". Therefore the board is "averse to the change, though it is reasonable, merely because it is not expedient to do so".

It was a typically Indian scenario. Bureaucratic inertia had triumphed over logic and reason.

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Worry about adverse commentary in the press, and irritation at the thought of printing stationary afresh, meant that the status quo prevailed. So the name 'Harijan Sewak Sangh' remained, although the alternative would have been less patronizing, more direct.

For some decades now, Dalit thinkers and activists have rejected the term 'Harijan' to describe themselves. The reformer whom R.S. Khare quoted in the 1980s was entirely representative. In fact, even during Gandhi's lifetime, some people found the term 'Harijan' condescending. In April 1944, one correspondent told Gandhi that it instilled "into the minds of the people to whom it is applied a feeling of inferiority, however sacred the name may be". Could not Gandhi replace it with "a name which could also bring into its fold people from other sects"?

Gandhi answered that the name had been originally suggested to him by a member of the 'Harijan' community itself. He agreed that "the feeling of inferiority must go", adding that "the process can be accelerated, if every Hindu would deliberately shed his superiority and in practice become a Harijan... Then we will all become true children of God as the name 'Harijan' means".

The defence was weak, and unconvincing. In truth, Gandhi's own earlier coinage, 'suppressed classes', explicitly targeted social discrimination, whereas 'Harijan' euphemized it. And 'Anti-Untouchability League' was likewise more direct than 'Harijan Sewak Sangh', the term which came to replace it. To quote Rajaji once more, if the aim was "abolition of a slave status" then "the phrase 'Abolition' would be suggestive and emphatic... Service to a group of men is not really the object and aim, if we think about it. It is really the doing away with the evil".

In retrospect, Gandhi may have made a mistake in not endorsing Rajaji's suggestion to rename the Harijan Sewak Sangh the Untouchability Abolition League. Normally so astute in understanding the importance of the right word, the most evocative symbol, he did not here perceive that 'abolition' conveyed a more emphatic meaning than mere 'service'. Surely adequate Indian-language translations could have been found both for 'suppressed classes' and for 'Anti-Untouchability League'. As it turned out, the terms actually chosen by Gandhi turned out to be less than adequate to the task. Moreover, the social workers who ran the Harijan Sewak Sangh placed more emphasis on fostering personal virtue than in removing the civic and social disabilities that the Untouchables suffered from.

Coined admittedly out of good intentions, the term 'Harijan' had problems from the start. And it has long outlived any use or resonance it might have once had.

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CIVIL SERVICE

TRIBUNE, JUN 15, 2017Panel on elevating 32 officers to IAS meets on July 14Sushil Manav

Inching a step closer to elevation 32 Haryana Civil Service (HCS) officers to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has fixed the meeting of Selection Committee for July 14.

Sources in the Chief Secretary’s office confirm that the Selection Committee, which comprises a member from the UPSC, the Chief Secretary, the Financial Commissioner (Revenue) and the senior most Divisional Commissioner, will meet on July 14 in Chandigarh.

Due to legal hurdles, the elevation of the HCS officers to the IAS is pending for five years. The state government had sent names of nearly 40 HCS officers for their promotion under the selection lists of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Sources said that when the names were sent to the UPSC in May this year, the elevations were to be made to fill 31 vacancies. However, with the vacation of the stay on post earlier granted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on a petition by an officer, the number of vacancies has gone to 32.

Rules prescribe that a panel of three times the number of vacancies are to be sent to the UPSC.

But since the vacancies for five years are to be filled, the additional names sent for the first financial year have been included in the panel for the next fiscal and so on making the effective number of officers in the panel to nearly 40. With shortfall of nearly 60 IAS officers from their total authorised cadre strength, the situation will ease out to some extent with the elevation of 32 HCS officers.

Many officers have been given dual charge while the post of Deputy Commissioner at Fatehabad is lying vacant for the past two weeks, primarily due to shortage of IAS officers in the state.Interestingly, some of the present HCS officers awaiting promotion will become senior than the IAS officers under whom they are working at present.

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HINDU, JUN 11, 2017Candidates bringing gadgets to centres will be barred: UPSC

As students prepare for writing the civil services examinations next Sunday, the Union

Public Service Commission (UPSC) has said it will debar from future exams the candidates

who bring gadgets like mobile phones or Bluetooth devices inside the centre.

In a set of do’s and don’ts for the civil services aspirants, the UPSC has also asked them not

to bring any costly items inside the examination halls. “Electronic gadgets like

cellular/mobile phones, any other devices for communication, laptop, Bluetooth device, and

calculator are banned inside the examination hall.

“Any infringement of these instructions shall entail disciplinary action against the

candidates concerned including debarment from future examinations/selection,” the UPSC

said.

The civil services examination is conducted annually by the commission in three stages —

preliminary, main and interview — to select officers for Indian Administrative Service

(IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others.

The civil services preliminary examination 2017 is scheduled to be held on June 18.

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 12, 2017Modi is silently, and perhaps irreversibly, transforming a critical area: India's bureaucracy

The bureaucracy is on tenterhooks these days, abuzz with how uncertain the lives and careers of bureaucrats have become under this government. There is almost no formulaic solution at sight to either appease them or make them feel secure enough in their assignments.

GoI's latest move to shortlist a bench strength of secretaryequivalent officers, alongside the empanelment of new secretaries, has further unsettled the assured pitch that usually comes with such appointments.

Masked behind all this unpredictability is one of the big shifts that has taken place under this government, of which little has been revealed or said. But in a quiet and definitive way, it has changed the rules of bureaucratic play.

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At the core of this shift is the 360degree review or appraisal system to select, promote and even indirectly admonish officials. This essentially reduces the reliance on annual confidential reports as the key basis for shortlisting and empanelment. This, in turn, has a significant bearing on the final selection of a bureaucrat to a top job.

As a result, over the past three years, this new system has slowly unhinged certain basic assumptions in a bureaucrat's zone of maneuverability. Like lobbying the minister concerned for a job in his department, or even other senior bureaucrats in key positions.

This is not to say that any of these methods have turned obsolete. But their effectiveness, or 'rate of return', has sharply dropped. While some of it has to do with the erosion of coalition era multiple power centres, the simple fact is that new rules have replaced old rules.

360Degree System

It's said that so devoted is the prime minister to the 360degree system that he doesn't even grant himself to be exempted. He has reportedly chosen to drop names forwarded from his office if they don't pass the 360degree test.

Three questions arise: What is this review? How is it done? And why is it so important to GoI?

Let's start with the last question first. A way had to be found to counter a decade of Congress rule in which the bureaucracy held sway, allowing for longlasting loyalties to be cultivated across services and beyond retirement barriers. For new equations to be built, old ones had to be disrupted.

But how? After all, lines and rows of batchescumcadres seemed well sorted with a string of 'outstanding' reports and recommendations. There was no way that they would fail the existing evaluation and selection system, unless there was outright political highhandedness, which would have invited avoidable bureaucratic opprobrium.

Then there was the mandate against corruption. This provided the perfect setting for a systemic overhaul by a newly elected political leadership. This is also the reason why GoI could carry out more senior bureaucratic reshuffles than usual in the past three years.

It was in this context that the 360degree system was put in place. What does it mean? Quite literally, like in many corporates, it amounts to conducting a holistic evaluation across talent, skills, social and personal parameters instead of simply looking at filework. In bureaucracy, this meant don't go by confidential reports alone. GoI's highest echelons were convinced that this system had been rigged, and that many officers were not making it to the shortlist because they had one 'outstanding' less than the other. Few important calls were made.

One, all eligible candidates, regardless of their average performance on their appraisals, will be considered for this assessment. Two, the minister's recommendation of the post being filled will

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not override the outcome of the 360degree process. And three, integrity will also be assessed by way of reputation, not just by a Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) clearance.

A Tightly Held Secret

So how is the process conducted? The exercise is a tightly held secret conducted by three retired secretarylevel officials. They have been appointed for a twoyear period, subject to health considerations, and their identities are supposed to be classified.

This group is expected to work pretty much independently, collecting information from myriad sources in an unsuspecting, unassuming manner, figuring out the general reputation of the officer among subordinate staff, paint an overall perception picture on integrity, besides making any other relevant observations.

It's quite possible that this group wouldn't be made aware of the job an officer is being considered for.

Now, whom they talk to, and whose views count is still more or less a grey area. But what we know is that this report is placed before a panel headed by the Cabinet secretary in case of secretarylevel appointments, and the establishment officer, who heads the panel for joint secretaries. Both panels have PMO representations.

All other inputs, including intelligence reports and ministerial recommendations, are on the table. But the contents and conclusion of this report have a definitive bearing. The recommendation of this panel is largely final. In other words, the measure of perception and reputation has come to matter more, regardless of what appraisal reports say. And while that may give a second chance to many who have lost out in their careers for the wrong reasons, the system has also introduced new variables, including subjective elements, that have drastically altered the field of play.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, JUN 10, 2017Manish Sisodia orders removal of official who refused to hold Facebook live on GST

Director of information and publicity Jayadev Sarangi had refused to organise a Facebook Live with Delhi traders claiming that claiming that an “open tender” was required to hold it.

Vishal Kant 

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has ordered action against director of information

and publicity Jayadev Sarangi for ‘not been able to deliver on works assigned to the officer’.

