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LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED

ASIAN AGE

BUSINESS STANDARD

DECCAN HERALD

ECONOMIC TIMES

FINANCIAL EXPRESS

HINDU

HINDUSTAN TIMES

INDIAN EXPRESS

PIONEER

STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

TIMES OF INDIA

TRIBUNE

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CONTENTS

CIVIL SERVICE 3-7

CORRUPTION 8-12

EDUCATION 13-18

EMPLOYMENT 19-20

FOREIGN INVESTMENT 21

HOUSING 22

INTELLIGENTSIA 23-25

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 26-28

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 29-31

LABOUR 32-33

LIVESTOCK 34-37

POLICE 38-39

POLITICAL PARTIES 40-42

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 43-51

RELIGION 52-55

WOMEN 56-57

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CIVIL SERVICE

HINDU, MAY 31, 2017Retired civil servants pen anthology

A compendium of 30 articles on challenges faced by civil servants during their careers was released on Tuesday.

As many 32 retired civil servants of the 1966 batch have contributed to the anthology titled

“Making a Difference: Candid Perspectives from Civil Servants”.

The book has been edited by ex-Delhi Chief Secretary Shailaja Chandra. Its Kindle edition

was made available on Amazon.in from Tuesday. Among those who shared their

experiences in the book are former Cabinet Secretary B.K. Chaturvedi, ex-Chief Election

Commission N. Gopalaswami and Ms. Chandra.

Range of issues

The articles cover issues such as economic reforms, aviation security, gaps in census data,

and challenges in building national highways.

There are light-hearted stories, too, like one about the transformation of a circus into a zoo

in Maharashtra.

The authors said they hoped that the anthology would inspire the current members as well as

those aspiring for the civil services.

The royalties from the book will be donated to a charity.

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAY 29, 2017Poorquality picture on admit card? Bring ID proof like Aadhaar card: UPSC to civil services aspirants NEW DELHI: Civil services aspirants will have to bring a copy of Aadhaar card or other identify proof to appear in the UPSC's preliminary examination on June 18 in case the photographs on their admit cards are of poor quality. In instructions issued to the aspirants for the test, the UPSC said those who have poorquality photographs on the e admit cards will have to bring "a photo identity proof like Aadhar card, driving licence, passport or voter icard and two passportsized photographs one for each session for appearing in the examination with an undertaking". The admit cards for the examination can be downloaded from the UPSC's website. The Aadhaar card, issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India, is a 12digit unique identity number and it can act as proof of identity and residence. The civil services examination is conducted annually

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by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in three stages preliminary, main and interview to select officers for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others. Mobile phones, calculators, IT gadgets and any other communication device such as bluetooth etc. won't be allowed inside the premises where the examination is being conducted, the UPSC said. Going abroad? Get unlimited incoming & 3 GB Airtel Narsee Monjee Distance Management PG programs Distance MBA Recommended By Colombia "Any infringements of these instructions shall entail disciplinary action including ban from future examinations," the Commission said. Candidates are advised not to bring any valuables/costly items and bags to the examination halls, as safe keeping of the same can not be assured. The Commission will not be responsible for any loss in this regard, the instructions said.

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAY 29, 2017Government starts online performance assessment system for bureaucratsBY AMAN SHARMA 30 Group A officers and 99 Group B officers have been sent on retirement in the past few months.

NEW DELHI: Probity, Sparrow and Solve -- these are the three new buzzwords for the central government by which bureaucrats and their service records are now going to be assessed through online portals to take the big call on retiring the non-performers or identifying those lacking integrity. 

The latest is the 'Online Probity Management System' launched by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) few days ago in association with other ministries to assess the integrity and performance levels of officers. 

The government has been assessing the performance of all officers who have turned 50 or 55 or have completed 30 years of service to decide whether they be allowed to continue in service or compulsorily retired. 

"Since the number of officers under review is huge, it involves lot of paperwork at ministries and the submission of regular physical reports. 

The new 'Probity' portal makes the process completely online by which ministries can now submit their reports online and the government gets a birds eye-view of the status on one portal," a government official told ET. 

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The Minister of State for DoPT and PMO Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said 30 Group A officers and 99 Group B officers had been sent on retirement in the past few months. Citing the huge number of officer records being scanned, Singh said 24,000 Group A officers and 42,251 Group B officers were put under the scanner before the recent compulsory retirements while the government was looking into service records of another 34,451 Group A officers and 42,521 from Group B to check on non-performers.

The new 'Probity' portal is also monitoring the rotation of officers on sensitive and non-sensitive posts to identify officers occupying sensitive positions for over three months, a senior bureaucrat told ET.

 The Sparrow (Smart performance appraisal report recording online window) system of the DoPT is meanwhile being used to make the entire appraisal system online and accessible for review by the ministries concerned. 

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The DoPT has recently extended 'Sparrow' from just the IAS cadre to 13 cadres, including the central secretariat services (CSS). An official said the idea is to make the 'Probity' and 'Sparrow' portals work in conjunction. The third DoPT portal is 'Solve' --a system for online vigilance enquiry for board-level appointees. 

There is a plan to expand this portal for other employees to help the government coordinate between 'Probity', 'Sparrow' and 'Solve' portals to assess officers' performance and integrity. 

PIONEER, MAY 25, 201748 BABUS YET TO FILL ONLINE APPRAISAL FORM4

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As many as 48 IAS officers of the State have not filled their online appraisal forms despite

repeated reminders being sent by the Personnel Department. The last date for marking the entries

under the SPARROW window for online appraisal is December 31, 2016 for the year 2016-17.

Under the All India Services Performance Appraisal Report Rules if the entries are not marked

by the fixed date the process for appraisal cannot be done later.  Because of the delay the work of

reporting/reviewing and accepting at the higher level has been put on hold. If the officers do not

mark their entries by 31/12/2017 the documentation of their appraisal work would not be

completed and their promotions etc would be disrupted. Notably, the manual system of PAR will

not be accepted by the Government of India, 

PIONEER, MAY 27, 2017FIVE IAS OFFICERS GET ACS RANK

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The State Government has promoted five 1986- batch IAS officers to the Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) rank.

The General Administration Department on Thursday issued a notification in this regard on approval of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

The officers who were elevated are Asit Kumar Tripathy, Laxmi Narayan Gupta, Suresh Chandra Mohapatra, Sudashan Pal Thakur and G V Venugopala Sarma.

Sources said these officers were eagerly waiting for elevation as their batch mates in 20 other States have already got ACS ranks.

According to the decision, the promoted officers would continue in their present posts. While Tripathy is now named as ACS, Home, Gupta as ACS, MSME, Mohapatra as ACS, Forests and Environment, Sarma as ACS, Higher Education and Thakur would continue as Chief Administrator, KBK region. 

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TRIBUNE, MAY 25, 2017Haryana no to across-board increase in retirement ageWould mean denying jobs to youth: Finance MinisterSushil Manav

Disappointing thousands of employees, the Haryana Government today ruled out an across-the-board raise in the retirement age from 58 to 60. A three-member Cabinet subcommittee, constituted to study the issue, met for the second time under Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu here today. Significantly, Health Minister Anil Vij was absent once again. 

It was decided to consider a two-year extension for staff of departments facing a staff crunch. The next meeting on June 14 will consider limiting the term of non-IAS department heads as well as the selection norms for filling group D posts.

Capt Abhimanyu said an across-the-board increase in the retirement age was not desirable as it would only mean blocking job opportunities for the youth.

“On May 8, the subcommittee had asked the Chief Secretary to submit a report on the number of vacancies, the number of employees retiring by the year-end and those re-employed. It seems only 39 officials have been re-employed. Departments, such as Elementary Education, Secondary Education and Irrigation will see a large number of vacancies in the coming years. We will have to decide accordingly,” he said.

He said the government had already told the Haryana Public Service Commission and Haryana Staff Service Commission to fill 50,000 vacancies.  Former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda had raised the retirement age to 60 at the fag-end of his tenure. It was reversed by the Khattar government in 2014, but in February this year, it set up a subcommittee to study the issue afresh. 

HINDU, MAY 24, 2017IAS body criticises Gupta’s convictionSays ex-Secretary got then PM’s nod

The IAS Association has hit out against a lower court order, which convicted former Coal

Secretary H.C. Gupta in a case pertaining to illegal allocation of coalfields under the UPA

government.

Statement issued

In a statement, the association said that “approval of then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,

who also had the coal portfolio, had been obtained for coal block allocation.”

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“In seven out of the 10 cases where Mr. Gupta has been accused, the CBI has not found

evidence against him and had sought to close the cases, but the court did not agree. In three

cases, the CBI had filed a charge sheet against him, the allegation primarily being of not

following the guidelines,” the statement said.

Mr. Gupta was the ex-officio capacity chairman of the screening committee set up for

recommending allocation of coal blocks to different private firms. “There is no charge of

personal gain/gratification or in any case against Mr. Gupta. The fundamental point which

clearly emerges is that Mr. Gupta is alleged to have not followed guidelines, and that the

court seems to be taking the view that it is only the chairman who is responsible, not the

members,” said the statement.

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAY 24, 2017Government asks 129 'nonperforming' babus to leave in public interest

NEW DELHI: As many as 129 government officers have been forced to retire in past few months in public interest for being nonperformers, Union minister Jitendra Singh said today. The action is part of review being done by the central government to check deadwood of its workforce. "A total of 30 Group A officers and 99 Group B officers (total 129) have been sent on retirement in past few months," he said during a press conference. The punishment of compulsory retirement was given after reviewing service records of over 24,000 Group A officers and 42,251 Group B officers. He said the authorities are looking into the service records of another 34,451 Group A officers and 42,521 from Group B to check the nonperformers. Singh, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's office, said the government has zerotolerance policy towards corruption and it is committed to ensure citizencentric governance. Help this drivers daughter battle Cancer! MILAAP Ready to go? What about travel Insurance? Bajaj Allianz Recommended By Colombia The Centre had in January terminated a senior IAS officer on grounds of nonperformance. Earlier in 2014, grafttainted IAS couple in Madhya Pradesh, Arvind and Tinoo Joshi, were dismissed from service, four years after an incometax search on their house led to detection of disproportionate assets worth Rs 350 crore and recovery of Rs three crore cash. A service review on a government employee is conducted twice first after 15 years and again after 25 years of completion of qualifying service.

CORRUPTION

STATESMAN, MAY 28, 2017Coal convictions ~ IShantanu Basu

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The conviction of a former Coal Secretary, the present Chief Secretary of a state, and a Director (hereafter referred to as ‘Coal Trio’ ) by a CBI court in the allocation of coal mines raises several disturbing issues.

For one, the government is a collective endeavour, not an individual enterprise, neither a latter-day East India Company nor for that matter a limited liability partnership. The logical corollary is that officers owe their allegiance to 1.30 billion Indians, not to a Board of Directors. The colonial government laid out extensive rules and regulations that have, by and large, stood the test of time, with minor modifications. Procedures of conduct of business and discipline are well-established and lines of control and coordination clearly delineated. With steady expansion of governmental activity, it was but inevitable that this structure would expand. As it expanded so did the levels of accountability such as RTIs, anonymous / pseudonymous complaints, Parliamentary Questions and Committees, Standing Committees, Expenditure Finance Committee, public suggestions, an often an aggressive media, public interest litigation and many more. Individual arbitrariness can now be openly and easily challenged.

Second, the doctrine of separation of powers found extensive application in government rules of business. For instance, a fresh proposal that originates in a Section Officer of a functional wing of a Ministry is routed through an Under Secretary, Deputy Secretary/Director, Joint/Additional Secretary or both, and thence to the Integrated Financial Adviser, finally to the Secretary/ Minister in accordance with the prescribed delegation of financial powers. In case inter-state and inter-ministerial consultation/concurrence is involved, then a similar network takes over before an opinion is given to the originating m. A similar procedure is followed regarding payments.

A sanctioning authority cannot sign a pay order for even a rupee. The officer who prepares a payment bill is different from the on who scrutinizes it, and the final cheque signing authority is different from the one into whose cash-book that payment goes. There is no way a senior officer can act in splendid solitude.

