LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED

ASIAN AGE

BUSINESS LINE

DECCAN HERALD

ECONOMIC TIMES

FINANCIAL EXPRESS

HINDU

HINDUSTAN TIMES

INDIAN EXPRESS

STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

TIMES OF INDIA

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CONTENTS

AGRICULTURE 3-4

CIVIL SERVICE 5-6

EDUCATION 7-16

ELECTIONS 17-19

FINANCIAL INSTTITUTIONS 20

GOVERNMENT PURCHASING 21

HOUSING 22-23

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 24-28

PARLIAMENT 29-30

POLICE 31-34

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 35-40

PUBLIC FINANCE 41-46

RAILWAYS 47-48

SOCIAL PROBLEMS 49-50

SOCIAL SCIENCES 51-52

WOMEN 53-55

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AGRICULTURE

BUSINESS LINE, MAR 11, 2017Addressing the soil health crisisABHISHEK GUPTA / AKHAND TIWARI

Indiscriminate fertiliser use is driven by the compulsion to maximise short-term yields. Soil health cards need to improveThe Green Revolution, probably the greatest achievement of post-independence India, heralded an era of food sufficiency riding on the use of chemical fertilisers. Now, 50 years on, soil health is rapidly declining. There is ample evidence to show that indiscriminate use of fertilisersis the major cause of deteriorating soil health. Indian farmers apply around 66 million tonnes of fertilisers every year, which accounts for a significant share of India’s imports and subsidies.

The government, seems determined to promote more judicious use of fertilisers.

The Prime Minister launched a nation-wide “Soil Health Card” (SHC) scheme in early 2015 to rejuvenate India’s exhausted soil. Using a grid-wise approach, representative soil samples from the fields are tested for nutrient content in designated chemical laboratories.

How SHC works

Accordingly, macro and micro nutrients needed by the soil are identified and translated into specific, measured quantities of fertilisers required. This information, printed on the SHC, is made available to the farmers in that grid through the state agricultural departments. Thirty million SHCs were issued in 2015-16 and the Ministry of Agriculture aims to cover the entire farming population by 2018-19. In addition, on a pilot basis, the soil health information is made available at fertiliser purchase points —Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) and POS devices-enabled fertiliser retail shops. However, farmers still buy large amount of fertiliser, disregarding SHC recommendations.

MicroSave recently conducted a study into farming practices in two paddy-producing districts of Andhra Pradesh (West Godavari and Krishna) and elicited farmers’ views on fertilisers, soil health and SHCs. Though our findings relate to a select sample in a specific region, they are indicative of attitudes and practices of kharif paddy farmers across the country.

Farmers appear convinced that there is a perfect causal correlation between high fertiliser usage and more output. As a corollary, they believe their farmlands have ‘good soil health’ if they yield the desired output. Farmers are not concerned that they need not use increasing amount of fertiliser to ensure this ‘good soil health’! In fact, they are not sure that the advice based on the SHC can be relied upon; especially when they perceive that the yield might improve by using ‘just a little more’ fertiliser.

SHCs are not easy to use—they give general recommendations regarding the quantity of fertilisers required over the entire crop season whereas, in reality, fertilisers should be used in varying amounts over the different stages of the crop growth. So, even those farmers who start with the intention to use less fertiliser as a result of the SHCs ultimately have to fall back on their

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own judgement to decide on the amount of fertiliser to be used at each stage of the cropping cycle.

For present income flows

If crop growth appears to be below normal at the middle of the season, the farmer will usually apply large amounts of fertiliser. For farmers who have already bought bags of fertilisers, it is a sunk cost and so the prudent course of action is to apply more – even if the government’s SHC suggests otherwise. Maximising yield and fear of loss are the salient concerns.

The government has started to provide recommendations on the SHC as per the crops sown. But more needs to be done. The farmers need SHC recommendations tailored according to crop growth stages. Promotional campaigns must deconstruct the myth of “more fertilisers” as a panacea for better yields.

Soil health must be positioned as crucial to the long-term productivity of land, which will be irredeemably lost if the focus is only on present income flows.

A behavioural approach based on understanding farmers’ realities needs to be used. Many farmers are share-croppers seeking to maximise short-term yields with little care or concern for the long-term health of the soil. Others, who own their land, do not expect their children to farm and “live off the land”. So they aim to maximise short-term yields to finance the education seen as the passport to a job and freedom from the toil of farming.

It is essential that the government executes this initiative with attention to detail. The SHC scheme can go a long way in ensuring long-term food security of over 1.25 billion Indians.

The writers are associate and senior manager, respectively, at MicroSave

(This article was published on March 10, 2017)

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CIVIL SERVICE

STATESMAN, MAR 15, 2017Haryana babus barred for privately sponsored foreign trips

Babus in Haryana will no longer be able to enjoy foreign trips or hospitality sponsored by a private agency or organisation. An official spokesperson said the state government has issued guidelines regarding foreign travel by government officials and decided that privately sponsored foreign visits of officers by private organisations should be avoided.

"It has come to the notice of the government that many departments refer matters to the government for cadre clearance where the expenses of entire foreign visit are borne by a private agency or organization with whom the department has official dealings," he said.

The spokesman said that the provisions of the All India (Conduct) Rules, 1968 be complied with by the officers working in connection with the state.

"Every member of the service shall not place himself under any financial or other obligations to any individual or organization which may influence him in the performance of his official duty. The rules further state that the member of the service shall avoid accepting lavish hospitality or frequent hospitality from persons having official dealings with them or from industrial or commercial firms or other organisations," he added.

A written communication to this effect has been sent to all administrative secretaries, head of departments, managing directors of Boards and Corporations, divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners urging them that the provisions of these rules must be adhered to while sending any proposal for cadre clearance to the personnel department of the State government, the spokesman said.

EC ONOMIC TIMES, MAR 10, 2017Power Secretary P K Pujari gets additional charge of DoT Secy

The competent authority has approved assignment of additional charge of Secretary, DoT to Pujari with immediate effect, an order issued by Personnel Ministry said.

NEW DELHI: Power Secretary Pradeep Kumar Pujari was today given additional charge of the post of Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

The move comes after former Telecom Secretary J S Deepak was named India's next Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The competent authority has approved assignment of additional charge of Secretary, DoT to Pujari with immediate effect, an order issued by Personnel Ministry said.

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Pujari is a 1981 batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre.

Deepak, a 1982 batch IAS officer from Uttar Pradesh cadre, was on March 1, shifted from the Telecom Ministry and made Officer on Special Duty in the Commerce department.

EC ONOMIC TIMES, MAR 8, 2017Parliament panel may act against home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi for skipping meetBy CL Manoj

Home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi had said that he would be outside Delhi on Tuesday and not be able to attend Tuesday’s meeting.

NEW DELHI: A sub-committee of Public Accountants Committee has threatened to begin proceedings on breach of privilege of Parliament against home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, accusing him of 'deliberately skipping' a meeting of the House panel by ‘misrepresenting’ facts.

PAC insiders said the sub-committee examining actions taken on the Comptroller and Auditor-General report on alleged irregularities in conducting the Commonwealth Games, had asked Mehrishi to appear at Tuesday’s meeting along with senior officers of the CBI, Delhi Development Authority, New Delhi Municipal Corporation, Delhi Police, etc.

Mehrishi said that he would be outside Delhi on Tuesday and not be able to attend Tuesday’s meeting.

However, during the course of Tuesday’s scheduled meeting of the PAC sub-committee, headed by Bhartruhari Mahtab, members asked additional secretary of the ministry of home affairs to present details of Mehrishi’s tour programme, only to be told that the home secretary had cancelled the tour and was present in Delhi on Tuesday to meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh who had returned to Delhi after spending many days in Uttar Pradesh.

This saw Mahtab (BJD) and other subcommittee members such as Nishikant Dubey, Ajay Sancheti, Shivkumar C Udasi (all BJP), Chandrakant Kirtikar Gajanan (Shiv Sena) and P Venugopal (AIADMK) registering their protest over the home secretary’s failure to appear before the panel despite he being present in Delhi. Pointing out that the rest of officials were present at the meeting, the members felt Mehrishi should have attended the meeting since he had cancelled the tour programme. They noted that if the home secretary was at all required to be with his minister for any important meeting at the same time when the panel met the practice had been for the ministry to formally convey the same to the House panel.

Mahtab is learnt to have then told the panel that the committee could contemplate proceeding with contempt and breach of privilege proceedings against Mehrishi for his failing to appear before the PAC sub-committee meeting despite his presence in Delhi. Other members too endorsed the suggestion. They panel will now take up the matter with the Lok Sabha Speaker.

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EDUCATION

DECCAN HERALD, MAR 8, 2017DU prof gets life term for Maoist links

Delhi University professor G N Saibaba and four others were on Tuesday sentenced to life in jail by the Gadchiroli Sessions Court. 

The professor and five others were accused of having links with banned Maoist outfits and their leaders. The sixth convict in the case was asked to undergo a jail term of 10 years.

Additional Sessions Judge S S Shinde convicted the accused under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). 

The other convicts are Jawaharlal Nehru University student Hem Mishra, former journalist Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirkey, Pandu Narote and Vijay Tirkey.

Saibaba, a wheelchair-bound English professor at the Ram Lal Anand College, was arrested by the Maharashtra Police on May 9, 2014, for his links with Maoist leaders.

He was initially lodged in the Nagpur jail, but later granted bail by the Supreme Court. He had been suspended by the Delhi University. 

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 8, 2017Autonomy for colleges: UGC’s case and teachers’ concerns

UGC says system of many colleges being affiliated to a university is unwieldy; teachers and students see this as a step towards privatising educationWritten by Mallica Joshi 

Teachers and students of Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College have been protesting the college’s move to apply for autonomy. (Express Archive)

A proposal by Delhi University’s prestigious St Stephen’s College to seek autonomy has

triggered protests, with both teachers and students of the college gathering outside the principal’s

office to demand that they be consulted before any such move is made. Teachers at other

colleges affiliated to government universities too have spoken up against the move, which got

impetus after the University Grants Commission (UGC) released a new set of guidelines for

autonomous colleges in November.

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What do the UGC guidelines to grant autonomy to colleges say?

According to the guidelines, the current system, in which many colleges are affiliated to one

university and are dependent on it, is “unwieldy”. This is a concern that has been raised

periodically by several education administrators, including the former Vice-Chancellor of Delhi

University, Dinesh Singh.

The guidelines say that it is becoming difficult for one university to meet the needs of several

colleges; also, the colleges do not get any freedom to set syllabi or start new courses.

“The colleges do not have the freedom to modernise their curricula or make them locally

relevant. The regulations of the university and its common system, governing all colleges alike,

irrespective of their characteristic strengths, weaknesses and locations, have affected the

academic development of individual colleges. Colleges that have the potential for offering

programmes of a higher standard do not have the freedom to offer them,” says the UGC.

While the university will be the degree-granting body, the degrees will mention the name of the

student’s college. Degrees awarded to students of most colleges (that don’t have autonomy)

currently contain only the name of the university, and not that of the college.

Which colleges are eligible for autonomy? What will the UGC fund?

Colleges that have been granted at least a ‘B’ ranking by the National Accreditation and

Assessment Council are eligible to apply. UGC will also take into account academic

achievements of the faculty, infrastructure, and financial resources provided by the

management/or state government for development of the institution.

The UGC will give funding for additional needs — such as guest/visiting faculty, orientation and

retraining of teachers, redesigning courses, development of teaching/learning material,

workshops and seminars, examination reforms, office equipment, teaching aids and laboratory

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equipment, furniture for office, classrooms, library and laboratories, library equipment,

books/journals, expenditure on meetings of the governing body and committees, accreditation

(NAAC) fees, and renovation and repairs that do not lead to the construction of a new building.

So is this move for autonomy new?

No, the UGC already has over 575 autonomous colleges in the country. Of these, 167 are

government institutions. Premier institutions such as Loyola College, Chennai, and St Xavier’s

Colleges in Mumbai and Kolkata have already been granted autonomy. The erstwhile Presidency

College in Kolkata has been granted the status of a deemed university.

