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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 19 August 2014

RTOs to be scrapped soon, hints Gadkari

Mr. Gadkari, delivering the J. S. Karandikar memorial lecture in Pune, referred to “outdated laws and systems” that needed to be scrapped as they often engendered corruption. “Systems like RTOs ought to be abolished; there is no need for such dinosaurs. We are in the process of preparing a law to replace them,” he said, observing that the institution of the RTO was “a harassing ground for citizens” which offered officials a massive potential for earning wealth by illicit means.
Mr. Gadkari also spoke of a system which employing new technology to nab traffic violators would be mooted soon. “Under this system, any person violating traffic laws will be served a notice at his or her place.
Moreover, if that person moves court against the notice and loses, then he or she will have to pay three times the original fine amount,” he said, adding that the government was in the process of preparing a plan to improve traffic in urban areas on lines of traffic models in the United Kingdom and other developed countries.

“We need a new body with a new soul. We will have to think about giving a new shape to the Planning Commission,” Mr. Modi had said in his August 15 address.
Modi tweeted, “Inviting you to share your ideas on what shape the new institution to replace the Planning Commission can take. A special Open Forum has been created on my government website for suggestions on the new institution. Let the ideas flow.”
“We envision the proposed institution as one that caters to the aspirations of 21st century India and strengthens participation of the States,” he added. The tweet also had a link through which people can put forward their suggestions.
Among the first to react to the tweet was former MP and economist N.K. Singh: “Making Planning Commission a Reforms Commission casts a new obligation for initiating innovative ideas on economic and social reforms. No other government had the zest to restructure Planning Commission, which has outlived its utility and fallen out of sync with economic realities.”

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), a self-regulatory body, has released a set of guidelines for advertising skin lightening and fairness products in India. It had circulated draft guidelines in June 2014.
The final guidelines are based on industry and public feedback. As per the new guidelines, advertising should not communicate any discrimination as a result of skin colour. “These ads should not reinforce negative social stereotyping on the basis of skin colour.”
“These ads should not portray people with darker skin in a way which is widely seen as at a disadvantage of any kind, or inferior, or unsuccessful in any aspect of life particularly in relation to being attractive to the opposite sex, matrimony, job placement, promotions and other prospects.”
Further, in the pre-usage depiction of product, special care should be taken to ensure that “the expression of the model/s in the real and graphical representation should not be negative in a way which is widely seen as unattractive, unhappy, depressed or concerned.”
ASCI guidelines say that advertising should not associate darker or lighter colour skin with any particular socio-economic strata, caste, community, religion, profession or ethnicity and advertising “should not perpetuate gender based discrimination because of skin colour.”