The third issue is the rapidly dwindling financial fortune of the states and the Centre. The recent NK Singh committee report on Government debt pegged the Government of India’s debt to GDP ratio at 68 per cent... with this figure rising alarmingly every year. In 2016-17, recent media reports said that the Government had paid about Rs 12 lakh crore, of a Rs 22 lakh crore expenditure budget, towards debt servicing in the last fiscal alone. In addition, the central government is divesting small percentages of its shares in public sector undertakings and allowing their listing on the country’s bourses.

Further, government shares in large private sector companies are also reported to be up for sale, though to state-owned entities like LIC, mainly. Revenue expenditure too is rapidly rising with expenses on defence and home, bank recapitalisation and currency demonetisation and implementation of the 7th Central Pay Commission award and many more, leaving most capital expenditure to be funded by borrowings. The ongoing economic downturn has not helped governments either; it has instead adversely affected collection of revenues in real terms. It is, therefore, obvious that governments no longer have the solo wherewithal to bankroll mega projects. Hence the rising stress on public-private partnerships, outright and strategic sales of

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public sector units, monetisation of physical assets owned by the government and their entities, often unrealistic dividend payouts by public sector units, and many more measures.

Inevitability of best-conditions/price for state assets thus became the source of sustenance for a cash-strapped government even as its civil servants were hardly trained for it.

Fourth, these adversities coupled with popular expectations have had their invariable fallout on the civil service. Neither were the old rules revised nor were the new rules unambiguous. A classical Weberian bureaucracy that relied on state resources for its absolute power, gradually found itself in the mould of negotiators seeking official and remunerative deals for their employers, from the non-government sector that also was a major source of election financing. The end result was the bureaucracy’s hasty cobbling of one-sided and unilaterally-imposed guidelines that hobbled the negotiator rather than than enabled him/her. Neither were the covenanted bureaucracy’s antediluvian recruitment methods via the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) re-written, nor was their training and, least of all the protection that they merited for their lack of training and business sense.

What use was a botanist IAS officer if he/she could not negotiate because he/she was not trained to do so? What was infinitely worse was the fact of popular perception, fanned moslyt by the media, demanding that a civil servant be a public servant while being a businessman, an evident contradiction in terms. In fact, with rising private participation in the economy, particularly in infrastructure and defence, many more senior civil servants may face the jail at a time when they ought to be enjoying playing golf and camping in their post-superannuation years.

Fifth, successive governments vacillated from allocation to auction of natural and public resources, both equally opaque. Auction of telecom airwaves stymied India’s telecom sector and maimed it with amongst the highest non-performing assets of public sector banks and little resources to expand and improve connectivity. It also wrecked the financial position of BSNL and MTNL. Scandalising the award of licences to new competitors played into the hands of the existing domestic operators’ cartel in the absence of MTNL and BSNL. A compliant TRAI only compounded the mess. Likewise, in coal auctions, an unstated ‘windfall’ gain on a Coal Ministry file virtually ended up making a case for import cartels. Abnormally high rates of spectrum and FM airwaves subsequently caused the Government of India to realise barely a tenth of their target. The shortfall of about Rs. 65000 crore would have been made good by borrowing at interest rates of 7-11 per cent per annum.

Constitutional functionaries and investigation force heads, all serving or former civil servants themselves, to play into this vacuum between policy and implementation, for entirely selfingratiating reasons. This wreaked havoc upon the exchequer and the nation by propounding revenue generation as the be-all and end-all of government policy. In the process, they also severely dented the credibility of institutions they headed. The end result was also abnormally high minimum reserve prices for all natural and public resources that were plainly commercially unviable.

The writer is a senior public policy analyst and commentator

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STATESMAN, MAY 29, 2017Coal convictions~IIShantanu Basu

Regretfully, successive governments and courts, for long attuned to believing there was no replacement for government rules, paid heed to the scandalizing of nearly all public policy decisions on natural and public resources, without much visible and final gain on the legal enforcement of accountability, several years later. Needless to add, opacity surrounding appointment of top civil servants to sensitive posts has always been the subject matter of extensive debate, merit being the critical casualty. Many a constitutional functionary and investigative agency head are presently under the scanner.

A survey conducted by UNODC in 2011 showed that there was corruption in 9.68 per cent of PPP procurement, 19.35 per cent fabricated and false financial statements, another 19.35 per cent colluded with governments to select a pre-determined bidder while 22.58 per cent resorted to bribery to government’s PPP related partners. On the government’s side, 10.11 per cent of officials surveyed felt that government tender evaluators colluded with the private partner, 13.48 per cent accused politicians of colluding with politicians, 20.22 per cent believed that independent consultants hired by the government colluded with the concessionaire, 25.84 per cent believed that there was misrepresentation of facts by bidders and 30.34 per cent thought that concessionaires misrepresented facts. Private PPP partners felt that the prime reason for corruption was due to lack of rules (26.90 per cent), lack of transparency (19.23 per cent), weak monitoring procedures (15.38 per cent) and the absence of enforceable penal provisions (19.23 per cent).

On the other hand, the government responded by blaming lack of due diligence (9.17 per cent), lack of transparency (12.50 per cent), lack of rules and guidelines (14.10 per cent), no penal provisions (14.17 per cent), poor grievance redressal (14.17 per cent) and weak monitoring (18.33 per cent) as the major cause of corruption in PPP ventures. In fact, both government and PPP partners agreed that confidentiality of bids were shared by both partners and that corruption also had its genesis in the definition of the pre-qualification criteria. Likewise, government and their PPP partners agreed that there was pressure from senior members of the government. India is no exception when it comes to PPPs. The coal case possibly had all these failings.

Did the “Coal Trio” have the support of unambiguous rules and regulations in their endeavours in this cess pool? Further, did they have any option but to pay heed to their political master even when their service rules demanded an absolute level of probity that even God would not have? In that event, why did they not record their objections to their Minister even if that meant an outward kick to a sinecure or voluntary retirement? Did investigators and courts consider the fact that these civil servants violated non-binding guidelines? No mens rea has been found in the case against Gupta, Kropha and Samaria, say media reports. Then what is the legal basis of the conviction is the next obvious question? How do government rules and regulations distinguish

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between a corrupt act and a bona fide but failed business decision and who judges such failures? There are no answers so far.

Almost everyone is harping on a particular provision of the Prevention of Corruption Act and service conduct rules that have landed the “Coal Trio” in trouble and which is wide enough to encompass matters from coal mine allocation to sneezing on duty, all justified in the name of “unbecoming behaviour” and the need for “absolute integrity”. Ironically, the very rules that civil servants had authored in the distant colonial past have never been rewritten to address the demands of our democracy.

For instance, taking advantage of government’s travelling allowance rules, a colleague of mine bought two Manipuri ponies while he was posted in that state. On his transfer to Mumbai, the government paid for the transport of his horses. This officer then made a tidy killing at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Race Course where these ponies earned handsome rewards till they were sold for several lakh rupees.

Was this “unbecoming behaviour”? Was this “absolute integrity”? Should the officer have deposited his winnings in the races or the sale consideration of the ponies years later? One could argue either way. That, precisely, is the crux of the Coal Trio’s ongoing tribulations.

Finally, in 1994, a Maharatna’s apex executives were found to be receiving large telephone bills at their official home phones with call details showing overseas outward calls having been made. These executives were also incurring abnormally high entertainment expenses and staff car running costs. This Maharatna then faced a severe orders crunch and were rapidly losing their senior general managers to the emerging private power producers. The company had no choice but to overlook such expenditures if they were to retain their top management. In fact, their gross salaries ran into paltry thousand rupees every month whereas their contract approving powers were Rs. 50 crore and above. For the manifold risks incurred by the Coal Trio and many others like them, present and future, there is neither corresponding protection of rules nor hedging by larger salaries. The quality of recruits to covenanted services is declining in academic attainment standards every year and there are gaping holes in the working strength of each central and allIndia service, often ranging upwards of an unsustainable 40 per cent. Yet the civil services needs just a bare pass mark in an undergraduate pass course although technical, legal and finance officers face barriers like a 60 per cent undergraduate aggregate, GRE, GMAT, CLAT and other scores, work experience, specialised degrees, for much lower salaries. The coal case has made government service even more unattractive, way beyond the absence of pension for post-2003 recruits.

(Concluded)

EDUCATION

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAY 24, 2017MHRD plans national test for school teachers

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In a bid to monitor absence of teachers in schools, a biometric, portable attendance system will

be rolled out in Chhattisgarh from August.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is considering a national-level test for

school teachers based on which states could choose to employ them. “We are proposing a

national test like Common Admission Test (CAT, which the IIMs employ) or SAT (Scholastic

Aptitude Test) for evaluation of teachers. We will have a merit list and let the states decide

whether they want to employ these teachers or not. They still have the choice to conduct their

own exams. We will not force the evaluation on them,” said Anil Swarup, secretary, MHRD’s

department of school education and literacy, on the sidelines of a seminar on “Creating a robust

school education system as the bedrock of new India” organised by the Merchants’ Chamber of

Commerce and Industry. “The CAT-like evaluation will be a benchmark for teachers, but a lot

will depend on discussion with the state governments. We wish to have talks with all

stakeholders. Then the recruiting agencies will decide.”

Meanwhile, Swarup said that around 40 to 50 per cent of B.Ed colleges may lose affiliation in

the coming months for not responding to National Council for Teacher Education’s (NCTE’s)

instructions to furnish affidavits on their functioning.

“The NCTE had asked for affidavits for details like how many teachers these colleges have and

etc. Around 35 to 40 per cent have not even responded. This indicates that there is some

problem. It is becoming clear that a large number of so-called B.Ed colleges are not doing the

work that they are meant to do. We will come down heavily on people who are playing with

education in this country,” Swarup said adding, “Do not be surprised if 40 to 50 per cent of B.Ed

colleges lose their affiliation in coming three to four months.”

In a bid to monitor the absence of teachers from duty in schools, Swarup said that a biometric,

portable attendance system will be rolled out in Chhattisgarh from August.

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“In some states, 25 per cent teachers do not attend schools. We are doing a huge experiment in

Chhattisgarh. All schools will have GPS-linked biometric-enabled tablets to monitor attendance

of teachers. It will also store all data created at the school level. We are introducing the system

first in Chattisgarh as a pilot from August and then hope to extend it all over the country

gradually, but it is again up to the states to introduce the system,” he said adding, “After

Chhattisgarh, some other states like Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan also showed

interest to implement it on their own.”

INDIAN EXPRESS, MAY 27, 2017Delhi govt school principals told to stay an hour extra every FridayPrincipals say this is a move in the right direction and will help in better planning.Shradha Chettri

The teachers and heads of Delhi government schools have a new order from the government: Stay back one hour after school on Friday. While issuing the directive, the government pointed out that heads of schools, during staff meetings, focus more on discussing administrative issues than the quality of education. The circular, from the Directorate of Education (DoE), was sent to the schools on Friday. They have also been told that if any holiday falls on Friday, the meeting must be held on Thursday.

“It has been observed that during staff meetings, the heads of schools are focussing more on

administrative issues, at the cost of monitoring core academic quality. Paucity of time is cited as

the reason for the same,” read the notice sent to schools. Teachers and principals have been told

that teaching, learning and academic discussions are pivotal activities and must be prioritised

above all else.

With this one-hour extension on Fridays, the single shift school teachers will have to stay in

school from 7.15 am to 2.45 pm or 7.45 am to 3.15 pm. Those functioning under the double shift

— for morning schools — will have to stay in school from 6.45 am to 1.45 pm. For evening, the

timing is 12.45 pm to 7.45 pm. There are, however, separate timings for summer and winter.

The government has also enlisted specific issues that need to be discussed during the one-hour

Friday meetings. “The increased duration of one hour is to be purely used for monitoring and

planning discussions on issues such as assessment of learning gaps, strategies to bridge gaps,

maintenance and checking of notebooks, designing of class tests, preparing personal lessons,

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inputs about weak students and initiatives for improvement in their performance,” read the

circular.