In Delhi University, the administration has met with college principals and asked them to move

an application for autonomy. The university has also handed over application forms to St

Stephen’s College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Hindu College, Hansraj College and

PGDAV College.

What will an autonomous college’s relationship with the university be, according to the

new guidelines?

Under the new guidelines, the university’s main role will be that of facilitator. It will focus on

promoting academic freedom in colleges, help start new courses, and ensure that

degrees/diplomas/certificates issued indicate the name of the college.

Autonomous colleges, the guidelines say, will be “free to make use of the expertise of university

departments and other institutions to frame their curricula, devise methods of teaching,

examination and evaluation”. The university will not have much say in teaching methodology,

examination, evaluation and course curriculum.

So why are teachers opposed to the idea?

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Teachers have alleged that the push for autonomy is a “sinister” move towards privatisation of

education. “Autonomous colleges will be asked to fund part of their expenditure, and this will

force colleges to introduce self-financing courses that are geared towards getting jobs. Students

who study these courses will be forced to take a loan as these ‘professional’ courses are more

expensive. Traditional pure science and humanities courses will be forced to take a backseat,”

said Saikat Ghosh, who teaches English at DU.

Others have questioned how DU colleges can be forced to apply for autonomy when the

university is governed by the Delhi University Act, which does not have a provision for granting

autonomy to colleges.

Concerns have been raised also about the kind of academic and cultural freedom that an

autonomous college can give to teachers and students — there’s very little scope to dissent in

colleges that have been granted autonomous status, critics say.

“The college management becomes the agency that deals with all the teachers and the service

conditions will be defined by them. We might still be employed by the government but what we

are allowed to say and to whom, will be heavily curtailed by institutions that want to maintain a

‘good’ image. There are colleges where teachers are officially reprimanded for speaking out

against the college administration. Students too will lose the right to raise their voice,” said a

teacher who did not want to be named.

An office memorandum of the Finance Ministry on the Seventh Pay Commission released in

January says autonomous organisations are expected to meet extra expenditure on their own, and

not burden the central exchequer. Teachers have cited this memorandum to argue that funding

from UGC will be eventually cut. Delhi University, on the other hand, has cited the various

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expenses that the UGC will bear for autonomous colleges to project that funding for colleges will

actually increase.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, MAR 15, 2017IIT scholars will have to return entire fellowship amount if they leave midwayNeelam Pandey

To promote quality research in IITs and ensure students opt for higher education, the HRD ministry, under the Prime Minister’s Research fellowship, is likely to receive a fellowship amount of 75,000 per month, sources said.₹

To pass on the benefit to students, the HRD ministry has, however, included a clause under which students awarded the fellowship for direct PhD in IITs after completing BTech will have to refund the entire amount in case they leave the course midway.

The scheme will roll out once it gets a clearance from the cabinet, sources said.

At present, there are 25,000 scholars enrolled in different PhD programmes in IITs.

“The quality of research in IITs depends on the quality of students in the PhD programme. To improve this quality, it is essential to encourage bright students completing the BTech programme to register for direct PhD programme. But at the same time, we have to ensure that students don’t leave the course after getting a job and thus, we have decided to insert a clause of refund,” said a senior HRD official. At present, students opt for PhD after completing their Masters and get 25,000 per month.₹

IIT JEE Main 2017 admit cards released, download them nowRagging alert: Engg students can be expelled for mocking caste, gender, religion

As the amount under the Prime Minister’s fellowship has been increased substantially, the selection process is likely to be more rigorous.

The fellowship will start from this academic year and for starters, 1,000 fellows will be taken into the programme.

“In case the student leaves the fellowship before securing his PhD, the entire fellowship amount thus far released will have to be returned lump sum,” said a senior official.

The fellowship was approved last year by the IIT council, the highest decision making body for the institutions, headed by HRD minister Prakash Javadekar.

Sources said students in the final year of BTech in IIT and falling in the top 25 percentile of the class in terms of the cumulative academic performance in the past six semesters will be offered the fellowship.

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The fellowship amount will be paid for five years. “Students who are offered the fellowship will have to write the outline of the research project they would like to take up as part of the PhD programme. It will be considered by a committee constituted by the Board of Governor (BoG) of each IIT,” said an official.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, MAR 15, 2017AICTE approves single entrance test for engineering courses from next yearNeelam Pandey 

Admission to all engineering colleges across the country will be done through a single entrance

examination from next year with the AICTE approving a regulation in this regard, sources said.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on Tuesday approved a comprehensive

package, including the single national test, for improving engineering education.

The AICTE, which is the statutory body and a national-level council for technical education, also

directed institutes to go for induction courses, yearly revision of curriculum and teacher training

through SWAYAM platform, said a source.

To implement the package Rs 250 crore would be spent, the source added.

The Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) is a programme

developed by the government to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the

most disadvantaged, by bridging the digital divide.

Once implemented, the single entrance test will do away with the practice of multiple entrance

examinations conducted by central agencies, state governments and private institutions.

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“The AICTE has come up with the regulation following a directive by HRD minister Prakash

Javadekar. It will now be sent to the ministry for an approval. After that a gazette notification

will be issued,” said a source.

According to officials, the single test for engineering, as well as architecture courses, will be

along the lines of the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test (NEET), a single, all-India test for

entry to medical and dental colleges launched in 2016.

However, students seeking admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will have to

clear the JEE-Advanced after taking the engineering entrance exam.

“The AICTE has been advised to ensure that the examination process is standardised keeping in

view the linguistic diversity of the country. The test will also be conducted multiple times every

year,” said a senior official.

Regulations have been issued under the AICTE Act making it mandatory for every state to

follow it.

Sources said in case a state refuses to adhere it, it will lose the AICTE approval for the institutes.

“The aim is to make the process more transparent, standardised, and free of corruption and

commercialisation,” a government official said, referring to allegations that some private

institutions charge exorbitant capitation fee from students.

India has more than 3,300 approved engineering colleges affiliated to universities, with an

annual intake of an estimated 1.6 million students. But only about half of the seats are filled.

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The current admission process at the graduation level is dependent on performance in entrance

examinations conducted by various agencies.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts the JEE-Main for the Centre-

funded institutions. More than 1.3 million students write this examination every year.

A number of states conduct their own tests while some grant admission based on marks obtained

in class 12. Several private colleges also have their individual entrance examinations.

FINANCIAL EXPRESS, MAR 8, 2017Delhi University to unveil new courses even as admission season set to start; St Stephen’s College, Gargi College to be first to roll out courses

Along with class tenth and class twelfth students, Delhi University is also gearing up for the

admission season.

Given that Delhi University cut-off lists for these courses skyrocket every year, the introduction of new courses would give much relief to the students seeking admission in Delhi University this time around. (PTI)

Along with class tenth and class twelfth students, Delhi University is also gearing up for the

admission season. According to sources, Delhi University is all set to introduce new courses in

as many as 63 colleges. There are eleven courses which might be introduced in the academy year

2017-2018. However, there are still some formalities which need to be taken care of before Delhi

University announces the new ones. The DU Executive council has cleared the proposal in this

regard but Delhi government and University Grants Commission is yet to put their stamp of

approval on it. Two of Delhi University’s North Campus colleges – St Stephen’s and Gargi

College for Women would be able to start with Political Science (Honours) and Economics

(Honours) course once they get the clearance. In addition to Political Science and Economic –

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Bachelor degree with honours in Microbiology and Biochemistry, Zoology, Botany and

Chemistry would be introduced in Delhi University colleges.

Given that Delhi University cut-off lists for these courses skyrocket every year, the introduction

of new courses would give much relief to the students seeking admission in Delhi University this

time around. Moreover, the rising number of local and migrant students in Delhi University

called for such an action. 

According to a report in Aaj Tak, Political Science (Honours) would be taught in St Stephens’

College and Shradhanand and Bhagini Nivedita College. Economic (Honours), to be introduced

in the prestigious St Stephens’ College, would also be introduced in five other colleges including

Bharti College, Bheem Rao Ambedkar College, Ramanujan College, Sri Guru Nanak Dev

Khalsa College and Shri Aurobindo College.

Honours in Chemistry, Zoology and Botany would be introduced in Bhaskarcharya College of

Applied Science. Bachelor degree with honours in Microbiology and biochemistry in Shahid

Rajguru Colllege of Applied Science for Women. Zoology and Botany honours would be

introduced in the south campus college of Delhi University Aatma Ram Sanatan Dharm college. 

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 10, 2017UGC sets two month deadline on varsities to publish PhD scholars’ detailsThe commission requested the varsities to send them a link to the published names on mail within two months.By: Express Web Desk 

The UGC sent a letter to all universities with the deadline, in response to the few varsities not having published details yet.

Varsities have two months to upload the information about PhD scholars on their websites before

the University Grants Commission (UGC) makes them public. A few universities had not

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followed the order by the UGC which had asked universities , last year, to maintain a record of

the PhD students and mention their details on their websites.

 

The UGC sent a letter to all universities with the deadline, in response to the few varsities not

having published details yet. The commission requested the varsities to send them a link to the

published names on mail within two months.

“The Commission, in its meeting, has further desired that the University Grants Commission

should maintain a list of defaulting universities on its website provided some universities fail to

undertake the exercise of uploading the data mentioned above,” the letter by the UGC said.

The commission has sought the details of the PhD students including the the names of their

supervisors, the students’ Aadhaar numbers, PhD mode, their research topic, date of completion

and details of any fellowship.

The details sought in the proforma prescribed by the UGC include name of the supervisor,

Aadhaar number of the student, mode of PhD, research topic, likely date of completion, and

details of fellowship availed, if any.

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ELECTIONS

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAR 15, 2017Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) elections on April 22, counting on April 25Currently, three corporations are ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The elections to the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCD) will take place on April 22,

the Election Commission announced. The model code of conduct is already in place. While the

filing of nominations will begin on March 27, the votes will be counted on April 25.

The elections this time will see an interesting three-cornered contest between the BJP, the Aam

Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress. The AAP, that cruised to a landslide victory in the

Assembly elections in 2015, hopes to replicate the success in the corporation election as well.

The city has seen frequent war of words between the AAP-led Delhi government and the BJP-led

MCD.

Currently, the three corporations are ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP has 153

councillors in the three civic bodies, namely North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), South

Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC). There at

272 seats at stake with NDMC and SDMC accounting for 104 seats each, while 64 seats fall

under EDMC.

Newly-appointed Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said the party would drop all sitting councillors

and attempt to ‘infuse fresh blood’ in the election fray. Even family members of councillors will

not get tickets, Tiwari confirmed.

STATESMAN, MAR 13, 2017Danda democracy

Headline writers come up with catchy “tags” like “dance of democracy” and “peoples’ preference”, but the Chief Election Commissioner lays much emphasis on the role of the policeman wielding the big stick to keep the poll process immaculate. Not just any policeman, but members of the central paramilitary since local forces are presumed compromised. And in an

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interview with a respected contemporary, Dr Nasim Zaidi was candid enough to confess that the hassles involved in mastering adequate central forces for election duties militated against compressing the poll process, or the simultaneous conduct of parliamentary and assembly elections ~ which are being increasingly demanded by a people tired of constantly being in election-mode. In fact his stress on “muscle” being a pre-requisite to the successful management of election might invite criticism of the Election Commission’s inability to inject and inspire cleanliness into the system.

