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LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED

ASIAN AGE

BUSINESS LINE

DECCAN HERALD

ECONOMIC TIMES

HINDU

HINDUSTAN TIMES

PIONEER

STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

TIMES OF INDIA

TRIBUNE

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CONTENTS

BACKWARD CLASSES 3-4

BONDED LABOUR 5-6

CIVIL SERVICE 7-15

CURRENCIES 16-18

DEFENCE, NATIONAL 19

DISASTERS 20

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 21-26

EDUCATION 27-33

ELECTRICITY 34-35

HEALTH SERVICES 36

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 37-41

PANCHAYAT 42

POLICE 43-44

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 45-47

POSTAL SERVICES 48

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 49-51

PUBLIC FINANCE 52

TRANSPORT 53

WOMEN 54-55

YOGA 56

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BACKWARD CLASSES

HINDUSTAN TIMES, JUN 7, 2016Income, not caste, should be the criterion for reservationsRamakrishnan TS

The issue of which classes should be deemed backward has surfaced again with the recent violence in Haryana, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, where some castes want ‘backward-class’ status. A community cannot be on the backward-class list unless its economic and educational backwardness is strongly supported by data. Since the state governments have the powers to include any community on the backward-class list, the process of the inclusion of backward communities has been manipulated. Once included, no community has been removed from the list.

Assessing backwardness on the basis of caste and including castes arbitrarily make a mockery of social justice. In addition, this practice has been denting the base of national parties. In the recent assembly elections in Bihar, the Congress was a subordinate partner in the Congress-RJD-JD(U) alliance. With the decline of national parties, the narrative on national development and national spirit has taken a severe beating. The intention of regional and caste-based political parties is to gain the maximum from the consolidation of their targeted but limited vote base in select constituencies. This strategy of limited targeting cannot work for national parties because they have to gain votes across communities and that could happen only when they could appeal to individual voters, irrespective of their caste affiliation. Since the Congress could not work the caste calculus, it has become almost irrelevant in UP and Bihar since the 1990s. The BJP also has faced serious setbacks intermittently in UP and Bihar mainly for this reason.

If we look at the opinion polls and surveys on reservations in the past 20 years, about two-thirds of the people have supported economic criteria for reservations. In accordance with the existing pattern of reservations, about two-thirds of the population have been in one reserved category or the other. Even then, only one-third of those surveyed support caste as the criterion for reservations. Why? That’s because reservations have been cornered by the well-to-do among the reserved communities.

Given this situation, why should the national parties toe the line of the caste-based parties? This is because the national parties are not realising that their canvas and that of the caste-based parties are not the same. The larger issue with caste-based reservation is that political power is

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required to consolidate and continue the gains indefinitely. And the space for political parties that try to appeal across communities shrinks.

Without breaking the links between caste-based reservations and voting patterns, national parties cannot survive in India. In its own interests and in the interests of the nation, the Congress should take the first step in demanding income criteria for backward-class identification.

Ramakrishnan TS did his PhD in Public Systems at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

The views expressed are personal

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BONDED LABOUR

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 1, 2016India has 18 million modernday slaves: Survey

KOLKATA: India has been ranked fourth in a global survey that lists 167 countries where

modern slavery is prevalent. The findings of the survey released on Monday indicate some 1.4%

of the population — roughly around 18 million people — in the country is living under

conditions of modern day slavery. The segments implicated include domestic work, construction,

sex industries, agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, manual labour and forced begging. North

Korea , Uzbekistan, Cambodia, India and Qatar are the top five on the list that ranks the

countries in terms of slavery as a proportion of population. However, India's absolute slavery

figures remain highest with an estimated 18.35 million enslaved people, followed by China

(3.39m), Pakistan (2.13m), Bangladesh (1.53m) and Uzbekistan (1.23m). Conducted across 15

states that account for 80% of the total population and covering nearly 14,000 respondents, the

India State Survey 2016 was conducted by Gallup and the Walk Free Foundation which has been

conducting such annual global surveys since 2013. "The prevalence of slavery severely affects

the country's attractiveness as an investment destination. As an international investor, I run to

places and look at macroeconomic indicators before making investment decisions. A government

committed against slavery would definitely figure high up on my investment list," Andrew

Forrest, chairman of Australian iron ore producer Fortescue Metals Group and a prime mover

behind the Walk Free Foundation, told ET in an exclusive chat from London. Forrest has spent

the better part of his time in the past four years to end slavery and was exposed to the problem

through his daughter who went to do voluntary service in Nepal. The findings are likely to make

a lot of people in India uneasy, if not embarrassed. Forrest, however, said they did not face any

major resistance during the survey and industrialists like Ratan Tata supported it. Also, on

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December 3, 2015, major religious leaders of India proclaimed the existence of modern slavery

and their combined will to defeat it. "It was the Indian government who in 2013 encouraged our

attempt to introduce countrybycountry independent measurement through the Global Slavery

Index as the first but most critical step to managing it out of existence," Forrest said. "We

maintained a dialogue with a number of government departments during the course of the survey

and briefed them on the findings. We are standing on edge of extinction of slavery. India is

crucial to the whole effort towards removing slavery," he added. A key part of the initiative

would include Indian corporates and business houses, he said, adding, "To begin with, each one

of them would have to decide to look closely at their own supply chains to search for and

eliminate instances of bonded or forced labour." It is part of corporate governance and is a sound

business practice since one could be crucified in the international market for including a business

that even accidentally uses bonded labour, he added. A big eye opener was the fact that a lot of

Indian workers face exploitation outside India, like construction workers from South India who

work in the Middle East. Fiona David, Executive Director of Global Research at Walk Free

Foundation, said quantification of slavery in a large and complex country like India prompted

them to undertake a state level survey in 2016. The organisation is engaging with legal experts in

India to take its findings on to the next level and help bring meaningful policy changes to end

slavery which acts as negative economic multiplier, David said. In India, the informal nature of

its labour economy impacts on vulnerability and accounts for a large chunk of the incidence of

modern slavery with common drivers like poverty, deep structural inequalities like gender, caste

and is distinct state by state.

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CIVIL SERVICE

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 6, 2016AP employees divided over shifting to Amaravati by June 27

A section of panic-stricken Andhra Pradesh Secretariat employees have sought postponement of shifting to the new capital by a year.

The employees were given marching orders by the adamant state government to make them available at the yet to be completed interim-secretariat at remote Velagapudi village under the new capital region by June 27.

However, citing the impending academic year and domicile issues of their wards, they refused to move from Hyderabad.

The unrest that began on Friday with 500 of the secretariat employees holding a dharna and submitting a memorandum seeking at least an year’s time to the Chief Secretary Satya Praksh Tucker, continued on Saturday with at least half of the 25,000-strong AP employees stationed here refusing to move to uncertain future.  “When the state was divided we were given a road map, based on that we shifted to our side of the secretariat. Now there is no road map, no directions, no written orders,” rued an employee in the water resources department.

BUSINESS LINE, JUN 6, 2016Central govt staff to go on strike from July 11

About 32 lakh Central Government employees including railways, defence and postal department have decided to go on indefinite strike from July 11, for which they will serve strike notices to their respective departments on June 9.

This has been decided by the Joint Action Committee (NJAC), according to a statement. Shivagopal Mishra, Convenor of NJAC, stated that there has been no action on the Seventh Pay Commission report, six months after its submission. The charter of demands calls for settling issues related to recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission implementation sent to the Cabinet Secretary on December 10, 2015.

“Remove injustice done in the assignment of pay scales to technical/safety categories in railways, defence and different categories in all Central government establishments,” NJAC has demanded. It has also called for scrapping of PFRDA Act and the new defined contribution pension scheme – National Pension Scheme – and restoring defined benefit schemes of pension/family pension rules. Since 2004, all Central government employees — except defence personnel, who are covered in defined benefit pension scheme - have been shifted to defined contribution scheme.

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NJAC is a joint body of federations and unions representing 32 lakh employees in Central government departments, including postal, railway and defence workers. Indian Railways is the largest government employer with 13 lakh employees.

Earlier this year, in February, almost 95 per cent of 9.69 lakh railway employees had voted in favour of an indefinite strike from April 11, which was deferred after the Cabinet Secretary requested the NJAC to do in the backdrop of the then-forthcoming-elections in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam and Kerala.

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated June 6, 2016)

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 2, 2016Govt staff to go on mass casual leave

Already facing a possible protest by the police constabulary, the state government was caught unawares as 5.20 lakh government employees decided to go on ‘mass casual leave’ on Thursday. 

They are demanding implementation of the 7th Pay Commission on par with the central government employees.

BP Manjegowda, president of Karnataka State Government Employees Association told Deccan Herald that every state government employee from 84 government departments, would remain absent from duty on Thursday. 

These include employees attached to the Deputy Commissioner’s officer, BBMP, Vidhana Soudha, BWSSB, BDA, Slum Clearance Board, Khadi and Village Industries Board, all universities,  educational institutions - teachers and lecturers. Close to 30,000 lecturers from government PU colleges and private aided colleges would take part in the strike. 

But the department of public instruction has said that no holiday has been declared to government schools. Besides, services of BMTC and KSRTC would not be hit as these corporations follow different pay norms.

Operation theatres, hospitals and 108 ambulances including essential services would function as usual. Dr T A Veerabhadraiah, president, Karnataka Government Medical Officers Association, said that with public interest in mind, it would be ensured that emergency services would remain unaffected. 

Meanwhile, the state government has threatened stringent action against employees taking part in the strike. On Wednesday, under secretary of the Department of Personnel and Administrative

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Reforms issued a government order which states that according to various rules under the Karnataka State Civil Services Act, protesting against the government could attract severe punishment.The government can also cancel leaves and pension benefits of the protesters, according to the order.

TIMES OF INDIA, JUN 3, 2016Karnataka govt staff strike demanding pay parity with Centre

Bengaluru, June 2 () Working of government machinery in Karnataka virtually came to a

grinding halt today as more than five lakh employees, ignoring warnings of disciplinary action,

struck work demanding pay parity with Central staff.

Most of the government offices, including the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat and its

annexe Vikasa Soudha wore a deserted look as most of the employees abstained from attending

duty.

Only a few employees, most of them on contract work, trickled in for duty.

Functioning of government colleges and schools was also affected as most of the faculty and

staff did not turn up, officials said.

At some institutions, those who had come for work returned home.

Similar reports of employees not attending to work at  government offices have come from

across the state.

State Government Employees Association President Manjegowda said government did not call

them for discussion  despite giving notice.