Sisodia wrote to chief secretary MM Kutty on Monday, asking him to initiate proceedings

against Sarangi for ‘dereliction of duty’, and replace him with an ‘officer who can perform’.

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The development comes days after the directorate of information and publicity turned down the

deputy CM’s request to organise a Facebook Live to discuss the fallout of GST with traders,

claiming that an “open tender” was required to hold it.

Stating that it “lacked technical competence and specialisation” for such a “social media

campaign”, the DIP had said that it had no “other option” but to deny the request.

In his direction to the CS on Monday, Sisodia cited instances wherein Sarangi failed to

implement his directions, including organising a Facebook Live with traders on GST.

In his order, Sisodia said how the officer failed to organise the Facebook Live, which required

nothing more than an internet connection and camera.

“National GST Council met on June 3. I wanted to seek the views and suggestions of Delhi’s

traders before going for this meeting. Therefore on May 25 and then on May 30, I directed Sh.

Sarangi to arrange my FB Live interaction on June 1 or June 2. He wrote back to me saying that

the same cannot be arranged as it would require open tender, which would need one month’s

time. I was aghast to read that. Why do you need open tender for FB Live?”the office order

reads.

“You do not need to spend a single penny on FB Live. This means this officer neither knows

what FB Live is nor has desire to learn. It is really shameful that the director of information and

publicity of the Capital of India does not know what FB Live is,” it added.

The deputy chief minister cited two other instances — preparing an advertisement campaign to

make people aware about the increased minimum wages and putting up hoardings across the city

about the performance of 12th grade students in government schools — over the past week when

the director failed to execute his offer.

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“...These are clear cases of dereliction of duty. The CS is hereby directed to initiate proceedings

for dereliction of duty against him under intimation to this (Deputy CM) office. Either replace

Mr. Sarangi with an officer who can perform these jobs or the CS should get following four jobs

done…” Sisodia, who heads the DIP, said in his direction to the chief secretary.

The list of work handed over to the CS includes holding a Facebook Live before June 10 as the

next GST Council meeting is scheduled for June 11, presentation of a detailed plan for publicity

of minimum wages hike on June 6 at 12 noon, ensuring that hoardings of class 12 results are

immediately put up starting from June 5 and ensure all radio and TV ads start running from June

6.

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EDUCATION

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 9, 2017BU set to be split into 3 smaller varsities this yearYogitha R JBU North, Central and South will be carved out of parent university

The stage is all set for the formation of BU (Central) and BU (North) from the parent university which would become BU (South) hereafter.

×

The 24-year-old demand for dividing Bangalore University (BU) into three smaller varsities to ensure better administration is set to be fulfilled soon. 

The stage is all set for the formation of BU (Central) and BU (North) from the parent university which would become BU (South) hereafter. 

The trifurcation was approved at a meeting chaired by Minister for Higher Education Basavaraj Rayareddy in the first week of May. The process to recruit vice-chancellors, registrars, members of the syndicate and affiliation of courses for the two new universities has begun, a senior official in the Education Department said.

The two new universities will be given grants in the special budget next year as the government didn’t allocate any funds for them in the 2017-18 budget, the official added. 

The administrative office of BU (North) will come up at BU’s existing postgraduate centre in Kolar, while BU (Central) will operate out of Central College in the heart of the city. BU (South) will have the Jnanabharathi campus as its base. The permanent campus of BU (North) will be built at Amaravathi near Devanahalli. Around 57 acres of land has been sanctioned for it. Rayareddy has promised to sanction an additional 115 acres for the varsity. 

“The two new universities will get new logos which will be finalised by a committee from the 14 shortlisted logos,” T D Kemparaju, Special Officer, BU (North), told DH. “Each university requires at least Rs 200 crore. A proposal has been submitted to the government seeking Rs 15 crore for BU (North) and Rs 10 crore for BU (Central) for infrastructure and manpower.” 

For the time being, there is a plan to depute 100 employees from BU (South) to BU (North) and BU (Central) to get them going. 

For this academic year, undergraduate students will be registered under BU (South) and later distributed among BU (North) and BU (Central) once the affiliation of colleges to these universities is worked out. 

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DH News Service

A demand is fulfilled 

1993: Demand for trifurcation of BU 

2009: Government seeks report from former vice-chancellor N Rudraiah

2012: Government decides to trifurcate the university

2015: Cabinet approves trifurcation 

Who gets what? 

Areas under BU (South): Vijayanagar, Padmnabhanagar, Bommanahalli, Anekal, Bengaluru South, Yeshwantpur, Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Dasarahalli, Mahalakshmi Layout, Govindarajanagar, Nelamangala, Magadi, Ramanagaram, Kanakapura and Channapatna. 

Areas under BU (Central)

Shanthinagar, Byatarayanapura, Yelahanka, Malleswaram, Hebbal, Shivajinagar, Gandhinagar, Chickpet, Basavanagudi, BTM Layout, Jayanagar and Rajajinagar. 

Areas under BU (North)

Kolar, Malur, KR Puram, Pulakeshinagar, Sarvagnanagar, CV Raman Nagar, Mahadevapura, Gauribidanur, Bagepalli, Chikkaballapur, Shidlaghatta, Chintamani, Devanahalli, Hoskote and Doddaballapur. 

“It takes at least five years for a new university to become fully functional. It has taken five years for the government to effect the decision of trifurcation. If this is the pace of the process, what about quality?” 

K R Venugopal, Principal, University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering

“Two new universities may not become functional this year. Each university needs at least 200 members of staff while the recruitment process takes up to six months. It is doubtful the government will grant Rs 400 crore in the special budget.” 

Dr N Prabhu Dev, former VC, BU

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TRIBUNE, JUN 9, 2017

UGC, AICTE mergerHEERA needs polishing

THE Modi government’s love for initialisms will soon spawn a new one — HEERA or Higher Education Empowerment Regulation Agency — that will be formed with the merger of the UGC and the AICTE, the two regulators for the education sector. A merger has been on the cards for over eight years after the AICTE’s arbitrariness in regulating engineering colleges was showcased in ultra-quick approvals to its then chief’s Haryana-based relatives. The Manmohan Singh government had held back from biting the bullet despite the Yash Pal Committee’s strong pitch for a merger. But the Modi government was left with no option because of a string of Supreme Court orders had created confusion about the mandates of the two bodies. Details are scant despite the high-decibel announcement. From the information available, the fine print is being sorted out by the Niti Aayog.

Till the backroom boys came up with HEERA, the merged entity was to be called IRAHE or the Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education. The difference in the two is HEERA drops the word independent — an all important requisite for the new body to break free of the present perception of restrictive and non-transparent functioning. There is as yet no word on how the government will address greater autonomy of action in the proposed body. HEERA must also not introduce inspection raj in a new garb while addressing issues affecting the quality of education such as infrastructure, adequate faculty and enrolment of students.

Currently, the government has been parsimonious with information except to assure that HEERA

will eliminate overlaps in jurisdiction and remove irrelevant regulatory provisions. If past

deliberations are any indication, the new body will have three independent wings dealing with

academics, accreditation and grants. However, in the interest of uniformity, it must also take up

regulation of foreign education providers as well as ensure quick closure of poorly performing

institutions. The merger will only be a beginning to reform regulators that evolved during the

early years of liberalisation and have since remained static. It remains to be seen whether the

government will retain clauses in an earlier Bill providing for greater freedom of action. 

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 9, 2017UGC tweaks quota to set level NET playing field

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NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission has decided to rework the eligibility criteria

for the popular National Eligibility Test to ensure a “level playing field” for general category

candidates. The decision, which may stir a fresh debate on reservation, was taken at a meeting of

the higher education regulator on Wednesday, officials told ET. The NET determines entry into

the higher education teaching profession and is conducted by the Central Board of Secondary

Education on behalf of UGC. UGC has decided that 6% of the candidates appearing for the NET

be declared as qualifying to be eligible for the entry level position of assistant professor and that

the reservation policy be applied to this 6%. As per the current UGC norms regarding the

procedure and criteria for declaration of NET results, the merit list of candidates who secured

minimum marks would be prepared subjectwise as also reserved categorywise (other backward

classes, disabled persons, SCs and STs) based on the aggregate marks secured by the candidates

in all the three papers and the top 15% candidates in all the categories will be declared NET

qualified for eligibility for assistant professors. Why This Change The UGC decision has come

following a Kerala HC order in January 2017, on a writ petition filed by the Nair Service

Society, which struck down UGCNET criteria giving relaxation of marks to reserved categories

as unconstitutional and as a move unfavourable and biased against the general candidates. The

UGC decision, now ratified, will soon be communicated to the CBSE as well. Petitioners in the

HC had argued that because of lower minimum marks prescribed for the candidates belonging to

the reserved categories, more candidates from these categories inevitably secured minimum

marks and qualified for assistant professorship visavis 2017620 UGC tweaks quota to set level

NET playing field . The Fine Print Following the HC order, the UGC set up a committee that has

mined NET exam data trends for the past 20 years before recommending a new formula. This

committee has said that on average 5.56% candidates across various categories manage to

qualify in the NET. It recommended accordingly that no more than 6% candidates be declared to

have qualified the NET. This means that if 600,000 candidates appear in UGCNET in a

particular cycle, 6% of those, i.e., 36,000 qualifying slots for eligibility for an assistant professor

are to be earmarked for different categories as per the Centre’s policy in this regard. As per the

current reservation policy, a minimum of 27%, 15%, 7.5% and 3% of slots are reserved for the

OBCs (belonging to noncreamy layer), SC, ST and persons with disabilities respectively. The

method for allocation of these candidates and the various disciplines will be the same as is now

applicable for the UGC junior research fellowship.