Expressing satisfaction over the non-violent tenor of the recent polls, the CEC said, “Overall the elections have gone off smoothly…regarding the seven phases in UP we would also like to have had it in the shortest number of days… Our elections have become heavily dependent on central forces as people have their own reservations about the state police”. Expanding on those reservations and the complexities of deployment, he said that phased polls were inevitable, adding that “our voters have shown unprecedented enthusiasm, so they are, at least not fatigued by the length of the polls.” He said that an amendment to the Constitution was necessary for mandatory simultaneous parliamentary and assembly elections, and there was need for a political debate on the subject. However he reverted to his pet theme when he explained, “it is a huge logistical exercise in terms of mobilising the election machinery. A lot of money would be required. If you have simultaneous elections and they are dependent on forces, the elections will have to be multi-phased. I guess it may take a minimum of two months.” There can be little quarrel with the “huge logistics” argument but queries must be asked if there was no alternative to central forces: particularly since the impartiality of “crack” agencies like the CBI and NIA was no longer taken for granted. The day might not be far away when the CAPF are accused of functioning in accordance with the Centre’s diktat. What then? True there was little physical violence during the recent campaigns, but is violence only physical? What about the sinister, calculated splitting of the electorate on religious, caste and community lines? Is the EC powerless against campaigning on cemeteries and crematoria? Can polls be permitted to polarise society? Nirvachan Sadan must rise above police bandobast. Voters deserve better.

STSTESMAN, 8 MAR, 2017Decency decimated

The brief lull between the casting of the last ballots and the exit-poll predictions leading to how the numbers finally crunch is, probably, the best time to dispassionately reflect on events of the last few weeks and how the campaigns in five states played out. For both the thunder of the just-concluded electioneering and the thrills/disappointments at the results are much too emotive to permit the contesting parties and the poll “machinery” to look within. What is tragically certain, regardless of the voters’ verdict ~ in UP particularly ~ is that the “loser” is decency. Seldom has there been such calculated divisiveness manifest, with the result that the national polity has been split wide open and religion, community and caste issues having to face gaps unlikely to be bridged. At least, not by those who played lead roles in elections of which no decent citizen can be proud. It would be an over-simplification to suggest that the screenplay of the 2014 parliamentary poll was merely re-enacted ~ the worst elements of that affair were shamelessly, purposely, exacerbated. And the nation rendered poorer in the process. Since more elections are

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in the offing it is with distinct trepidation that apolitical citizens await their next date with the EVM.

Apportioning blame is pointless: all entities are guilty of “murdering” the system for which the Founding Fathers had strived. Yet in all such matters it is the ruling party at the Centre that is   required to set the tone. The “veterans” who had projected the BJP as a party “with a difference” would hardly be impressed by the difference displayed by the Modi-Shah duo. That the accent was on personality was underscored by the Prime Minister leading a campaign that “sold” the voter no potential chief minister. It became a case of    more for the loser to lose than for the winner to gain ~ and since it was primarily a “Modi versus the Rest” affair the stakes were dangerously high. The early phases had established that the planks of development, war against black money, and surgical strikes across the LOC were not good enough to ensure victory: so the party played its    favourite card ~ no need for any further specification, or listing the poison that was spread. The other parties adopted similar tactics, and the Congress’ decision to play second fiddle to a divided Samajwadi tells it own sick story. The story in Punjab was only marginally different. To query the functioning of the Election Commission is never salutary, but it proved how far it strayed from “Seshan-standard” was confirmed by its allowing the kind of campaigning it did ~ that too over seven phases of agony in UP. 

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FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

ASIAN AGE, MAR 14, 2017No limit on withdrawing money from savings accountThe demonetisation of high value currency notes was announced on November 8, 2016.Mumbai: All limits placed on cash withdrawals from savings bank account post demonetisation of high denomination currency notes ended on Monday.

Ever since the government announced a surprise ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes constituting 86.9 per cent of the value of total currency in circulation and placed caps on daily and weekly withdrawal limits, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been relaxing these restrictions in phases taking into account the pace of remonetisation.  

Initially, the Reserve Bank removed restriction on cash withdrawal limit from current, cash credit and overdraft accounts effective January 31, 2017. However, the limits on cash withdrawal from savings bank accounts remained in place.

After reviewing the progress of remonetisation, RBI in its last monetary policy meeting held on February 8, 2017 decided to completely remove the restrictions on cash withdrawal limit from savings bank account in two phases.

Accordingly, customers were allowed to withdraw up to Rs 50,000 per week from their savings bank account starting February 20, 2017 from an earlier limit of Rs 24,000 per week. “Effective March 13, 2017, there will be no limits on cash withdrawals from Savings Bank accounts,” RBI said.

The demonetisation of high value currency notes was announced on November 8, 2016 with an aim to battle corruption, black money, counterfeit currency, terror financing and greater digitisation of the economy. In its preliminary assessment of the macro-economic impact of demonetisation, the RBI said the note ban had impacted various sectors in varying degrees, but the adverse impact was transient and felt mainly in November and December 2016.

“The impact moderated significantly in January 2017 and dissipated by and large by mid-February, reflecting  the fast pace of remonetisation. The latest CSO estimates suggest that the impact of demonetisation on gross value added growth was modest,” the RBI said in a report released last week.

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GOVERNMENT PURCHASING

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 9, 2017Government makes it mandatory for departments to source from GeM

The move is aimed at bringing in more transparency and streamlining the government procurement, estimated at Rs 10,000 crore a year.

NEW DELHI: The government has made it mandatory for all the departments and ministries to source goods and services from its e-market place.

The move is aimed at bringing in more transparency and streamlining the government procurement, estimated at Rs 10,000 crore a year.

The Commerce Ministry last year launched the government e-marketplace (GeM) for online purchase of goods and services by various central government ministries and departments.

The Finance Ministry has amended the General Financial Rules (GFRs) as per which it is now compulsory to procure items and services from this portal, an official said.

Currently over 9,000 products from 250 categories including computers, stationery and several services are registered by different vendors on the portal.

The Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D) is working on increasing the number of services by including areas like cleaning, plumbing and digitisation of records.

"In one months time, we will do this. The work is going in full swing," an official said.

The DGS&D, which is under the Commerce Ministry, has developed the portal.

According to the GFRs released yesterday, "the procurement of goods and services by ministries or departments will be mandatory for goods and services available on GeM".

E-commerce is a fast growing industry in the country. According to a study, e-commerce market is likely to grow 10-fold in next five years to reach USD 100 billion on the back of increasing penetration of Internet, smartphones and spread of digital network in rural areas.

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HOUSING

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 9, 2017Centre may pay your rent through vouchers soon in 100 citiesBy Nidhi Sharma

The ministry would now prepare a Cabinet note to push the rental voucher scheme. The move comes close to a recommendation by a group of secretaries on health, sanitation and urban development formed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government may now pay your rent. The Centre is all set to roll out a Rs 2,700-crore welfare scheme in 100 smart cities to give rent vouchers to the urban poor.

The government would launch the new rental housing policy with the rent vouchers for below poverty line (BPL) families. Though the policy has been in the works for three years, the first component is likely to be rolled out in 2017-18 financial year in the smart cities.

The scheme is expected to cost Rs 2,713 crore every year to implement in smart cities. Aimed directly at the urban poor and helping the migrant population, the scheme would involve distribution of rent vouchers by urban local bodies.

The tenant would give these vouchers to the landowner, who in turn would be able to redeem them at any citizen service bureau. If the rent is higher than the value of rent voucher, the tenant would pay the difference in cash to the landowner.

The value of rent voucher would be determined by the urban local body on the basis of class or size of the dwelling unit and the prevalent rent in the city. The government is also exploring the option of direct benefit transfer in this voucher scheme. According to Census 2011, about 27.5% of urban residents lived in rented houses in 2011.

However, National Sample Survey (NSS) found that around 35% of urban households lived on rent in 2009. Moreover, according to NSS this proportion has remained steady since 1991. A senior official of housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry told ET, “The rental voucher scheme is being looked at as a means to complement the Prime Minister Housing for All scheme.”

The government would also monetise the confiscated benami properties for construction of affordable homes to address the housing shortage.

“The recent implementation of the Benami Properties Act and rules open up another option for rental housing. An enabling provision would be inserted in the rules that houses confiscated by Central government which cannot be auctioned, could be let out by the Central government or

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through state governments as rental housing for the middle income group (MIG), LIG and economically weaker section (EWS) depending on the suitability and location of such properties,” the official said.

The ministry would now prepare a Cabinet note to push the rental voucher scheme. The move comes close to a recommendation by a group of secretaries on health, sanitation and urban development formed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

TELEGRAPH, MAR 11, 2017read with care- Foreign policy must be rooted in ethics, not just sectarian interests

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

The legendary Zionist toast "Next Year in Jerusalem!" says it all. It expresses the undying optimism and tenacity of the no longer Wandering Jew which Narendra Modi must beware of when he visits Israel. It also echoes the soaring territorial ambition that has sustained Jewry through the ages which Modi must not be led into endorsing.Understanding the pitfalls, P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was well versed in the complexities of diplomatic manipulation, was careful to stress even while laying the Yellow Brick Road along which Modi trips so merrily that he still sought "justice for the Palestinians".

Sushma Swaraj's claim to "fully support the Palestinian cause" needs much more authoritative and categorical reiteration at a time when even Israel's own attorney-general denounces as "unconstitutional" Benjamin Netanyahu's latest law to "regularise" some of the 140 illegal settlements that house more than 600,000 Jewish settlers in the conquered West Bank and East Jerusalem. So far as one can recall, Modi has said nothing about this continued aggression which lies at the root of Arab frustration and bitterness and spawns a range of terrorist organizations, including the deadly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Modi has not said anything either about the killing or wounding of five or six ethnic Indians in Trump's US. The only common factor seems to be subservience to the United States of America. It's revealing of New Delhi's thinking that Christian charitable activity is about the only issue over which it is prepared to challenge the US.

Foreign policy is more than the pursuit of sectarian interest. It must also be rooted in ethics. That is why the Americans artfully cloaked their struggle for power with the Soviet Union as the epic battle between Democracy and Darkness. That is also why Franklin D. Roosevelt supposedly remarked of either Anastasio Somoza or Rafael Trujillo - both were ruthless dictators, Somoza of Nicaragua and Trujillo of the Dominican Republic - "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." Being essential to American strategy, they had to be garbed for public consumption in virtue they were far from possessing.

×India and Israel need each other. India is the largest buyer of Israeli military equipment. Israel is India's second-largest defence supplier. Israel can further the "Make in India" campaign by helping to develop a medium-range surface-to-air missile. Israel has shown it can provide invaluable security intelligence about India's febrile neighbourhood. A free trade agreement is on the cards. Israel's triumph over the Negev desert which covers 55 per cent of the land area long ago prompted an offer to make the Thar desert bloom. I don't know which surprised me more when I visited Beersheba, the Negev's principal town, 47 years ago - genetically created blue roses blossoming in the desert or the very dark Malayalis without a word of English or Hindi packing them who were introduced to me as Indian Jews. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. Kerala is a hoary land of mystery. Daniel Patrick Moynihan told a Congressional

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committee it supplied teak for King Solomon's palace. Legend says that when Thomas the Apostle landed at the Roman staging post of Muziris to found the world's oldest Christian church, a Jewish girl welcomed him on the flute. Cochin's Paradesi Jews, who founded the world's first Jewish state centuries before Israel was a gleam in Chaim Weizmann's eye, claimed descent from refugees who fled Nebuchadnezzar's sacking of Jerusalem.

Whispers of modern India playing footsie with the Jewish state that leaked out occasionally indicated discussions about paramilitary settlements along the Chinese border like the armed Zionist kibbutzim, buying Israel's Uzi sub-machine gun, and David Ben-Gurion sending enough 120-millimetre Tampella mortars and ammunition and spares for two regiments when Jawaharlal Nehru sought military help in 1962. Israel helped to organize the Research and Analysis Wing and train commandos for India's National Security Guards, while the United Nations delegations of the two countries consulted each other. When I suggested to P.N. Haksar, then custodian of Indira Gandhi's conscience, that Israel was an Asian country, he retorted, "Only geographically. Listen to their accents!" The connection remained clandestine until Narasimha Rao instructed Lalit Mansingh, then posted in Washington, to start a dialogue with two influential Jewish organizations, the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai B'rith and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Like "Looking East to Look West", Narasimha Rao courted Israel, responded to overtures from Taiwan and initiated ties with post-apartheid South Africa as part of his bigger foreign policy reorientation to close the chasm between India and the US.