From time to time, the meetings can also be utilised to discuss curbing truancy, improving

discipline and punctuality. Principals say this is a move in the right direction and will help in

better planning. “This is a very good initiative as it will help teachers and the schools to prepare

better. It is being practiced in all private schools, so why not have it in our government schools

as well,” said Awadhesh Jha, principal of Sarvodaya co-ed Vidyalaya, Sector 8 Rohini.

However, the Government School Teachers Association (GSTA) raised its voice against the

directive. “If this directive is not taken back, we will protest against it. It has nothing to do with

improvement of the school or the children,” said Ajay Veer Yadav, general secretary, GSTA.

TIMES OF INDIA, MAY 26, 2017`VCs cannot recruit or take policy decisions 3 months before end of tenure'Siddharth Prabhakar

CHENNAI: The state higher education department has directed vicechancellors of state

universities to avoid recruiting or taking crucial policy decisions during the last three months of

hisher tenure.

The department sent a letter stating as much to all universities last month. The animal husbandry

department has reportedly sent similar instructions to the VC of Tamil Nadu Veterinary and

Animal Sciences University(Tanuvas).

It is based on a recommendation from the principal secretary to the governor-chancellor, based

on several representations made by teachers' associations pertaining to corruption in

recruitments.

The department had earlier issued a Government Order (GO) on April 14 that barred universities

from recruitmenting until the redeployment of excess staff from Annamalai University is

completed.

A senior official said the department took the decision to avoid charges of corruption that

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surround recruitments to teaching and nonteaching posts that are advertised during the fag end of

the career of a vice-chancellor.

Professors across the state say they have to pay close to `20 lakh for the post of assistant

professor. They have welcomed the order. Association of University Teachers (AUT) vice-

president N Pasupathy alleged that Salem-based Periyar University violated the directive by

conducting interviews for a postgraduate extension centre at a university in Dharmapuri on May

24. The term of the VC is due to end on June 15. The ratification to conduct recruitments has

been placed for review in Thursday's syndicate meeting.

A senior official from Periyar University clarified that the higher education department treated

this as a special case and gave them permission based on a representation.

"The file was circulated to the syndicate," the official said.

The higher education department took into consideration the fact that Dharmapuri is a

comparatively backward district and that the advertisments were floated a year ago, sources said.

However, no such relaxation will be provided for other universities, a senior official said.

DECCANN HERALD, MAY 31, 2017Govt for making father's name optional

'That's a good suggestion. If somebody wants to mention his/her mother's name, it's his/her choice. We will look into it to see if mentioning the father's name is mandatory,' HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said. PTI file photo

×

The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry has favoured Union Minister Maneka Gandhi’s request for scrapping the rule stipulating the compulsory mention of father’s name on academic certificates.

It, however, needs to find out if mentioning the student’s father’s name for his/her academic certificates is mandatory in higher education.“That’s a good suggestion. If somebody wants to mention his/her mother’s name, it’s his/her choice. We will look into it to see if mentioning the father’s name is mandatory,” HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

“So far we understand that mentioning the father’s name in a student’s certificate should not be mandatory. I know some cases where students submitted the name of their mother for the

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academic records with their educational institutions, instead of giving the name of their father,” an official in the ministry said.

“The issue brought to the notice of the ministry by Maneka Gandhi, however, needs to be examined,” he said.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, MAY 26, 20175.35 lakh UP teachers to get 7th pay commission benefits from May

At least 5.35 lakh teachers at government-run primary and upper primary schools in Uttar Pradesh will start getting salaries as per the recommendations of the seventh pay commission by the end of May.

At least 5.35 lakh teachers at government-run primary and upper primary schools in Uttar

Pradesh will start getting salaries as per the recommendations of the seventh pay commission by

the end of May.

Though the government issued the order on December 22 last year, which stated that the benefits

would be granted with retrospective effect from January 1, 2016, the implementation got delayed

in the absence of a software for the purpose, officials said.

The teachers in about 1.60 lakh schools across the state will get a salary hike, which will range

between Rs 5,733 and Rs 13,674, depending on their pay scale. The arrears from January 2016 to

April 2017 will be paid in two instalments in the financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19.

According to sources, there are plans that arrears will be paid as and when funds are available

with the government.

Finance controller (basic) Manishankar Pandey said the work of salary fixation and data feeding

has begun in all the districts and that officials have been directed to complete the work on

priority.

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Senior finance and accounts officer (basic education) Vimlesh Yadav said the scale of the task

could be gauged from the fact that the work of salary fixation and data feeding of over 13,500

government school teachers was underway in Allahabad district alone.

He said the teachers would receive the enhanced salary by the end of this month.

EMPLOYMENT

STATESMAN, MAY 29, 2017Underemployment more serious than unemployment: Niti Aayog

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 "Severe underemployment" and not unemployment is a more serious problem as a job that needs to be done by one person is often performed by two or more workers, says the government's policy think tank Niti Aayog.

This assertion comes amid Congress's criticism of the Narendra Modi government over creating lesser jobs.

In its draft three-year action agenda report for 2017-18 to 2019-20, the Niti Aayog stressed on the need for creation of high-productivity and high-wage jobs.

"Indeed, unemployment is the lesser of India's problems.

The more serious problem, instead, is severe underemployment.

A job that one worker can perform is often performed by two or more workers," it said.

The draft report was circulated among the Governing Council members (consisting of chief ministers of all states and others) of the Niti Aayog on 23 April.

Contrary to some assertions that India's growth has been jobless, the Employment Unemployment Surveys of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which till date remain the most reliable sources of information on the country's employment situation, have consistently reported low and stable rates of unemployment over more than three decades, it said.

Citing examples, the Niti Aayog said as per NSSO survey, in 2011-12, 49 per cent of the work force was employed in agriculture but the sector contributed only 17 per cent of India's GDP at current prices.

Second in 2010-11, firms with less than 20 workers employed 72 per cent of India's manufacturing workforce but contributed only 12 per cent of manufacturing output, it said.

According to 2006-07 NSSO survey of service firms, the 650 largest enterprises accounted for 38 per cent of services output but only employed two per cent of service workers.

"Put another way, the remaining service firms employed 98 per cent of the work force but produced only 62 per cent of the outcome," the report said.

Citing the example of China's ageing work force, the Niti Aayog stressed on attracting big firms working in that country to India which has availability of large workers at competitive wages.

"The experience of countries that managed to transform rapidly, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China, shows that the manufacturing sector and the ability to compete in the vast global marketplace hold the key to the creation of well-paid jobs for law and semi-skilled workers.

"The 'Make in India' campaign needs to succeed by manufacturing for global markets," it said.

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The report said due to an ageing work force in China with high wages, many large-scale firms in labour-intensive sectors currently manufacturing in that country are looking for lower-wage locations.

"With its large workforce and competitive wages, India would be a natural home for these firms," the report said.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT

TRIBUNE, MAY 17, 2017FIPB goesNot enough reforms happening

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Several irritants deter foreign investment in India — red tape, unpredictable taxes and high debt among them. By scrapping the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), the government has belatedly removed at least one nuisance, one bureaucratic layer. The rest of the bureaucratic maze is intact. Not much should be made of one entity going; it had become redundant long ago. More than 90 per cent FDI proposals come through the automatic route. For the remaining the department concerned will give time-bound clearances and rejections have been made difficult. Officials’ propensity to sit on files may reduce. Still the government needs to shed more fat. There are many undertakings that have either become irrelevant or are a drain on resources.  

More needs to be done if India is to improve its ranking on the ease of doing business — from a low of 130th in a list of 190 nations. The country is missing out a great opportunity thrown by a tough global economic environment; it is not doing enough to set its house in order when surplus global capital is waiting to be tapped. Moody’s downgrade of its China rating on account of the debt debilitating the country’s financial muscle offers India both a chance to fill the space being vacated and a lesson not to go the China way. India’s high debt has held back a global rating improvement. The other constraints frequently pointed out include corruption, infrastructural bottlenecks, inflexible labour laws and a swifter legal mechanism for dispute settlement.

The government’s tendency to retrospectively amend laws is taxing for both foreign and

domestic investors. How crucial laws can be amended quickly and without debate was clear from

the manner in which the money Bill was passed recently. Vast discretionary powers have been

given to tax officials, strengthening the dreaded Inspector Raj. The GST was supposed to lower

taxes, simplify procedures and raise productivity. Doubts have risen with greater clarity about its

final shape. Japan has pledged huge investments in the Delhi-Mumbai and Chennai-Bengaluru

industrial corridors as also the bullet train project. It has made 35 specific suggestions relating,

among others, to taxes, banking, logistics, infrastructure, visas and lack of Centre-state

coordination. But the government has not been responsive enough.

HOUSING

DECCAN HERALD, MAY 24, 2017Overstaying VIPs, a legacy to be rid of×

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Thick-skinned politicians who have been overstaying in the posh government bungalows in the elite New Delhi area or what is called “Lutyen’s Delhi” are going to lose their coveted abode. The NDA government at the Centre is now ready to “destabilise” long-time power-wielders from their very roots. The Union Cabinet has approved an amendment to the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act 1971 that will make eviction of overstaying VIPs from government accommodation much easier. As against 60 days notice at present, the overstaying allottees will be given three days’ time to vacate. Besides, the jurisdiction of lower courts to intervene in such matters has been removed and henceforth, the aggrieved parties can only approach the high court or the Supreme Court for possible relief.

When the British government moved its imperial capital from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1911, architect Edwin Lutyens was commissioned to design the Viceroy’s House (now used as Rashtrapati Bhavan), the Rajpath and a series of sprawling mansions for high-ranking officials, which is recognised as Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LBZ). These 1,000-odd bungalows, sitting on two to three acres each of prime land along with another 9,000 or so plush government accommodation, are much in demand by the new elite of independent India. There are rules and regulations for their allotment, mostly to ministers, high-ranking bureaucrats, MPs, political parties and prestigious institutions, but problems have arisen whenever those losing entitlement have refused to move out. Some prominent politicians or their surviving family members had turned squatters of Lutyens’ Delhi as it was both a matter of status symbol and necessity for them to remain close to seats of power. Currently, there are two Congress chief ministers and a BJP chief minister, who are hanging on to the bungalows allotted to them when they were Union ministers. Over the last three years, the NDA government has managed to evict about 1,500 squatters of different categories, and the new amendment should make the process much smoother.

Maverick advocate-politician Ram Jethmalani, who was briefly the Union minister for urban development in a coalition government in 1998, had questioned the need for maintaining an expensive LBZ for a small section of power-seekers, when a large number of citizens lived in over-crowded localities. He had even set up a six-member committee of architects and planners to suggest ways for optimum utilisation of space with better amenities. Maybe, it is time to take a fresh look at this colonial legacy.

INTELLIGENTSIA

TELEGRAPH, MAY 24, 2017A growing chasm- The disconnect of the intellectuals

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Prabhat Patnaik

One of the striking features of the present situation in the world is that in almost every country there is a disconnect between the people and the intellectuals. Of course, one may interject that they were never connected: there was always a big social divide between them, and little direct contact or awareness of one another. But political parties provided a bridge between them, so that the intellectuals had a constituency among the people through these parties. They were always ideologically divided among themselves, but so were the people; hence the indirect connect between the intellectuals and the people was unaffected by such divisions.

In Britain, for instance, many intellectuals of the Left, empathizing with the workers, built links with them through political parties like the Labour Party or the Communist Party. Conservative intellectuals also built such links, through the Conservative Party, with its rank-and-file supporters.

In general, what the intellectuals said mattered, if not directly to the people then at least indirectly through the political parties, which commanded people's allegiance and which themselves were led by intellectuals or persons who valued intellectuals.What we now have, however, is a growing disconnect of the people not just from the intellectuals but also from the traditional political parties that valued, and to an extent still value, intellectuals.