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TRIBUNE, JUN 8, 2017

IIM Bill: Give academic freedom importanceDheeraj Sharma

The government has proposed an IIM Bill 2017. The difference between institutional autonomy and academic freedom needs to be articulated, with a view on which of the two is more important. It needs to be analysed whether the IIM Bill in its current form address these two aspects of autonomy.

Features of IIM Bill 2017 IMs will be able to grant degrees to their students. Currently, all IIMs are separate autonomous

bodies registered under the Societies Act. Being societies, IIMs are not authorised to award degrees. They have been awarding postgraduate diploma and fellow programme in management, treated as equivalent to MBAs and PhD, respectively. The equivalence is not universally acceptable, especially for the fellow programme.

A regular review of the performance of the IIMs by independent agencies will be done and results put up in the public domain. It will take into account the long-term strategy and five-year plan of the IIMs.

The annual report of the IIMs will be placed in Parliament and the Comptroller and Auditor-General will audit their accounts. Steps taken by the institute to fulfil its objectives and an outcome-based assessment of the research being undertaken by the institutes will be included.

There is the provision of a Coordination Forum of IIMs as an advisory body. The forum will facilitate the sharing of experiences, ideas and concerns to enhance the performance of all institutes.

WE are witnessing an ongoing debate on the balance between apposite governance and institutional autonomy in higher education institutes in India. The government has proposed an IIM Bill and in the discussion related to the IIM Bill, the issue of institutional autonomy is at the forefront but no discussion is taking place on academic freedom per se. Traditionally, the most important type of autonomy in an institution is academic autonomy (related primarily to teaching and research). However, in recent times three more types of autonomy have come to the forefront, namely, financial, organisational, and staffing autonomy. Financial autonomy refers to institutes to ability to raise funds in an autonomous manner. More specifically, financial autonomy implies that the institution can set fee as it deems fit for the various programmes that it offers. Organisational autonomy is the ability of an institution to establish sub-units and specifically set up research centres, satellite campuses, etc. Staffing autonomy refers to the power to recruit its employees as per its own processes. 

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The IIMs have always had financial autonomy. One can review the construction of IIM campuses and a simple analysis of randomly selected data of at least the new IIMs and some old IIMs clearly indicates that the cost of construction of the campus is higher than CPWD rates that are usually the benchmarks for construction. The cost of construction is higher on account of unique designs that provide an important character to the institution, which cannot then be benchmarked with CPWD rates for standard institutional buildings. However, who decides that character of the institute? It is primarily left to a great extent to the institute administration. Thus, one can infer high level of financial autonomy provided to the IIMs. 

IIMs have always had organisational autonomy. A simple review of websites of IIMs elucidates that almost all of the IIMs have centres of research several registered under Section 8 of the Indian Companies Act allowing them even greater level of autonomy with its own staff, funding, budget, management, etc.. Additionally, IIM Lucknow extension campus in Noida, IIM Indore extension in Mumbai, IIM Kashipur extension campus in Dehradun, IIM Trichy extension campus in Chennai, etc. are all together evidence of organisational autonomy. 

Finally, IIMs have always had staffing autonomy. Most of the IIMs follow their own recruitment and promotion policies with regards to faculty and staff. For instance, many IIMs have a standard tenure between each promotion and many promote faculty based on their unique evaluation criteria. Even greater autonomy is evident in terms of staff recruitment. Several IIMs recruit staff members well beyond the government sanctioned posts. Many of them employ staff at salaries higher than faculty salaries. 

So, one must wonder, why this question of autonomy again and again? Does it imply that the IIMs want unbridled financial, organisational, and staffing autonomy? Is it desirable? I guess not. Specifically, would we want opaqueness in how IIMs deal with their finances?  This is already happening. A few IIMs have not made their annual reports available in public domain for multiple years in a row.

Contrary to discussion on institutional autonomy there is no discussion on academic freedom. Most IIMs administrators direct their faculty to publish in narrow lists dominated by North American research journals, where publishing with Indian data is usually an unsurmountable task. While there is definite merit in publishing in these well-established North American journals in the initial stages of the career but most IIMs administrators direct faculty into narrow pigeon holes research even for promotions. Is this academic freedom? Well, I guess not. 

The reason for the aforementioned anomalies is that IIMs were founded under the Societies Registration Act, which requires almost no compliance with any standard. The British introduced

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it after the mutiny for the local groups to do their own things. Later, the society format got picked up by the nationalist and later by Gandhians. Hence, there was no question of the Societies Act being reformed. Foreign donors picked up NGOs (as societies mostly) for funding as they considered them to be far more economical and effective. The primary reason is the nearly non-existent statutory requirement for societies. A good part of the problem with the IIMs is that these are societies and the act makes no statutory requirements. Hence, the need for the IIM Bill that creates these robust structures. In the current shape, the new IIM Bill only promises greater institutional autonomy. There is the peril of replacing the "external powers (government power)" with "new internal powers". This is worrisome because the government represents the people and the institute board does not. The representatives of the government are accountable to people vis-à-vis Parliament, CAG, CBI, CVC, CIC among others The self-appointing board as proposed in the Bill is not. 

Consequently, we must rise above this reductionist discourse of institutional autonomy and debate academic freedom. Great institutions are faculty led, administratively supported and technology enabled. Hence, we really need a right IIM Bill. Not one that gives undesirable or unlimited financial, organisational, and staffing autonomy alone but actually allows for faculty governance in the true spirit of academic freedom. Academic autonomy would be seriously simplified and endangered if it were put on a continuum with "full government control and no autonomy" on the one end and "full autonomy and no more state control" on the other. 

The writer is Director, IIM-Rohtak. The views expressed are personal

HINDUSTAN TIMES, JUN 10, 2017ICSE board makes Sanskrit, yoga and performing arts compulsory subjectsSumanta Ray Chaudhuri 

The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education council (ICSE) has decided to introduce three

compulsory subjects -- Sanskrit, yoga and performing arts. Yoga and performing arts will be

compulsory between classes 1 and 8. Sanskrit will be taught in classes 5 to 8, council CEO Gerry

Arathoon said in Kolkata.

In another important decision, Class 5 and 8 students of the ICSE will have to face board

examinations from 2018, Arathoon said in Kolkata on Wednesday. However, there will be no

pass-fail tags.

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“It will be just a periodical evaluation exercise to have an idea on the progress of the students’

learning after a particular level,” the CEO said.

“In the Class 5 and 8 board examinations, the answer papers of the students of one school will be

evaluated by teachers of another school, as it happens in case of the final class 10 level

examination,’ he added.

The board will provide the questions for both the board examinations at Class 5 and Class 8.

All the ICSE-affiliated schools will have to follow uniform syllabus from nursery till class 10. So

far, the schools had the freedom to decide the syllabi from nursery to Class 10.

“The new uniform syllabi will be effective from 2018,” Arathoon said.

TELEGRAPH, JUN 14, 2017Journal jugglery- Traps for the unmindful researcher

Samantak Das

All this seems to have created something of a catch-22 situation for Indian academia 

In the 17 years, from 1922 to 1939, that it was published, The Criterion was possibly the best-known, and probably the best, literary journal in the English language. Founded by the poet/ critic/ dramatist/ cultural commentator/ general fount of wisdom/ soon-to-be Nobel laureate (in 1948), Thomas Stearns - better known as TS - Eliot, The Criterion trod a very conscious, deliberately-defined international path. The first issue of October 1922 included Hermann Hesse, who contributed "German Poetry of To-Day", an essay on James Joyce's Ulysses by the Frenchman, Valery Larbaud, a translation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Plan of a Novel" (one of the translators was Virginia Woolf), not to forget Eliot's own modernist masterpiece, The Waste Land, among others.

Should you wish to look up something in Criterion and google "criterion journal", be prepared to be surprised. For, in first place, among some 50 million search results, will be a journal that rejoices that it "is refereed (sic) e-journal and is designed to publish theoretical articles and book reviews on interdisciplinary cross-currents in the humanities and social sciences", while elsewhere it claims to be "designed to publish theoretical and research articles on English Literature and Language, Humanities and Social Sciences". Its linguistically idiosyncratic web pages will not merely entertain but educate and alert readers to a brave new phenomenon in the proliferating groves of Indian academe, to wit the API-inflating, APC/F-charging, QGM-inspired "scholarly" e-journal, where API stands for academic performance indicators, APC/F

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for article processing charges or fees and QGM is Quick Gun Murugan. Such journals promise to publish, in double-quick time (hence QGM), articles by college and university teachers who need to improve their API scores (now mandatory for moving up the academic ladder) for a small APC/F. This particular journal, for example, takes 15 to 25 days to accept, or reject, a submission and promises to publish a piece in two months flat. And just in case you were wondering, the APC/F for an article is a most reasonable Rs 1,500, and the journal helpfully indicates that a contributor will get 25 API points since it is an "International, Refreed (  sic), Indexed and Peer-reviewed Journal", one, moreover, that is on the now all-important University Grants Commission Journal List.

