National Events

• Centre has written to States to implement the recommendations of nurses pay (Free Available)
• 8th BRICS summit ended with the pledge against terrorism (Free Available)
• PM Modi made stinging attack on Pakistan (Free Available)
• Standing committee to consult senior jurists for judicial appointments (Free Available)
• Panel says Cauvery basin a reason for farmers suicide (Free Available)
• Laboratory have developed way of producing electricity from water at room temp. (Free Available)
• The Centre has proposed a four-slab rate structure for the Goods & Services Tax (Free Available)
• India gets support from US for cross-LoC strikes (Free Available)
• Delhi Air quality is at very poor level (Free Available)
• PM says Indian army is among best in the world (Free Available)
• People's Resurgence and Justice Alliance launched by Irom Sharmila (Free Available)
• GST council deliberations ended without decision on tax structure (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Railway station’s to be developed under Smart city plan (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• NCW chief said Triple talaq a highly misused custom (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Banking sector hit by one of the biggest security breach (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Food securtiy related issues still on WTO agenda (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Government will relax the conditions for farmers to kill wild boars (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Pakistan warned India against Indus water treaty voilation (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Situation remains tense across India Pakistan borders (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• UP saw maximum human rights violations (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• PM says sustained fight on corruption and Black money has been made (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Govt formed a committee to keep a close watch on the bird flu (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Rajasthan has promulgated an ordinance for constituting a new OBC Commission (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Sandesh for Soldiers started by PM (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• PM and CJI address global conference on arbitration (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• India’s school education system is under-performing (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Gorkha Rifles bagged the gold medal in the Cambrian Patrol Competition (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Greyhounds and the Special Operation Group neutralised 24 members of CPI(M) (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Haji Ali Dargah Trustallowed women to enter the sanctum sanctorum (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• PM Modi condemned triple talaq (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• President wants world leaders to come together against terrorism (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Rajasthan and UNICEF starts a drive to end child marriages (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• CBI will have a new Director of Prosecution (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Apex court stayed away from Hindutva judgement (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• CJI says freebies can't be camouflaged as welfare measures (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Narendra Modi Scholarship for Muslim students received enthusiastic response (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Paul Beatty’s novel The Sellout, won the Man Booker Prize (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• The committee, headed by L. Narasimha Reddy gave report on OROP (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• IMD is looking to transfer its data into the cloud (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Govt said no change in the existing equivalence of the service ranks (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• SC says it will not give exhaustive list of dos and don't sin political speeches (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Supreme court says Centre failed to deliver on its assurance (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• PM Modi will spend Diwali with soldiers of the ITBP (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Delhi police have arrested visa agent in connection with Pak espionage ring (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• PM celebrates Diwali with ITBP men (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Deepavali was celebrated for the first time at the United Nations (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Oceans are responsible for ice ages (Only for Online Coaching Members)

Centre has written to States to implement the recommendations of nurses pay

• The Centre has written to the Health Secretaries of all States to formulate a legislation or guidelines to implement the recommendations of a committee on better salaries and working conditions for nurses in private hospitals.

• Supreme Court, while hearing a public interest litigation had asked the Ministry to set up a committee within a month to study the pay and working conditions of nurses in private hospitals.

• The court had also asked the Centre to frame guidelines to regulate the working conditions of nurses and consider fixing minimum wages for them. A four-member committee was appointed by the Health Ministry in February.

• The main recommendation of the committee was that the salary given to nurses in private hospitals should not be less than Rs.20,000 a month.

• However, in Kerala, the previous United Democratic Front government had set up a minimum wages committee in February this year to fix the wages of all employees in private hospitals, including that of nurses.

• Though the 26-member committee, which included representatives of two nurses’ associations, various trade unions, and hospital managements had met several times, its term expired when the new Left Democratic Front government took over.

Selected Articles from Various Newspapers & Journals

• Apple’s tax troubles (Free Available)
• When the river weeps (Free Available)
• The bane of a bumper crop (Free Available)
• Towards a national health policy (Free Available)
• Coherence in the neighbourhood (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• A blow for the right to knowledge (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• An overlapping roadmap (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• The road from Bratislava (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Equality before uniformity (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• An independent RBI is a chimera (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Something for everyone (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Getting Railways on track (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Jaw-jaw at the General Assembly (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• On the right to photocopy (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Solving the Pakistan puzzle (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Rafale takes flight at last (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Falling behind schedule (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Preventing death in custody (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• The case against simultaneous polls (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Positive signals from the GST Council (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• Joining the climate high table (Only for Online Coaching Members)
• It is time for a uniform asylum law (Only for Online Coaching Members)