He said "We had given notice to Chief Secretary, but neither he nor any one from the

government bothered to call us for any kind of discussion."

"If government does not look into our demands, the agitation will be intensified in the days to

come," he added.

The state government yesterday in a circular had warned its employees of strict action if they

took part in the one-day strike.

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Quoting various rules, the circular had said that employees striking work can be imprisoned for a

period extending up to six months or face a fine of Rs 500 or both.

It also listed out the actions that the government can  take under various rules against employees

who go on leave to participate in the strike.

Responding to the circular Manjegowda said, "government  has power to threaten employees that

it will dismiss or arrest them, but no employee will fear it." KSU RA VS AMS

TIMES OF INDIA, JUN 3, 2016Employees seek pay parity, stay off govt offices across Karnataka

BENGALURU: The Karnataka government offices remained shut on Thursday when employees

protested by not turning up for work. The bustling secretariat saw only security personnel and a

few employees. When a few contract workers and employees tried to enter the building, they

were sent back by association office-bearers.

Employees claimed the strike was a big success, and warned of intensifying their protest if the

government did not meet their demands. They said Karnataka government employees are paid

the lowest compared to any other state.

TIMES OF INDIA, JUN 3, 2016Karnataka Government shuts down, as employees go on unpaid leave for one daySandeep Moudgal

BENGALURU: The state government on Thursday had to take shut down its offices across the

state with the Karnataka Government Employees Association call for a token protest of

absenteeism was in toto.

The only visitors to the secretariat on Thursday, which usually is bustling with scores of people,

were the security personnel and 15-odd employees including three senior IAS officers. Earlier, in

the day, when a few contract workers and employees tried to enter the secretariat, they were sent

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back by the association's office bearers, who were guarding the entrances of Vidhana Soudha and

Vikasa Soudha to ensure none entered the premise.

Inside, the doors of all offices were latched and locked with policemen posted at every corner

and on each floor of the secretariat.

By afternoon 3 pm, with all offices closed, chief secretary Arvind Jadhav made a quick visit to

the secretariat before leaving for New Delhi. With lack of peons and personnel to cater to him,

for carrying his files and important documents, Jadhav's driver was roped-in to take his

belongings from the office to the car.

The only other officers who attended work were DPAR principal secretary T K Anil Kumar and

Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Subash Chandra. To assist them, there were a bare minimum

number of personnel adding up to six or seven employees from group c & d.

The DPAR said it has sought for a report from all the 30 districts as to how many government

employees attended office.

"Across all the districts, we are estimating that most employees have stayed away from work.

Nevertheless, we have asked for a report from the districts on the total number of people who

worked on Thursday," said DPAR PS T K Anil Kumar.

The few employees, who were also planning to take leave, were rushed into the office by the IAS

officers on account of immediate work. "We were rushed into the office as our "sir" was

attending work. If not for the pressing need, even we would have been on leave. Overall, it has

been a successful bandh," said one government employee attending to the IAS officers on duty.

The secretariat employees in Bengaluru have said the one day token protest was successful and

warned of intensifying their protest for an indefinite period if the government did not adhere to

their demands.

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According to the Secretariat Employees association, Karnataka government employees are the

lowest in terms of the pay scale as compared to any other state. 

TRIBUNE, JUN 2, 2016PUNJAB TO PROVIDE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO CIVIL SERVICE ASPIRANTS TO AVAIL COACHING

Punjab Government would provide financial assistance to civil services aspirants desirous of

availing coaching. Besides, it would also upgrade the civil services training institute at the

Punjabi University, Patiala.The decision was taken by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal on

Wednesday during a breakfast interaction with eight IAS officers of the 2014 batch who have

been allotted the Punjab cadre. The eight officers have just finished their field training in Punjab

and will join duty in the State in a few months.Sukhbir said that the Punjab government's

decision to give specialised training to children desirous of joining the armed forces was already

giving results.“Now, we are finalising the modalities to give financial assistance to youngsters

who want to avail of specialised training to crack the civil services paper,” he said.He said that

this initiative would allow aspirants to take private coaching from institutions of their choice.

Besides this, he said that the State institutions offering such training including the Centre at the

Punjabi University at Patiala and MGSIPA in Chandigarh would also be strengthened

STATESMAN, JUN 2, 2016Mamata government reshuffles IAS, IPS officers

The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal on Wednesday reshuffled the IAS and IPS officers in the state.

Jalpaiguri District Magistrate Pritha Sarkar was transferred as Additional Secretary in the Health and Family Welfare Department. She has been replaced by Hooghly District Magistrate Mukta Arya.

Housing Department Principal Secretary Subrata Biswas has been moved to co-operation department.

Sanjay Bansal will be the new District Magistrate of Hooghly while Health and Family Welfare Secretary Onkar Singh Meena will take charge of the Municipal Affairs Department.

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Among the IPS officers, Additional Director General, administration, P. Nirajnayan will now be the Director, Civil Defence in place of Gangeswar Singh who was sent as Additional Director General, Intelligence Bureau.

Additional Director General, telecommunication, Adhir Sharma will now be the new Additional Director General, railways, replacing Mrityunjay Kumar Singh who was transferred as Additional Director General, provisioning.

Sudhir Mishra becomes the new Additional Director General, administration while Additional Director General, CID Ram Phal Pawar was sent to the anti-corruption bureau in the same rank.Pawar will be replaced by Tapas Kumar Das.

Joint Commissioner of Police, crime, Debasish Boral, and Deputy Commissioner of Police II,detective department, Nagendra Nath Tripathi have been sent on compulsory waiting.Neelo Sherpa replaces Tripathi.

TRIBUNE, JUN 1, 2016Kejri-baiter gets UPSC berthAs Delhi Police chief, Bassi had several run-ins with AAP regime

The AAP on Tuesday said the appointment of BS Bassi proves that "BJP's senior spokesperson" has been "obliged" by the government. "Appointment is the prerogative of the government. This has become clear on whose instructions Bassi was working and he has been obliged. The AAP has been saying very categorically that Bassi was acting as the senior spokesperson of the BJP. So his appointment with the UPSC as a member proves the fact that he was and he is the senior spokesperson of the BJP, which is why he has been appointed," AAP leader Ashutosh said. PTI

The Centre today appointed former Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi, who had a controversial tenure with several face-offs with the Arvind Kejriwal government, as UPSC member, a Constitutional post with five-year tenure.

The government today cleared the name of the 60-year-old former police officer of the 1977 batch from the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has a maximum strength of 10 members, besides a chairperson. With Bassi's appointment, the commission is in its full strength.

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Bassi will have the tenure of about five years till February 2021. Under the Constitution, a member of the UPSC can have a maximum of six-year tenure or till he attains the age of 65 years. 

His stint as the Delhi Police chief, especially towards the end, had come for criticism after the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar over sedition row. 

The former police Chief was involved in a running battle with the AAP government led by Arvind Kejriwal with five of its legislators arrested under different counts during Bassi's tenure. 

"Bhim Sain Bassi took the oath of office and secrecy as member, UPSC today. The oath was administered by Deepak Gupta, Chairman, UPSC," a press release issued by Personnel Ministry said.

During his career spanning over 38 years, Bassi has held several important positions such as Special Commissioner (Traffic), Special Commissioner (Vigilance), Delhi Police, Inspector General, Chandigarh police and DGP, Goa Police. (With PTI inputs)

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 1, 2016Ashok Lavasa named Finance Secretary

NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday appointed Ashok Lavasa, a 1980 batch IAS officer

of Harayna cadre, as the new finance secretary . The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet

(ACC) has approved designating Lavasa as the finance secretary, an order issued by the

Department of Personnel and Training said. The post had been lying vacant since Ratan Watal

retired in April. As per the convention, the seniormost among the five secretaries in finance

ministry is designated as the finance secretary. Earlier this month, Lavasa took over as secretary,

expenditure in the finance ministry. He is ranked higher than his batchmate Shaktikanta Das , the

economic affairs secretary, and is due to retire in October 2017 while Das will retire in February

next year. In his previous stint as environment secretary, Lavasa simplified procedures for

environmental clearance and brought down the time for issuing clearances from 600 days on

average to 190 days after introduction of online applications. In the case of forest clearances the

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time for approvals was brought down from 420 days on average to 170 days. Lavasa, in his role

as aviation secretary for a brief period of seven months, worked out the policy for the

maintenance, repair and overhaul industry, and the design for nofrills airports. As finance

secretary with charge of expenditure department in the finance ministry, Lavasa will have a

tough job at hand given the government's commitment to rein in the fiscal deficit and push public

spending to boost growth. Coauthor of An Uncivil Servant, Ashok Lavasa is also an avid

photographer, with a few exhibitions to his credit.

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CURRENCIES

STATESMAN, JUN 2, 2016Steps needed to strengthen rupeeAshwani Mahajan

The inherent strength of any country is shown by the value of its currency. If its currency is strong vis-a-vis other currencies, the country is considered to be strong and if its currency is weak it will be called weak  although at times some people, particularly exporters, would argue that it is imperative to weaken our currency in order to increase exports. 

When the country achieved Independence, exchange rate of the rupee was Rs 3.3 rupees to a US dollar. In 1966, the first major devaluation of rupee was made and a dollar became worth nearly Rs 7.5. This exchange rate lasted for long as the rate was largely controlled. However, even before the era of liberalisation and globalization, the process of currency devaluation had started in 1981-82. One dollar in 1985 was worth Rs 12.38 and by August 2013 it had depreciated to Rs 68.84 per dollar.  In between, the rupee did improve to 62.6 but again in February 2016, it depreciated to Rs 68.82 per dollar, before improving in May 2016.

Exchange rate of any foreign currency is determined by the demand and supply of foreign exchange. Say, the value of the Indian rupee against the dollar will be determined by demand and supply of dollars. Due to fast rising imports, there was an unprecedented increase in demand for dollars. Our huge software exports revenue, FDI and remittances sent by NRIs also proved to be inadequate in filling the deficit caused by fast increasing imports and the rupee continued to decline due to fast rising demand for dollars. 

The reality is that with adoption of the new economic policy after 1991 and the implementation of the agreements of the World Trade Organization in 1995, tariffs were reduced significantly and all restrictions imposed on imports were eliminated. Now, under international trade agreements, there is hardly any scope for raising tariffs and imposing non-tariff barriers. This has resulted in unprecedented increase in our imports.

Our imports in 1990-91 were $24.1 billion which increased to $490.7 billion by 2012-13. The deficit in balance of trade which was $5.9 billion in 1990-91 grew to $190.3 billion in 2012-13. Similarly, our current account balance of payments deficit in 2012-13 sky rocketed to $88.2 billion.