A word about this List might be in order. The "UGC Approved List of Journals" [ http://ugc.ac.in/journallist/] contains the names of all the journals where Indian academics must publish in order to score API points. The List became a necessity when it came to the notice of the powers-that-be who regulate higher education in our country that, almost immediately after the API system of awarding points for publishing was introduced, academics began publishing in journals that no one had heard of, let alone seen. Soon these journals began to actively solicit contributions and/or invite academics to serve on their editorial boards or reviewers' panels or whatever. Your humble scribe is still regularly inundated with emails that say, "... reviews papers within one week of submission and publishes accepted articles on the internet immediately upon receiving the final versions. Our fast reviewing process is our strength." As also "... aims at to (sic) publish unpublished, original research articles and make available a new platform to the scholars of Language, Literature and Culture. It deserves to promote (sic) the young researchers and attempts to cultivate the research aptitude among teachers in the higher educational (sic) system." The ellipses above stand for journals whose names shall not sully the pages of a respectable publication such as this. Perhaps the most bizarre part is that the second journal quoted from above is not only "a Peer-reviewed (refereed) International Journal in ( sic) English Language and Literature" (according to its publicity pamphlet) but also on the UGC Journal List. So, clearly, in spite of all its efforts, the UGC has not been able to locate and eliminate such distinctly dodgy entities from its list.

×Lest one think this is a phenomenon peculiar to India, one needs only to look at Beall's List of Predatory Journals and Publishers [ http: //beallslist.weebly.com/], the magnificent labour of love of Jeffrey Beall, the American librarian and scholar who first identified and named such journals and created the criteria-set that is still used to judge a journal's credentials. Sadly, Beall had to take down his own blog which had this list, probably as a result of treading on the toes of influential publishers of such journals, but his list is still available at the URL given earlier. More importantly perhaps, Beall alerted the larger scholarly world to the existence of this shadowy world of dubious academic publishing (usually online, most often open-access), where adherence to the letter of the law is usually directly proportional to the absence of academic substance.

All this seems to have created something of a catch-22 situation for Indian academia and academics. On the one hand, teachers have to publish, in journals which are on the UGC List, in order to get recognition, credit, scores, promotions, prestige and so on, and the need for such a list is patently obvious in an academic publishing ecosystem teeming with frauds and predators.

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And, yet, on the other hand, one knows that the most cunning and persistent of such exploiters, fakes and frauds will not only find their way around all attempts at quality control but also gloat about their success on their websites.

Perhaps the only thing to do in this situation is hope and pray that the UGC will periodically review and revise its List to weed out the undesirables and increase the ranks of the deserving. Only then may we expect an improvement in the quality of research published by our colleagues. But maybe the UGC ought to begin right away by doing some essential housekeeping. Here's an example. The department where I work brings out one of the oldest journals in the subject, published regularly for six decades now. In the UGC List, rather peculiarly, the Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature appears twice, the first time (with UGC-assigned Journal No. 41264) "English" as the journal's primary subject and the second time (UGC Journal No. 41570) with "English; Linguistics and Language" as its subject. As T.S. Eliot put it, "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?"

The author is professor of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, and has been working as a volunteer for a rural development NGO for the last 30 years

TELEGRAPH, JUN 13, 2017DU adopts viva-based PhD admissions

Basant Kumar Mohanty

New Delhi, June 12: Delhi University will from this year accept PhD and MPhil students solely on the basis of an interview, switching to an admission model that has caused turmoil on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus.

M.K. Pandit, chairman of Delhi University's admission committee, today told reporters that "most of the departments" will disregard the PhD applicants' performance in the written entrance test while making the final selection.

Till last year, the university gave 85 per cent weightage to the written test and 15 per cent to the interview. Its teachers' association has described the latest move as "arbitrary" and as a blow to students from poor families.

Pandit said: "The entrance score will be a qualifier. In the interview, everybody starts at the same level... unless some departments decide to give some weightage to the entrance test."

Under a policy espoused by the higher education regulator, the University Grants Commission, an oral interview alone should decide admission to research courses but the applicant must secure 50 per cent in the entrance test to qualify for the viva voce.Students at JNU have been agitating since their university switched to such a system in December-January.

They say that interviews tend to disadvantage poor, rural and lower-caste students, partly

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because of caste bias and partly because of language and fluency issues. They have been demanding that the weightage given to the interview be cut to 10 per cent.

An inquiry committee headed by a JNU professor, Abdul Nafey, has confirmed discrimination against Dalit and tribal students in oral interviews.

Pandit, however, seemed optimistic that no discrimination would occur during Delhi University admissions.

He said: "The interview panels will have representation from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and women. I hope there will be no discrimination."

Vijaya Venkataraman, a teacher association executive, said that candidates who had studied at English-medium schools tend to outperform their more talented peers from rural, vernacular-medium schools. "This is unfortunate. No discussion took place on whether the existing weightage system needed to be changed. This (adoption of a new system) is being done arbitrarily. It will hurt the economically poorer students," he said.

Delhi University departments have indicated they can together admit about 850 PhD students and 650 MPhil students this year. The university offers about 10,000 postgraduate seats. The online registration for admission to postgraduate and research courses began today and will continue till June 22.

The entrance tests will be held in the first week of July, and the interviews for PhD courses in the second week.

As the last date for online registration by undergraduate applicants drew to a close today, the university said it had received nearly 3.2 lakh applications for its 56,000 undergraduate seats.

Among the honours courses, English has attracted the highest number of applications (1.22 lakh), followed by political science (95,000), economics (91,000), history (85,000), journalism (76,000), B.Com (75,000), mathematics (72,000), chemistry (71,000) and physics (70,000). A student can apply for more than one honours subject.

Some 1.86 lakh candidates are from the Central Board of Secondary Education, followed by 16,000 from the Uttar Pradesh board and 6,500 from the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations.

Journalism school

Delhi University will start a Delhi School of Journalism under the faculty of social sciences. It will offer a five-year integrated master's course with the option of exiting at the end of three years with an honours degree in journalism.

Some of the university's affiliated colleges already teach diploma or honours courses in

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journalism.

Pandit said the integrated course would expose students to critical thinking. It will also give them the option of learning a new language such as Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish, Bengali and Tamil so they can work as reporters in foreign countries as well as the various parts of India.

The school will admit 60 students, fresh from their Class XII boards. Admissions this year are likely to be based on the candidates' Class XII marks, while the university may conduct entrance tests from next year. The fee per semester will be Rs 60,000.

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 8, 2017Supreme Court restores 50% institutional quota in AMU, BHU×

The Supreme Court on Wednesday restored the 50% institutional quota for in-house candidates in admission to postgraduate medical courses in Banaras Hindu University and Aligarh Muslim University.

The apex court also quashed the Allahabad High Court’s order that the benefit of service rendered in remote or difficult areas should be given for admission to PG courses only to those doctors of the Provincial Medical Health Services (PMHS), who have cleared MBBS examination from a college within the state of Uttar Pradesh.

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta set aside the high court judgement that had quashed the in-house quota in both the central varsities. The court now allowed both the universities and other state-run medical colleges to fill up their seats by June 12.

“It would be pertinent to mention that in the central universities 100% admissions for MBBS courses are based on an all India examination. There is no state quota for seats in central universities like AMU and BHU or other central institutions like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, etc. It is, therefore, apparent that the state can have no control over the seats in those medical colleges, which are part of the central universities/institutions,” the bench said.

Relying upon the ruling in the Saurabh Chaudri case, the apex court held that the high court “overstepped its jurisdiction” by quashing the institutional quota and directed that the seats therein were to be filled by candidates who passed out from state colleges, though the AMU, BHU, the Union government and the Medical Council of India were not even parties before it.

Citing the Uttar Pradesh government’s affidavit, the bench also said, “We see no reason as to why the benefit of weightage of 10% to 30% of marks as given in the Medical Council of India Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000, should be limited to those in-service candidates of the PMHS category, who have graduated from within the state of UP.”

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ELDERLY

INDIAN EXPRESS, JUN 13, 2017Government plans to triple amount to be paid to parents, senior citizensThe Centre will move amendments to the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior

Citizens Act, 2007, to increase the amount awarded to senior citizens (above the age of 60) and

parents (irrespective of their age) of children who are not minors

Written by Shalini Nair 

The Centre will move amendments to the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, to increase to increase the amount awarded to senior citizens (above the age of 60) and parents (irrespective of their age) of children who are not minors (Representational Image/ File Photo)

The Union government is set to introduce a legislation to triple the monthly amount that is to be

paid to parents and senior citizens, neglected or abandoned by their children, increasing it from

Rs 10,000 a month to Rs 25,000-Rs 30,000 a month. The Centre will move amendments to the

Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, to increase the amount

awarded to senior citizens (above the age of 60) and parents (irrespective of their age) of children

who are not minors.

“There are many who earn enough and can spare more than Rs 10,000 to provide for their

parents. This is why we decided to increase the upper limit,” said Latha Krishna Rao, Secretary,

Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, adding that the amendment is likely to be

introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament. Non-payment of monthly maintenance can be

punished with imprisonment of up to three months as per existing law.