In India of course, because of the anti-colonial struggle that drew significantly on their support, there was a regard for intellectuals among the common people which was especially pronounced for academics. In the old days in Delhi, when I sometimes committed some minor traffic offence while driving absent-mindedly, I would be let off by the cops when they heard that I taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. In villages, people often looked up to the local school teacher to get their moral bearings right.All this has changed, of late. The emerging Right, almost everywhere in the world, is led by people who neither can be called intellectuals by any stretch of the imagination nor have much use for intellectuals. Neither Donald Trump, nor Narendra Modi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Nigel Farage can be said to have had a notable educational background, not even Marine Le Pen (who had a rather undistinguished legal education). The fact that they shun intellectuals, who also by and large reciprocate the feeling, is not surprising. What is noteworthy is the declining fortunes of political parties that did cherish intellectuals, and, even more importantly, a discernible distrust everywhere among the people for intellectuals. The rise of right-wing parties with divisive agendas and little by way of concrete programmes for the benefit of the people, despite the opposition of the overwhelming majority of intellectuals, is a clear symptom of this.

This is not a sign of coming to maturity on the part of the people where they do not need anyone to tell them what is right and they themselves become their own intellectuals; had this been the case, one would have applauded this new trend. There is alas an element of sheer anti-intellectualism in the air at present which is disturbing because it can be used, and is being used, for fascist purposes.

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How can one explain this change that has occurred? While the answer is not easy, the neo-liberal dispensation to my mind has played a role in this shift, and I can think of at least three ways in which it has done so. First, there is no doubt that intellectuals, including academic intellectuals, have been major beneficiaries under this dispensation. I had once suggested on the basis of a rough calculation (The Telegraph, May 25, 2015) that in India the relative income of a representative academic vis-à-vis a representative peasant today is at least three times what it was in 1973. While neo-liberalism has entailed the withdrawal of support by the State from peasant agriculture, pushing the peasantry into distress and even suicides, it has opened up opportunities for a segment of the middle class, including the intellectuals. Since a worsening of the position of the peasantry is generally accompanied by a worsening of the position of workers, both organized and unorganized, the economic and, hence, the social distance between the working people at large and the intellectuals has increased considerably.

This is not confined only to India. It is a global phenomenon in which the improving position of the Indian and the Chinese middle classes in the era of globalization stands out with particular sharpness. Indeed, economist Branko Milanovic has shown that if we plot the percentage increase in real income between 1988 and 2008 on the vertical axis and the world population in percentile groups of ascending income along the horizontal axis, then we get an 'elephant curve'. Those towards the bottom have not witnessed much increase in real income; those in the middle, consisting, significantly, of Indian and Chinese middle classes, have witnessed much improvement (the elephant's back); those further up have, again, witnessed little improvement (the workers in the advanced countries); while the top decile has certainly witnessed significant improvement (the elephant's raised trunk). Everywhere in short the distance between the working people and the intellectuals, who have participated in this middle class prosperity, has increased. Not surprisingly, people's attitude towards intellectuals is marked today, unlike earlier, with a degree of hostility.

Secondly, whether for this reason or because of a certain idealistic yearning for transcending narrow nationalistic boundaries (which is certainly the case with the European progressives), intellectuals, including even those belonging to the Left, have, by and large, been votaries of globalization. No doubt the progressive ones among them have criticized globalization for its many failings, but the idea of delinking one's economy from globalization has scarcely been mooted in a serious manner by any of them; which is why notwithstanding all their criticism they have willy-nilly fallen in line with the neo-liberal agenda.

In no country of the world have liberal, and even Left, intellectuals played the role of being 'tribunes of the people'. On the contrary, notwithstanding all their sensitivities, they have gone along with the celebration of globalization that finance capital has orchestrated. In our country, where caste consciousness additionally buttresses insensitivity towards the poor, this celebration has taken the form of singing hosannas to high GDP growth, with, at best, a complacent belief that its benefits would eventually 'trickle down' to the poor.

There has been little in short to distinguish the intellectuals from the standard cheerleaders for globalization; and since the intellectuals have also been its beneficiary, it is hardly surprising that the victims of globalization, whether in the US or in India, have lost respect for the

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intellectuals, attributing to them an 'I-am-all-right-Jack' attitude.

This is also the reason why people have increasingly got disillusioned with the traditional political parties, whether of the Right or of the Left: these parties have also gone along with globalization with apparent unconcern for the sufferings it has caused to the working people. True, many progressive parties have gone along with it because any alternative to it would cause immense difficulties in the period of transition, difficulties arising inter alia from the capital flight that would inevitably accompany any delinking from globalization. But whether out of pusillanimity or commitment, the support for globalization among traditional political parties has not endeared them to the working people who are hard-hit by globalization. Hence, even the indirect link that the intellectuals had with the people via political parties has got snapped; the traditional political parties constituting this link have themselves declined.

The third way in which globalization has adversely affected the position of intellectuals is by a process of destruction of education which it has effected by commoditizing it. If critical thinking has been discouraged, if capsules called 'learning' have been sought to be imparted to students whose parents have paid through their noses for such education and who, therefore, have only one over-riding objective, namely, to reproduce these capsules in examination time to get good marks that would enable them to land lucrative jobs for recouping their parents' expenditure, then little scope is left anyway for appreciating the positions taken by intellectuals. The decline in the quality of intellectual life to which globalization has contributed greatly is certainly responsible in part for the decline in the status of intellectuals.

This decline, however, is unfortunate, since the disconnect of the people from the intellectuals, among whom there is usually a preponderance of opinion in favour of tolerance, secularism and the Welfare State, opens the way for fascist and divisive forces to thrive. But overcoming this disconnect requires far greater engagement on the part of the intellectuals than they have shown until now with the plight of those who have been the victims of globalization.

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAY 25, 2017

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US proposes to reduce developmental assistance to India

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has proposed to reduce its developmental assistance to India from USD 85 million in 2016 to a mere USD 33.3 million in 2018.

A major portion of the proposed developmental assistance to India is the US Agency for International Development-led global health programme, which again has dropped from USD 35.5 million in 2016 to USD 19.6 million for the next fiscal beginning October 1, 2017.  

In the budget proposal, the US' financial assistance to India for international military education and training has been slightly increased from USD 1.2 million to USD 1.3 million, whereas the financial assistance towards counter- terrorism cooperation has been retained at USD 2 million. 

Overall, US President Donald Trump proposed a massive reduction in American aid to South Asian countries.

In his maiden annual budget, he has chopped off foreign military financing to all countries in South Asia except for Pakistan.

Afghanistan, where US has stationed more than 8,000 troops and where the Trump Administration is considering sending more soldiers on the ground, has managed to retain largest level of American funding for the fiscal year 2018. 

According to the annual budget proposals sent by the State Department to the Congress, the entire foreign assistance to South and Central Asian countries have been reduced from about USD 2 billion in 2016 to USD 1.4 billion in 2018.

Of this, Afghanistan alone accounts for more than half USD 782 million for the fiscal year 2018. 

For Bangladesh, the State Department has reduced the financial assistance from USD 210 million in 2016 to USD 138 million in 2018.

A major chunk (USD95 million) of assistance to Bangladesh is towards strengthening of democracy and economic development of this South Asian country.

Maldives, which is facing extinction from the dangers of climate change, has received a massive cut in developmental assistance from USD 3.3 million in 2016 to a mere 440,000 in

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2018, as per budgetary State Department proposals.

Nepal too is off the Trump's list of Foreign Military Financing as the budgetary proposal for 2018 indicates the figure to zero as against USD 18 million in 2016.

But it has maintained the same level of assistance towards military training and education: USD 0.8 million in 2016 to USD 0.9 million in 2018.

Sri Lanka is another country where Trump has proposed a massive budgetary cut in its financial assistance which has come down from USD 42.5 million in 2016 to a mere USD 3.3 million in 2018. 

Most of the funding (USD 2.8 million) would towards peace and security including combating weapons of mass destruction, and stabilisation operations and security sector reform. 

Military training and education accounts for another half a million USD, according to US budgetary papers.

The author is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

PIONEER, MAY 26, 2017US CUTS PAK MILITARY AID BY 60%Overall, Trump Admin proposes massive $190 million reduction in financial support

The Donald Trump Administration has slashed its Foreign Military Funding (FMF) to Pakistan from $255 million to $100 million for the 2018 fiscal, but has kept its options open whether it would be a grant or should be converted into a loan, according to a US official. In all, the US State Department has proposed a massive $190 million reduction in its financial aid to Pakistan as compared to the 2016 fiscal.

Last year, the US assistance to Pakistan under the State Department budget was $534 million, which included $225 million towards foreign military funding. The current 2017 fiscal ends on September 30 this year.

“The Foreign Military Funding or FMF for Pakistan would be provided in the form of a loan guarantee,” said Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management of Budget in the White House.

Responding to questions, Mulvaney said the Trump Administration has proposed to convert its FMF programme to many countries from aid to financial loan. Pakistan is one of those countries. However, the White House added, “Whether the funding is provided through grants, or as a

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subsidy for a guaranteed loan, is an option the State Department can exercise to ensure our foreign assistance best supports our national interests.”

The White House said that FMF to Israel and Egypt would continue to be in the form of grant. “While we may use FMF to leverage loans for some countries, we will still maintain the flexibility to use it as grant assistance where needed,” a State Department spokesman told PTI when asked about the budget proposal of $100 million in foreign military funding to Pakistan.

“This budget focuses on bilateral FMF assistance requested for Israel ($3.1 billion), Egypt ($1.3 billion), Jordan ($350 million), and Pakistan ($100 million),” the spokesman said on Tuesday.

“This is one of the options that the administration had explored in its internal deliberations, but the request itself does not make that determination,” the White House later clarified indicating it might revert to the original financial grant to Pakistan to sell military hardware if need be.

“Our argument was instead of giving somebody $100 million, we can give them a smaller number worth of loan guarantees and they can actually buy more stuff. We did not change it for Israel. We did not change it for Egypt,” said Mulvaney.

In another major development, the Trump administration in its annual Budget for 2018 fiscal beginning October 1 this year has proposed to end the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund (PCCF), which was budgeted as $9 million in both 2016 and 2017.

PCCF was designed to build the counterinsurgency capabilities of Pakistan’s security forces engaged in operations against extremists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

“While the counterinsurgency purpose underlying the PCCF account and the maintenance of close US Pakistani military ties remain important administration priorities, these needs have been met through other accounts, including Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and International Military Education and Training (IMET), since the FY 2014 Request,” the White House said in its budgetary explanation.

The State Department said the $100 million in FMF to Pakistan will be used to advance US national security interests in that country by supporting Pakistan’s capacity to improve stability and security and fight terrorism, including through the elimination of safe havens for terrorist and militant organisations.

The money would be used to continue efforts to build the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency capabilities of Pakistan’s security forces to improve security in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, achieve progress on joint US-Pakistan objectives, including bilateral efforts to decimate core al-Qaeda elements and confront the emerging threat posed by ISIS-Khorasan Province.

Funds will also improve Pakistan’s ability to participate in US-led Coalition Maritime Forces and patrol its maritime borders to stem the flow of illicit materials and personnel, it said.  

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

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PIONEER, MAY 27, 2017TRUMP’S SAUDI VISIT AND WIDENING ISLAMIC SCHISMManan Dwivedi 

Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia to rebuff the various attempts at policy making by Obama when he struck a clearly discernible nuclear deal with Iran and attempted a wholehearted rapprochement between the ‘Sharia nation’ and the ‘Satan Nation’ as has been the nomenclature employed in the general tardy narrative between both the nations

President Donald Trump   tweeted on landing in Saudi Arabia, where-in the Saudi state head was brought on an aircraft car to receive the US President. The tweet expressed, “I have reached Riyadh and I am looking forward to the afternoon and the evening that lies ahead.” The royal welcome accorded to Trump happens to be that of phalanx of red, white and blue contrails as the Air Force One, hovered over Riyadh and the terminology used by the Saudi leaders has been “Historic”. The multistory image of the President was another mainstay of the larger paraphernalia which accompanies Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia. The entire rubric of the crusade against ISIS and fundamentalist terror happens to be a prime time concern of the American dream and the intent to prepare the homeland and protect it with repeated fusillades against the global spread of the terror group internationale.