If I was surprised by the Malayalis in Beersheba, Mansingh was astonished to find so many influential Americans were Jews with Israeli connections like Stephen Solarz, the Congressman who quoted Tagore at the drop of a tear. No wonder Harry Truman lost no time in reneging on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's assurance to Saudi Arabia's King Abdul Aziz about a Palestinian homeland because he had to answer to hundreds of thousands of people who were anxious for the success of Zionism but he did not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among his constituents. Fearing an angry reaction from the opposite corner, Narasimha Rao thought it prudent to tell people that Yasser Arafat had actually recommended formal bilateral ties citing the Egypt-Israel rapprochement which had helped the Palestinian cause. In the event, a solitary letter from Syed Shahabuddin, the diplomat-turned-politician who died the other day, was the only protest when India and Israel established full diplomatic relations on January 29, 1992, five days after China and Israel exchanged ambassadors. The muted reaction was a reminder of the shortness of public memory. Modi's powerful public relations machinery may ensure that the renewed vigour with which friendship with Israel is now being pursued will also be accepted with equanimity. That does not mean the enthusiasm of what can only be called the Hindu neo-Right doesn't threaten a balance that has so far enabled India to pursue its Israeli interests with a clear conscience and without jeopardizing the peace process. This is especially relevant because delinking ties with Israel and the Palestinians may prove as difficult as the Americans find delinking ties with India and Pakistan. Every action the US takes in relation to Pakistan has an instant Indian reaction. The reverse is equally true. If things are less fraught in the Israeli-Palestinian equation, it is mainly because Palestinians are a dependent people at Israel's mercy.

This vulnerability is highlighted more and more every day as the Oslo process fades from

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memory. Egypt, once the strident voice of non-aligned and Afro-Asian justice, barely speaks now that it is the biggest recipient of American aid after Israel. Instead, it regularly floods and destroys the tunnels that the beleaguered inhabitants of Gaza regard as their principal lifeline. But even Cairo and Amman will be moved to protest if Donald Trump's cavalier dismissal of the promised Palestinian homeland when Benjamin Netanyahu met him recently leads to the US embassy being shifted from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Nor can Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other pro-Western oil-rich Gulf states remain acquiescent.

A first ever visit to Israel by an Indian prime minister may be a fitting celebration of the 25th anniversary of the diplomatic relations Narasimha Rao established. But one feels that had he been alive, the wily Telugu would have handled the situation with finesse. He would have avoided giving the impression of abdicating the scope for independent diplomacy, surrendering Palestinian interests and supporting Zionist dreams of ruling a mythic Eretz Israel, the traditional Jewish name for an area of indefinite geographical extension in the Southern Levant. He would have known that immediate implementation of the two-state solution offers the only way of healing the festering sore of grievances that are a major cause for Islamic terrorism.

TELEGRAPH, MAR 8, 2017Neighbourhood watch- India could gain from a partnership with Britain in the Gulf

Diplomacy: K.P. Nayar

Brexit offers a windfall opportunity to realize Narendra Modi's vision of India's relations with the Gulf. The history of India's past initiatives in the region, going back to the 1970s, is a long story of failed initiatives. As a result, while major nations in every continent transformed and upgraded their links with the Gulf states, India's policies - like those of Bangladesh and the Philippines -were confined to labour export and offering consular services or relief to its nationals. It is to Modi's credit that he has tried to realize the untapped potential of this country's extended neighbourhood since he came to office nearly three years ago.

However, given a history of all-round failure - especially in meeting even half way the long-standing desire of governments in the Gulf to deepen and expand relations with New Delhi - there is no reason to believe that what the prime minister wants to do in the region will be crowned by any higher degree of success than efforts in the chequered past.

Partnering with the United Kingdom offers an unexpected opportunity to change that. With its impending withdrawal from the European Union, the UK is looking afresh for partnerships outside the Continent. Credited by history and aided by a reservoir of goodwill and trust that Britain continues to enjoy in countries like Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf is now a region of choice for the new British government led by Theresa May.

Three months ago, as the new occupant of 10 Downing Street was toying with alternative policy options following the shock vote for Brexit, Britain and the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council held their first joint summit. Meeting in Bahrain, the two sides

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agreed to launch the GCC-UK Strategic Partnership to "foster closer relations in all fields, including political, defence, security, and trade, as well as enhancing people-to-people contact and developing collective approaches to regional issues to advance their shared interest in stability and prosperity."

×Speaking at this summit, May said, "As the United Kingdom leaves the EU, I am determined that we should seize the opportunity to get out into the world and to shape an even bigger global role for my country: yes, to build new alliances but more importantly, to go even further in working with old friends, like our allies here in the Gulf, who have stood alongside us for centuries."

Within days of that summit, Britain's foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, speaking at the annual Manama Dialogue that was organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, declared in his typically articulate and forceful style that "Britain is back east of Suez."

A month later, Johnson arrived in New Delhi and made it a point to stress at the government-backed Raisina Dialogue on geopolitics and geoeconomics, organized by the Observer Research Foundation, that Britain had "just decided to restore our military presence east of Suez with a £3 billion commitment over ten years and a naval support facility in Bahrain."

The £3 billion commitment that Johnson referred to in New Delhi had been announced by the British prime minister at her Manama summit with the six GCC heads of state. "... we will invest in hard power, with over £3 billion of defence spending in the region over the next decade, spending more on defence in the Gulf than in any other region of the world," she had announced in December.

At a time of uncertainties in overseas defence commitments by the United States of America following the election of Donald Trump as president, May stepped up to assure Gulf governments that "we will create a permanent presence in the region, the first such facility east of Suez since 1971, with more British warships, aircraft and personnel deployed on operations in the Gulf than in any other part of the world."

Forty six years later, almost to the day when the Royal Navy's former Gulf squadron sailed away for the last time from their base of HMS Jufair in Bahrain's Mina Salman, British warships will return to their own permanent base, the same HMS Jufair, in what May acknowledged was "thanks to the generosity of the Kingdom of Bahrain."

Simultaneously, a regional land training hub being established in Oman will create a permanent British army presence in the region. Additionally, the largest UK-Omani military exercise for 15 years - Saif Sareea III ('Swift sword' in Arabic) - will take place early next year.

Those who know the strengths of British diplomacy are aware that the UK's foreign secretary does not speak off-the-cuff unlike some of India's past foreign ministers who qualified to be treated for foot-in-mouth disease. So when Johnson spoke at the Raisina Dialogue about the UK's new diplomatic and strategic push east of Suez, there was a deliberate message in it for

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the Modi government.

Besides, the foreign secretary prefaced what he said about 'east of Suez' with an offer that Ajit Doval, the national security adviser, and his team will find tempting. "Like India we know the threats of terrorism... and we are already working together to tackle those threats with ever greater intelligence sharing and we have some of the most formidable intelligence capabilities in the world; and we have no inhibitions in sharing our most advanced technology with India."

Every country - even Pakistan - will pay lip service to cooperation on fighting terrorism. But when it comes to intelligence cooperation, let alone "sharing our most advanced technology with India" many foreign governments are tight-fisted and miserly. Britain's willingness to share intelligence is a potential jackpot because no country outside the region has as much intelligence in the Gulf as the UK, and they also have the unique ability to put such intelligence in a local, historical context.

Johnson said, "India can be a vital force for stability in this region, the keystone of a giant natural arch, created by the Indian Ocean running from Perth in the east to Cape Town in the west." A big part of this geographic area is covered by the Gulf.

It is clear that much thought has gone into the new British government's public pronouncements about post-Brexit strategies because May herself referred to the historical context of Indo-British cooperation in the Gulf when she spoke at her summit with GCC leaders. "We have a rich history on which to build. From the very first treaties, in the mid-17th century, which saw the East India Company reach agreements on British trade and a military presence in Oman... the UK has been proudly at the forefront of a relationship between the Gulf and the West that has been the bedrock of our shared prosperity and security."

There may be some squeamishness in sections of India's intelligence and strategic community about partnering with the UK in the Gulf. It may be prudent for the government of India to begin this process through Track 1.5 or through Track II meetings by co-opting British think tanks of repute such as the IISS, which not only has a robust and visible presence in Bahrain but also enjoys trust at the highest levels in countries like Oman and the UAE.

Every Gulf think tank has a strong British resource to it, providing deep intellectual content. So it makes eminent sense for New Delhi to deepen the engagement with British organizations like the IISS instead of inserting Indian think tanks into the Gulf on grounds of false national pride. Not just in the area of think tanks, British influence is unparalleled in every sector in every Gulf country, with the exception of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait - the latter after the war to expel Saddam Hussein following the 1990 invasion of the emirate. Modi has nothing to lose and potentially much to gain by trying out a unique partnership with post-Brexit Britain in the Gulf.

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PARLIAMENT

TIMES OF INDIA, MAR 9, 2017Gujarat: 80 per cent pay increase for CM, ministersKapil Dave

GANDHINAGAR: While PM Narendra Modi claimed on Tuesday in Bharuch that prices and

inflation have come down, in the Gujarat administrationthings seem different. The state

government proposed a massive 80% increase in salaries and perks for the CM and ministers in

the 2017-18 budget from the 2016-17 budget estimates.

In the 2016-17 budget estimate, the Gujarat government made provisions of Rs 3.21 crore for

salary expenses of the chief minister and other ministers, which it has now increased to Rs 5.78

crore (a Rs 2.57 crore hike), close to an 80% increase in one year. Compared to the 2015-16

actual expenditure of Rs 3.16 crore, it is an almost 82% hike.

The state government has also proposed a substantial increase in tour and other expenditure, in

addition to salaries.

The government has proposed a massive increase in the pay bill of ministers' personal staff too.

From Rs 14.56 crore in 2015-16, this expenditure jumped to Rs 15.75 crore in the 2016-17

budget estimates. In 2017-18, a whopping Rs 18.67 crore has been proposed.

The state government also proposed a whopping 34.46% increase in salaries of members of

legislative assembly (MLAs), from Rs 15.03 crore to Rs 20.22 crore in 2017-18.

The government proposed only a 1.18% increase in the expenditure of the leader of opposition,

from Rs 91.25 lakh to Rs 92.33 lakh.

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Latest Comment

Always the Ministers & politicians take the Lion's share of Revenue collected from Public as

they have to spent a lot of time for the election propaganda , the only job what they do besides

Foreign trips !

While a massive hike of 31.03% has been proposed in the salary bill of the Speaker and deputy

speaker of the assembly. Compared to Rs 34.80 lakh in 2016-17, total expenditure of Rs 45.60

lakh has been proposed for 2017-18. The government chief whip's staff bill has also been

increased by 12.34%.

A substantial increase has also been proposed in the expenditure of the governor's office, while

the people of the state are struggling.

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POLICE

HINDU, MAR 9, 2017The mystery of police reformR.K. Raghavan

That police is a State subject complicates matters, but self-correction within the force

is essential

“Police reforms are going on and on. Nobody listens to our orders.” This is how a Supreme

Court bench headed by Chief Justice J.S. Khehar reacted last week, while declining the plea

of a lawyer demanding immediate action to usher in major police reforms in the country.

The lawyer had earlier been permitted to implead himself in a pending PIL on the subject.

It is sad that the highest court of the land is so helpless in the matter. Its anguish, however

desperate and well-meaning it may have been, is understandable. It epitomises the pathetic

state of affairs in public administration in the country, and it can only embolden our

political heavyweights to brazenly halt the few contemplated reforms.

While the National Police Commission (1977-79), set up by the Janata government that

displaced the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi, kick-started reforms, the credit

for keeping the debate alive and taking it to the highest judicial forum goes to a colleague of

mine, Prakash Singh, former Director General of Police (DGP) of Uttar Pradesh and a

former Border Security Force chief, who filed a PIL in 1996 and sought major changes to

the police structure. His accent was on autonomy and more space for police professionalism

by giving a fixed tenure for police officers in crucial positions beginning with the DGPs in

the States.