In the last few years, because of declining prices of petroleum products and metals and due to restrictions imposed on import of gold, our imports started declining and deficit in Balance of

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Trade decreased from $190.4 billion in 2012-13 to $137.0 billion in 2014-15. However, despite that the rupee slid from 54.4 to the dollar in 2012-13 to 62.6 in 2014-15 and on 28 August 2013, it reached a record low of Rs 68.84 to the dollar. However, we find that after improving to Rs 62.6 per dollar, rupee dipped once again to Rs.68.8 by February 2016. 

Noticeable is the fact that the balance of payments on current account is expected to touch a surplus of $3 billion in the last quarter of the financial year 2015-16. Foreign direct investment also reached a record level of $39.3 billion during 2015 and therefore supply of dollars in the country has been more than the demand. It is a matter of regret that despite most comfortable payment situation, our money is steadily becoming weaker and in February 2016 reached the level of Rs 68.8 per dollar. 

While we witness significantly high rate of growth of GDP; grim growth scenario and slowing down of growth globally, fast worsening economic scenario and stock market turmoil in China have made portfolio investors wary about security of their investments. Due to heavy selling by portfolio investors in Indian stock markets, rupee has been facing unforeseen pressure. Rupee has not only faced uncertainty but has also moved down significantly. We also find that as and when portfolio investors make net selling in Indian stock markets the rupee takes a deep. 

If the rupee is weak, we have to pay more rupees per dollar. This implies that petroleum products would become dearer, other imports including finished goods, spare parts, intermediate products, metals, etc. would also be costlier. Today our imports are nearly 28 per cent of GDP. Therefore if rupee weakens by 10 per cent and thus import prices increase by 10 per cent, inflation will go up by 2.8 per cent. Weak rupee also means that we have to pay more rupees to repay principal and interest on foreign debt, both government and private.

Exporters keep on arguing that rupee must depreciate to give boost to exports. Accepting their argument rupee was devalued in 1964 and then in 1983. Later on rupee kept on depreciating and at present the exchange rate of rupee vis-a-vis dollar is Rs 67.3. Contrary to the arguments of exporters, rate of increase in imports has always been greater then rate of increase in exports, despite a constantly depreciating rupee. This happens because most of our imports and exports are not price elastic. Therefore, on the basis of economic principles, there is a need to strengthen the rupee, if the situation permits. 

Upheavals in the rupee are caused mainly by outflow of funds by foreign portfolio investors. There is a need to discipline portfolio investors. Minimum three years’ lock-in period and tax on their profits are some measures to impart discipline in foreign portfolio investors. Today, there is no reason why RBI should sit idle amidst exchange rate upheavals. Need of the hour is that

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whenever there is an outflow of foreign exchange by FPIs, RBI releases sufficient amount of dollars to arrest any fall in rupee. 

The writer is Associate Professor, PGDAV College, and University of Delhi and can be reached at [email protected].

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DEFENCE, NATIONAL

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 1, 2016Govt to skill defence staff for post-retirement employment

The Skill Development Ministry plans to skill retiring defence personnel so that they can take up jobs after retirement. 

The ministry has trained 56 Indian Air Force personnel in a pilot project.

Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy said that the ministry has trained 1.4 crore people in various skills in the financial year 2015-16. The ministry has also trained 20 lakh for entrepreneurship, he said.

Presenting the performance of his ministry, the minister told reporters that Skill India Mission skilled 36% more people than what it had done last year.

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DISASTERS

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 2, 2016Prime Minister Narendra Modi releases National Disaster Management Plan

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday released the National Disaster

Management Plan (NDMP), which is aimed at making the country disaster resilient and

significantly reduce the losses of lives and assets during such calamities. "Based on the 'Sendai

Framework', the plan covers all phases of disaster management, that is, prevention, mitigation,

response and recovery. It provides for horizontal and vertical integration among all the agencies

and departments of the government," an official statement said. The Sendai Framework was

adopted by United Nations memberstates on March 18, 2015, at the third UN World Conference

on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai city of Japan. "The plan also spells out the roles and

responsibilities of all levels of government right up to panchayat and urban local body in a

matrix format. The plan has a regional approach, which will be beneficial not only for disaster

management but also for development planning," it said. The plan also identifies major activities

such as early warning, information dissemination, medical care, fuel, transportation, search and

rescue, evacuation, etc. to serve as a checklist for agencies responding to a disaster. To prepare

communities to cope with disasters, the plan emphasises on a greater need for information,

education and communication activities. Stay on top of b

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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 3, 2016GDP: Sustained growth needed

The data showing India as the fastest growing economy in the world with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanding at 7.6% for 2015-16 and 7.9% in the last quarter of the fiscal was released in the midst of the Narendra Modi government celebrating completion of its two years in office. It was an icing on the cake for the prime minister and his ministers, who were joined by the top brass of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which found a new exuberance from its win in the Assam Assembly elections. Though there was an uptick in agricultural growth, the 7.6% economic expansion has been steered by the services and the manufacturing. This kind of performance sounds great especially when rest of our peers, including China, Brazil and Russia are faced with slowdown in growth and contraction in some cases. Perhaps, it is time to shun scepticism of any kind and join the celebrations; but then discrepancies in the data are too glaring to overlook, making us at best cautiously optimistic.   

While the services have always been the driving force of our economy, what has surprised the analysts, not of the amateur variety, but economists par excellence, is the data with regard to manufacturing. The headline numbers put the manufacturing growth at 9.3% while as a pre-dominant segment of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), the sector has shown an expansion of a mere 2%. The official explanation is that for the GDP calculation, the data is taken from the private corporate sector accounting for 69% of manufacturing, which has shown robust growth. On the other hand, the IIP encompasses the quasi private sector as also individual entrepreneurs and khadi and village industries. By this logic and with close to double digit growth, the corporate sector should be rocking and looking for fresh investment that only creates jobs.

On the contrary, the Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF), a proxy for investment, has shown a continuous fall. At constant prices during 2015-16, the GFCF was estimated at 31.2% as against 32.3% in 2014-15. Moreover, the balance sheets of a large number of corporate firms are stressed. No doubt, with the government fixing some of the problems relating to stalled projects and India reaping benefits of the low crude oil prices, the economy did show some recovery. But to make it resounding and sustainable, the growth must also be led by investment and not consumption alone. There is need for job creation to be speeded up. Overall, there may be growth in the economy but it needs to be sustained.

HINDU, JUN 2, 2016The challenge of sustaining growth

The latest GDP growth data released by the Central Statistics Office show that India’s economy expanded by 7.9 per cent in the three months ended March, a sharp acceleration from the

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marginally downsized 7.2 per cent achieved in the preceding quarter. Significantly, that this growth has been achieved despite a prolonged and widespread drought, which would certainly have dampened rural demand, is noteworthy. Even if it is assumed that this provisional figure is likely to be revised downward by about 10 basis points, in line with the revisions for recent quarters, the number would still end up keeping India at the top of the heap among the world’s fastest-growing major economies. The result of the strong fiscal fourth-quarter performance is that growth for the full year was lifted to 7.6 per cent, from 7.2 per cent in 2014-15. And the wind in the sails was clearly the robust private consumption expenditure, which increased 7.4 per cent last fiscal compared with 6.2 per cent the year earlier. But then, different statistics offer different perspectives, and some of the other data released by the CSO paint a more modest picture of the economy. Gross Value Added at basic prices provisionally grew 7.2 per cent for the full year, barely nudging up from the 7.1 per cent pace posted in 2014-15, and slower than the Reserve Bank of India’s projection for 7.4 per cent growth. The GVA figure is significant because it strips the impact that taxes and subsidies have on the overall GDP number. Thus a substantial 5.6 per cent contraction in the amount the government spent on subsidies helped inflate GDP, and by extension the pace of growth.

The outlook for the current quarter and the rest of this year may then hinge a lot on this year’s monsoon: firstly, in terms of the volume of rainfall, and then critically in its geographical and seasonal distribution. Heavy rains in areas that faced flooding last year or with crops standing in the fields ready for harvest can do more damage to the rural economy than help provide the widely expected demand fillip. And with the CSO data revealing private sector investment having slowed and showing barely any signs of revival, the onus of providing some investment stimulus may rest squarely with the government — through increased public expenditure outlays. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan also has his task cut out as he is to present the bi-monthly monetary policy statement on June 7. Given the growth data, the forecast for a normal monsoon, and the global uncertainties, he would be justified if he opts to hold interest rates and wait and watch instead.

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 1, 2016Recipe for economic disasterS Narendra

LIQUOR BAN : The huge revenue loss deprives of funds to be spent on welfare schemes such as midday meals, old age pensions, food subsidies etc.

An economic wrong can never be a political right. States which went for Assembly elections recently – Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Kerala – played the ‘liquor ban’ political card to appease the voters. To prove their moral high ground stand, Kerala under the last UDF regime, and Bihar and Tamil Nadu immediately after coming to power, implemented the liquor ban either in full, like in Bihar, or partial as in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. 

The political leaders have won the election battle but are losing out on the economic front. The

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revenue loss in the form of excise duties on account of these populist moves is devastating. It is ironic that political parties which ensure free flow of liquor on the eve of elections to buy votes, introduce prohibition soon after coming to power. None supports the ill-effects of liquor consumption. The crux of the issue is whether prohibition is the “brahmastra” to overcome the evil effects of alcohol or remedy worse than the malady. 

The states which have implemented prohibition as political compulsion will face serious social and economic repercussions. In Tamil Nadu, 30% of the state’s revenue – Rs 30,000 crore per annum – comes from liquor sales, that too with the sole distribution control of the state arm, the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation(Tasmac). 

Kerala under the UDF, which implemented phased prohibition from April 2014, has taken a loss hit of Rs 2,000 crore. The state has huge liquor sale earnings over Rs 6,000 crore. The excise revenue is 20% with tourism chipping in 10% of the GDP. 

The god’s own country is terribly impacted by the partial liquor ban which the new LDF government may reverse, since the state cannot afford to kill the golden goose. Similar is the position of Bihar with a humongous loss of Rs 6,000 crore by way of revenue on account of the total prohibition imposed by Nitish Kumar government.

The euphoria over declaring states ‘dry’ has serious collateral damages. From the economic stand point, the huge revenue loss deprives funds to be spent on welfare programmes such as midday meals to school children, free uniform, free education, old age pensions, food subsidies, medical aids etc. 