The entire visit and the ministrations of the American empire are pitted against the rising overarch of Islamic terror, which has already expressed its slithering expanse and impactful malfeasance in the nations premised in the European continent apart from the “territorial avatar” of ISIS in the hotly contested terrain of West Asia. Since a few years, the US has been attempting to forge a consensual coalition, as an adjunct to the global, “War on Terror”, which envisages the “Sunni NATO” nations such as Saudi Arabia which can go ahead with the annihilation of the Shia expanse in West Asia. Also, the US made attempts to normalise bilateral relations with Iran but with the advent Trump, that thought pattern in the policy reaches a change. Washington’s strivings are on to forge a bond with the NATO countries with twilight zone nations such as Turkey and the traditional allies such as Saudi Arabia. The efforts have always been on the anvil in order to cobble together an edifice and a coalition to counter the Shia group of nations. Thus, an international front to counter global jehadi terror can be what the “Global-Peace-Doctor” ordered for the day.

The controversial earnestness with which President has donned the mantle in the US is, part of the global strivings with the objective being the containment of global terror groups such as ISIS, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, et al. The allegation which can be labelled at Washington is that the strike potential, which has been unleashed over West Asia, has not been replicated with the Korean antagonist who is a perennial nation State actor which is recalcitrant in its ways and posturing. The Committee on Foreign Relations too says, “Islam’s schism, simmering for fourteen centuries, doesn’t explain all the political, economic, and geostrategic factors involved in these conflicts, but it has become one prism through which to understand the underlying tensions. Two countries that compete for the leadership of Islam, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, have used the sectarian divide to further their ambitions. How their rivalry is settled will likely shape the political balance between Sunnis and Shias and the future of the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen.” There is a proxy battle which has

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always been fought with the jehadi terror mongers attempting a novae façade of unity to wage a war of attrition against Islamic terror. Historically, too, the succession matter over who had to be anointed as the head of the religion was formed which divided Islam into twin sects of Shias and Sunnis. It was Ali Ibn Abi Talib, who formed the name around which the Shias collaborated and congealed as one part of the Islamic schism. The Sunnis remained as the followers of the group of Mohammad. It is this sectarian divide which has been the brimstone over which several West Asian conflicts have been spawned and the myriad nations from outside the religion and the region have been involved in the regional drama as it unfolded through the last few decades in the twilight zone of international polity. The treatment meted out to the non-Arab Muslims too became a schism in the region and the Arab and non-Arab regions on the whole.

An American web portal informs us that, “Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 gave Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini the opportunity to implement his vision for an Islamic government ruled by the “guardianship of the jurist” (velayat-e faqih), a controversial concept among Shia scholars that is opposed by Sunnis, who have historically differentiated between political leadership and religious scholarship. Thus, one of the all encompassing and all pervading divisions between Shias and Sunnis has been over the issue of the amalgamation of the “Political” and “Religious” which is what the entire regional fracas is all about to a certain extent. The NATO argument too informs us, “What is to be guarded against is the all pervading expanse and the rise of the state of Iran as a regional power.” The recent lifting of sanctions against the nation state of NATO has also been an achievement of sorts for President Rouhani, who is a reformist and has romped home as the victor in the Iranian elections with a thumping victory percentage of 57 per cent. Arab Spring too brought out Iran into prominence as the various nations were at least symbolically democratised, especially in the nations with a Shia majority. Tehran has mobilised the entire Shia communities across the West Asian firmament in order to assist the Government forces in Assad’s Syria. Thus, apart from the American concern of toppling the applecart of the ISIS, the Shia Iran’s regional influence too remains a cause to be militated against if stability and stolidity has to be reached in the West Asian region. This is the quintessential West Asian dilemma, which America faces in both the short and long term. President Trump has become the first American President to visit a West Asian nation as one of his initial visits abroad after entering the heady portals of White House. Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia to rebuff the various attempts at policy making by President Obama when he struck a clearly discernible nuclear deal with Iran and attempted a wholehearted rapprochement between the ‘Sharia nation’ and the “Satan Nation” as has been the nomenclature employed in the general tardy narrative between both the nations.

The New York Times reports, “The Saudis treated him like royalty, with red carpets, lavish meals and American flags flying everywhere. They repeatedly used the word ‘historic’ to describe his visit, gave him a medal, projected a multistory image of his face on the side of the palatial Ritz-Carlton hotel, where he was staying.” It’s the spectacle which forms the nascent characteristic of US Foreign policy which hinges on larger-than-life antics with US recently “missiling” Syria under the rubric of strict reservations being expressed by Russia. The Saudi foreign Minister was informed that the Trump Administration aims at downing extremism and the export of extremism by Tehran. In summation, the American standpoint in the Houthi conflict in Yemen and the proclamation of an arms deal worth $110 billion with Riyadh happen to be the other frameworks which bring together the twin traditional allies against an Islamic state which breathes its last in the bad lands of Iraq.

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(The writer teaches International Relations at Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi) 

LABOUR

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BUSINESS STANDARD, MAY 27, 2017Govt wants to reduce PF contribution to increase take-home salaryTrade unions oppose saying it will weaken the social protection of employeesArindam Majumder 

The labour ministry has proposed to reduce the employer’s contribution to the Employees’ Provident Fund   (EPF) from 12 per cent to 10 per cent. The proposal, which will be opposed by trade unions, will come up for approval in the meeting of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) on Saturday.

Around 50 million employees in the country receive provident fund   contributions. The move, according to the labour ministry, will increase the take-home salary of employees. But trade unions opposing the move termed it an attack on social security.

According to the agenda paper of the meeting, the Employees’ Provident Fund   Organisation’s (EPFO’s) CBT will consider a proposal to lower “the rate of contribution to be paid by employer and equal contribution by employees from the present 12 per cent to 10 per cent by issue of appropriate order by the Central Government”. 

The Employees’ Provident Fund   and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, empowers the Central government to lower the contribution rate and the government intends to issue a notification to effect the change. The ministry has also said that the main grounds on which it has requested the EPFO   to place the proposal in the agenda are that there were “demands from various quarters on many occasions to review the present rate of EPF contribution and placing it at par with other social security schemes, such as the National Pension System”.

“There have been demands from various quarters on many occasions to review the present rate of EPF contribution and place it at par with other social security schemes such as the NPS, etc,” the letter from the labour ministry said.

The Economic Survey had called for giving a greater choice to workers to decide if they wanted to make their contribution to the EPF.

Advocating labour reforms, the Survey said low-wage employees (people earning less than Rs 20,000 salary per month) received just 55 per cent of their salary because 45 per cent was deducted under heads such as the EPF, Employee Pension Scheme (EPS), Labour Welfare Fund (LWF), and Employee State Insurance (ESI).

It said low-wage employees might prefer receiving these contributions now than benefitting from them later.

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“Given the difficulty of reforming labour laws per se, the thrust could be to move towards affording greater choice to workers which would foster competition amongst service providers,” the report said.

Trade union   leaders said this would be an attack on employees’ social protection. “We will definitely oppose this move; this is being done for employers’ interests and will weaken workers’ interests,” said DL Sachdeva, secretary, All India Trade Union   Congress.

Ramen Pandey, president, Indian National Trade Union   Congress (INTUC), said: “We from the INTUC   have no hesitation to say that the proposal in Item No10 of the said meeting agenda appears to be the most retrograde policy proposal brought before the CBT.”

LIVESTOCK

ASIAN AGE, MAY 27, 2017

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Govt bans sale of cows for slaughter at animal markets

The rules make it mandatory for the cattle buyers to give an undertaking citing that animals are not for slaughter.

New Delhi: In a move that is expected to have huge repercussions on the country’s meat industry, the government has banned the sale of cattle at animal markets for the purpose of slaughter.

According to the Central regulation, only farmland owners will be allowed cattle business at animal markets. The notification covers bulls, bullocks, cows, buffaloes, steers, heifers and calves, as well as camel.

The rules make it mandatory for the cattle buyers to give an undertaking citing that animals are not for slaughter. The market committees will have to check the buyers' bonafides and keep records of sale and preserve it for six months, said the government notification effective from Friday.

“Take an undertaking that the animals are bought for agriculture purposes and not for slaughter,” reads a directive to committees overseeing animal markets in the rule notified under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act of 1960 that gives the Centre powers over animal welfare. Importantly, the eight page rule also says cattle buyers cannot sell the animals outside the state without permission.

“Taking animal outside the state will require special approval of the state government nominee,” it said.

While the new rules prohibits sale of “young” and “unfit animals,” it prescribes about 30 norms for animal welfare in markets, including water, fans, bedding, ramps, non-slippery flooring, veterinary facility and separate enclosure for sick animals.

The regulations also make it mandatory for veterinary inspector to certify proper loading and unloading of animals to ensure they are not cramped inside trucks.

 "No animal market will now be able to run without approval of district animal market committee to be headed by a magistrate and having two representatives of government-approved animal welfare groups," it further added.

The rules have been drafted following the Supreme Court directions aimed at improving condition of animals in these markets.

Over the last year, rumours of cow slaughter and the sale of beef have triggered violence in parts of the country and is a sensitive political topic since the BJP led government came to power in 2014 with several BJP led states enacting strict laws to punish cow slaughter.

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HINDUSTAN TIMES, MAY 27, 2017Beyond bull: Why new restriction on cow slaughter will hurt India

When the Government of India issued an ‘extraordinary’ notification on Tuesday, restricting the sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets and imposing rules that put a majority of the country’s animal markets in danger, it willy-nilly hit much more than the meat industry.

Kunal Pradhan 

It is easy to frame rules banning the slaughter of the cow, its progeny, its distant cousin the water

buffalo, and its passing acquaintance the camel. It is much harder to think of life without buttons,

soap, toothpaste, paint brushes and surgical stitches.

Only 30% of cattle slaughtered in India is used for meat – either local consumption or export –

while 70% of the carcass is traded for industries that deal in the aforementioned products, along

with about three-dozen other items of daily use. Most of the 30% cattle slaughtered, of course, is

the water buffalo because the culling of cows for meat is either totally banned or allowed with

strict riders in all but five states. What’s more: eating, selling, transporting or exporting meat of

the cow genus is a non-bailable offence, punishable with up to 10 years in jail in all of northern,

central and western India.

So, when the Government of India issued an ‘extraordinary’ notification on Tuesday, restricting

the sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets and imposing rules that put a majority of the

country’s animal markets in danger, it willy-nilly hit much more than the meat industry. Sources

say the meat industry relies on animal markets for 90% of its supply. The impact on allied

industries is unclear.

The government may think the decision is politically rewarding at a time of easy vigilantism. But

there are economic implications across the board on exports, the environment, the rural economy

-- issues that should have been addressed before taking a hard line.

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According to the 2012 Livestock Census, India has a total of 191 million cows and bulls, and

109 million water buffaloes. These are together roughly 25 per cent of India’s human population.

Most of these end up on the streets at strays, spewing methane in this age of global warming.

With culling a bad word now, the number, according to experts, will rise, “perhaps

exponentially”.

India exported 2.4 million tonnes of buffalo meat to 65 countries in 2014-15, or 23.5% of global

beef exports according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. It was worth Rs 30,000

crore, accounting for 1% of India’s total exports, part of the “Pink Revolution” that Prime

Minister Narendra Modi had so derisively talked about during the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign.

As far as the bovine economy goes, however, it was only a tiny sliver.

The biggest impact of the government notification will be on India’s largely non-mechanized

rural economy, in which the life cycle of bulls and bullocks provides farmers with a sustainable

economic model. A couple of former colleagues and I had worked out the math in an article for

India Today magazine a couple of years ago.

If a farmer buys a bullock for Rs 25,000, it remains sellable at the same price for about two

years. Once it becomes unproductive due to injury or illness, the farmer sells it for culling for

about Rs 10,000. This 40% return on investment then allows the farmer to raise capital for a

replacement animal. If this replacement cost is taken away from the farmer, it not only makes it

harder to procure a new set of healthy bullocks for ploughing, it adds the additional burden of

paying for the animal’s upkeep.