Long road to reform

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The apex court gave its nearly revolutionary directions in 2006, a decade after Mr. Singh

first filed his petition. While it is easy to blame the court for such an inordinate delay, one

must remember that ‘police’ being a State subject under the Constitution, the process of

consultation was tortuous and time-consuming.

The SC’s directions to the States included a fixed tenure of two years for top police officers

in crucial positions, setting up of a State Security Commission (in which the leader of the

Opposition party also had a role, and would give policy directions to the police), the clear

separation of law and order and crime functions of the police and creation of a Police

Establishment Board to regulate police placements. It also mandated a new Police Act on

the basis of a model Act prepared by the Union government and circulated to the States.

Policemen across the country were excited over this development and believed that an end

to gross political interference in police routine was in sight.

Events since 2006 have been dismaying, with several State governments devising their own

means to dilute — if not wholly sabotage — what the Supreme Court had laid down.

Finding that the court had stepped in mainly because there was no law on the subject, many

States brought in quick hotchpotch legislation to water down the essentials of the Supreme

Court direction. On the face of it, the new Police Acts appeared to be fully compliant with

the judicial prescription. In fact, they were a ruse to outwit the court, without demonstrating

any irreverence or defiance. This is why we still see Directors and Inspectors-Generals

(IGs) being handed out a two-year tenure on paper, but given marching orders midway into

their tenure on the most untenable and imaginary grounds. Nobody has protested.

A few States have made officers temporarily in charge of the post of DGP without having

to obey the SC direction. Commissioners of Police and IGs (Intelligence) have also suffered

the same fate. The objectives of the Police Establishment Board, conceived only to

depoliticise appointments and transfers, have been set at naught by the DGPs getting

informal prior political approval from the Chief Minister/Home Minister with a view to

placing politically amenable officers in vital places in the police hierarchy.

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Dispassionate observers have other ideas on the matter. In their view, mere autonomy to the

police and job security, without upgrading the quality of recruits and ensuring dedication

and honesty in the day-to-day delivery of service to the public, will be of little avail. They

also dispute the popular theory that all police ills are traceable only to political interference

in police routine. I am inclined to agree with this somewhat unpopular stand.

Politicians as scapegoats

Many dishonest policemen — there are quite a few in every State police — get away with

accusing the local politician of preventing them from discharging their duties. The pathetic

state of police stations and their culpable tardiness in responding to the common man,

crying for protection from a bully, are too well known to be chronicled. Policemen either

ignore complaints, or when they do take cognisance of them, side with the aggressors. We

are familiar with the spectacle of perpetrators of violence being treated as witnesses, and

victims of crime converted to be accused. There is not always a politician energising the

police to act blatantly against canons of ethics.

I recently took up the cause of a junior worker in the IT industry, who was beaten black and

blue by a few policemen on duty in a public resort for absolutely no fault of his. He was

further deprived of a gold chain he was wearing at the time of the outrage. I took up the

matter with the District Superintendent who, in turn, directed a young IPS officer to inquire

into the unconscionable conduct of the police. Several months have passed by with no relief

for the victim. In a more recent instance, the plea from a senior IAS officer, who retired as

secretary to the Government of India, for additional traffic lights and related restructuring

of vehicular flow at a busy junction, which had caused accidents, remains unanswered.

Despite my taking up the matter purely in the public interest, there has not even been an

acknowledgement of the request.

Such callousness towards the common man’s simple, legitimate and uncomplicated

requests, be it the rich or poor who go to the police on a grievance, is far too common. The

excuse of preoccupation with law and order problems and inadequate manpower cannot

fully explain the predilection for inaction that has become routine in our style of policing.

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Can you cite political interference or lack of resources as the alibi for this gross apathy?

This is why the debate on police reforms sounds irrelevant and unappealing to the average

citizen.

Scope for improvement

Is there hope of a measurable improvement in the quality of policing? I would like to say

‘yes’, but I am reluctant, because sections of the police leadership are not contributing

enough to the cause of consumer-sensitive policing. They are either selfish or dishonest, or

indifferent.

It is equally true that many young IPS officers lose their idealism early in their careers,

because of fear of vengeful politicians or disloyal subordinates. They, therefore, become

deadwood, which the force cannot get rid of without prolonged litigation. The fears of

proactive and dedicated officers about reprisal over honest action against powerful men in

society and politics are well-known.

But how long will the citizen be satisfied with a non-performing police force? This is the

question we should ask ourselves while discussing police reforms. It is not as if this is a

problem that has suddenly come upon the police. It has only ballooned in recent times

because of growing lawlessness promoted by big money and all that goes with it. Unless

there is self-correction within the police, a process initiated by the DGP and his aides, we

cannot see a perceptible change in the manner in which policing is carried out in most parts

of the country. Just as there are many bright spots in the police forces, there are an equal

number of enlightened elements in our polity, who are willing to listen to police woes.

There is here a symbiotic relationship without activating which our police forces will

remain condemned and shunned by the law-abiding citizen.

R.K. Raghavan is a former CBI director

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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

HINDU, MAR 15, 2017Parrikar takes oath in Goa as SC declines Cong. pleaNistula Hebbar

Court asks Governor Mridula Sinha to hold floor test in Assembly tomorrow

Hours after the Supreme Court refused the Congress plea to stay the swearing-in of

Manohar Parrikar as Goa Chief Minister, the BJP leader took charge on Tuesday evening,

along with a nine-member team. The court, however, requested Governor Mridula Sinha to

hold a floor test in the Assembly on March 16 for the parties to prove their majority.

The Congress had moved the SC on March 13, claiming that the Governor’s decision to

appoint Mr. Parrikar as Chief Minister without consulting it — the single largest party —

was a “brazen” misuse of constitutional office.

On Tuesday too, the Congress and the BJP continued to spar over efforts at government

formation in Goa and Manipur, both inside and outside Parliament. Members of the

Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal staged a walkout

twice after being refused permission to discuss the issue in the Lok Sabha by Speaker

Sumitra Mahajan.

While the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, termed the BJP’s

efforts to shore up support and the actions of the Raj Bhavans a “murder of democracy”,

outside the House Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said it amounted to “undermining

democracy”.

Jaitley upset

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was present in the Lok Sabha when Mr. Kharge sought

to raise the issue, asked for the Speaker’s permission to respond as Mr. Kharge had used

“strong language”. The Speaker, however, assured the Minister that the remarks would not

be taken on record.

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAR 14, 2017Arun Jaitley gets charge of Defence Ministry after Manohar Parrikar resigns

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was today given the additional charge of the

Defence Ministry after Manohar Parrikar resigned to take on the new role of Goa Chief

Minister. A Rashtrapati Bhawan communique said that the resignation of Parrikar as the

Defence Minister, on advice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been accepted with

immediate effect. "Further, as advised by the Prime Minister, the President has directed that

Arun Jaitely, Cabinet Minister, shall be assigned the charge of the Ministry of Defence, in

addition to his existing portfolios," the communique said. #PresidentMukherjee has

accepted the resignation of Shri Manohar Parrikar from the Council of Ministers with

immediate effect — President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) March 13, 2017 Shri Arun

Jaitley shall be assigned the charge of the Ministry of Defence, in addition to his existing

portfolios — President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) March 13, 2017 Parrikar submitted his

resignation after BJP staked claim to form an alliance government in Goa. He will be sworn

in as the Chief Minister of Goa tomorrow heading the BJPled ministry which has the

support of regional outfits and Independents. This is the second time that Jaitley is holding

the additional portfolio of Defence Ministry during the present NDA government. He was

incharge of the ministry earlier from May 26 to November 9 in 2014.

TRIBUNE, MAR 14, 2017The spread of saffron

The Uttar Pradesh outcome has come as a surprise, even for the BJP's most optimistic lot. Last time the party stormed into power in UP was in the early nineties when it secured 221 seats. That was in the heat of the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation. By comparison the party's performance this time is definitely astounding and lays the ground for 2019. In the BJP's evolving culture second- and third-rank leaders vie with one another in crediting Narendra Modi and Amit Shah for the

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resounding win. Getting 325 seats in a 403-member House is no mean achievement and this in a state as vast, complicated and divided as UP. The BJP and its leadership fully deserve their moment in the sun. Even in this hour of victory when others are busy celebrating or counting their losses, Modi and Amit Shah are said to be looking forward to Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, their next targets, which go to the polls later this year.

From a pro-trader, pro-rich party concentrated in select urban pockets the BJP has come a long way to have a pan-India presence. The saffron party has now spread its footprint in 14 states. For some two decades Uttar Pradesh had remained a fiefdom of alternately ruling two regional outfits - the Smajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Caste, religion, muscle and money power have played a role in influencing elections. However, the BJP spin doctors would like everyone to believe that Modi's performance at the Centre had led people to rise above caste and class considerations and repose their faith in his leadership. "It's the end of politics of caste and creed. People have accepted and endorsed policies and good governance philosophy of Narendra Modi," said a BJP leader. What the BJP did was to tactfully employ the caste arithmetic in ticket distribution and effectively use caste divide and communal polarisation as per electoral requirements. At the lower level the party had unleashed the likes of Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj. The latter wanted Muslims to cremate bodies as there was no space for burial grounds left in Uttar Pradesh. The Election Commission looked the other way as violations of the Supreme Court ruling on the use of religion and caste in polls happened repeatedly. 

After a setback in Delhi and Bihar, the BJP leadership had resorted to strong measures to divert attention and mend the bruised Modi image. Seldom before was an Army action against terrorists used to boost a political party's chances in an election. When 86 per cent of the country's currency was suddenly withdrawn, it created a storm and drew sharp criticism. However, it goes to Modi's and the BJP's credit that they turned 'notebandi' into an anti-rich measure, which seems to have enthused the poor and middle classes. As election after election has testified, people gladly suffered the devastating financial dislocation, genuinely believing Modi was after the holders of black money. In elections, perception matters more than cold logic. 

The successive municipal and panchayat elections created a favourable environment for the BJP while it was preparing for the five state elections. Barring Punjab, the electoral response to the BJP strategy, crafted by Amit Shah and Modi, has been by and large positive. After Assam, the BJP entry into the North-East stands consolidated with Manipur welcoming its presence now. The party has captured Uttarakhand and remained in the reckoning in Goa despite anti-incumbency, unlike Punjab where it has been reduced to one of its lowest scores because of its

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being a silent party to Akali misrule. The BJP's rise under Narendra Modi has been as swift as the corresponding Congress decline. Punjab has saved the Congress from utter disgrace. 

The capture of Uttar Pradesh will help the BJP face the challenges - internal as well as external -- from a position of greater strength. It will be more confident of having its way in Parliament as well as the upcoming Presidential election. The Modi dispensation will also be able to increase its strength in the Rajya Sabha when the next round of polls takes place sometime next year. An emboldened Prime Minister may carry forward his legislative and administrative agenda, unafraid of opposition from within or outside the party, or caring little for parliamentary scrutiny, if any at all. This does not augur well for a vibrant democracy.

TRIBUNE, MAR 15, 2017The new face of politicsYogendra YadavBJP’s growing hegemony is a direct threat to democracy

LET’S face it. The stunning verdict of the Assembly elections has signalled a new phase in national politics. The BJP is now not just a ruling party at the Centre and in some states. It is the pole around which national politics is organised. It is the hegemonic party in national politics. Mr Narendra Modi now takes the position last occupied by Mrs Indira Gandhi.

It is a hard reality to swallow. Those who are opposed to Mr Modi’s vision of ‘new India’ find this very disturbing. I belong to this category. I have maintained that Mr Modi stands in opposition to the very idea of India. But it is one thing to like or dislike his politics, quite another to assess where he stands today. Here, Mr Modi’s critics are guilty of living in denial. For the last two years, they were hoping that his regime would collapse under its own weight. They had taken great solace in the BJP’s crushing defeat in Delhi in 2015 and Bihar in 2016. They had predicted that demonetisation was to prove his nemesis. That, clearly, did not happen. Any serious opposition to the BJP must begin by acknowledging this truth.