The quixotic decisions will adversely affect tourism. Blanket prohibition on liquor will also dampen investment sentiments. Foreign Institutional Investors who are eager to invest in successful Indian breweries will now develop cold feet. This will impact employment, investm-ent and profits of the breweries and that of the ancillary industries such as bottling, labelling, transportation, fuel etc. 

This will ruin the livelihood of workers and their families who depend on these sectors. Moreover, there will be investment flight from existing foreign partners to better pastures fearing  demonstration effect of liquor ban by other Indian states which go for elections. This will fizzle out FDI.

Politics has overtaken economics. Ban on liquor has taken the toll on the bottom line of the breweries. They are defaulting on their bank loan repayments. This will seriously impact the banks which are writhing with pangs of Non Performing Assets. The harmful effects can be epidemic too as a large number of breweries which are situated in states where there is no

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prohibition will nose dive as their supplies to the states under prohibition will get shut. 

Liquor mafia

Prohibition makes criminals rich. Ban may prevent manufacture and sale of liquor officially but not its consumption. The World Health Organisation has cited that more than half of alcohol consumed in India is unrecorded like the black money. Jello Biafra has rightly said that “for every prohibition you create, you also create an underground.” 

Prohibition leads to liquor mafia taking over the reigns of manufacture and supply of illicit liquor. The bootleggers operate with the nexus  of unscrupulous politicians and police. Spurious liquor is provided to the ‘thirsty lot’ leading to calamities, crimes and irreversible damage to health.  

Reminds us of loss of innocent lives on account of hooch tragedies in liquor-banned Gujarat in 1976 (100 lives), 1986 (108) and 2009 (130), in Kerala in 2010 (23), in Bihar in 2012 (26). 

If this is the sordid story of lesser mortals, the privileged ones will get their ‘quota’ of liquor from the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka (for Tamil Nadu), Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and even Nepal (for Bihar), and Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Goa (for Gujarat). It is “happy hours” for the neighbouring states which mint money by ensuring prompt supplies to the dry states by following the “help thy neighbour” philosophy in letter and “spirit.”

The entire exercise to kick the can of ban without any alternative revenue stream to make up for the excise loss, is suicidal and putting the cart before the horse. Almost all previous experiments with liquor ban have failed. Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Haryana have the dubious distinction of repealing prohibition after suffering huge revenue loss coupled with rampant bootlegging and social catastrophes. 

The solution lies in having an effective liquor policy, the key being uncompromising political will to implement the laws. The policy should prescribe  high licence fee for liquor permits, hike in the prices of liquor to make drinking prohibitive, raising the permissible age to drink to 23 years, declaring more “dry days,” locating liquor outlets away from schools, places of worship and hospitals. 

There should be stringent punishment for violation of laws. Portion of  excise revenue should be earmarked for the NGOs, institutions like Alcoholic Anonymous (AA), which are dedicated to reforming the addicts, counselling and for programmes to educate people on the harmful effects of drinking. 

Nothing works by force. Moderation is the key. The aim should be to inculcate good habits, develop moral fibre, abstinence and to behave responsibly. Prohibition policy sans alternate

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revenue generating streams, rampant supply of spurious liquor, hooch tragedies, depletion of state finances is a sure recipe for disaster and putting the economic clock back by 20 years.

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based economist)

ASIAN AGE, JUN 1, 2016India becomes world’s fastest-growing economy at 7.6 per cent: government

India has outpaced China in recent quarters, with the Chinese economy growing 6.7 per cent.

New Delhi: India's economy grew 7.6 per cent in 2015-16, official figures showed Tuesday, retaining its place as the world's fastest-growing major economy and providing a boost to the right-wing government as it marks two years in power. Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at a faster pace in the fourth quarter of the financial year, growing 7.9 per cent year-on-year, the Central Statistics Office data showed.

The figure beat the average forecast for 7.5 per cent growth in the three months to March 31, according to a Bloomberg survey of 27 economists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government swept to power in a May 2014 general election promising to reform the economy and kick-start growth.

India has outpaced China in recent quarters, with the Chinese economy growing 6.7 per cent in the first three months of 2016, its slowest quarterly expansion in seven years. However, India is dogged by concerns over the reliability of its economic growth data, more than a year after the government introduced a revised formula for calculating gross domestic product (GDP) which some analysts have criticised. The government says the new method is closer to international standards.

Economists are now looking ahead to the imminent monsoon, which has an outsize influence on growth owing to its impact on millions of farmers, whose crops are highly dependent on the annual rains. Households in rural areas -- about two-thirds of the 1.2 billion-strong population -- are suffering from a devastating drought after two consecutive weak monsoons.

The Reserve Bank of India is expected to wait to assess the strength of the monsoon, which begins in June, before deciding whether to cut interest rates and provide a fresh boost to consumption. India's central bank in April cut its key interest rate to a five-year low of 6.5 per cent citing a dip in inflation, and signalled there could be further rate cuts to come.

The bank is scheduled to hold its next policy meeting on June 7.

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ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 1, 2016Niti Aayog to start consultations on 15year vision document

NEW DELHI: Government thinktank Niti Aayog will start consultations with states and experts

from next month on preparing a 15year vision document and a strategy for its implementation.

The Aayog has invited Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, former Finance

Commission Chairman Vijay Kelkar, former RBI Governors Bimal Jalan and Y V Reddy among

others for the crucial deliberations, a senior government official said today. NITI Aayog has been

entrusted to prepare a 15year vision document beginning 201718 fiscal, which will replace

Nehruvian five year planning system followed for over six decades. Apart from focusing on

sectors such as infrastructure, commerce, education and health , the vision document will also

cover internal security and defence, which were not part of the earlier five year plans. "Besides,

the consultations will also cover forming a sevenyear (201718 to 202324) strategy to convert the

longer vision into implementable policy as part of the National Development Agenda, which will

be reviewed after three years (201910 fiscal)," he added. Confirming the development, an

official source said that Aayog will also formulate a threeyear Action Document (201718 to

201920) that will be aligned to the predictability of financial resources during the 14th Finance

Commission Award period. "This is being done as it will help to translate into actions,

government goals to be achieved by 2019," the source added. Several committees have

questioned the merit in having Plan and NonPlan classification of government expenditure and

the general view is that it has skewed allocations in the Budget and the classification should be

done on the basis of revenue and capital expenditure. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had

announced in his Budget speech this year that Plan and nonPlan classification will be done away

with from 201718.

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EDUCATION

STATESMAN, JUN 7, 2016DUTA protests against UGC

The Delhi University Teachers Association on Monday staged a protest here against the University Grants Commission (UGC) circular which was issued last month to assess their academic performance.

Protesting in front of the UGC building, the DUTA also submitted a memorandum to its chairman, Professor, Ved Prakash demanding withdrawal of the May 4 notification which also alter teachers' workload requirements by redefining "direct teaching hours."

Earlier, these included lectures, practicals, project supervision and tutorials, all of which were treated equally, but tutorials have now been removed, and the definition has been narrowed down to "Lectures/Practicals/Project Supervision".

As per the UGC (Minimum Qualifications for appointment of teachers and other academic staff in universities and colleges and measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education) Regulations, 2010, the number of teaching hours has been increased. An Assistant Professor who was earlier required to teach 16 hours weekly will now have to work 18+6 hours and Associate Professors and Professors who worked 14 hours - including time spent on tutorials and practicals, will now have to work 16+6 hours and 14+6 hours respectively.

The six hours increase includes time spent on tutorials, remedial classes, seminars, administrative responsibilities, innovation and updating of course contents.

The DUTA members mentioned in their memorandum that the new norms will overburden teachers and drastically reduce the preparation time available resulting in degrading of quality. They also said that it will also result in reduction in number of teachers required.

"Approximately 5,000 teachers currently working in DU's departments and colleges will rendered surplus and will lose their employment," it said.

After the Union Human Resource Development Ministry issued a direction to it to undertake amendments in the regulations including implementation of Academic Performance Indicator (API), the UGC had called a stakeholders' consultation meet (June 6) to "discuss API scheme and workload of teachers".

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The API target for teaching allots a maximum of 60 points per teacher per year, but the points will be determined by dividing the "actual hours spent per academic year divided by 10".

Attacking the new rules, the memorandum, signed by DUTA president Nandita Narain and secretary Saneep, said: "Any teacher who is interested in 60 points will have to teach 600 hours per year or 300 points per semester. In a semester of 15 weeks, this works out to 20 hours a week... it will be impossible to meet (the target) even if a teacher takes no leave at all, does not fall ill, does not enroll herself in Refresher Courses or do Research Projects."

The Left parties including the Communist Party of India-Marxist, the Communist Party of India, the All India Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party also demanded withdrawal of the circular saying that the notification will have negative repercussions on quality and equity.The HRD Ministry directive issued on May 26 said "the direct teaching-learning hours will remain unchanged". It did not address the complaints about the definition of direct teaching hours and calculation of workloads. The teachers on May 30 had organized a similar protest at Jantar Mantar.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, JUN 6, 2016Now, DU aspirants cannot block seats in multiple collegesShradha Chettri

 |  From this year, Delhi University aspirants will not be able to block seats at different colleges simultaneously. The admission and withdrawal procedures have been changed.After the cutoffs are declared, students need not go directly to the college that they have qualified for. First, the students will have to log on to a DU portal and then select the course and the college.

Thereafter, an admission slip of the college selected is generated. The students can take this slip and documents to get admission to the college. The documents include original mark sheets, pass certificates.Students will get three days to take admission to the colleges after the cutoff is declared. For instance, the first cutoff is declared on June 27 and the students can take admission on its basis till June 29.

“The college will retain the certificates of the approved candidate in order to avoid multiple admissions. The certificates will remain with the colleges during admission to make admission

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smooth for colleges. Earlier, students blocked multiple seats and withdrew their applications later,” said a senior university official.

The college authorities will approve the admission on the UG admission portal.Unlike previous years, students will not have to stand in queue to pay fees. The selected candidate can pay online.

In case, candidates want to take admission to another college, they cannot go directly to the college. First, the students will have to go to the college where they got admitted and submit an application for withdrawal.

Only after the college has approved the withdrawal and marked the same in the UG portal, the student can select another college. However, the college will have to return the documents promptly.

Such procedures have been put in place as DU colleges will release only five cutoff lists this time.

The number of registered applicants reached 1,54,026 by 6pm Sunday.Out of which, 68,316 applicants have finished registration. The university is holding admission for 54,000 seats in 61 DU colleges. The last date to submit application is June 19.