Children or legal heirs, who have sufficient means, are legally obliged to provide for their

parents/ senior citizens. Under the current law, parents or the elderly, who are unable to earn

their own maintenance and are abandoned or neglected, can make an application to the

subdivisional magistrate (SDM) against their children or relatives who are to inherit their

property. The SDM, who acts as a tribunal, passes an order directing the children or relatives to

pay the monthly allowance of up to Rs 10,000.

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The ministry will also make it mandatory for all agencies and private firms, which presently

follow varying age criteria, to uniformly observe 60 years or above as the age at which a person

should be considered a senior citizen. “We felt that it is necessary to have a standard age of 60

years everywhere, from the railways to airlines and insurance firms,” said Rao, adding that there

are an estimated 11 crore people over the age of 60. For the purposes of rebate on fares, the

railways considers the age for males as 60 years and females as 58 years, while the definition of

senior citizen varies for different insurance companies and airlines.

Based on the recommendations of a committee set up earlier this year following various court

orders, the Centre has also proposed a few other amendments to the law. At present, only parents

or senior citizens can appeal to the district magistrate or divisional commissioner in case they

find the order passed by the SDM unsatisfactory. A proposed amendment will be to also give

children the right to appeal. Another would be making it mandatory for the state government to

set up at least one old age home for 150 people in each district; the existing 350 such homes in

India are mostly NGO-run.

The panel also considered two other issues but decided against including them in the new law.

One of them is allowing lawyers to argue the case as opposed to the existing practice of only

letting senior citizens directly approach the tribunal. Another recommendation was that any self-

acquired property belonging to senior citizens, which has been gifted to their children/ legal

heirs, cannot be sold by the latter unless they have a no-objection certificate from the senior

citizen. A Kerala High court Order last year had said that a gift deed by a senior citizen, even

without a welfare clause, is revocable if the recipient fails to provide for his/ her maintenance.

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ELECTIONS

TELEGRAPH, JUN 15, 2017Rebels without a cause- Narendra Modi's opponents could do with some sagacity

Swapan Dasgupta

One of the most important lessons of the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh was that anecdotal evidence and, more particularly, media accounts are not very accurate barometers of public opinion. Indeed, they can often be terribly misleading.

At the best of times, assessing the public mood in a country as vast and varied as India is daunting. Today, it has become doubly so due to public narratives that are dramatically at variance. The commemoration of the third anniversary of the Narendra Modi government brought these sharp differences in perception to the fore, almost suggesting a generous measure of schizophrenia.

On the one hand, there were the opinion polls. The ABP News-CSDS-Lokniti Mood of the Nation Poll that surveyed sample voters in the first half of May concluded that in the event of a snap poll the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance would get 45 per cent of the popular vote and win 331 Lok Sabha seats, an outcome that would quite easily give Modi a second term. The survey suggested a spectacularly high correlation between support for the National Democratic Alliance and endorsement of Modi's leadership. More interestingly, it indicated that as much as 63 per cent of the electorate, including 66 per cent of Hindu voters, believe that the promised achche din have been ushered in by Modi.

Opinion polls, as the international experience indicates, are not even remotely infallible - not even when accompanied by robust methodology and rigorous sampling. In India, mid-term surveys, particularly when no election is in sight, have traditionally given an extra bounce to the incumbent. This bounce often dissipates once the sharp rhetoric of an election campaign becomes a reality and passive grievances yield way to opposition in the voting booth. This cautionary note notwithstanding, it would be safe to hazard the conclusion that with less than two years to go before the general election, Prime Minister Modi appears to be sitting pretty. A feeling that things are chugging along famously has favoured the incumbent.

During the third anniversary celebrations, functionaries of the BJP - apart from highlighting specific achievements - suggested that Modi has given governance an extra energy. This is undeniable. For the first time in living memory, many departments of the Centre and many of the ministers have conveyed the impression of being in a tearing hurry to achieve targets that many had thought unrealizable in the past. What has also given the Modi government's image an extra boost is that in attempting to inject efficiency into governance, it is not tarred by the

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brush of corruption. Modi has often been pilloried for policy misjudgements, but his integrity and his sincerity of purpose have not been challenged. This remains the government's most effective calling card.At the other end of the spectrum, there is another narrative that has no resemblance with the mood of India captured in the opinion polls. But it is one that finds frequent reflection in the English-language media and in the academic community. This alternative perspective was vividly narrated by Arun Shourie, a former BJP minister now turned critic, in his speech at the Press Club of India, Delhi, in the meeting called to protest against the raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation on a TV channel promoter.

In his characteristically eloquent speech, Shourie made four points.

First, he suggested that the impulses of the Modi government are totalitarian and its objective is "total domination in the entire geography of India, in every sphere of life". Shourie believed that the basic freedoms of India have been compromised and that even censorship is in vogue.

Secondly, he argued that the decision-making structures of the government are extremely narrow. "This is the government of two-and-a-half men" he said, setting off speculation on who the 'half' man was. In short, despite being a parliamentary democracy, the government is driven by the personal proclivities of Modi. The BJP president, Amit Shah, translates Modi's vision into political action.

Thirdly, Shourie argued that it is neither possible for sceptics to engage with the Modi government nor adopt a position of neutrality. There can be no "neutrality between the man who sets fire and the fire fighter". He felt that the real opposition must come from three quarters: an intelligentsia bound in solidarity, the judiciary and the foreign media, which will trigger international concern. Moreover, he called for a total boycott of all government functionaries, including a media blackout.

Finally, although Shourie did not allude to this in his speech, there is the contention that the Modi government is embarked on a vast ideological transformation of India and destroying the 'idea of India', which is grounded in a liberal Constitution and Nehruvian political assumptions. The hyperactivity over the eating of beef and the slaughter of cows is often cited as a telling example of growing 'majoritarianism', as is the undeniable reality of the BJP winning the UP election quite decisively, securing over 40 per cent of the popular vote, without fielding even a single Muslim candidate.

There are some inescapable conclusions from Shourie's, arguably over-stated, manifesto of protest. The most significant of these is the tacit admission that the uncompromising opposition to the government has become the prerogative of notables and the media. Implicit is the recognition that, for the moment at least, the alternative narrative does not enjoy mass traction. Hence the argument is not that the Modi government will be voted out - as, say, the JP movement in the 1970s believed - but that, like all things, this phase of politics will end one day. The point is not to prevail democratically but to keep the flag of protest flying and put

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roadblocks in the path of the government.

Secondly, in its over-reliance on groups or individuals who were part of yesterday's Establishment, the Opposition has given further ammunition to the claim by Modi's supporters that the real objection is to the loss of power and influence. That the Modi-sceptics decry the vocal support for the prime minister in, say, the social media as either manufactured or born out of cultural illiteracy is revealing. It suggests that Modi has also set in motion a social churning that is proving unpalatable to those who were earlier at the helm.

Thirdly, that the dissent isn't based on Modi's failures in governance but on his underlying political philosophy and his style. The 'idea of India' is an interesting subject for a seminar but it does not easily connect with voters in a democracy. This necessarily limits its reach and naturally excludes all those who see the fundamental role of government as the improvement in the quality of daily existence of the average citizen.

Finally, in their distaste for 'majoritarianism' - a shorthand for the political empowerment of the hitherto passive Hindu identity -the critics appear to rely almost entirely on the misgivings of minorities. This is not illegitimate but when it is accompanied by a disregard for prevailing sensibilities, it can drive opposition to the fringes. The recent attack on the Indian army on its conduct in the Kashmir Valley and the equation of Bipin Rawat with General Dyer of Jallianwala Bagh are cases in point. Likewise, for all its implications for the cause of food freedom, the slaughter of a cow by Congress protesters in Kerala points to blind hatred of Modi having subsumed political common sense.

There can never be a single political narrative for India. However, when either anger and frustration or triumphalist cockiness drives the agenda, major distortions are bound to creep in. Democracy demands that governments be challenged. To do so intelligently would be prudent.

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HEALTH SERVICES

TIMES OF INDIA, JUN 13, 2017Karnataka govt to determine cost of treatment in private hospitalsRakesh Prakash

BENGALURU: Turning the heat on the private hospitals' lobby, Karnataka government has

proposed to determine fees that can be collected by private hospitals from patients for various

medical procedures.

A bill to this effect, titled "The Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (Amendment) Bill-

2017", was tabled in the legislative assembly on Tuesday by health minister K R Ramesh Kumar.

The bill, when passed by legislature, will enable the government to regulate private hospitals and

prevent patients from becoming victims of medical commercialisation.

The bill envisages setting up of an expert committee that would classify private medical

establishments and recommend the state government to fix the cost of treatment for different

medical services. The bill stated: Every private medical establishment shall follow the rates as

fixed by the government and this includes package rates for investigation, bed charges, operation

theatre procedures, intensive care, ventilation, implants, consultation and any additional

treatments.

The bill also prohibits private hospitals from imposing additional charges over and above the

rates fixed by the state government 'unless explained to and consented to by the patient.'

However, the bill does not specify the expert committee's composition, powers and

responsibilities and terms and conditions of service of members.

The bill has also mooted the setting up of a district and metropolitan grievance redressal

committee to look into the complaints against or lapses on the part of the private hospitals. The

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grievance redressal committee will be headed by the chief executive officer of zilla panchayat

and comprises the superintendent of police of the district, a representative from the private

medical establishments, district surgeon, public prosecutor and a woman representative

nominated by the state government. The committee will have the powers of civil court under the

Code of Civil Procedure-1908.