Hegemonic does not mean just powerful. Hegemony is power with legitimacy. If the BJP is hegemonic today, it is so because its brute power enjoys popular endorsement. The Prime Minister is not just popular, as most Prime Ministers are at the beginning of their tenure. He has captured national imagination like few leaders have in the recent past. The BJP is shaping popular common sense.

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There are three components to the BJP’s hegemony. First, it enjoys and exercises brute power like few Central governments have. Some of this is effective use of legitimate state power. Unlike the Congress, the BJP uses it executive power to keep state institutions under its thumb. From education to culture to defence, the Modi government has appointed those who can be trusted to carry out its agenda. It also stretches its legal power to push decisions that do not quite belong to it. Dislodging of state governments in Arunachal and Uttarakhand, the latest attempt to install BJP governments in Goa and Manipur, bypassing of the Rajya Sabha to enact laws that the Opposition may not approve are some examples from this category. The ruling party combines all this with the exercise of violence and intimidation, reminiscent of the terror of the Sanjay Gandhi brigade. The ABVP hooliganism on the campuses across the country and violence against rights activists is becoming the norm now.

The second component of the BJP’s hegemony is its electoral dominance, which reached a new height last week. The significance of its victory in UP and Uttarakhand is not just its spectacular and unprecedented seats tally. The BJP’s victory in 2014 was about as spectacular. The real point is that the BJP managed to repeat this victory in a state Assembly election where anti-incumbency was not that strong, and where the BJP did not have any state-level leadership to project. Yes, Mr Modi is unable to wipe out the anti-incumbency sentiment against his party in Goa and his ally in Punjab. But the BJP’s powerful entry in Manipur, coming at the back of its victory in Assam, gains in Odisha, expanded footprint in the southern states and earlier victories in Haryana and Maharashtra makes it a nationwide political force to reckon with. The Congress is now confined to a few states and is rapidly shrinking. The BJP and the Congress have swapped places in the last 10 years.

The third component is the moral and ideological acceptance of the regime by the people. The PM has extended his popularity well beyond the usual ‘honeymoon’ period. His ability to survive the demonetisation fiasco shows that ordinary people continue to trust him and are willing to overlook his mistakes. It is also clear that the taint of the startling disclosures in the Birla-Sahara case have not stuck to him yet. He has managed to convince the people that he stands for national interest and stands above the partisan battles that political parties fight. On demonetisation, he managed to sell his narrative that it was a move against the big, fat hoarders of black money. Above all, the BJP has managed to win the nationalism debate in the battle of public opinion. A party that had little connect with India’s freedom struggle now shapes the ordinary citizen’s common sense on nationalism.

There are three major limitations to this legitimacy. This circle of BJP’s legitimacy does not include the entire nation. It firmly excludes the minorities. It is not just that the minorities do not

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respond enthusiastically to Mr Modi. He actually makes a point of excluding them, mainly the Muslims and Christians. He gains legitimacy with the majority Hindu community by showing that he does not care for the Muslims. We also need to note that this popular acceptance is not spontaneous. Good deal of spin doctoring, image management and media manipulation has gone into creating this popular acceptance for the PM. Since the Emergency days, the media has never faced the kind of governmental pressure that it faces today. Such domination is inherently fragile. At the moment it is awesome, but as and when it shakes, it can collapse like a house of cards. And finally, there is little objective ground for this popularity. Economic growth has slowed down, rural distress continued unabated, and so does unemployment. Most high-profile programmes like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and the PM’s Fasal Bima Yojna have not delivered what they promised.

What does this hegemony mean for our democracy? It is true that this offers lot of room to the government on the policy front. Although a government that could push through a momentous decision like demonetisation is not constrained on this front, but it would remove any possible excuse for non-performance. Largely, however, this hegemony poses a challenge to our democracy. There is an imminent possibility of rapidly shrinking democratic spaces. This hegemony can reinforce the hubris this government suffers from. We face a real possibility of an onslaught on the foundational values of our republic.

How do we counter this hegemony? The whole point of calling it hegemony is to remind ourselves that simple-minded opposition does not work against it. Headlong and courageous streetfight may not work. A grand alliance of Opposition is likely to be counterproductive. Counter-hegemony must begin by developing a cultural toolkit to take on the ideological and moral legitimacy of the regime. This is the principal political challenge of our times. 

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PUBLIC FINANCE

STATESMAN, MAR 10, 2017Finances of the Nation ~ IShantanu Basu

The rapidly growing indebtedness of governments and mounting non-performing assets of banks, mostly in the public sector, both of which strike at the heart of financial administration and include our legitimate personal finances as well, are of the highest concern. In seven successive fiscals till 2014-15, governments, state and central, cumulatively expended Rs.1.72 lakh crore while earning revenues of Rs.1.23 lakh crore, leaving a revenue deficit of Rs.0.49 lakh crore, i.e. 40 per cent of gross revenues on an average each year. While expenditure grew, only in absolute terms, by a factor of 2.33, revenues increased by a factor of 2.54. Yet the revenue deficit multiplied by a factor of 1.87.

Why did this paradox arise? The inflation rate in India averaged 7.38 per cent in 2012-16, reaching an all-time high of 12.17 per cent in November 2013 and a record low of 3.27 per cent in November 2014. This had an invariable effect on government spending. Although revenues rose by an average of about 25 per cent each in seven fiscals and in absolute terms, yet relatively high inflation and rampant waste and leakages massively reduced the value of every rupee the governments earned and spent. Social and community services accounted for about Rs.2.88 lakh crore or approximately Rs.2400 per head of India’s 1.20 billion population in 2007-08.

Reduced to 1990-91 prices, the real annual expenditure declines to about Rs.1.34 lakh crore or Rs.1160 per head or Rs.3 per day. If this were further conservatively reduced by 35 per cent for leakage and wastage and 8 per cent to a conservative inflation rate, the per capita development expenditure outlay collapses to barely Rs.661 per annum or a ludicrous Rs.2 per day. Today when lentils retail for over Rs.100 or sugar at Rs.50 a kilogram, the cost of government is almost the same as that of governance (development). Therefore, it is not as if there was any dramatic rise in government revenues and spending over the last several decades, notwithstanding substantial media publicity.

Today, the Indian rupee is worth less than a third of what it was in 1947 at a simple compounded average of 3 per cent per annum. Historically, governments have tried to make their ends meet via generation of internal revenue and resorted to deficit financing by market loans, small savings, provident funds, special treasury bills, overseas multilateral and bilateral borrowings, etc. All these instruments carry rates of interest that vary from 5-11 per cent per annum that must

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be mandatorily discharged. Non-tax revenues such as dividends and share of profits of state-owned utilities and companies have not risen commensurate with the giant cumulative state investment in them. Forty-seven CPSUs accounted for about 13.50 per cent of total market capitalisation as on January 31, 2017.

Not surprisingly, the capital-intensive monopolistic ONGC’s BSE share price at Rs.202.15 compared unfavourably with ITC’s Rs.258.05 and Infosys’ at Rs.929.30 per share. Likewise, SBI’s Rs.260 share compares unfavourably with HDFC Bank’s Rs.1,286.95, on the same date. A few CPSUs & PSBs turned in profits that were rooted in monopolistic control of the market, e.g. petroleum and telecom. Most others lived off grants and unending loans from the public exchequer with many having eaten away their net worth several times over. Of course, such non-performance and habitual indebtedness was not entirely the making of an entity’s management, rather imposed upon them partly by successive governments and dynamics of the economic environment. Yet the professional stewardship of these entities has seldom been questioned.

Simultaneously, whatever revenues were raised, lost a significant portion to sustaining unsustainable PSUs/autonomous bodies, foundation-stone projects by the thousands, unremunerative politically-motivated projects, write-down/waiver of loans advanced to various entities, rampant delays in completion of public projects, private and public and a giveaway culture of subsidies without much accountability. Rising indebtedness has therefore not translated, into the extent of on-ground development that should have happened. Today the public exchequer is caught in a giant cleft, viz. the huge demands of development versus availability of public finance, with the gap substantially widening every year and causing an almost unbridgeable chasm to emerge in popular demand and their realisation. In 2014-15, the revenue deficit of the Government of India was Rs 8.85 lakh crore. To cover this deficit, the Government resorted to market borrowings of Rs 6.82 lakh crore. As on January 1, 2016, the public debt of the Government stood at a whopping Rs 64.95 lakh crore.

The states accounted for another Rs 143.23 lakh crore making a total of about Rs 208 lakh crore. At a conservative 7 per cent interest rate and assuming 50 per cent retired debt reduced by the amount of state government debt annually, this could translate to a crippling Rs 8-10 lakh crore in 2017-18 and eat away 40-42 per cent of the total expenditure budget of all governments, provided states succeed in retiring 50 per cent of their previous debts during the year. In addition, 30 per cent of all non-development expenditure goes into salaries, establishment and pensions.

However, there is a caveat here. There are several lakh personnel ~ regular, casual, temporary and contract ~ whose salaries and establishment costs are met from development budget allocations like the cost of a field agricultural extension officer, his staff vehicle, assistants, office expenses, mobile labs and computers, etc. In effect, interest, personnel and establishment costs alone account for 80-85 per cent of the full budget of the Centre, leaving a paltry 15-20 per cent for development on the ground. Leakages such as the recent fraud in Assam of Rs 2250 crore on nearly 150 ghost Anganwadis (creches) that were fraudulently funded for Rs 250 crore/annum for close to a decade, plague agriculture, energy, public health, medical services and irrigation, reducing the money value of limited finances of governments further and reducing development to fodder for electoral campaigns alone.

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Where such borrowing and expenditure cause appreciable rise in GDP and capital formation (hence income levels), budget deficits are seemingly justified even with relatively high inflation at the initial stages, such as in Japan that reported an estimated 7.01 per cent deficit in 2016. Attempts to peg the deficit artificially to low levels in a bid to curb inflation, is likely to damage capital formation, as little else changes in the pattern of non-development (revenue) expenditure, and low rise or even fall in GDP and capital formation could happen. This also often leads to camouflaging non-developmental expenditure in the development category.

In the end, governments that borrow but disproportionately devote such funds to revenue expenditure that have no return on investment, often run up high levels of debt. Owing to excessive revenue expenditure, borrowing for capital items like roads, bridges, etc., becomes inevitable. Every day of delay in commissioning projects runs a high potential of driving governments to unsustainable indebtedness and default, as happened in Greece.

Unfortunately, India is gradually progressing into a cusp of indebtedness that hovered around the 50 per cent of theGDP barrier in 2015-16. However, rising market borrowing, a large part of which is diverted to revenue expenditure could adversely raise this ratio in the next 5-10 years to unsustainable levels. Media reports show that the default on commercial borrowings by the infrastructure sector is alarming. While lenders are reluctant to lend, rising investigations and raids may be additional dampeners. What is worse is that cash surpluses available with the private sector are not forthcoming owing to uncertainties in acquisition of land, revenuesharing and tolls, etc. In 2007, the India Infrastructure Report stated that the country required about $320 billion in 2007-12 to repair and add to its physical infrastructure.

Similar moneys were required for capacity enhancement of the energy sector to meet a 55 billion unit energy shortage in 2006-07. Therefore, such brakes as the 3 per cent deficit of GDP in Fiscal Responsibility & Budget Management Acts may prove counterproductive unless sustainable and credible restrictive corresponding steps are taken to curb government spending on its establishment and personnel. Rampant leakages must also be curbed. In 2014-15, there was a divestment bonanza that reduced market borrowings by governments by only about 6 per cent. Although the lease of spectrum garnered about Rs 50000 crore plus some more in coal mine auctions, the revenues on these accounts were not substantial to appreciably reduce market borrowings.

The single major reason is that licence fees become payable in specified percentages every year over the long-term lease period (10-30 years) that does not make much major positive impact in annual budgets that run into several lakh crore rupees each year. The overweening obsession for revenue generation, post-2G CAG telecom report, has caused spectrum leases and FM radio licences to net just about 10 per cent of the estimated amount, leaving a gaping hole of about Rs.6.50 lakh crore in the Government of India’s budget estimates.