TELEGRAPH, JUN 6, 2016

UGC alters yoga posture after punch

New Delhi, June 5: The University Grants Commission has softened its "desire" for inclusion of yoga in physiotherapy courses following a strong protest from the professional body of physiotherapists.

The higher education regulator has now sent a revised letter to vice-chancellors of all universities, making it optional for institutions to adopt yoga modules under the Bachelor's of Physiotherapy (BPT) and Master's in Physiotherapy (MPT) courses.

In the letter, sent on Thursday, UGC secretary J.S. Sandhu wrote to the vice-chancellors, saying "the universities may adopt modules from the syllabus keeping in view the requirement of the

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course".

Earlier, the Indian Association of Physiotherapists (IAP), the body that prepares physiotherapy syllabi and promotes professional standards, had protested the UGC's May 19 directive that asked universities to include yoga modules under the BPT and MPT courses.

Under instructions from the ministries of human resource development and Ayush (ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha and homoeopathy), Sandhu had written: "It is desired that modules of teaching and training of Yoga may be included in Bachelor and Masters in Physiotherapy programmes."

"It is requested that the same may be perused and suitably inserted in the physiotherapy programmes run by your esteemed university and affiliated colleges," the May 19 letter had said.

K.M. Annamalai, general secretary of the association of physiotherapists, had told The Telegraph the proposed syllabus had been prepared without any consultations with the IAP. He said yoga definitely had a therapeutic value but the benefits of a particular yoga posture for a specific health disorder must be established with evidence before being included under physiotherapy courses.

After the UGC modified its order, Annamalai yesterday said the IAP had nothing to protest against now since the regulator had made yoga optional.

He also said there was no scope to include yoga in the BPT course but the master's programme, with specialisation in evidence-based yoga, could be designed by the association.

TIMES OF INDIA, JUN 3, 2016From 2017, Bihar toppers will face interview

Patna: The state government on Thursday asked the Bihar School Examination Board not to

release merit lists of Class X and XII exams in future before subjecting toppers to individual

interviews and checking their answer-sheets. The move follows much embarrassment after two

of the board's intermediate toppers this year looked completely clueless about the subjects they

had "excelled" in.

The board has already called all 14 Class XII toppers from arts science and commerce streams

for a re-examination on Friday to ascertain whether they actually deserved the honours.

Education minister Ashok Choudhary   said the board was also scanning CCTV footage at the

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centres where Class XII toppers wrote their papers. "We want to ascertain whether or not dummy

candidates were roped in," he said.

Arts topper Ruby Ray   had in a video called political science 'prodigal science', and said the

subject was about cookery. She has scored 91 out of 100 in political science. She overall scored

444 out of 500 but was clueless even about the maximum marks. Choudhary admitted the video

had raised many embarrassing questions.

Science topper Saurav Shreshtha   also could not answer basic questions. BSEB said toppers

would face action if they failed in their re-examination. It said evaluators and invigilators would

also be punished if found guilty. Board sources said both Ray and Shreshtha were from Vishun

Ray College in Vaishali. Even the third topper (science), Rahul Kumar, was from the same

college.

STATESMAN, JUN 1, 2016School nationalism

The fineprint of the recommendations on the draft school education policy, advanced by the committee headed by the former Cabinet Secretary, TSR Subramaniam, mirrors the BJP government’s anxiety to buttress nationalism according to its lights. The social science syllabus is proposed to be fashioned accordingly, and given the subtle emphasis on saffronite ideology, the cache of proposals can be accepted with a modified  ‘yes’.  That compulsion can well be contextualised with the recent kerfuffle at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Pedagogy on inculcating nationalism will be integral to the school curriculum, obviously to mould impressionable minds and avert complications and disruptions at the university level. Regretfully, some of the proposals are far removed from classroom lectures on conventional subjects and are more in the nature of sermonising or moral instruction in the school assembly/chapel. Sad to reflect, there is little or nothing on  the content of the syllabi during the 12 years in school. To that extent, the panel has somewhat undermined  the academic value of its recommendations.  Chiefly, the focus is on “value education” so that the student feels proud to be an Indian. While the emphasis on students’ rights and duties  is to be welcomed, the proposal is suggestive of the relative neglect of constitutional studies in school, even at an elementary level.  Most importantly, the welter of suggestions envisage the revival of the pass/fail system from Class 6, specifically from the start of the “middle school”. This is of particular relevance to West Bengal, where “automatic

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promotions” are guaranteed till Class 8. The Subramaniam committee has rightly underscored the need to evaluate the assimilation of learning. The recommendation to conduct Board exams after Classes 10 and 12 ought to preclude tinkering with the school-leaving exams at the state level.  The committee takes a bow in the direction of the subaltern with the stipulation that the medium of instruction should be in the tribal dialect till Class 5 in the predominantly tribal areas. This would have raised no cavil were it not for Bengal’s experience in the 1980s and Nineties when the exclusion of English and the emphasis on Bengali at the primary stage spelt havoc to a generation of learners.

The panel has addressed the need for skill development by suggesting what it calls a “difficult and easy variant” in the Class 10 exam, indeed offering scope for vocational training with the minimum qualification. But it may not be easy to execute two different paradigms of the first public exam; not all schools can boast such wherewithal. And the appalling teacher-student ratio - the bane of primary education - is sought to be addressed with the proposed five-year integrated BA-BEd course after Class 10 to meet the dearth of teachers. This ought to lend a sharper focus to teaching, and without treating the vocation as just another job option.

STATESMAN, JUN 1, 2016UGC calls teachers' meet over API issue after stir

Facing protests from teachers' bodies over the Academic Performance Index (API) criteria, UGC on Tuesday said it will organise a stakeholders' consultation on Monday and that it is acting on the HRD Ministry's direction for measures so as to ensure that teaching workload is not increased under new norms.

In a statement, the higher education regulator said it has initiated action on the review by the HRD Ministry of the recent amendment to the UGC (minimum qualifications for appointment of teachers and other academic staff in universities and colleges and measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education) Regulations, 2010.

The Ministry issued a direction to the University Grants Commission to undertake amendments in the Regulation, indicating that the overall workload of Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors in full employment would remain unchanged, the statement said.It said the HRD ministry had directed that the direct teaching-learning hours per week to be devoted by Assistant Professors (16 hours) and Associate Professors/Professors (14 hours) too would remain unchanged.

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"As part of the process of the review mandated by the Ministry of HRD, UGC will invite representatives of teachers from across the country for stakeholder consultations on these issues. The Commission will also seek perspectives and suggestions from teachers for its consideration," the statement said.

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ELECTRICITY

HINDUATAN TIMES, JUN 1, 2016Now, discoms to pay up to Rs 100 per hour for long power cuts in DelhiRitam Halder  

The power distribution companies in the national capital will now be penalised and made to compensate consumers for unscheduled power cuts.

The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on Monday, through a notification of the Delhi Electricity Supply Code and Performance Standard regulations, said that consumers can get up to Rs 100 as compensation for every hour of outage.

“The DERC was given policy directions to penalise the companies for unscheduled power cuts and it is being implemented now after consultations on the draft notification issued last year,” a power department official said.

According to the notification, the quantum of compensation ranges from Rs 25 to Rs 100 per hour.The default period will be considered from the time someone registers a complaint till the supply is restored. For a blown fuse or damaged service line, for instance, the power companies will have three hours to fix the fault. If they do not meet the deadline, the complainant will be compensated Rs 100 per for every subsequent hour.

For a distribution failure impacting up to 50 consumers, the deadline for temporary supply restoration will be one hour and 12 hours for normal supply. The compensation for such an outage has been fixed at Rs 50 per hour per consumer for the first two hours and Rs 100 per hour per consumer thereafter.

The compensation will be awarded through adjustment against current or future bills within 90 days.

Delhi government last week had said it will not hesitate to consider “cancelling” the licenses of discoms if they failed to improve the power situation in the city which has been hit by a series of outages in the past fortnight.

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Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said this in a meeting attended by the representatives of the private distribution companies BSES, Tata Power (TPDDL) and also the chairman of DERC. In the meeting, Kejriwal gave the discoms a week’s time to take corrective measures or face strict action.

A senior government official said the discoms could not offer a “single explanation” behind the outages despite there being no shortage of power in the national capital. They had blamed local faults for frequent power cuts.

“The government has categorically asked them to set their house in order as people of Delhi will not suffer for the efficiency on their part,” the official said.“The discoms have not built adequate infrastructure. They say we have put up cables but whenever there is overload, those cables snap as they are of inferior quality. We have directed the companies to arrange mobile transformers,” power minister Satyendar Jain had earlier said.

Delhi’s power demand hit an all-time peak of 6,188 MW on May 20, which power officials say may rise further in June and July when usage of air conditioners increases due to higher humidity.

The discoms have been asked to deploy additional breakdown and maintenance teams to minimise the complaints. They have also been asked to immediately strengthen their call centers by doubling the existing capacity by suitably enhancing the telephone lines and deploying more personnel so that each and every call is registered for its proper resolution.

Earlier, too, the regulator had taken the matter of penalties up with the discoms, who had demanded better infrastructure before such a compensation is brought in.

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HEALTH SERVICES

BUSINESS LINE, JUN 1, 2016PM clears proposal to raise doctors’ retirement age to 65

A week after he made an announcement at a public rally in Saharanpur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday approved the Health Ministry’s proposal to raise the retirement age of doctors in Central Heath Services to 65 years with immediate effect.

“The Prime Minister on Tuesday approved the proposal of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for enhancing the age of superannuation of all doctors of the Central Health Service to 65 years with effect from May 31, 2016,” read an official release. 

On May 25, commenting on the shortage of doctors while addressing a public rally to mark two years of the NDA government, Modi had said: “The Cabinet will soon approve a Bill to increase the retirement age of government doctors from 60 to 65 years.”

In the release, Health and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda said the move to enhance the retirement age of doctors will empower the government to strengthen the healthcare sector in the country.

“It will help in providing additional doctors in the health pool of the country,” he said, adding that this will strengthen the efforts of the Ministry in conceptualising and rolling out various people-oriented schemes which need the services of doctors in implementing them.

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated June 1, 2016)

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

TELEGRAPH, JUN 7, 2016Pakistan's Indophobia - India's neighbour is a victim of its own terrorism industry

Writing on the wall - Ashok V. Desai

Indians are a rather glum lot these days. Those who were effusive about our present prime minister and voted him to power are disappointed by his inactivity; those who feared his rise are alarmed by attacks on secularists - once christened pseudo-secularists by L.K. Advani, now branded seditionists by Rajnath Singh - and wonder if worse is to come. I looked for a way to cheer both groups up, and found it in a Pakistani video, which gives 10 things that make Pakistanis jealous of India, starting with the least important and going up the ladder.