The bill has suggested reconstitution of the registration authority and makes it mandatory for

private medical establishments to display the patient's charter and private medical establishment's

charter.

Bodies cannot be held as ransom

The proposed bill mandates private hospitals to first handover the dead body to a family and later

collect the dues payable to it. The hospitals will be prohibited from demanding dues before

releasing dead bodies. This has been done to prevent incidents where hospitals have refused to

handover bodies to the families till the hospitals bills are cleared. This apart, the bill also

prohibits private hospitals from demanding advance payments from patients or the latter's family

in case of emergency treatments.

Top Comment

Its a welcome step. Much needed across the countryRamakrishna

Penalty for overcharging

The bill states: If the private medical establishments collect more charges than that fixed by the

state government it will be liable to pay a penalty of not less than Rs 25,000 and up to Rs 5 lakh

and imprisonment not less than six months and up to three years.

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 12, 2017After OBOR gets ready, Pakistan will become China’s colony: S Akbar Zaidi

NEW DELHI: Pakistan will become a colony of China once the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) flagship project under the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is operationalised, contended top Pak political economist S Akbar Zaidi on the very day the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit praised Beijing’s mega connectivity plan.

In a lecture titled “Has China taken over Pakistan” organised in Kolkata by think tank ‘Calcutta Research Group’ on Friday night Zaidi noted that the CPEC initiative is the most discussed but the least transparent among all the foreign initiatives in Pakistan.

“It is indeed a game changer, but not in the way our ruling classes have projected it to be. It will enslave Pakistan and undermine its sovereignty,” alleged Zaidi author of pioneering books -‘Military Civil Society and democratisation in Pakistan’ and ‘Issues in Pakistan’s Economy’.

“CPEC is a part of China’s OBOR initiative to expand its influence in the world and Pakistan is just the geographical space used by Beijing to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. But in the process, Beijing blueprint will ensure complete control over Pakistan,” Zaidi further alleged.

Incidentally Zaidi’s comments came on the very day when SCO praised China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India, which went to the Summit as an observer and became a member, however, was not party to the final Summit document on this occasion. CPEC is the very project that has irked India as it passes through PoK besides the fact that OBOR or BRI initiative lacks transparency and is being implemented in a unilateral fashion.

Speaking at SCO Summit PM Narendra Modi took a dig at connectivity projects that infringes on sovereignty. Zaidi quoted Pak Senator Tahir Mashhadi, chairman of the standing committee on planning and development, who had described the CPEC corridor as the advent of “another East India Company is in the offing.” China has announced to invest whopping $ 62 bn in CPEC.

The most dangerous implication of the CPEC would be that Pakistan’s foreign relations, especially those with India, will be determined by the Chinese, the Pak scholar warned. “Pakistan’s obsession with China and CPEC will prevent any rapprochement between India and Pakistan unless the Chinese themselves initiate such a process and that they would do only if that

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fits into their grand design in the region. With China taking over Pakistan, providing it with undisclosed amount of investments, any argument of increasing trade and economic cooperation between India and Pakistan lose out completely.” Zaidi blamed the Pakistani ruling elite for leading the country down the path of enslavement.

“Our ruling classes, especially the military, have first lived with the influence of US imperialism, then allowed unusual degree of Saudi intrusion in domestic, cultural and social affairs. Now they have prostrated themselves before Chinese imperial designs.”

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JUDICIARY

TIMES OF INDIA, JUN 9, 2017Supreme Court for All India common test for selection of judges for lower courtsAmit Anand Choudhary

HIGHLIGHTS A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justices A K Goel and A M Khanwilkar said, it had

hold consultation and deliberation on the issue and decided in favour of the common test. Referring to common medical examination NEET, the bench said that test for judges in lower

judiciary would also be conducted on the same pattern.

NEW DELHI: Pushing for major judicial reforms meant to bring uniformity in selection process

and to curb the practice of favouritism and nepotism in selection of judges in lower judiciary,

the Supreme Court in principle decided to introduce a common test for selection of judges and

sought suggestions from states and union territories on mode of implementing it.

Although creation of All India Judicial Services was proposed way back in 1960, but it could not

be implemented due to stiff opposition from various state governments. Even the Law

Commission in its various reports has favoured creation of AIJS but it was not considered to be

practical by some of state governments and High Courts and the proposal was shelved.

As the state governments and HCs have not been able to fill up the vacancies in lower judiciary

on time and there has been allegations of favouritism in the selection process, the Supreme Court

favoured to introduce Central Selection Mechanism, under which a common test would be

conducted at All India level by a central agency which will prepare a merit list of aspiring

judges.

Taking suo motu cognizance of a letter written by the Centre to the apex court asking it to

introduce single window test for selection of judges, a bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and

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Justices A K Goel and A M Khanwilkar said, it had hold consultation and deliberation on the

issue and decided in favour of the common test.

Referring to common medical examination NEET, the bench said that test for judges in lower

judiciary would also be conducted on the same pattern. It said that central agency would be

tasked to conduct exam and prepare a merit list. It, however, made it clear that appointment of

judges would be done by respective state governments or High Courts and holding common test

would not take away their right to appoint judges.

"There are large number of vacancies in lower courts and we have hold consultation to cater to

the situation. We want a centralised system for selection process. But the common test would not

tamper with the federal structure and appointment would be done by states," the bench said. It

sought response from states and union territories on introducing one window test for selection of

judges.

The court noted that there was no uniformity in selection process followed by different states and

the common entrance test would remove the defect and would set a common minimum standard

for judges across the country. It said that students, after clearing the exam, could opt for the state

of their choice and state governments would appoint them.

"We are thinking to expedite the process to fill up the vacancies and our endeavour is towards

that direction," it said and asked the Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre,

whether it should go "whole hog" in implementing the common test or should it be implemented

in a phased manner.

Kumar and senior advocate Ajit Sinha, appearing for Jharkhand government, strongly

favoured SC's initiative and told the bench that common test be applied in one go and not in

different phases. They said that common test would ensure that only meritorious candidates were

appointed in lower judiciary and country would get efficient judicial officers.

The bench said that it would pass a judicial order for implementing common test for selection of

judges and posted the case for hearing to July 10.

Top Comment

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What is the use ? They'll lower qualification marks, bring reservation for SC/ST here also......

Then we'll get more Karnan's in every HCMadan Subramanian

The total sanctioned strength of judicial officers in district and subordinate courts is 21,320 as on

June 30, 2016. Of these, 16,383 have been filled, leaving 4,937 vacancies.

Lack of sufficient number of judges in lower courts has resulted in staggering number of

pendency of cases. As per the National Judicial Data Grid, the pendency in district courts is

around 2.8 crore and ten per cent of them — 2,32,3781 — are cases pending over 10 years.

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LIBRARIES

TRIBUNE, JUN 9, 2017PU library store turns a virtual dumping groundNewspapers of 1955 lying in miserable conditionFact file

The library on its new premise was inaugurated in 1963 by Jawaharlal Nehru while its foundation stone was laid in 1958 by Dr S Radhakrishnan. The library has a collection of over seven lakh publications which include books, bound volumes of journals, thesis/dissertations, rare books, reports, government documents, archived newspapers and a collection of 1,490 manuscripts.Over 50,000 discarded books and 60-year-old newspapers lying in a poor condition on the fifth floor of the AC Joshi Library at Panjab University.

Ishrat S Banwait

The AC Joshi Library in Panjab University, which authorities boast of being the biggest and the best in region, has an unseen area which is a virtual dump yard. The fifth floor of the library which is used as a store is in a poor condition. Along with over 50,000 discarded books, there are archived newspapers which are more than 60 years old.

The so-called store seems to have never been cleaned and is full of bird droppings, cob webs and dirt. Not just this, the area also has a carcass of a pigeon. With books and newspapers lying on the ground, it is a sight that would break any reader’s heart. While the authorities claim that all the material there is discarded, the justification for the condition of the whole floor is missing.

While water seeps in through the roof, the walls are damp. This, coupled with loose hanging wires and a dilapidated ceiling, makes the whole floor a potential hazard. The floor stays locked but a reader informs, “I was once went around looking for a certain encyclopaedia and was told that it is on the fifth floor. After much persuasion I was taken there and the condition of the floor was horrendous.” The reader informed that he was unable to locate the encyclopaedia due to the conditions.

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Librarian Raj Kumar says, “I joined in 2010 and the floor has been locked before that. When the new outer reading room was needed for readers, we decided to shift the archived newspapers to the store.” He admitted that the condition of the floor was poor. Kumar also added that the books were outdated and had been dumped as space was to be made for newer editions.

Thus, to make space for more readers, 60 year old newspapers were dumped without a plan for their preservation. To adjust new books, the old ones were dumped without considering any other proper method for their re-utilisation. One of the readers suggested that the books could have been given to poor students or government schools who could not afford them.

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MANAGEMENT

HINDU, JUN 13, 2017Economics without entrepreneursPrashanth Perumal

A recent paper suggests that economics has remained silent on the concept of entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs are said to be the backbone of a market economy, and for good reason. They

use their precious savings to acquire scarce resources, which they then transform into

various consumer goods according to the market demand. If their judgment about demand

turns out to be right, they earn profits; if it’s wrong, they suffer losses. Of course,

entrepreneurs engage in the risky business of foreseeing demand only to earn personal

profits. But they also end up helping society in two crucial ways.