The 300 per cent explosion in splitting Ministries/Departments since 1947 has not caused much appreciable improvement in governance and accountability either. Instead, it has diffused responsibility considerably and slowed down decision-making. Unending command, control and coordination chains have also had the undesired effect of enhancing rent-seeking across levels,

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apart from rampant delays. Costs of administration have thus hardly kept pace with revenues. Even assuming that Rs.6.50 lakh crore were obtained, how much would have gone to sustainable development remains debatable.

(To be concluded)

The writer is a senior public policy analyst and commentator

STATESMAN, MAR 11, 2017Finances of the Nation ~ IIShantanu Basu

The political reluctance in matters of taxation and enforcement is pronounced. Governments lose several thousand crore each year owing to collusion between revenue officers and assessees. There is very limited reconciliation of revenues between revenue collection agencies, their accounts officers and receiving banks. CAG’s customs audit report for 2015-16 reports that 89 indirect tax commissionerates shows gross amount of Rs.6.20 lakh crore as unreconciled. Even if a single per cent of revenue were not paid at all or was showed as having been paid (using forged bank stamps and pay-in forms), this would amount to a whopping Rs.6200 crore, enough for about 2.43 lakh jobs paying Rs 20000 per month and bringing 4-5 times that many people well above the poverty line. Owing to the cash basis of government accounting, the quantum of revenue lost by lack of enforcement owing to their own ranks never figures in the annual accounts. As if this were not enough, extortion at toll gates takes its own toll as legitimate revenues of the state are converted into private wealth and then applied to various purposes, mostly illicit. Tax demand notices likewise are often inspired and adjudication often ends up costing more than the settlement terms. All this while governments live off borrowed moneys.

While low global oil, commodity and shipping prices allowed the Government of India the luxury of raising central excise on imported oil, 2016-17 and onwards is seeing a rise to $60 dollar/barrel levels. This would invariably reduce the Government’s fund-raising capacity. Cesses are not ad hoc substitutes for revenue collection by manufacturing that shows few discernible signs of revival. Cesses collected over the years that ought to run into several lakh crore, notably on education, are nowhere manifest in our educational institutions while state spending steadily declines in this sector, as in many others. Governments in India no longer have the financial muscle to enhance spending much more nor incentivise consumer spending by tax rebates notwithstanding political grandstanding. What then of alternative financing from India’s financial institutions (FI)?

Defaulted dues are of broad types ~ non-performing assets (NPAs) and restructured debts (CDRs). When a loanee fails to pay back principal and interest when instalments are due, nor is there any prospect of their business being revived by FI intervention, it is declared an NPA. On the other hand, CDRs are attempted bailouts by loaning FIs by extension of time (e.g. owing to adverse business scenario, sudden change in state policies, etc.), conversion of debt into equity or by management participation of the loanee entity. Over the years, PSBs have suppressed their actual NPAs by the subterfuge of sanctioning many more loans than those defaulted. CDRs

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partly supplemented PSB efforts by staggering declaration of NPAs in misrepresentative but audited PSB balance sheets. GNPAs of PSBs in the last five fiscals rose three-fold. As of December 31, 2016, of every Rs 100 loaned by PSBs, Rs 11 is in default. These figures do not include NPAs en route in the form of CDRs that may multiply this figure alarmingly given the steadily worsening domestic and global economic scenario.

Recently, a former Deputy Governor of the RBI, Dr KC Chakrabarty, estimated that NPAs, as on date, were about Rs.20 lakh crore. Obviously, this figure could stretch into an unknown abyss and did not include historical loan waivers over the last 2-3 decades. Some PSBs like IOB and UCO Bank have GNPA in the range of 17-23 per cent. For IOB, gross bad loans are more than 2.5 times its net worth; both UCO Bank and United Bank of India have eroded their net worth by at least double while IDBI Bank is 1.3 times negative in its net worth. These worrisome figures do not include loans given to projects where the dates of commencement of commercial operations had passed, but the projects had failed to take off, presumably mostly in the infrastructure and telecom sectors. At the same time, international conventions demand a minimum percentage of liquidity that banks must maintain viz. Basel-III. Although PSBs currently comply with these norms, a rapid rise in NPAs in the coming months, matched by poor recovery record, could cause them to fall below these stipulations. The Indradhanush plan of the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance of August 14, 2015, estimated the extra capital requirement up to 2019-20 at about Rs 1.80 lakh crore. This estimate was based on credit growth rate of 12 per cent for the current year and 12 to 15 per cent for the next three years depending on the size of the bank and their growth ability. It was also presumed that the emphasis on PSBs financing would reduce over the years by development of vibrant corporate debt market and by greater participation of private sector banks. Accordingly, budget provision of Rs 25000 crore each in 2015-16 and 2016-17 and Rs 10000 crore each in 2017-18 and 2018-19 was proposed in Budget 2016-17. Owing to revenue shortfalls and rising revenue expenditure, the full amount has not been paid in most fiscal years. This tendency would only be exacerbated in 2017-18 and onwards. Obviously, such ad hoc allocations for recapping PSBs take away development funds from the public exchequer and are not a sustainable solution. Further, ever-rising NPAs cast a shadow on the Department of Financial Services’ estimates of Rs 1.80 lakh crore required for recapping PSBs.

At the same time, Budget 2017-18 proposed the creation of a Distressed Assets Agency (DAA) to which distressed loans of PSBs would be transferred and that would look for buyers for them. Although the fine print on financial arrangements for DAA is not yet in the public domain, there are grave doubts about the Government of India’s ability to bankroll the share capital for such an entity. It bears recall that the collapse of Lehmann Brothers in 2008-09 in the US was rooted in its taking over distressed housing assets from Wall Street banks and then not being able to sell them, although pay-outs for such takeovers were met by Wall Street banks, acting individually or in consortium mode. A similar situation could happen if, for instance, builders were to attempt to sell apartments and commercial buildings in the ghost towns on the Greater Noida Expressway since the sale value would be appreciably lower (maybe 40-60 per cent) than what is owed to financing agencies, a very likely event. Even if they refinanced their defaulted loans with fresh lower-interest ones from PSBs (after recent interest rate cuts), no real accretion to infrastructure development would occur while the option of further default remains omnipresent. PSBs, now

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increasingly, under close watch of vigilance and investigative agencies, are also loath to loan further funds.

With such huge pressure building on it, the Government of India is left with very few options. Accordingly, over the last year or so, relatively healthy CPSUs are mandated to return a minimum 30 per cent of their net profits to the Government as dividend. With looming wage revisions, many CPSUs that are holding companies are now resorting to milking their subsidiaries for their cash balance to pay off dividend. For others whose profits are recession-hit or minimal, the choice is to dip into their reserves. Recently, the Ministry of Railways reportedly protested to the Finance Ministry against the latter’s demand for transfer of Rs 850 crore dividend earned by 14 Railway CPSUs after the merger of the Rail and General Budgets in 2017-18, stating that such transfer would only add to the shortfall in railway earnings. Compounding these is RBI’s recent decision to cut back its dividend to 12 per cent in order to absorb costs of printing new post-demonetisation currency. The Government, mainly via its FIs, also owns large chunks of shares of the private corporate sector. Companies/FIs like ITC (34.43 per cent), ACC (14.66 per cent), Axis Bank, L&T (45 per cent), Bharti Airtel, Gammon India (63.4 per cent), Monnet Ispat (50.14 per cent) and Tata Steel (19.66 per cent) have several lakh crore rupees of government investment in them. Faced with an unenviable situation, the government has now started divesting part of such holdings, some in the open market, and the rest being picked up by state FIs such as LIC. Many relatively healthy CPSUs have also been coaxed in the past year into buying back government shares that have reduced their liquidity further, at least till their next IPO. Given the less than average performance of the stock market, offloading shares of CPSUs is unlikely to garner huge resources, even when the government has recently listed its four general insurance companies.

With President Trump promising large public-private sector investments in America’s crumbling infrastructure, interest rates would invariably rise and cause FDI to flow back from India to the safer confines of the US that may depress Indian bourses even more, and, with it CPSU divestment offerings. The layman understands that unless consumer incomes rise (with employment), demand will remain depressed. In turn, this will depress manufacturing and along with it, supporting services. Momentary spikes in GDP from increased revenue collection owing to extraneous reasons are not much cause for optimism. A stasis has emerged in which all expecting fingers are pointed towards governments that do not have large-scale spending wherewithal any longer and must rely on increased borrowing. Stop-gap measures like the ones stated in the preceding two paragraphs eat into the nation’s cash reserves, particularly when ploughed into revenue expenditure and uncertain public projects. The Union Finance Minister’s job has never been as unenviable, not even in 1989-90.

(Concluded)

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RAILWAYS

STATESMAN, MAR 15, 2017New railway ageSalman Haidar

The golden age of the railways was during the 19th century when the great long-distance lines crisscrossed the globe. Trains with evocative titles like the Trans-Siberian, the Orient Express, the Berlin-Basra, cast an exotic spell and remain embedded in popular memory. But war and the breakup of empires brought a halt, while changed transport technology seemed to have left the era of the railways to steam off into oblivion. However, as events have shown, the obsequies were premature: rail transport has been experiencing a remarkable revival, with networks proliferating even in unlikely places like Tibet, which earlier had been barely provided with motorable roads let alone the elaborate railway lines now to be found there.

China has been at the forefront of this new railway age. It has delved into its own history to identify trade routes across Asia and try to re-establish them as modern versions of the ancient silk roads, thereby opening up many parts of the Asian continent to new possibilities of trade and commerce. As was the case in the earlier era, the opening of new routes has a number of strategic implications: the original silk road encouraged the long-running Anglo-Russian rivalry of the 'Great Game' that dominated Asian diplomacy for a century, and the current spate of new routes has stirred up the region, as for instance through new trans-Himalayan access from remote parts of Asia to the Indian heartland. Opening up distant places brings its own challenges.

It is thus of real interest that India should have taken the lead in pioneering an effort to establish a long-range freight train service between Dhaka and Istanbul. This will knit together regions that were once bound closer together but have become separated though they still have much to offer each other. To get the project moving, it is planned as an initial step to call a meeting of experts to make a technical assessment of the proposal. Sending a train laden with containers all the way from Dhaka to Istanbul would be a journey of several thousand kilometres, which in concept and ambition is a project scarcely less demanding than the newly conceived rail route from Shanghai in China across Russia to Western Europe, that has already been put through a trial run.

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Initial assessment suggests that there should be no insuperable difficulty in operationalizing the projected route. After all, for much of the way it would follow the established railway lines in India that go back to British times and need only refurbishment of neglected or disused parts. In some measure, the new route would be a parallel to the revived silk route being promoted by China, both ventures being aimed at reviving thoroughfares that once thrived but are now fallen into disuse. It is worth recalling that as late as the mid-1960s the preferred route from South Asia to the UK for economy-minded travellers was by rail, with through trains available most of the way except for a few stretches in Iran. That facility for the needy traveller did not survive the Indo-Pak war of 1965 after which passenger movement across South Asia was greatly restricted. Nor since then, despite a sheaf of bilateral agreements promising better, has the position improved.

The problems of revival are not so much technical as political. In its dealings with India, Pakistan enjoys the advantage of dominating the land routes leading out of the sub-continent, a situation from which it has derived much strategic benefit. Pakistan became a partner of choice for the West during the Cold War, and more recently, has developed a strong partnership with China, as seen in the development of the CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) that grows out of the geographical proximity of the two countries. The fallout of CPEC and of other Chinese-led initiatives in the region has not been conducive to better regional understanding; especially troubling to Indian policy makers is the decision of its sponsors that CPEC should traverse POK, that is to say, pass through territory legitimately claimed by India. The problem could be bypassed by selecting an alignment for the Dhaka-Istanbul railway that takes it well clear of all contested areas; theoretically it should be possible to follow the older railway alignment to the Iranian border at Zahidan, the route preferred by indigent South Asians in earlier years.