In 2014, the used-cattle market in Maharashtra, for example, yielded an annual turnover of Rs

1,180 crore. When the state government banned the culling of cow and its progeny in 2015, a

farmer with an unproductive bull suddenly had nowhere to go. Since the average bovine

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consumes about 65 litres of water and 40 kg of fodder a day, estimates put the cost of taking care

of a bull at nearly Rs 40,000 per year at 2015 prices. With an estimated 1.18 million

unproductive bulls in Maharashtra alone, feeding them costs about Rs 4,700 crore per year.

The ban in Maharashtra did not include buffaloes, making the new government notification all

the more unpalatable.

So, when anti-culling supporters celebrate taking away the most delicious item on the menu in

Lucknow’s Tunday kababs or in a Goan shack, they should consider exactly what they’re losing,

and ask themselves: Is depriving other people their meat really worth the cost?

POLICE

ECONOMIC TIMES, MAY 25, 2017After IAS secretaries, government to link IPS promotions too with performanceBY MANU PUBBY

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The message is clearly that performance will be rewarded and that merely having a long tenure left is no guarantee for a good posting.

NEW DELHI: The upcoming selections for the rank of director general for Indian Police Service officers are expected to follow the same mantra as that for the post of secretary for Indian Administrative Service officers earlier this month, with the government rewarding performance as per its new policy. 

A significant number of IPS officers are likely to be empanelled as DG equivalent, making it more difficult to get top postings that will be reserved for DGs, people familiar with the matter said. 

This will be in line with empanelment of many IAS officers as secretary equivalent, which has made it harder for bureaucrats to hold top posts such as heading departments or ministries. 

The government had empanelled 17 IAS officers from the 1984 batch as secretaries while 15 were made secretary equivalent. Similarly, from the 1985 batch, 20 were designated secretaries while 21 made it to the secretary equivalent post.

"In the past, a small number of officials were given the equivalent post and this was mostly because they had short time for retirement and would not be ideal for an important post that requires long service. 

This time, even officials with long tenures - even more than two years left - have been given the equivalent tag," a government official said on condition of anonymity. 

The message is clearly that performance will be rewarded and that merely having a long tenure left is no guarantee for a good posting. This is being seen as part of a larger move by the Narendra Modi government to make officials more accountable.

There is no clarity yet on the criteria to be followed for selection to the equivalent ranks, one of the persons cited earlier said, but it is believed that the 360 degree profiling being carried out at the very top evaluates the case of each officer before taking a call. The profiling is believed to rely not only on the official files and records of the officer but also an informal channel of feedback to get a holistic view. 

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POLITICAL PARTIES

DECCAN HERALD, MAY 24, 2017The changing party systemPeter Ronald deSouza,

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The rise and rise of the BJP across India, even in places where it was weak, has produced several explanations for its success. These range from the presence of Modi as the new ‘Loha Purush’ of Indian politics, to Amit Shah its Chanakya, to the dedication of RSS cadres who, as the foot soldiers of the party, take its message through the last mile, to the apparent policy profusion and decisiveness of the NDA government as compared to the alleged policy paralysis of the UPA, to the three average monsoons that have allowed the rural crises to muddle through rather than become full blown. 

Beyond these causal factors, the smiling of lady luck is also acknowledged. While it would be interesting to compile a long list of factors that have contributed to the rise of the BJP, all of which I believe are partly valid, I think there are five points, in particular, that are key to its success. 

The most significant factor is of course the rise of Modi as a plebiscitary leader. A plebiscitary leader is one who is able to appeal to people over the heads of organisations and institutions and thereby build an affective relationship between him and his followers. This relationship results in a submission of the followers to the world view of the leader, one where the attitude of critical assessment is replaced by uncritical loyalty. The followers believe the picture of the world that the leader presents. 

The leader relieves the cognitive stress that the followers experience as they try to make sense of the world. He explains it. He identifies the causes, the enemies and the solutions. Pseudo secularism is a cause, as is Nehruvian socialism and disrespect of the majority culture. Pakistan is the enemy. A muscular nationalism is the way to restore India to its former glory. These are short forms of longer arguments but they constitute the running themes of Modi’s transformation of public discourse.

The second factor, perhaps equally important, is the organisational form that has emerged in the BJP. While it is reminiscent of the structure that had served the Congress well in the 1950s and 1960s, so comprehensively described in The Congress Party of India: the Dynamics of a One Party Democracy by Stanley Kochanek, the BJP has added to that organisational form many structures at every level. 

The feedback mechanism of the BJP allows the party president to monitor, respond, revise and reprimand. As a result the power of the local gets diminished and the power of the top gets enhanced. 

Over time, an authority form, more like the Communist parties than the Congress of yore, has emerged. Amit Shah has created an organisational form that is truly remarkable. It customises policies for local requirements, retains control at the top resulting in sycophancy and fear of dissent, and responds effectively to the changing dynamics of local and national politics. It is a cross between an FMCG company and a Lalaji’s firm. 

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Added to this power of a strong leader and an effective organisation are the linkages between the BJP and social and the cultural fronts that comprise the Sangh Parivar. Here too, there are parallels between the BJP and the Congress of an earlier period. 

The latter’s connects with labour unions, peasant movements, youth organisations, mahila mandals etc, gave it legitimacy and helped its agenda setting. The old Congress was a movement party which now the BJP has become. 

Secular spaces

However, in addition to its having organisational presence in many of the secular spaces of state and society, the BJP has importantly also established its presence in the cultural domain deliberately changing the key elements of the national imagination and discourse. This is well documented in the recent book by Amrita Basu, Violent Conjuncture in Democratic India. 

Nationalism has become the key platform of our public discourse with the nation being endowed a sacredness such that critical discourses are seen as anti-national and unpatriotic. Writer Kalburgi’s scepticism, and those of other rationalists who challenge this cultural assertiveness, are deemed as being offensive.

To the organisational form, led by a strong leader, the BJP has added a cultural enchantment that taps into India’s diverse cultural resources and re-interprets it from the perspective of a narrow cultural nationalism. Bharat Mata is elevated to the sacred pantheon. The nation is Bharat Mata. These two factors of ‘movement party’ and ‘cultural nationalism’ give the BJP the power to drive the public discourse. It sets the terms to which the other parties must respond.

One is tempted here to briefly mention the fifth factor which is India’s strategic value in the current global geopolitics. To contain China, weaken Russia and to create new alignments in Asia, India has a crucial role. India is a beneficiary both of its location and its size. This is what I mean by luck. India’s interests and the interests of the western global order seem to be aligned. 

These five aspects in combination have given the BJP the winning formula. Will it produce the same one dominant party system of the past described by thinker Rajni Kothari where intense party competition was between one dominant party — the Congress — and other parties who were only parties of pressure never having the potential to replace the Congress. Each party of pressure connected with a faction within the Congress with whom it shared ideological affinity. Is a one dominant party system of the BJP emerging? Both yes and no. ‘Yes’ because of the BJP’s dominance due to the five factors mentioned earlier. This dominance will stay, at least for now, unless two or more factors fall away. 

And ‘No’ because, unlike the Congress which was a catch all party of multiple ideological persuasions, the BJP is ideologically fairly homogenous because of the project of Hindutva. So

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with whom will the parties of the opposition align? Something to think about for our democracy.

(The writer is Professor, Centre for Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi)

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

TELEGRAPH, MAY 27, 2017A bleak outlook- The road to mob rule in Uttar Pradesh

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Politics and Play - Ramachandra Guha

In March 1946, a three-man 'Cabinet Mission' arrived from England to seek to transfer power from British to Indian hands. They invited Mahatma Gandhi to come from Sevagram to meet them. Gandhi's old patron and disciple, G.D. Birla, wanted to host him at his capacious house in the heart of New Delhi. But Gandhi decided to stay in the Bhangi (sweepers') colony instead. Birla now hastened to install electricity and provide fresh water to the humble home which his Master had chosen to grace.

Before Gandhi came to Delhi, his secretary, Pyarelal, sent Birla a note conveying the Mahatma's wishes that "these arrangements will be permanent. If the wires are removed the moment he goes out of the Bhangi Niwas, the whole thing will become a farce". As Pyarelal, speaking here for Gandhi, directly and clearly put it: " There should be some permanent improvement in the Bhangi Niwas as a result of his stay there."

Gandhi arrived in Delhi on April 1, 1946. The same evening, at a prayer meeting, he called "Untouchability the blackest spot in Hinduism". The "least expiation" caste Hindus could do, he remarked, was " to share with the Harijans their disabilities and to deny ourselves the privilege[s] which the latter cannot share".

I was reminded of this incident when reading of the recent visit by the Uttar Pradesh chief minister to the home of a Border Security Force soldier who had been brutally murdered by the Pakistani army. Before the UP chief minister reached the dead soldier's house, his staff had installed an air-conditioner in the living room, along with sofas and a carpet. Fresh towels had been placed in the bathroom as well. However, no sooner had the visiting VIP left that the AC, the sofa, the carpet, were all removed.

×When this incident was reported in the press, some commentators professed surprise that a ' yogi' could want an air-conditioner. But it is not merely a love of luxury that should call into question the appellation the UP chief minister has awarded himself. Where yogis are supposed to eschew power for a life of meditation and spiritual quest, this man ran a powerful and resource-rich enterprise before acquiring political control of India's most populous state. And where holy men are supposed to preach compassion and mutual understanding, this man has often preached and sometimes provoked violence against his fellow Indians.

Shortly after the head of Gorakhpur's Gorakhnath Math became his state's chief minister, Nayantara Sahgal - one of UP's most respected writers - observed: "As a practitioner of yoga for many years, I have been taught that a cardinal principle on the spiritual path is non-violence. No one who advocates violence is a yogi so permit me to refer to the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh as Shri Adityanath."

While Sahgal was disturbed by Adityanath's appointment as chief minister, other writers celebrated it as a master stroke. One columnist wisecracked that making the naughtiest body in the class the monitor was the best way to keep the class in order. Some reporters thought the

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belief that Adityanath was anti-Muslim could not be true, since at least one of the keepers of cows in the Gorakhnath Math was a Muslim.

Adityanath has been in power in UP for a mere two months. In that brief period, he has - sadly - proved that the older and more independent-minded writer, Nayantara Sahgal, has a deeper understanding of his character and politics than younger writers anxious to keep in with the ruling order.

No sooner had he assumed office that the new chief minister ordered a crackdown on 'illegal' slaughter houses. However, before checking the records as to which abattoirs had proper clearances and licences and which did not, the police, goaded by Adityanath's followers, indiscriminately attached properties across the state. Meat export is one of UP's few viable industries, earning valuable foreign exchange as well as employing tens of thousands of people. By his hasty order, and the bullying manner in which it was implemented, the chief minister imperilled his state's economy as well as the livelihood of many of its citizens.

Meanwhile, Adityanath's appointment as chief minister emboldened freelance gau gundas to venture into the streets, looking for targets. In the past two months, several attacks on innocent citizens by cow vigilantes in UP have taken place. Remarkably the police have sided with the gau gundas, letting them go free while foisting criminal charges on those they attacked. There have also been more generalized attacks on Muslim homes and hamlets, by Hindu extremists claiming to be against 'love jihad'.

Hindu-Muslim tension has been visibly on the rise since Adityanath took office as chief minister. So have tensions between upper and lower castes. In Saharanpur district, the Thakurs - perhaps emboldened by the spectacular rise of one of their own - savagely attacked Dalits and burnt their homes. As one Dalit who was at the receiving end of Thakur brutality so poignantly put it: " Jab Chunav hoté hain humko Hindu bana diya jata hai, aur baad mein Dalit (When elections take place we are told we are Hindus, but as soon as the elections are over we become Dalits once more)."

The UP police seem to be intimidated by Adityanath's gangsters, increasingly prone to taking orders from them. Meanwhile, some courageous citizens of UP have moved the courts seeking the prosecution of Adityanath for hate-filled speeches that he made in the past. In one recorded speech he said that "if they take one Hindu girl, we will take 100 Muslims girls", and further: "If the government is not doing anything, then the Hindus will have to take matters into their own hands." On another occasion, Adityanath sat on the dais while one of his supporters said Hindus should dig out dead bodies of Muslim women and rape them.