One, in their search for better returns, entrepreneurs look to introduce technology that can

help minimise costs. This can not only improve their personal returns, but also increases the

overall productivity of the economy. Two, again in the search for profits, entrepreneurs look

to identify and satisfy untapped consumer demand. Being the first to satisfy a new consumer

demand can lead to superior returns for an entrepreneur with the foresight. At the same time,

such foresight also benefits society by bringing to life several consumer goods that were

once unimaginable. Yet, for all these praises sung about entrepreneurs, mainstream

economics textbooks largely remain silent about them.

False assumptions

“Economics Doctoral Programs Still Elide Entrepreneurship”, a 2017 paper by Dan

Johansson and Arvid Malm, provides evidence that even advanced economics courses still

remain agnostic about entrepreneurs. The paper provides a survey of readings prescribed to

doctoral students in 2014-15 to conclude that most of them don’t care to even theoretically

define an ‘entrepreneur’, let alone explore his economic function. Firms are virtually

assumed to be on autopilot, maximising revenues and minimising costs, without any

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guidance. In fact, economic models assume an economy where resources have been

allocated seamlessly according to consumer demand.

Not surprisingly, economists don’t even think about possible errors in entrepreneurial

judgment and its implications for the wider economy. How accurate are entrepreneurs

generally in their foresight of demand? How do they gauge the likely demand for a product?

What, if any, role do past prices play in their investment decision? Clearly, economists are a

long way from combating these vital questions.

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PRESIDENTS

HINDU, JUN 14, 2017Election Commission issues notification for President’s electionThe nomination process will continue till June 28

The process of filing nominations for the July 17 presidential poll began on Wednesday with

the Election Commission of India (ECI) issuing a notification in this regard.

The nomination process will continue till June 28.

The ruling NDA and a  loosely knit group of Opposition parties  have intensified efforts to

zero in on a “mutually acceptable” presidential candidate. But they would go their separate

ways if a consensus proves elusive.

After a prolonged silence on the issue, BJP chief Amit Shah has constituted a three-member

committee comprising Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and M. Venkaiah Naidu

which will hold consultations with the NDA allies and the Opposition on the issue.

Leaders of Opposition parties will hold their meeting this afternoon to chalk out their joint

strategy and come up with a consensus candidate.

The 10-member sub-group of the Opposition is meeting for the first time after its

constitution recently.

Sources said the Opposition leaders will try and come out with some possible names for the

post of President, but will await the government initiative in this regard.

In a bid to ensure that non serious candidates do not file nomination for the prestigious

election, laws were amended a few years ago.

Now, a candidate who is supported by 50 ‘electors’ and seconded by another 50 can file

nomination. Elected members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and elected members

of State Legislative Assemblies are the electors.

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If the elections are held in case both the NDA and the Opposition field their candidates, then

the results will be announced on July 20.

The term of present incumbent Pranab Mukherjee comes to an end on July 24.

00:00

BUSINESS STANDARD, JUN 8, 2017EC to supply special pens for presidential poll

Biennial Rajya Sabha elections deferred UP victory to help BJP in presidential polls, Rajya Sabha numbers Special pen for voters in Prez poll Allowances, pensions are rights of MPs: Govt. Parliamentarians pension: SC issues notice to Centre, EC

The Election Commission on Wednesday said special pens will be provided to the electoral college members for the July 17 presidential election, in view of a controversy surrounding balloting for a Rajya Sabha seat in Haryana last year.

"Pens with different ink will be provided to electors at polling stations by designated officials along with the ballot papers," Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi told media persons here.

"Electors will have to mark the ballot paper only with this particular pen and not with any other pen. Use of any other pen may lead to invalidation of the vote at the time of counting, under Rule 31(1)(d) of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Elections Rules, 1974," he added.

"There was this controversy with regard to use of pens in Haryana (Rajya Sabha elections). Keeping that experience in mind, we have decided to now supply particular pens," the Chief Election Commissioner said.

"The pens' speciality is that these have been manufactured under Election Commission's supervision. Their ink is different from other inks," Zaidi added.

The Election Commission on Wednesday announced that voting, if required, to elect India's next President will take place on July 17, and counting thereafter on July 20.

According to an EC official, the ink would be supplied by Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited company.

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The Congress had cried foul after votes of 13 of its MLAs cast for Rajya Sabha polls in Haryana on June 11 last year were deemed invalid, as the ballot papers were marked with a pen different than the one provided by the EC.

This invalidation of votes led to unexpected election of BJP-backed media baron Subhash Chandra over Congress-backed candidate R.K. Anand to the Upper House of Parliament.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

INDIAN EXPRESS, JUN 11, 2017PMO seeks details about movement of files from ministers

The PMO has also sought an action taken report on the letters which were written to the prime

minister on his email ID or on the PMO public grievances portal or to his office and were

forwarded to ministries concerned.

In an apparent bid to assess the performance of cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister’s Office has

sought details about movement of files, particularly the time a file remained pending in their

offices. The exercise is being seen by many ministries as a precursor to a Cabinet reshuffle

which is likely to take place after the presidential poll. The ministers have been asked to submit

details of the files they received in their offices between June 1, 2014 (five days after the

government took charge) and May 31, 2017. The PMO has sought to know the period within

which the files were cleared along with the details of files which were pending till May 31.  The

prime minister is learnt to have given the directive in a recent cabinet meeting after which forms

were sent to the respective ministers.

The forms are divided into five columns with subheads –opening balance, files received during

period, total files, disposed, pending at the end of period and breakup of pending files.

The breakup of pending files is further divided into –15 days, 15 days to one month and one

month to three months.

The PMO has also sought an action taken report on the letters which were written to the prime

minister on his email ID or on the PMO public grievances portal or to his office and were

forwarded to ministries concerned.

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BUSINESS STANDARD, JUN 8, 2017Bureaucratic hurdle for ministerBut requests, particularly those from his legislator colleagues, continue

Uttar Pradesh’s new health minister, Siddharth Nath Singh, was in for a shock when he set about putting his department in order. One of his initial instructions was to transfer some of the inefficient officers, but they were quick to get a stay on their transfers from the high court. Singh was told by his bureaucrats that there didn’t exist a transfers and postings policy. He ordered a senior official to rummage through government files, and it was several days before the relevant file, moth-eaten and chewed up by rats, emerged from the dusty government records room. Singh is now keen that the next meeting of the UP Cabinet passes a transfers and postings policy, which will mandate that no government servant can spend more than five years in an area. But requests, particularly those from his legislator colleagues, continue. They queue up to meet him inside the Vidhan Sabha when the Assembly is in session and put in requests for transfers of their friends and acquaintances.

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RAILWAYS

FINANCIAL EXPRESS, JUN 9, 2017Railways to replace all general class passenger trains with self-propelled carriages to raise speed

The Indian Railways is all set to replace all only-general-class passenger trains with MEMU or

DEMU rakes to increase traffic speed.By: Saurabh Kumar 

The Indian Railways is all set to replace all only-general-class passenger trains with main electric

multiple unit (MEMU) or diesel electric multiple unit (DEMU) rakes to increase traffic speed.

The move follows successful testing of MEMUs in the Mughalsarai section. Six traditional loco-

hauled trains were replaced by MEMUs and the results have been satisfactory in one of the

busiest sections across the country. DEMU and MEMU rakes have motors beneath the coaches

and can decelerate and accelerate faster, resulting in quick movement of trains. These trains also

do not require to be reversed as they can run both ways. “This will be implemented mostly on the

routes on the Golden Quadrilateral, which account for 60% of passenger and freight traffic.

These routes comprise only 16% of the track length available to the Indian Railways,” said

Mohammed Jamshed, member (traffic), Railway Board. There is approximately 2,000 km of

tracks on these routes. Adding lines will require `10 crore per km of investment. However,

change in rakes will allow faster movement of passenger traffic on the existing routes. The

Golden Quadrilateral includes lines between New Delhi and Kolkata, Kolkata and Chennai,

Chennai and Mumbai, and Mumbai and New Delhi. In addition, the plan will also be executed

on the lines connecting New Delhi to Chennai and Mumbai to Kolkata.

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Despite the national transporter launching various categories of trains with higher speeds such as

the Tejas and The Gatimaan, congestion on the tracks reduce the average of all trains and often

leads to delays. The deployment of MEMU and DEMU, which can make multiple stops

maintaining a high average speed, is expected to ease congestion. 

The development comes at a time when the national transporter has been able to arrest the slide

in its passenger traffic. As reported by FE earlier, the Indian Railways’ passenger traffic segment

witnessed a 2.5% growth in April-May 2017, compared with the similar period a year ago. This

is a sustained growth after an increase of 1% in passenger traffic in 2016-17 to 822.1 crore

passengers, from 815.1 crore ferried during 2015-16. In addition, suburban passenger traffic

increased 4% during the past two months compared with the year-ago period. It was the first year

since 2012-13 that passenger traffic showed a positive growth for the railways. 

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TAXATION

FINANCIAL EXPRESS, JUN 12, 2017GST Council gives slew of concessions, lower tax rates for 66 items, relief for job workers

Acceding to the demands from several industrial segments, small traders and producers and

keeping the interests of relatively low-income consumers in mind, the Goods and Services Tax

(GST) Council on Sunday decided to lower the tax burdens on them in the upcoming GST

regime.