Turning back the clock may be difficult, and to make progress with the Dhaka-Istanbul project would require the participation of Pakistan. In the present unfriendly state of Indo-Pak relations this may become the biggest obstacle, for bilateral relations are disturbed, the rhetorical levels are high, and Pakistan has progressively closed off transit routes towards India, so that the age-old passage of people and goods between Afghanistan and India has become a fading memory. In present circumstances, effective implementation of the scheme would require cooperation and participation by Pakistan, for which revival of moribund transit links would be necessary. Notwithstanding the many difficulties that lie in the way, the Dhaka-Istanbul rail transport initiative is a big idea commensurate with the need of the times and it offers advantages to all of the potential participants.

This is thus a major diplomatic challenge for India, and for other countries that have signalled interest in taking it forward. Officials of some of the countries involved are to meet before long for more detailed discussions, but even at this stage, as a result of the preliminary talks that have already taken place, it can be seen that the technical issues to be negotiated are likely to be manageable and should not hold up the project unduly. What is less predictable is the political will of the participants and their readiness to find solutions for the inevitable problems that such a far-reaching project will entail. As prime backer of the idea, India will no doubt push for it, the more so after Prime Minister Modi's sweeping electoral success which could encourage diplomatic activism.

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The timing of the initiative seems to suggest that India would not wish to be left behind at a time when strong new ideas and initiatives from other sources seem to be re-shaping the world. Hence at this juncture it is interesting that some signs of re-casting ways of dealing with Pakistan are to be seen in New Delhi. After a long hiatus, India has agreed to participate in a meeting of the Indus Waters Commission, and three Indian Members of Parliament are to visit Pakistan for a meeting of Asian Parliamentary Assembly. Maybe the pendulum is swinging and we are once more beginning to edge towards re-assessment of the need for resumption of the Indo-Pak dialogue.

The writer is India's former Foreign Secretary.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

HINDU, MAR 11, 2017Pakistan Parliament passes landmark Hindu Marriage Bill

Pakistan’s Parliament has finally passed the much-awaited landmark bill to regulate

marriages of minority Hindus in the country.

Pakistan’s Hindus are set to get an exclusive personal law to regulate marriages after the

National Assembly unanimously adopted the Hindu Marriage Bill, 2017, on Thursday.

The law was passed after a lengthy process of enactment.

The National Assembly passed the bill in September last year but had to pass it again as its

version of the bill was changed by the Senate, when it adopted the law in February.

As per rules, the same text should be passed by the two Houses of the Parliament before it

is sent to the President for his signature and promulgation for implementation.

Television channel Dawn News reported that the Senate included an amendment to the draft

approved by the National Assembly in September. The final text approved by both Houses

includes the ‘Shadi Parath’ — a document similar to ‘Nikahnama’ in Islam.

The ‘Shadi Parath’ will be required to be signed by a pandit and will be registered with the

relevant government department. The document has eight columns starting with the date of

marriage and followed by the name of the union council, tehsil, town and district.

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The document has columns for the particulars of the bridegroom — his name and father’s

name, date of birth, date and place where the marriage is solemnised, temporary address,

etc. Similar details are required for the bride, except for one. Her mother’s name must also

to be mentioned in the document.

Military courts

Meanwhile, the government on Friday introduced a constitutional amendment bill in

Parliament to revive the controversial special military courts for trying “hardcore” militants.

Apart from changes sought in the constitution to set up such courts, another bill was

presented to seek amendment in the army law to enable military to regulate these courts.

Law Minister Zahid Hamid moved both the bills in the National Assembly. Radio Pakistan

reported that the Minister said on the occasion that in 2015, the Parliament passed two bills,

including Twenty-first (Amendment) Bill, and The Pakistan Army (Amendment) Bill, to set

up military courts to hear the cases of hardcore criminals. He said positive results were

received through these steps.

The Minister said the country was still going through extraordinary circumstances and

facing many challenges. Therefore, it was necessary for these measures to continue, he

added.

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SOCIAL SCIENCES

TELEGRAPH, MAR 10, 2017New hand and old cards

Sobhanlal Datta Gupta

KARL MARX: GREATNESS AND ILLUSION By Gareth Stedman Jones,Allen Lane, Rs 1,999

Biographies of Marx are aplenty. But writing a new biography of Marx in the second decade of the present century is particularly challenging. First, in the post-Soviet era many of the pronouncements of classical Marxism, once considered authentic and everlasting, are under the scanner. Second, following the publication of the MEGA (Marx Engels Complete Works) volumes, a gigantic project, initially launched by David Riazanov in Lenin's Moscow and now revamped in Berlin and Amsterdam after the dissolution of the USSR, new perspectives are in sight. The Jones biography needs to be viewed in this light. The book is a product of meticulous research based on archival sources as well as the MEGA volumes, the extensive endnotes being, indeed, evidence of it. Jones has combined two roles: that of a chronicler and of an interpreter. But there is frequent change of gear from description to analysis, narration to interpretation, which makes the book unique, albeit heavy, reading.

As regards the narrative, which covers historical details of the changing landscape of Europe, barring a few instances, there is nothing much refreshingly new, although those who would like to take a closer view of Marx's life and times would not be disappointed. The main strength of the book lies in the author's superb analysis of how Marx's thought process unfolded against the rapidly changing scenario of European history. Beginning with the Paris Manuscripts (1844) and The German Ideology, Marx's intellectual journey was long and complex. The 1848 revolutions, the coming to power of Louis Bonaparte, the failure of the Paris Commune (1871) - each of these events Marx investigated with remarkable insight. This was followed by his emancipatory project of communism, his futuristic vision, for which he needed a meticulous investigation of capitalism through his journey into the world of bourgeois political economy, leading to the making of Capital (1867) via Grundrisse (1857-58). This being the chronicle of

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Marx's life and ideas, which Jones has handled quite deftly, there are at least three issues that deserve special mention.

First, it questions the liberal position that, for Marx, democracy was anathema, that in the name of the collective he guillotined the individual. Rather, Jones points out that Marx's espousal of the idea of a moral collective actually replicated the republican understanding of democracy, modelled on Rousseau's notion of General Will. That Marx was not at all enthused by the Declaration of the Rights of Man in the wake of the French Revolution of 1789 or that he was sceptical of the idea of representation needs to be explained in this light. Self-empowerment, self-rule of the oppressed being his vision, for Marx a catalogue of rights was "based not on the association of man with man, but on the separation of man from man". Similarly, representation connotes the idea of passive democracy, violative of the element of subjectivity and vibrancy involved in the idea of self-rule. Second, Jones, while referring to the already known debate that the theory of historical materialism was the brainchild of Engels, and not of Marx, makes the very important point that it was the element of subjectivity and freedom, emanating from the legacy of German idealism, in contrast with the superficial materialism associated with the claims of positivism, that Marx appropriated in his understanding of history as the unfolding of the power and passion of human labour. That the spirit of Marx's thought process cannot be realized by simply contraposing idealism and materialism and that Marx cannot be understood if he is delinked from the legacy of German idealism, is a refreshingly new outlook that, indeed, deserves careful consideration. In fact, it is this flawed understanding that largely went into the making of Soviet Marxism, mediated through the Second International (1889-1914), erasing in the process the entire legacy of Western Marxism and the emancipatory projects of many of the so-called dissident Marxists. This, in fact, led to the overshadowing of Marx the philosopher by Marx the scientist. Third, Jones has very rightly drawn our attention to a major shift in Marx's thought in the last decades of his life, when he begins to consider the East, Russia in particular, as the future centre of socialist revolution. As the 1848 and 1871 uprisings finally were crushed, Marx, it now appears, switched gear from industrialized West to agrarian East. In fact, in the last decade of his life, Marx becomes increasingly focused on Russia, as he masters the Russian language, enters into correspondence with the Russian revolutionaries, revises many of his earlier assessments of Russian intellectuals and, most importantly, revisits the notion of communal property, once viewed as the bastion of despotic rule in the East. This 'Russian' turn in his thought, whereby he discerns in the Russian mir a sense of the moral and social collective and thus the genesis of socialism, enables him to discard his earlier Eurocentrism, and Marx now increasingly aligns himself with the non-European world. Jones has very ably highlighted this shift in Marx's thought in the last section of the book.

×As a scholarly work the book deserves respect and attention. However, since Jones had access to the MEGA volumes, he could have perhaps provided an outline of the notebooks and manuscripts that Marx had prepared for his research, which included notes on chemistry, geology, physiology and physics. Besides, there are Ethnological Notebooks, Mathematical Manuscripts, Notebooks on world history and Notebooks on political economy. Absence of mention and exposition of these works of Marx is a weak spot in this otherwise excellent work of scholarship. Finally, the image of the new Marx that emerges from this account would perhaps confirm that there was a sense of incompleteness in Marx, as he continuously changed

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gear. The shifts in his thought process, which the reader encounters throughout the book, provide important leads in this direction.

WOMEN

DECCAN HERALD, MAR 8, 2017Struggle for gender equity continues

This year’s International Women’s Day focuses on the changing world of work for women. It envisions the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of women and girls by 2030. Globalisation, technological advancement and digital revolution have dramatically changed the world of work. It has opened up opportunities for women that can help them realise their full economic potential. But then, new challenges are also being thrown up by unstable livelihoods, environmental impacts and so on. Worldwide, the proportion of women in the workforce is growing. Worryingly, India bucks this trend. The percentage of working age Indian women in workforce rose from 35% in 1990 to 37% in 2005. It dropped to 27% in 2014. It is likely that many moved from paid to unpaid work. This is a matter of concern as paid work empowers women and improves their decision-making status in the family. Moreover, hiring more women makes enormous economic sense too. If women played an identical role to that of men in labour markets, global annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could be increased by 26% over the coming decade. India’s GDP would rise by 60% if gender parity is achieved at work.

The workplace is still gender insensitive, unequal and unsafe for women. Most are in low paid, low skill work with little or no access to social security. They are rarely in decision-making positions. Wages for women and men differ sharply. Globally, women make 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns for the same work. The gap is wider in Asia and Africa. The discrimination against women is worse with regard to women with children; women are being penalised for being mothers. There are structural and legal barriers to women entering the workplace. And such barriers are widespread; 155 countries have at least one gender-based legal restriction on women’s employment and in 18 countries husbands can legally prevent their wives from working outside home.

Efforts to achieve gender parity at workplace need to be stepped up. Women migrant workers are

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among the most exploited in the country and their wages, working conditions and security must be enhanced. Parity in pay and perks, maternity leave and benefits, equal opportunities for upward mobility in the workplace, strong measures to protect women from sexual and other violence must be implemented diligently. Achieving gender equality at workplace by 2030 is not going to be easy given how deeply entrenched patriarchal ideologies are in our society, homes and the workplace. Still this is not a mission impossible. It is a goal worth striving for.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, MAR 10, 2017Parliament passes bill to extend maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeksMoushumi Das Gupta 

The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which will

raise the maternity leave for working women in public and private sector from 12 weeks to 26

weeks for the first two children.

The maternity leave beyond the first two children will continue to be 12 weeks.

The bill will now be sent to the President for his assent before it becomes an Act. It has already

been passed by the Rajya Sabha during last winter session.

Recognising that women who adopt or use a surrogate to bear a child also need time to bond with

the child in the initial months, the bill also extends a 12-week maternity leave to adapting and

commissioning mothers.

The commissioning mother has been defined as “one whose egg is used to create an embryo

planted in surrogate’s womb.”

However, the bill has left out surrogate mothers from the benefit -- an issue over which the

government had faced criticism from the opposition benches in the Rajya Sabha during the

winter session.

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The bill also makes it mandatory for employers in establishments with 30 women or 50

employees, whichever is less, to provide crèche facilities either in office or in any place within a

500-metre radius.

The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention mandates a

minimum 14 weeks of maternity benefit to women but recommends that countries should

increase it to 18 weeks.

The bill is gender-neutral that will allow even a male employee to take his child to a crèche, if it

is far away from the mother’s workplace.

It also allows employers to permit woman to work from home if it is possible to do so. “This has

been done to help new mothers. However, we have left it for the employers to decide,” said a

senior Union labour ministry official.

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