The evidence that Adityanath and his supporters have made hateful speeches and encouraged violence is incontrovertible. However, for the court to proceed towards prosecution, sanction has to come from the state government. And this, with Adityanath himself now being chief minister, has inevitably been refused.

Adityanath's impoverished worldview is captured in a quote from a recent speech he made in Lucknow. He said there that "Akbar, Aurangzeb and Babar were invaders. The sooner we

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accept the truth, all the problems of our country will vanish." Poverty and ill-health, violence against women and Dalits, environmental degradation, Maoist extremism and police brutality, caste and religious conflict, the collapse of our criminal justice system, the corruption and corrosion of public institutions - to make these problems go away, claims Adityanath, one has to merely chant: "Akbar, Aurangzeb and Babar were invaders! Yes, invaders!" Such is the man to whom the prime minister has entrusted the future of 200 million Indians.

The economic and social backwardness of UP is due to the faulty and flawed policies of many previous chief ministers. Congress chief ministers encouraged cronyism and corruption; Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party chief ministers promoted casteism and corruption. The belief that the 'U' in UP stands for 'Ungovernable' long precedes the rule of Adityanath. Yet there is little question that in the 60 days he has been in office, the state has moved further backwards. One statistic says it all. Before Adityanath became chief minister, reports the Indian Express, his Hindu Yuva Vahini received between 500 and 100 applications for membership per day. Now more than 5,000 people seek to join this vigilante army each day. That translates into a lakh- and-a-half volunteer vigilantes a month, 1.8 million in a year, or 9 million if Adityanath serves out his full term. I suppose that is one way of solving UP's unemployment problem.

But this, of course, is too serious a matter to make jokes about. One in every six Indians is a resident of UP. If UP descends into mob rule, the rest of us, living elsewhere in the country, cannot escape its ripple effects. It is said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the central leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party are seeking belatedly to rein in Adityanath. But given his background and his temperament, it is unlikely that, in policy terms, he can change course, and begin to sincerely preach Hindu-Muslim harmony, actively profess and practise respect for the rule of law, credibly reach out to entrepreneurs who might invest in UP.

The fate of India's most populous state seems bleaker than ever.

TELEGRAPH, MAY 31, 017Being a difficult woman- Theresa May's electoral gambit

Krishnan Srinivasan

The British prime minister, Theresa May, has decided, backed almost unanimously by the House of Commons, to call for a general election on June 8, three years in advance of schedule. This is not surprising because for her it is the best of times for such an initiative. With a slim parliamentary majority of 17 after nine months in office, her official reason is to strengthen her position before the negotiations to leave the European Union. She fears that the Labour Party, Scottish Nationalists and Liberal Democrats might delay or frustrate the process.

But there are more pressing reasons; some two dozen of her members of Parliament are facing the threat of prosecution for election fraud, she does not wish to be tied down to her predecessor's election promises of 2015, her attempts to raise taxation have been thwarted, she

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will be free to reshuffle the cabinet to remove mavericks like Boris Johnson, a boundary commission will re-arrange constituencies in 2018, and above all, she will have a full five-year term with legitimacy as an elected leader.

The official Opposition - the Labour Party - is 15 per cent behind the Conservatives in the polls. The party of Indian independence is facing a crunching defeat because its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, whatever his critics might say about his radical non-conformism, does not, in reality, represent an extreme left-wing split from a politically and ideologically coherent organization, but remains within the traditional social democratic ethos. He has no choice but to work with the old-style party elites and is not free to oppose de-nationalization, Nato, the World Bank or the moneymen in the City of London. Although he has the support of trade unions and has recruited hundreds of thousands of new members, his abilities are circumscribed. The Labour Party cannot live with Corbyn, but cannot do without him, although his opponents in the party accuse him of incoherence, weakness and lack of leadership. Repeated efforts by the party elites to overthrow him have failed, and as long as the party rank and file and the unions support Corbyn, he will go nowhere. He was always ambiguous about Brexit, and so indeed was May, but she subsequently embraced Euroscepticism enthusiastically as her political dogma and route to the political heights.

The Scottish Nationalists can hardly do better than they did in 2015. In any case, May does not much care about Scotland or Northern Ireland. She feels that any future Scottish independence referendum will not succeed, and that free movement between Ulster and the Irish Republic can be guaranteed as it was before the United Kingdom joined Europe. The Liberals might gain a little since they cannot go further down, while the UK Independence Party members have lost their raison d'être and will merge with the Conservatives because Brexit has consolidated the right-wing vote.

×Given Corbyn's dismal personal ratings, May feels sufficiently confident to win by default. Therefore, the coming election is more 'presidential' than any before, and the prime minister personally, rather than the Conservative Party, is being projected. She will not disclose her negotiating stance with the EU during the election campaign, preferring the gnomic appeal that a vote for her will strengthen Britain's voice in talks with the EU. Neither will she be inclined to indicate her vision for a post-Brexit UK. There will be sloganeering without substance, and the important British domestic issues like the public services, education, social care system, the addressing of injustices, inequalities and excessive corporate pay to reform capitalism will hardly be spoken of.

Meanwhile, leaders of the 27-member EU, led by the hardliners of Germany, France and Poland, have adopted their eight-page guidelines for the Brexit negotiations. These will bind Frenchman Michel Barnier, their chief negotiator, to seek serious and real assurances that sufficient progress has been made to secure the rights of three million EU expatriates living in Britain and the million or so British citizens in the EU, guarantee a soft EU-UK border across Ireland, and the payment by London of unspecified billions of euros as the divorce settlement, before any issues relating to the customs union and the single market are considered. The guidelines also provocatively offer the Irish a pledge that if Northern Ireland ever unites with

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the Republic, it will automatically be in the EU, and that Spain would exercise a veto over Gibraltar's future relationship with the Union. The guidelines rule out discussing any free trade agreement that May wants as a priority until there is progress on the agreement on those key withdrawal terms. The word from Brussels is that "before discussing the future, we have to sort out our past" and that "substantive issues" must first be settled.

The EU authorities gratuitously chose to express negative views on Prime Minister May, which will not create a congenial atmosphere for the talks. May has alleged that the EU member-states were confrontational and were 'ganging up' on Britain. To the dismay of the British government, Brussels seemed to suggest that London spoke in different and under-prepared voices that ignored the complexities of leaving the EU. It rejected outright May's position that the details of a future FTA should be the starting point for the discussion, describing this suggestion as "completely unreal" and accusing her of living in a "parallel reality". Going on to describe the prime minister's opinions as bordering on the "delusional", the president of the European Commission apparently presented May with a 2,000-page EU-Canada trade agreement that had taken nearly 10 years to conclude. He went on to add; "[the talks] went very badly. She is in a different galaxy". Quite clearly, May's preference for confidential back-room parlays between Britain and the EU will come unstuck given the grandstanding of the Brussels negotiators and their propensity to leak information to the European media. Barnier was prescient in warning London that the Brexit negotiation could not be concluded "quickly nor painlessly."

Not that all this early skirmishing and clash of egos will make any difference to the result of the British general election. The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian, claimed that even a massive election victory for May would make no difference to the talks, describing such assertions as "nonsensical and irrelevant." May has brushed aside such criticisms, derisively dismissing them as "Brussels gossip" and promising her supporters that she would prove to be a "bloody difficult woman" in dealing with the EU. May is electorally astute in posing to be Britain's champion, in the Margaret Thatcher-mode, against the EU bureaucrats. British advocates of Brexit will surely regard the fulminations from Brussels as another manifestation of what is fundamentally wrong with the EU - its arrogance and tendency to look down on, and preach to, those who are not firmly within the fold and who do not conform to the criteria ordained by Brussels.

THIS PIECE WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE PUBLICATION OF DATASUGGESTING THAT THE LABOUR PARTY TRAILS THE CONSERVATIVES BY FIVE PERCENTAGE POINTS

HINDUSTAN TIMES, MAY 25, 2017Mamata’s pro-poor policies alone may not be enough to stop BJP in Bengal

To think that Bengalis are syncretic and tolerant by birth is a myth that the liberal educated Bengalis love to hold as true. The upper caste educated Bengalis are mostly anti-Dalit and think that reservation is the root cause of decline of education in Bengal

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Ranabir Samaddar 

With the rise of a power determined to expand its control throughout India, other powers based

on local apparatuses of rule now face the Shakespearean dilemma: To resist or not to resist. With

this will be linked an important question: How to survive and live on?

This dilemma is not new. Consider the trajectory of imperial power from the middle ages. The

empire ruled from Delhi or Agra, and demanded submission from the rulers of the fur-flung

regions. Either these kingdoms would be eaten up by the empire, or they would survive only by

becoming fiefs. At times these kingdoms would form alliances and set up new emperors, who

they thought would be obedient to them. But the pattern would return. During the colonial age

the pattern continued. Either the country would be ruled from Kolkata and later Delhi, or some of

its parts would become what was known as the native princely states. This pattern supposedly

ended with the introduction of constitutional rule in India.

However during Indira Gandhi’s rule this pattern re-emerged, and now has revived with a

vengeance. Once again, states such as West Bengal, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Karnataka, and

Kerala, are worried: How to face this aggressive power? How to form once more an alliance

earlier known as the Janata party, Janata Dal, etc. and confront the new empire? Is the way out

one of playing with this new power, avoiding, evading, humouring, coaxing, cajoling, or even

lying low, hoping that the storm would pass sooner or later, or one of mustering strength,

resisting, and mobilising others – in short, to resist or not to resist?

The trouble is that the choice does not appear clear. Most prefer to bypass or lie low, only at

times resisting when they think that the core interests are being hurt. Yet even that line is not

defined. As the negotiations over GST showed, states are now confused as to how to face the

aggrandisement.

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One reason for this vacillation is that the social basis on which local power rests is now weak.

Aggression has unsettled the hitherto settled caste, class, and other alliances on which the local

power rested. Globalisation has produced new middle classes. There is an urban turn in political

mobilisations. And these two factors now find reflections in new Hindu mobilisations. New

capital, religious bigotry, conservatism, a State bent upon coming down on any protest forgetting

that compassion is an essential part of governing, now happily co-exist. Market liberalism in

economy and orthodoxy in politics and administration can now operate together. This had

happened in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, South Korea, and the Gulf region. There is no reason

to think that it cannot happen in India.

Soft communalism is on the rise here, particularly in parts where we still do not witness the

depredations of the vigilante squads. New money is its basis. Rent and extraction of resources

are the roots of this new wealth. States do not want to tackle the so-called soft menace firmly lest

it should antagonise Delhi, the centre of empire. In West Bengal, the old syncretic culture is

under attack and all that made a region based on the interface of particular languages, religions,

castes, and other communities are now asked to be standardised into a Hindi-Hindu polity where

regions will lose their specificities. To create a riot and polarise the populace along a single

divide it will require only a deliberately engineered breakdown of administrative power

supported by a determined push by the bigots.

The Muzaffarnagar riot is a model for the aggressive general power today. The clashes between

the Hindu and Muslim communities in Muzaffarnagar in UP in August–September 2013 resulted

in at least 62 deaths that included deaths of 42 Muslims and 20 Hindus and 100 injured, and left

more than 50,000 displaced. The riot was described as the worst violence in Uttar Pradesh in

post-Babri Masjid demolition history, with the Army, as a result, being deployed in the state for

the first time in last 20 years. The Supreme Court held the Samajwadi Party-led government

guilty of negligence in preventing the violence and blamed the Centre for its failure to provide

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intelligence inputs to the state in time to alert the latter. In this case soft communalism and

passivity of the state government took only days to develop into a riot there and riot like situation

elsewhere.

Such riot-like situations have recurred in West Bengal in the last few years. While the TMC-led

government has reacted with alacrity in several of these cases, these incidents show that the

powder is being readied dry for the eventual occasion. Kolkata had seen one of the worst

communal massacres in the country in the 20th century. The middle classes had witnessed

silently the Great Calcutta Riots of 1946 that eventually led to the Partition. Then there was the

riot of 1964. They also tolerated the large scale killings of youth on the streets in early 1970s.