First, India has credit in the world while Pakistan gets no respect. For instance, The New York Times apologizes for a cartoon. The Chinese president goes to Gujarat for Narendra Modi's birthday. Modi gets assurances of $37 billion investment from Japan.

Next, China is supposed to be Pakistan's ally, but it keeps good relations with India. Japan will invest $30 billion there. Investors try to get into India even though Nirmala Sitharaman has nothing for them but a frown; they do not give Pakistan even a thought.

Third, Pakistan is jealous of Hindi. Most advertisements shown on Pakistani television are produced in India with Indian models. What do these brown ladies have that Pakistani beauties do not?

Fourth, Pakistan is jealous of India's status in cricket. India is not even at the top of the cricket ladder, but all players want to play in India. Just because India has the money, all cricketers want to end up there.

Fifth, Pakistan is jealous of Indian lobbies abroad. Many Indians in the United States of America are just shopkeepers or hoteliers; but they have such political clout. Sometimes they are not even Indian lobbies; quite often it is foreigners who have invested in India. They act as India's cheer-leaders.

Sixth, Pakistan is afraid of the Indian defence budget. India is the most unreasonable, threatening, quarrelsome country in the world (for Pakistanis); but Pakistan has no way of matching India militarily. Muslim moneybags like Saudi Arabia give Pakistan some help, but not enough to enable to look India in the eye.

Seventh, Pakistan is jealous of Modi's popularity. He is most unreliable. No Pakistani can trust him. Nor should Indians; but they are solidly behind Modi.

Eighth, Barack Obama visits India, but not Pakistan. Not just Obama; all leaders of major powers want to go there. Some, like David Cameron, go and perform in India even without an

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invitation. Even when they are invited to Pakistan, they invent some lame excuse or other for not coming.

Ninth, overseas Indians are highly capable, while Pakistanis are isolated. The American information technology industry recruited Indians by the thousands; it would not touch Pakistanis even with a bargepole. Young Pakistanis are no less good; but just because they are not Indians, they are denied chances across the world.

Finally, Pakistan is jealous of Indian movies. Lollywood films can match Bollywood ones, dance for dance, pseudo-kiss for pseudo-kiss. Still, Pakistanis prefer to watch Indian films.

Is this Pakistani impression of India a fair one? Pakistan has no direct exposure to India; its opinion must be based on Western media. They give little space to India or Pakistan. They do not give a great image of India; rather, they give a poor image of Pakistan. And that is because Pakistan often makes news for terrorism and violence. It is not because the Indian law and order machinery is much better, but because Pakistan has long been involved in an informal war in Afghanistan, and the terrorism it once exported has now become a domestic industry in Pakistan. Pakistanis perhaps underestimate the damage done to Pakistan's international image by the asylum that their country gives men involved in terrorism in India and Afghanistan. Pakistanis may seriously believe that the terrorists are fighters for the freedom of Kashmir; but they have failed to make the world share this belief.

Can it be converted to the Pakistani view? There is one precedent for such conversion, namely to the view that Palestinians are terrorists and Israelis are victims. Israelis have been better at selling their viewpoint for a number of reasons. For one, they have patrons and allies amongst the Jewish tycoons of New York; that brings them sympathetic coverage in the US media. For another, they have occupied all of Palestinian territory and made it a colony; with this territorial control, they can punish Palestinians much more heavily than Pakistan ever can Indians. Third, the Israeli punitive machinery - the army and the Mossad - is far quicker and more effective than anything in South Asia.

Can Pakistan convert the world equally effectively to the view that terrorists are heroes and Indians are villains in Kashmir? It does not have to work very hard to do so. Hardly anyone outside India thinks that Kashmiris are happy to be in India; even in India, there is enough press coverage of violence in Kashmir to give the impression that there is strong anti-Indian sentiment. If Indians can read and hear this, the world can too. The only thing that distorts the message is Pakistani involvement in terrorism. If it ceased to help terrorists, the world would soon come to view Kashmir as an Indian colony.

The reason why Pakistan cannot disinvolve itself is that terrorism in Kashmir is not an isolated venture; it is just one activity of the Pakistani terrorism industry. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a prosperous non-governmental organization in Muridke, ostensibly involved in charity; terrorism is its side business. It is only one of the many religiously oriented, mosque-centred NGOs spread all over Pakistan. The religious industry is too large for the Pakistan government to control; it feeds such a large number of young men that Pakistan would have a major problem if

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they were out on the streets.

So for now, terrorism is an essential industry in Pakistan. As long as it is, Pakistan cannot develop a positive image in the world. And as long as it has a negative image, India will have a more positive image whatever Pakistan does. With the image come many things - trade, communications, tourists, publicity, and so on.

Pakistan took Partition as the beginning of a race between India and itself. That view is not wrong in itself; but Pakistan has chosen the wrong sport in which to compete against India. It wants to run as the champion of Kashmiris against India the oppressor. The world does not care who wins. And even if Pakistan wins somehow, the world will keep mollycoddling India, because it poses no threat to anyone - not even to Pakistan - and offers more opportunities to foreigners. Its trade is seven times as large as Pakistan's, and its industry and services play host to far more foreign investment. If Pakistan had any sense, it would grab opportunities - offer quick, cheap transport between India, Afghanistan and Central Asia, give north Indian goods access to the sea through Karachi, offer to build beautifully sculpted Mughal villas for India's moneybags, attract them to Murree for holidays, and invite Indians to shoot films in Baluchistan. If it does, Indians will spread a good word to the world about Pakistan; that will be enough.

TELEGRAPH, JUN 5, 2016Recalling a rich past - India might learn a great deal from South Africa

Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Our prime minister is to visit South Africa shortly. Any visit by an Indian prime minister to our neighbour across the Indian Ocean, South Africa, is historically compelling, politically vital. And so we must wish it not just success, but resounding success.

Gandhi has to, and does, loom over any Indian dignitary's itinerary in the country wheresatyagraha was born and he was hailed as a Mahatma. But it is important that Gandhi does not become the canopy over it. He should power such a visit, not overpower it. Gandhi evolved in South Africa from a lawyer with a famous rail-ticket that the guard did not honour into a catalyst for decolonization that Empire could not ignore. The Gandhi-South Africa heritage, as we see it in India, too must evolve. It should not stagnate over dates and monuments. It should move from evocative nostalgia to a contemporary engagement with South Africa in all their relations - political, economic, ideological. It must interiorize history, not depend on it for life support. It only follows that it must reflect on Gandhi and Mandela, not genuflect before their real or ideological shrines.

India cannot and should not sound even remotely pedagogic to South Africa. We cannot turn history knobs there for the reason that South Africa has its own sense of its history and, what is more pertinent, has its own fairly sharp understanding of India's more recent political history. It learns its lessons about India not from our past but from our present, not so much from our past

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heroes as from our current villainies.

Its leaders and spokespersons may not say so in as many words but, the fact is, it finds our rhythmic harking back to Gandhi and Nehru and to Mandela's ideological kinship with those two leaders patronizing and tedious. Gandhi moved in and moved South Africa. South Africa has moved on since then. Not that it has not accorded Gandhi and Gandhi's influence over its political evolution due credit. It has done so, not just fairly but generously. But it is time India, for a change, reciprocates by recognizing our debt to South Africa in helping a lawyer to evolve into an inspiration to the world. It must also try to understand what historical debt India owes to Luthuli-Mandela-Tambo-Sisulu and to their legacy. Mandela was inspired by Gandhi, he was not a disciple of Gandhi. He, in fact, differed with Gandhi. The three indigenous leaders - Luthuli, Mandela, Tutu - who won the Nobel peace prize won it because of what they were, not because of any borrowed haloes.

Patronizing speeches now would not be appropriate. India did support South Africa's struggle for freedom. Gandhi did live in South Africa. But the South Africans won their freedom by their struggle and sacrifice as India did.

Our prime minister will be given reams of briefs and notes to read by our ministry of external affairs. He will probably have just enough time to do so on the long outbound flight. I doubt if they will include the above or anything on what is known as the Three Doctors' Pact signed by Dr A.B. Xuma, the president of the African National Congress, Dr G.M. Naicker, president of the Natal Indian Congress, and Dr Y.M. Dadoo of the Transvaal Indian Congress. That pact was signed in 1947, making next year its 70th anniversary, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of our own independence. The pact asked for five steps: 1. Full franchise 2. Equal economic and industrial rights and opportunities and the recognition of African trade unions under the Industrial Conciliation Act 3. The removal of all land restrictions against non-Europeans and the provision of adequate housing facilities for all non-Europeans 4. The extension of free and compulsory education to non-Europeans Guaranteeing freedom of movement and the abolition of Pass Laws against the African people and the Provincial Barriers against Indians, and 5. the removal of all discriminatory and oppressive legislation from the Union's statute book.

What made the pact momentous and timeless is that it called for joint action on the part of the Indian and African people of South Africa across religious divides for securing democratic rights for that country's people. It is important to note that the pact was signed during Gandhi's lifetime and that all three doctors were known to and were to interact increasingly with the rising leader, Nelson Mandela. Naicker and Dadoo called on Gandhi when he was touring riot-torn Bihar and explained their vision to him. Gandhi became fully conversant through that interaction with the future of South Africa under African leadership. And through Dadoo and Naicker, for both of whom Mandela had the highest regard, he had a 'bridge' connection with the real, historical Mandela though the two - Gandhi and Mandela - were never to meet.

How is that Doctors' Pact relevant to us in India today?

It is not just relevant but critical.

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As a statement that reverberates with Ambedkar's warning to India about it being politically free but economically subjugated. We have full franchise but in terms of the enjoyment of equal economic opportunities, including and especially those pertaining to land use and housing, we are far from 'free'. The grip of monopoly capital on our natural resources, both licit and illegal, has led to a mammoth and globally unprecedented migration of displaced populations. The Doctors' Pact spoke of the need for freedom of movement. We suffer from a lack of the freedom from dispossession, dislocation and destitution. One African South African, one Tamil Hindu South African, one Gujarati Muslim South African saw 70 years ago, in an enslaved South Africa, a great vision for political and economic emancipation. In other words, one African and two Indians, all South African in terms of their domicile, anticipated Ambedkar. We must, for our sakes, learn from that South African example and on the two 70th anniversary celebrations, craft a scheme for applying that pact's redemptive spirit to the India of our times. We have seen ourselves as teachers long enough. It is time we descended from our high pedestals and did some learning for our good.