Apple’s tax troubles

The hefty 13 billion euros in back taxes the European Commission imposed on Apple should have drawn Europe and the U.S. closer in their common quest to crack down on corporate tax avoidance. But the unprecedented penalty to hit the American tech giant has triggered angry outbursts at home and could well put paid to hopes for transatlantic cooperation, especially on the trade and investment partnership agreement, in the immediate future. The latest ruling by the European Union competition commissioner may not be the last against U.S. multinationals in what is increasingly being viewed as harmful to tax diplomacy. As with the Starbucks decision in 2015 and the ongoing probe into McDonald’s, both concerning two different countries, the Commission alleges that Ireland’s ultra-low, single-digit tax arrangements with Apple were in violation of EU state aid rules. Notably, the Commission has not taken issue with Dublin’s 12.5 per cent rate of corporate taxation. Curiously, the possibility of clawing back billions of euros, estimated to be worth the country’s health-care budget for a year, is not an attractive prospect for Dublin, home to hundreds of multinationals thriving on its decades-old foreign direct investment policies that include low corporate taxation. Instead, Ireland, which risks losing jobs, has resolved to appeal the decision along with Apple, whose Irish subsidiaries account for 90 per cent of the company’s overall profits.

Gist of The Hindu: November 2016

Content:

• Lessons from cash transfers (Free Available)
• Limits to autonomy (Free Available)
• Game of Thrones in Kathmandu (Free Available)
• Turmoil in Turkey (Free Available)
• One India, one market (Free Available)
• Finding a NEET balance (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Keeping up with the required rate (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• How to get the weave right (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Lengthening shadow over South Asia (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• We need a Nutrition Mission (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Lessons from flood (Indian Express) (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• How the economy found its feet (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• It never trickles down (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• No substitute to accountability (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• The price of peacekeeping (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Bogeys on the Universal Health Coverage train (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Setback at The Hague (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Ending the Bar-Bench conflict (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Rebooting in Kathmandu (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Selling the country's jewels (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• The dynamic nature of poverty (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Child labour by other means (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• A tricky debate on abortion (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• The age of GST dawns (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Giving India a global-scale bank (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Bihar's draconian prohibition law (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Securing the Indus treaty (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Making our roads safe (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Legacy quest for a safer world (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• The dos and don'ts of a digital sarkar (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• Focus on price stability (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• A question of human rights (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• A chance to narrow India-China differences (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• The Supreme Court's mundane burden (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• A new deal for mental health (Only For The Subscribed Members)
• The crisis over Crimea (Only For The Subscribed Members)

Lessons from cash transfers

Union Food Minister asked States to initiate a pilot programme to replace the Public Distribution System (PDS) food ration with cash, a move already being tested in the Union Territories. Indeed it is fair to say that there is quite a buzz in policy circles about the potential for cash transfer schemes to address multiple outcomes while bringing in administrative efficiency. Yet, the evidence base to support large-scale programme switch-outs from food to cash is quite limited in the Indian context, given the diversity of social, economic and implementation contexts. The Centre's push towards financial inclusion and the use of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) means that these pilot programmes provide the perfect opportunity to add to the learning around cash transfer schemes.

BIMSTEC and SAARC Summit

Indian government announced that it will not participate in the 19th SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad after the attack on Uri Army base. There was already a rethink afoot on India’s participation after the shabby treatment meted out to Home Minister Rajnath Singh during his visit to Islamabad to attend the SAARC Home Ministers’ meeting. Unlike during past conventions, the Pakistan media blacked out the speech that Singh delivered at the meeting. Unlike in the past when SAARC summits have been postponed due to one member state’s decision not to attend the summit, this time India is not alone. Almost all other member states – Afghanistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh etc.– have decided not to attend the summit in Islamabad and have conveyed their decisions to the current SAARC chair Nepal. The issue of terrorism is not new to SAARC. Although member countries had signed and ratified the 1988 SAARC convention on Terrorism as well as the additional protocol on terrorism in 2003, these have proved inadequate to deal with state-sponsored terrorism. The ambiguous definition of terrorism and the complex clauses of the protocol make the fight against terrorism a non-starter. The issue of terrorism in the region has always been taken up bilaterally, and there are instances of successful bilateral collaboration. This is, however, the first time that there is a strong regional reaction to a member state’s sponsorship of terrorism.

Indus Water Treaty

Terrorist attack in Uri army base has shocked the nation. Indian government thought about various possibilities before the surgical strike by the government. Among the other options one of the option was invoking the Indus water treaty. PM of India conducted a review meeting for the same and also said that blood and water can't go together. Pakistan has time and again raised objection against the treaty. Pakistan had gone to the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague earlier with objections against the hydro power project of India in kishenganga river, which is a tributary of Jhelum. In 2013, the court gave the go-ahead to India on some conditions. Treaty provides for three-stage grievance redress. Disputes first raised at meetings, If unresolved, dispute is referred to neutral expert World Bank appoints. If that too fails, sides can apply for arbitration by the UN's court of arbitration.

The waters of the Indus basin begin in Tibet and the Himalayan mountains in the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. They flow from the hills through the states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and Sindh, converging in Pakistan and emptying into the Arabian Sea south of Karachi. Where once there was only a narrow strip of irrigated land along these rivers, developments over the last century have created a large network of canals and storage facilities that provide water for more than 26 million acres (110,000 km2), the largest irrigated area of any one river system in the world.

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Free Digital Magazine: Civil Services Mentor, November 2016

Issue : November 2016

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