Hence to think that Bengalis are syncretic and tolerant by birth is a myth that the liberal educated

Bengalis love to hold as true. The upper caste educated Bengalis are mostly anti-Dalit and think

that reservation is the root cause of decline of education in Bengal, and that the disorderly

conduct of the lower classes is the cause of the nemesis of the state. Many TMC followers joined

the recent  Ram Navami processions and Hanuman Jayanti   with gusto. Even one or two ministers

joined the celebrations on the ground that people in their respective constituencies wanted the

festivities and that by organising these events they were taking the wind out of the sail of the

religious Right. On the other hand those brandishing weapons in festivals have got scot free and

are now emboldened.

The Congress also used to justify such conduct as a means to stem the tide of communalism. But

they could not protect secularism. The Congress rule over India in 1992 in this way facilitated

the demolition of the Babri Masjid. There is no reason to think that such fate will not overtake

the regional parties.

The writing is on the wall is clear: Whatever tactics the local powers may adopt, they have their

tasks clearly cut out. The administration must be geared up to prevent any attack on secularism

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and the syncretic or tolerant culture of the state/s they rule, and mobilise the masses for this

political task.

For both these tasks the popular governments in the states have the required legitimacy. They

have to pull their acts together. Otherwise they will be swamped by the juggernaut of a

conservative Right. Their pro-people policies will be of no avail. The vacillating elements as in

Goa and Manipur will veer towards the Right for both existence and profit.

Ranabir Samaddar is the Director of the Calcutta Research Group

The views expressed are personal

RELIGION

FINANCIAL EXPRESS, MAY 31, 2017

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Ayodhya case: Conspiracy charges against LK Advani, Uma Bharti, others

A special CBI court in Lucknow on Tuesday charged former deputy PM LK Advani, senior BJP

leader Murli Manohar Joshi, Cabinet minister Uma Bharti and others accused of criminal

conspiracy for their role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

A special CBI court in Lucknow on Tuesday charged former deputy PM LK Advani,

senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, Cabinet minister Uma Bharti and others accused of

criminal conspiracy for their role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. The

court, while granting bail to all the accused on personal bonds of Rs 50,000 each, rejected the

discharge petition filed by them and said they will be charged under Section 120B of the Indian

Penal Code.

As the court proceedings began on Tuesday, the counsel for the 12 accused moved a bail

application on their behalf, which the court allowed. The leaders then argued against the framing

of charges against them, asserting that they had no role in the razing of the mosque and had, in

fact, tried to stop it, but their discharge petition was rejected.

Apart from Advani, Joshi and Bharti, other accused who appeared before the court included BJP

MP Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambara, Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, Ramjanmabhoomi Trust chief

Nritya Gopal Das, Ram Vilas Vedanti, Baikunth Lal Sharma alias Prem Ji, Champat Rai Bansal,

Dharma Das and Satish Pradhan. All were named in an FIR filed after the demolition of the

Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, for allegedly instigating the mob and conspiracy behind the

razing of the disputed structure.

The conspiracy charge against Advani and others was dropped by a special CBI court in 2001.

The speacial CBI court sought to distinguish between the main demolition case and the case

related to hate speeches. The decision was later endorsed by the Allahabad High Court in 2010.

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But the Supreme Court revived the conspiracy charges on April 19 this year, describing the

demolition of the 16th century mosque as a “crime” that shook the “secular fabric of the

Constitution”. The Supreme Court also ordered prosecution of Advani, Joshi, Bharti and others

accused for criminal conspiracy in the politically sensitive case and had given the special court a

month’s time to frame conspiracy charges. It also ordered day-to-day trial and asked the special

court to deliver its verdict within two years.

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Earlier on Tuesday, when Advani and Joshi landed in Lucknow, there was a beeline of saffron

leaders to meet them. While deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya and Cabinet ministers SP Sahi

and Ashutosh Tandon reached the airport to receive them, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi

Adityanath met them at the VVIP guest house, where they stopped over briefly before

proceeding towards the CBI court. 

STATESMAN, MAY 31, 2017Variants of secularismTarun Kumar

The concept of secularism has been through a roller-coaster phase in terms of its conceptual existence. In the Western political discourse, it is closely linked to Enlightenment and the rise of the modern State. It attained a pivotal position in the notions of progress of the Whigs; it was central to the notions of liberalism and individual autonomy and the different hues of collectivism. The term has essentially implied separation of Church and State and the absence of discrimination based on religion as well as freedom to pursue one’s faith.Till about the 1960s it was widely assumed that politics was divided from religion and that as societies became more industrialized, religious belief and practice would be restricted to private thought and action. The processes of modern industrialisation, which in the reckoning of Max Weber was characterized by de-personalized relationships and increasing bureaucratisation, were leading to the final ‘death of God’ or at any rate to the ‘disenchantment of the world’.

However, if one were to move out of the Western thought process and its localized and canonical connotations of secularism and interpret the term as a thought process that accords dignity and rights to the proverbial ‘other’, there is a plethora of critical examples.

Take Ramayana for instance. There is considerable emphasis in the text on human dignity. The benign and dignified treatment and regard shown by the warrior prince Ram, during his exile

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when he comes across culturally distinct beings, is a shining example of a cultural construct of the secular doctrine. Lord Ram’s interaction with both and Kevat the boatman and Shabri the forest dweller is an iconic way of dealing with diversity and showing respect to their positions and social existence.

The warrior Prince appreciated the existential constructs and sentiments of these culturally different persons and accorded them the respect they deserved, thereby laying down for posterity certain architectonic principles of acknowledging the dignity of the ‘other’.

The early stages of Islam provide another classic example. The setting up of the Dewan in the nascent Islamic caliphate by the second Caliph Umar is a significant version of secular discourse that is different from the conventional Western view. Dewan is a Persian term that literally means Registrar. It was an early institutional recognition of the able-bodied followers of Islam whose moral worth and contribution to the new faith took precedence in the grant of pension out of the Zakat collected. But the interesting feature of governance was that when it came to the lame and destitute, the grant was sanctioned not on the basis of religion or ethnic specificities but was based on the social and economic condition of the poor recipient. It is a striking instance of public policy that went far beyond religious considerations in early Islam.

In the Sikh faith, the words miri and piri are used in reference to the temporal and spiritual components of life. The terms represent the basic principle that have influenced their political thought and governed their social structure. This concept had originated with Guru Hargobind (1595 - 1644) who, unlike his five predecessors, carried two swords, one representing Miri (political) as the command of the community and Piri epitomizing spiritual leadership.

Combination of Miri and Piri does not envisage a theocratic system of government. The practice of Khalsa rule, initially brief under Banda Singh Bahadur and later under the Sikh Misls and Maharaja Ranjit Singh, yielded a form of government that was neutral in terms of religion. It envisaged equidistance from faiths on issues of governance.

The problem of secularism in independent India lies in the fact that the Constitution was essentially a Western construct with the sidelining of the Gandhian Influence in the Constituent Assembly. Its adoption of secular credentials was manifest in the abolition of discrimination based on religion and the cementing of minority rights and the provision of ways and means of fostering minority institutions. Secularism got linked to the development agenda, poverty alleviation, enhanced role of the public sector and pursuit of the scientific temper that brought in greater emphasis on inexpensive higher education and creation of jobs in such institutions.

The practice of politics entailed the increasing accommodation of religious groups and elites which in a way ensured that there was no further rupture in the national fabric; but the flip side was the increasing political and social importance accorded to the minorities much beyond their numerical value and creation of what could be called the rentiers of secular politics in the polity and the academia.

The vote-bank politics indeed segmented the national existence and fostered social clusters based on identity including religious identity. This was further perpetuated by the inherently divided

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nature of the majoritarian discourse due to structural and primordial differentiation. The politics of elite and minority accommodation continued for six decades of our national existence. This political instrumentality had naively developed a sense of self-righteous right to govern. This was widely accepted by the supportive left-liberal intelligentsia that seemed to carry intellectual weight much beyond its inherent worth and relevance to present-day issues. This establishment is guilty of being gullible enough not to recognize the deep cracks of non-performance in the old political monolith and did precious little while sitting in their intellectual ivory towers to salvage the declining political machine.

Democracy and elections have their own logic especially as both are sustained by the masses and non-performance and perceived de-legitimization of institutions of governance can ultimately bring about a regime change.

The challenge for governance in a developing country remains the same ~ how to ensure development. The discourse might sound a bit cultural and discordant especially to the socalled ranting secular rentiers who perceived that the sense of paradise loss is taking them to new levels of chest-thumping. But the issues concerning the system as a whole are the same.

There is one significant qualification for the present dispensation to seriously consider and act ~ how to establish the inherent universalistic, pluralistic and accommodative notions of Hinduism as a benign cultural construct that at once acknowledges the rights of the minorities and accords a sense of true and responsible citizenship to the minorities much beyond dubious vote-bank exploitation in the name of secularism.

The writer is a civil servant and the views expressed are personal.

WOMEN

HINDUSTAN TIMES, MAY 26, 2017It is coercive to suggest that women should limit their families to get State funds

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As we were celebrating that the government would provide all pregnant women Rs 6,000 for two live births under the maternity benefit scheme comes news this will be restricted to one child. The 60% funding has been cut down to 50%.It betrays the State’s cavalier attitude towards women’s health

Lalita Panicker 

In a situation where there is high infant and maternal mortality – IMR of 40 per 1,000 live births and MMR of 167 for the same, the answer does not lie in giving the woman Rs 6,000 for one child and leaving her to her own devices. Many women who may be less than 19 and who are eligible for this scheme have little say in the number of children they have(HT Photo)

When it comes to issues crucial to their health, women seem to lose both on the roundabout and

on the swing. Just as we were celebrating the fact that the government would provide all

pregnant and lactating women Rs 6,000 each for two live births under the maternity benefit

scheme comes news that this will now be restricted to one child. And the 60% funding promised

by the Centre has been cut down to 50%, leaving states to make up the shortfall.

The problem is predictable – lack of finances. With just Rs 2,700 crore allocated for this, only 90

lakh of the 2.6 crore live births can be covered when the actual requirement is Rs 14,512 crore.

Two things are clear from this, the government did not do its homework and raised expectations

and the other is that there is a cavalier attitude to women’s health. This is not all, this sounds

coercive to suggest to women that they should limit their families in order to benefit from the

government’s funds. The airy assurance from the ministry of women and child welfare that it

could always ask the ministry of finance for money later sounds Panglossian given the

excruciatingly slow manner in which the wheels of finance move in officialdom.

Apart from coercion element in the latest move, even the earlier provision of money for two live

births for those over 19 excludes millions of women, especially tribals and Dalits who tend to get

married and have children much earlier. This means that without any official restriction on the

number of children a woman can have under the national population policy, the second child is

discriminated against. But there are even more problems ahead. The reduced amount now

suggested will only be given to the woman once she registers her pregnancy, has the first

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antenatal check up, registers the birth and confirms the vaccination of the child for BCG, OPV,

DPT and Hepatitis-B. Given the extreme poor conditions in our public health system, this will be

a difficult task for most women. The very lack of access to primary healthcare is the first

obstacle. This is the first thing that has to be addressed if this rather paltry amount is to make any

difference to the health of the mother and child.

In a situation where there is high infant and maternal mortality – IMR of 40 per 1,000 live births

and MMR of 167 for the same, the answer does not lie in giving the woman Rs 6,000 for one

child and leaving her to her own devices. Many women who may be less than 19 and who should

be eligible for this scheme have little say in the number of children they have. While there is a

provision for a cafeteria approach to contraception, this does not impact on the majority of

women who are forced to produce children until the requisite number of sons is born. If the

basket of contraceptives approach worked, then women could pace their children and have them

at an age which would be more suitable to the health of the mother and child. But even today,

women have as many children as their husbands want and then have to opt for sterilisation which

many of them are loath to do. By all means, the government must extend financial help to

women that is not selective and discriminatory. But most of all, it must ensure that women in the

low income group have access to subsidised healthcare. And this has to begin with upgrading

and professionalising the public health system.

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