The prime minister, Modi, need not, if he does not want to, cite the Doctors' Pact when he visits South Africa. But it is important that the ritual invocations of Gandhi and Mandela apart, bilateral trade and technological cooperation apart (for which there will be no dearth of enthusiasts on both sides), multilaterisms in the shape of the BRICS spirit apart, India shows some sense of receptivity to South Africa's rich legacy, albeit dimmed by contemporary realpolitik in that country, of social justice. And a joint declaration on this anniversary-eve of a shared social justice resolve, would do us lasting good.

South Africa is going through difficult times today economically and in its ability to eradicate growing corruption. We may say there we are unfortunate together. But South Africa has reserved one-third of seats in Parliament for women - a lesson for us.

There is another unacknowledged debt India owes to South Africa.

It is not known well enough, not nearly enough, that the first biography of Gandhi, a brilliant work, was written by a contemporary of his in South Africa, Joseph John Doke (1861-1913). This Baptist missionary came into Gandhi's life a decade earlier than the far more famous Anglican priest, Charles Freer Andrews, did. Eight years Gandhi's senior, Doke had arrived in South Africa more than a decade before Gandhi. Impelled by instinct and training, as pastor of the Central Church at Johannesburg, Doke sought an appointment with the 'Coolie attorney'. There was a complete and instant rapport. A few more meetings with Gandhi and Doke became not only an ardent supporter of the passive resistance movement but one of its most eloquent spokesmen. It is instructive to read Doke on the colony's larger condition: "...our lives are too much centred on that little circle in which we live... We are too parochial... We need a Statesman of wide experience and far-reaching gaze, who will rouse us to look beyond our borders, teach us to legislate greatly, and shame us from our selfishness. Nay, more! No country can afford to build injustice into its walls. Such material is worthless and will bring disaster. Amidst all the conflicting interests of the day, this, at any rate, should be clear: Righteousness exalteth a nation." Doke did not know that exactly such a person would emerge from the ranks of the country's Africans in Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela who would take Doke, Gandhi and Andrews forward to say, "I am against racism... white racism... and black racism..." None of the

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South Africa briefs that Modi gets will mention Doke, Gandhi's friend and first biographer. But some in his entourage might read this and, withal, share with him the Baptist's definition of a statesman so that his far-reaching gaze includes a desire to legislate greatly against exploitation and to shame injustice, including ethnic prejudice, out of its walls.

PANCHAYAT

PIONEER, JUL 1, 2016REPORT ON PANCHAYATI RAJ INSTITUTIONS SUBMITTED

State Finance commission chairman Professor VK Joshi along with other members submitted their report to Governor KK Paul at Rajbhwan on Tuesday.

Paul expressed the hope that the report would help the Government to take important steps in the interest of Panchayati Raj institutions. The commission told the Governor that important recommendations have been made in the report to give funds to local bodies and panchayati Raj institutions.

State Government had accepted the recommendations of the sixth pay commission for workers of local bodies but funds had not been allocated.  The delivery system of local bodies was being affected due to the expected financial support, which is not being given to them by the State Government.

The report has suggested several measures to make Panchayati Raj Institutions stronger. The recommendations by the commission have been made for the period April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2021.

It may be mentioned here that the 4th  finance commission was constituted on February 2, 2015. During its tenure , thirty meetings were held by the commission in all the districts of the state with local bodies and Panchayati Raj Institutions. Suggestions were invited at these meetings.

Members of the commission CMM Bisht, Avikal Thapliyal and LM Pant were present on the occasion.

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POLICE

HINDU, JUN 2, 2016

Police stations to be graded on performance

NISTULA HEBBARFor the first time, a database of 20 lakh policemen has been created, says Rajnath Singh

Police stations nationwide will be graded on the basis of their performance, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh told The Hindu in an interview on Tuesday.

Mr. Singh, who spoke at length on the steps that his Ministry has taken to improve policing, said: “Police stations should be graded on the basis of their performance. How they have performed on various parameters. The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) has developed parameters on which the police stations would be graded, and we have sent the proposal to the States for their suggestions.”

The Minister said a new concept of “tourism police” was being considered.

“We are raising a new police force for tourism and will provide it training, The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has prepared a concept paper, and it is being examined in the Ministry,” Mr. Singh said.

For the first time, a database of 20 lakh policemen was created, he said.

“A new thing which started this year is the exchange of marching contingents of the State police forces during the Republic Day parade. So far, 21 States have exchanged marching contingents with one another,” the Home Minister said.

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Mr. Singh said the Ministry was looking to replicate the meeting of the Directors-General of Police (DGP) at the State level, involving senior police officers of the State.

Task force on technology

A new task force on “technology,” comprising police officers from each State, was constituted, and it would soon begin its work.

“We will be collating the best practices followed by the police in each State and will send advisories to other States to follow the model. This is being done so that the States can know about the best available model for policing,” Mr. Singh said.

He said ruled had been framed to improve investigation techniques of the police. “Capabilities like fingerprint scan is being upgraded for police stations and steps are also being taken to check cybercrimes,” he said.

All seven Union Territories, which report directly to the Ministry, had already implemented the 33 per cent reservation for women in the police forces.

“Only Puducherry had some doubts, and it had sent a letter to the Ministry asking how it could go ahead with the reservation without the approval of the Union Public Service Commission. We told them that they could do it,”the Union Home Minister added.

Centre may raise a police force to help tourists for which CISF has prepared a concept paper

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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

TELEGRAPH, JUN 3, 2016

Residual pretensions - Hopelessness versus revolutionary politics in Bengal's Left

Swapan Dasgupta

The Nuffield studies of each British general election since 1945 are valued for two reasons. First, they assess an election campaign from all possible angles, from the perspective of politicians to the media coverage of the exercise. However, far more important, these studies approach the elections, not from how it appeared in hindsight but how they seemed "in flight". This is particularly valuable as it prevents sweeping generalizations of how an election campaign seemed before the final counting of votes and declaration of results.

It is important to inject this chronological perspective into the recent West Bengal elections, a fortnight after the electronic voting machines revealed an unequivocal mandate for Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamul Congress. With the outcome revealing little or no scope for ambiguity, posterity will probably forget that even as late as the evening of May 18, after all the anecdotal evidence from the districts had been dissected by the pundits and analysts, there was a very large number of people who predicted that the next morning would see Mamata and her loyal followers scurrying for cover. On the final day of polling I had spoken at length to a communist leader and a 'dissident' TMC parliamentarian at the Central Hall of Parliament. Both had assured me that the groundswell of anger against the Mamata administration was far beyond their wildest expectations and that the TMC was heading for a complete rout. One Left stalwart gleefully described Mamata's apparently tense body language as she visited her offices for the "last time" before the declaration of results.

The wild optimism that had gripped the Congress-Left combine in the final days of the election campaign warrants mention. The idea is not to mock their horrible misreading of the situation: even the most experienced of political observers do get their sums wrong. It happened in May 2016, just as it has happened in the past and will happen in the future. Basically, all politicians live in an echo chamber and are inclined to talk up what they envisage is the reality. I recall the remarkable extent to which both non-Congress and media professionals failed to anticipate the phenomenal pro-Congress avalanche in 1984. Even a casual rereading of the press coverage of that election demonstrates how the popular mood was insufficiently understood.

That the state unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) miscalculated the verdict of May 2016 and ended up behind both the TMC and the Congress is apparent. In Left circles, this spectacular debacle is now the stuff of a fierce political battle involving the so-called 'Bengal line' and the orthodoxy. The Bengal CPI(M), it may be recalled, had basically told the Politburo

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to go and take a walk as it, inspired by Biman Bose and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, crafted a variant of a Left-Democratic alliance involving the existing Left Front and the Congress. It was a quiet rebellion and was quite unprecedented from the standpoint of the CPI(M) that, in its internal structures, still adhered to Lenin's top-down command structure. The Bengal CPI(M) was more or less united in its resolve to include the Congress in a broad alliance against the TMC. Indeed, the local unit was so determined that many of its hotheads were even willing to contemplate a formal split in the party.

Now that the disastrous performance of the CPI(M) is a grim reality, there are some awkward choices that confront the party. First, a recalcitrant local party has informed the Politburo that, far from admitting the error of its ways and shamefacedly falling in line, it proposes to continue the alliance with the Congress both inside and outside the legislative assembly, at least until the general election of 2019.

On its part, the Congress, which was the major (and unexpected) gainer from the alliance, has indicated it is willing to play ball with the CPI(M). Humbled in Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and confronted with its own existential dilemmas vis-à-vis the rising regional parties, Congress spin doctors have lauded the Bengal experience as a way of blunting the Bharatiya Janata Party onslaught. Dejected promoters of the Congress-Left deal in West Bengal now say that the TMC prevailed only because a major chunk of the votes the BJP secured in the 2014 general election went totally in favour of the TMC. Earlier, during the campaign, it was presumed by the same people that the anticipated contraction of BJP votes would benefit the main anti-TMC combine. The presumption was a bit unreal since voters who lean towards the BJP are more than likely to favour other anti-Left forces as their second choice. But then, in hindsight, many of the political assumptions of the Congress-Left were based on the spurious belief that the battle to oust Mamata was essentially to restore civil liberties in the state.

Indeed, for the beleaguered CPI(M), the electoral battle in 2016 was essentially one of political survival. There was a time when the CPI(M) was driven by a desire to effect profound social change and use West Bengal as a springboard for expansion into the rest of the country. That dream was put to rest after more than three decades of uninterrupted power and the Left Front's failure to introduce socialism in one province. By and large, those who joined the CPI(M) after Jyoti Basu's victory in 1977 were driven by the desire to benefit from being on the right side of the political power structure. Once power slipped out of the hands of the Left in 2011 and the TMC mounted a campaign of ruthless expansion, the Left found itself struggling to just about stay afloat. It is interesting that, apart from a few mass rallies, the Left has been unable to intervene effectively at the constituency level since 2011. In short, the character of the Left and its political priorities has changed immeasurably. At its best, the Left has piggybacked on loose 'progressive' causes in a bid to roll back the advance of the BJP. To add insult to injury, as the swearing-in ceremony of Mamata last week demonstrated, it is being regarded as a bit player (if not a liability) by the regional parties that now dream of providing a 'federal' alternative to Narendra Modi in 2019.

The growing mismatch between Left hopelessness in West Bengal and the residual pretensions of revolutionary politics in the CPI(M) Politburo is now becoming increasingly visible. There is a growing contradiction between the CPI(M)'s larger political programme and the grim realities

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on the ground in West Bengal. At one time, revolutionary intransigence may have been a shield against the bad times but with international communism now relegated to the history books, there is little hope for future optimism.