At its 16th meeting, the council brought down the tax rates from the level prescribed earlier for as many as 66 items ranging from the most common packaged foods to school bags, computer printers, tractor components and insulin.

Acceding to the demands from several industrial segments, small traders and producers and

keeping the interests of relatively low-income consumers in mind, the Goods and Services Tax

(GST) Council on Sunday decided to lower the tax burdens on them in the upcoming GST

regime. Even as these concessions per se  would lead to a significant reduction in the overall

weighted average tax rate from what it is now and could have an adverse impact on government

revenue, finance minister Arun Jaitley said the resultant check on inflation and the likely revenue

buoyancy from an expanded tax  base would still yield wholesome gains.

At its 16th meeting, the council brought down the tax rates from the level prescribed earlier for

as many as 66 items ranging from the most common packaged foods to school bags, computer

printers, tractor components and insulin. Additionally, the scope of the composition scheme —

which allows small businesses to pay tax as a relatively small percentage of turnover without

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input tax credit, instead of paying full GST on the value added — has been expanded to include

all businesses with annual turnover up to Rs 75 lakh (the limit was earlier set at `50 lakh).

The council also drastically reduced the GST (service tax) rate on job workers in labour-

intensive industries namely clothing, leather, jewellery, diamond processing and printing from

18% proposed earlier to 5%, in a move that would incentivise outsourcing of jobs by the relevant

industries and give a big relief to lakhs of job workers and artisans.

While entertainment tax (ET) levied by the states on cinema tickets are to be subsumed in GST,

the council has decided to keep the corresponding GST rates at 18% for tickets up to Rs 100 and

at 28% for others. The ET now varies from 20-110%, with 30% roughly the weighted average.

Jaitley said the states might continue to give tax concessions for films made in their local

languages but that would be in the form of direct transfers (state GST refunds) rather than

exemptions.

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The council received as many as 133 representations from stakeholders for tax reliefs/rate cuts,

the finance minister said, adding that nearly half of decided in favour of them.

“We have tried to stick to revenue neutrality to the extent possible..but some (revenue) sacrifices

have been made to reduce the burden on small traders, which are great job creators,” Jaitley said.

He added that equivalence to the existing tax level (combined incidence on central and state-

level indirect taxes) was the general principle used for rate fitments, but in some cases, “we have

gone beyond this (to reduce the burden on taxpayers),” given the changing consumer preferences

and economic realities. The minister said the government was firm on rolling out GST from July

1. On the demand from a section of small businesses for more time for preparation, he said:

“they have no option but to get ready”.

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In a recent interview to FE, chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian said while the impact of

GST on inflation would depend on how much pass-through happened, headline CPI inflation

could still drop. “.. the point is we have not got as much base expansion and as much reduction in

complexities as we would have liked. But even with these rates, I expect a 10% expansion in the

base due to just invoice-matching,” the CEA said.

MS Mani, senior director, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP, said: “The reduction of GST rates

proposed on several items by the GST Council indicates that many consumer items may see a

price reduction or at least equivalence of prices after GST is introduced. This will avoid any fear

of an inflationary spiral due to GST and may actually see prices stabilising and benefiting

consumers. It is now hoped that the remaining issues including anti profiteering, e-way bills and

issues relating to specific industry sectors on which the expert advisory committees were set up

are deliberated and settled in the next meeting”.

Harishanker Subramaniam, national leader – indirect tax, EY India, said, “The Council has

shown its continued willingness to reconsider which is heartening. E-way bill discussions are

deferred to June 18 meeting, hope they defer this by six months and water down the provisions to

avoid challenges. Anti-profiteering rules are now likely to be out post July 1 which could be a

challenge from a clarity perspective. With potentially two more Council meetings we will be

down to the wire for July 1 implementation”.

Under the composition scheme, subject to the turnover limit of Rs 75 lakh, traders will pay tax at

1% (of turnover), manufacturers at 2% and restaurants at 5%.

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VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS

STATESMAN, JUN 8, 2017NGOs must be made accountableJ P Gupta

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have a very important role to play in any democracy, more so in developing economies. NGOs are supposedly the custodians of propriety in public life and watchdogs of public interest at large.

The important qualification for any NGO and the people behind it is therefore the highest degree of integrity and character. The day these basic ingredients are compromised, that NGO forfeits its moral right to function.

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Unfortunately in recent years, overall degeneration in value system across sections of society has been frighteningly fast and NGOs are no exception. Many NGOs today are playing in the hands of one vested interest or the other. Initially, vested interests used the NGOs by feeding them with information against rival interests and achieved their motives.

However now many NGOs have acquired financial muscle and have now started extorting moneys. An unfortunate methodology of some NGOs is to watch developments until a project promoter has invested time and money. After the promoter gets necessary government clearances/permits and starts the project with a large investment, the NGO starts objecting. At the same time, it quietly meets the promoter and negotiates a deal to extort money.

If the NGO fails to extort desired amounts, it goes to courts of law including Green tribunals. As a matter of fact and in the interest of equity, if promoters have obtained necessary clearances before going ahead with their project, they should not be disturbed.

If the matter comes before adjudicating authorities, they should penalise government agencies that gave clearances for wrongdoing rather than promoters as long as they have adhered to terms of clearances. If the promoters violate any conditions, they should not be spared.

Promoters often face unnecessary litigation after obtaining all clearances and suffer time and cost overruns that make a project unviable. If at the end of the litigation it is found that the promoter has not committed any wrong, the complaining NGO and governments should be directed to make good the loss.

Without such directions, developmental work will suffer on the one hand and on the other entrepreneurs will keep away from projects of national importance.

While in some cases the concerns raised by NGOs are valid, a detailed scrutiny will show that in many cases, the NGOs produce no substantial evidence nor possess expertise in the field. An analysis of the past 25 years is necessary to determine if NGOs have caused more harm than good to people, the economy and the environment.

Another dangerous facet of these NGOs is that many serve the cause of international agencies or multinational corporations by spreading gross lies through expensive media campaigns to influence institutions granting sanctions and those adjudicating issues.

Many major projects, including greenfield projects have been victims of unchecked blackmail by so-called NGOs. India has lost big opportunities in the international market amounting to billions of dollars to rival international players. Lop sided activism has harmed society irreparably.

There are instances of public sector companies engaged in mining activity that had planted millions of trees in the vicinity and provided a green cover being ordered to stop work at the behest of so-called green activists who were proved to be batting for international players.

While highlighting this unfortunate state of affairs in the NGO sector, I do not wish to undermine the importance of NGOs in society. I only want to draw the attention of governments to device a

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mechanism through which genuine NGOs flourish but those engaging in malpractices are checked.

Similarly, adjudicating authorities should exercise caution before entertaining petitions from any and every NGO.

There is very little accountability of NGOs today.

The need of the hour is to make them accountable. Transparency with regard to their activities and funding must be made public; and NGOs should be asked to put their balance sheets and projects in public domain. NGOs found to be making grossly incorrect allegations twice or thrice should be black listed for at least three years to ensure that the status of an NGO is not misused.

A judicious balance is required to be struck between green activism and development in the interests of the public at large.

Wrongdoings of business and industry are responsible for growth of NGOs, good and unscrupulous; similarly, wrongdoings on the part of NGOs will give an opportunity to trade and industry to play victim.

Under the circumstances, the role of governments and the judiciary becomes more important.

The writer is a distinguished scientist and can be reached at [email protected]

WOMEN

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 12, 2017India dismal on women's jobs

The World Bank’s India Development Report, which was released last week, is notable for the poor picture it presents of women’s participation in India’s labour force. It disabuses everyone of any notions of women’s economic and social advancement. According to the report, India is among the countries which have the lowest women’s participation in the workforce. It is ranked 120 among 131 countries for which data is available. It is not just that the present level of participation is poor, the trend has been negative for many years. Women’s participation has been steadily falling since 2005, while their educational levels have been rising. The decade between 2001 and 2011 saw an 116 % rise in the number of women graduates against a 65% rise for men. But the educational advancement did not translate into more jobs for women.

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In India, women’s participation in jobs is just 27%, while in China and Brazil it is 65-70%. Women mainly work in the agricultural sector and are grossly underrepresented in the formal sectors. The share of jobs in the services and industry is as low as 20%. All neighbours, except Pakistan, figure higher than India. The economic progress of the last many years has not produced jobs for women and benefitted them, but has hurt their economic status. Discrimination against women and their diminishing social status are reasons for denial of jobs for them. Concerns about safety and non-availability of childcare facilities in workplaces, the pressure to reconcile work with household duties, lower salaries and remuneration are other reasons. Ironically, a rise in household incomes has also reduced the need for women to work. There is a reason to suspect that retrograde attitudes on the role of women have grown stronger with economic development. Job growth is slow, and most new jobs are taken by men. Many women are under-employed, get less pay than men for equal work and are given lower responsibilities and offered jobs that do not match their qualifications.

The report says India’s GDP growth can gain by one percentage if women’s share in jobs sees a moderate rise. Women are considered to be more productive, efficient and disciplined at work and known to save more. Work for women is an important requirement for poverty alleviation. Income from work and the sense of independence it gives increases women’s decision-making power at home and reduces domestic violence. The report should be an eye-opener for policymakers. It underlines the need to reorient policies and implement them with a better focus on women.

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