Traditionally, in India, communists punched above their weight and made their impact through strategic interventions in the larger 'progressive' ecosystem. That might still happen if the Congress persists with its leftwards lurch but for the CPI(M) to remain relevant, it will have to undergo a doctrinal revision, incorporate the Congress into its definition of 'democratic forces' and, most important, reassess the relevance of being the 'vanguard' party of the proletariat.

Some of these shifts may have been forthcoming had the CPI(M) performed well in West Bengal. Unfortunately for it, the staggering setback has only hardened the resolve of those who see continuing merit in the historical legacy of the Red flag. If the CPI(M) is to maintain relevance it can exercise two possible options. It can either make itself indistinguishable from the CPI of the mid-1970s by tailing the Congress. Alternatively, it can emulate the European examples and submerge itself into the largest 'progressive' party. The present incoherence cannot persist indefinitely.

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POSTAL SERVICES

FINANCIAL EXPRESS, JUN 2, 2016Cabinet approves India Post payments bank proposal

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal by the department of posts’ for foray into

the banking sector by launching the India Post Payments Bank

Ravi Shankar Prasad said The India Post Payments Bank will be a game changer for financial inclusion of the poorest of poor people.(Reuters)

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal by the department of posts’ for foray into

the banking sector by launching the India Post Payments Bank, a development that would help

the central government in its initiative of 100% financial inclusion.

“The India Post Payments Bank will be a game changer for financial inclusion of the poorest of

poor people,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union minister for communications and information

technology. “It will be the largest banking network in the world.”

As per the proposal approved by the Cabinet, the India Post Payments Bank will be set-up as a

public limited company under the department of posts, with a total investment of Rs 800 crore,

according to a government statement. Of this Rs 400 crore would be infused by the government

as equity and the remainder would be given as grant for the next five years, it showed. The

secretary of the department will be a part-time non-executive chairman of the bank’s board.

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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 2, 2016Government finalises Lodhi Road for Common Secretariat to bring together scattered ministriesBy NIDHI SHARMA,

The proposal will be placed before Prime Minister Modi soon for his final approval, officials said.

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government has zeroed in on Lodhi Road in central Delhi for

a Rs 20,000-crore plan to build a Common Secretariat to bring together various central

ministries and departments that are currently spread across different buildings. 

As per a proposal presented by the Central Public Works Department ( CPWD ) to Urban

Development Secretary Rajiv Gauba, residential complexes housing 4,000 families will be razed

to make way for the secretariat that will come up in five years. 

The proposal will be placed before Prime Minister Modi soon for his final approval, officials

said. 

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The ministries and

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departments functioning out of the North Block and South Block on Raisina Hill are unlikely to

be relocated, though, they said. These include the PMO and the key ministries of home, finance,

defence and external affairs.

"CPWD had first proposed to shift all ministries out of the iconic North and South Blocks," a

senior official told ET."However, serious security concerns were raised. So we scaled down the

proposal to include only the government offices spread over different Bhawans," the official

said, requesting not to be identified. 

The official said the proposal now includes only those ministries and departments which have

offices scattered in different buildings. 

This list includes various ministries and departments spread over Krishi Bhawan, Shastri

Bhawan, Paryavaran Bhawan, Sardar Patel Bhawan, Nirman Bhawan, LIC building in

Connaught Place and RK Puram. 

The government has worked out two funding models for the project - a fully funded government

project involving National Buildings Construction Corporation and another entailing funding by

a concessionaire. 

While CPWD will provide alternative housing to the affected residents, the government is yet to

decide how to use the buildings once they are vacated by the ministries and departments. 

Gauba has directed CPWD to consult with ministries and seek views on conversion of Bhawans

into museums before framing the final proposal, officials said. "Converting all Bhawans into

museums is not a wise option.

It is, after all, prime real estate in the heart of Delhi. We can convert one floor or part of the

Bhawans into museums but not the entire Bhawan. We are also exploring the possibility of

leasing these out as office space," an official said. 

The envisaged common secretariat promises to relieve the government of the seemingly

perpetual shortage of office space that forces many departments to pay high rentals.

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PUBLIC FINANCE

ASIAN AGE, JUN 3, 2016Fifth finance panel notified after cabinet nod

After it was approved by the Delhi Cabinet, the city government notified the setting up of the Fifth Financial Commission for the period of five years from 2016 to 2021.

Sudhir Krishna will be the chairman of the commission and K.R. Kishore has been appointed as the member secretary, who will hold office for the period of 18 months.

The order dated April 26 also stated that the AAP government will notify the other two members of the panel separately.

The Delhi government and the BJP-led corporations have been caught in an ugly battle over the implementation of the Fou-rth Delhi Finance Com-mission. The cash-strapped civic bodies have been demanding that the state enhance their tax share to 12.5 per cent, according to the fourth financial panel’s recommendations.

The AAP government, which had last year tabled the report in the Assembly in the face of mounting Opposition pressure and the high court’s instructions, has resolved that it will implement the report if the Centre accepts the recommendations of commission.

The state government sees the Fifth Finance Commission as a solution to the problem. However, the fifth commission’s report will be released after the next year’s municipal polls.

The fifth commission, as per the order, will review financial position of the municipalities along with the measures required to improve their financial position.

“The commission may review the functions assigned to the municipalities keeping in view the availability of resources, and the limitation capacity, especially with regard to the discretionary functions,” the order stated.

“The commission may make assessment of the of the debt position of the municipalities as on March 31, 2016 and suggest corrective measures as deemed necessary, keeping in view the financial requirements of the NCR.”

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TRANSPORT

ASIAN AGE, JUN 6, 2016Delhi government for Rs 2,000 penalty if cycle lanes blocked

The Delhi government has proposed to impose a penalty of Rs 2,000 on anyone obstructing the movement of e-rickshaws and bicycles in non-motorised vehicle lanes, including cycle tracks.

According to the proposal, parking and other types of obstruction like encroachments in non-motorised vehicle lanes will be included in the violation of rules.

City public works department minister Satyendar Jain said the AAP government has sent the proposal to lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung for his approval and after receiving his nod, it will be implemented in the national capital.

“The proposal favours imposing a fine of Rs 2,000 on those obstructing movement of e-rickshaws in the form of parking or encroachment in the non-motorised vehicle lanes,” the PWD minister said.

As per a rough estimate, the non-motorised vehicle lanes are currently spread over 30 km of roads, but most of which are either used for parking or have been encroached by locals.

“The non-motorised vehicle lanes will be marked on roads so that the motorists do not obstruct plying of cycles and e-rickshaws in such lanes,” Mr Jain added.

The AAP government has already sent another proposal of creating bus lanes on major roads of the capital to the lieutenant-governor’s office and obstructing plying of buses in dedicated lanes will attract a fine of Rs 2,000. If the proposal is approved, the new rules are expected to help ease traffic chaos and snarls that have become a regular feature after e-rickshaws became operational. The proposal will make a paradigm shift towards the city being more public transport-centric.

Meanwhile, another high-level meeting to decongest Delhi was convened by the Union urban development ministry. Apart from various other issues, it was decided that parking on footpaths will be made a cognisable offence.

In order to ensure strict compliance, the PWD department has proposed to give “special powers” to junior engineers to impound vehicles and challan motorists obstructing plying of buses in dedicated lanes under a proposed law.

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WOMEN

ECONOMIC TIMES, JUN 1, 2016UP has highest number of women workers among 4 states: Survey

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of women workers at 164 lakhs, according to

a new survey conducted in four states. The study named 'Female Labour Force Participation in

India', was conducted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India

(ASSOCHAM) along with knowledge firm Thought Arbitrage Research Institute (TARI) in

Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. "UP has the highest

percentage (67.5 per cent) of selfemployed women in urban areas among the states selected for

study, however UP has the largest gap between urban and rural workers among these states," said

DS Rawat, Secretary General of ASSOCHAM while releasing the findings of the study. "Of

33.17 lakhs women employed in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across India,

UP employs over two lakhs," Rawat said. "UP also has the highest absolute number of workers

both men and women 498.5 lakhs and about 159.7 lakhs respectively, however it also accounts

for the largest gender gap of about 338.8 lakhs people," he added. Initiatives like Beti Bachao

Beti Padhao, Make in India, Startup India and others are a positive step in the direction to

improve women labour force participation in India, the study said. The ASSOCHAMTARI study

suggests that promoting skill training programmes for women, creating employment

opportunities across India, setting up child care centres in large numbers, ensuring women safety

and security in every sphere through efforts by both the Central and state governments are

imperative to boost women labour force participation in India. It analysed India's performance in

women labour force participation (FLFP) in comparison with the rest of the world and identified

factors that determine FLFP in India along with barriers to its growth. It presents a statewise

analysis of FLFP in four states selected on a nonarbitrary criteria with a special focus on UP as it

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is India's most populous state. It pointed out that though there was a spurt in the number of

working women in India during 20002005, increasing from 34 per cent to 37 per cent, the FLFP

rate declined continuously thereafter and reached 27 per cent in 2014. The gap between rural

men and women labour force participation in India in 2011 stood at about 30 per cent while in

urban centres gap was more pronounced (about 40 per cent). This can be attributed to social and

cultural curtailment and often the lack of work opportunities, it said. It was also highlighted that

in India, marriage decreases the probability of women labour force participation by about eight

per cent in rural areas and more than twice as much in urban areas.

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YOGA

DECCAN HERALD, JUN 1, 2016Govt approves UG, PG courses on Yoga

Giving wider recognition to therapeutic applications of Yoga, the government has approved undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes on the ancient practice at higher educational levels.

On completion of the two new degree courses, students will be able to “introduce yoga therapy techniques for various diseases,” according to syllabi of the Bachelors in Physiotherapy (BPT) and Masters in Physiotherapy (MPT) programmes notified by the University Grants Commission (UGC) recently.

“Introduction of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes on Yoga and its therapeutic applications will not only produce well-learned and certified scholars of the ancient practice but also alternative healthcare practitioners. There is a huge demand for Yoga teachers all over the world because of its multiple health benefits and potential to heal various diseases,” a Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry official told DH.

The syllabus of the two programmes have been prepared by a committee of experts headed by prime minister’s personal Yoga coach and Chancellor of S-Vyasa University, Bengaluru, H R Nagendra.

“Prime minister has suggested that suitable preferences be given in admissions to the two programmes to candidates who have requisite expertise in Yoga,” the official added.

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